King Explosion Murder the Shield Hero

by BKL777

This is the story of hero in training Katsuki Bakugou being transported into the world of Melromarc and is the new cardinal shield hero in their darkest time of need. Bakugou will go on many new adventures in this fantasy world to become their world's greatest hero whether they want him to or not.

13. Siltvelts wave and a new shadow

Chapter 13: Siltvelts wave and a new shadow

It had been two days since Bakugou and his crew had arrived at Siltvelts capital and gotten their class up upgrades. Thankfully nothing crazy has happened with no more "surprises" from Prime Minister Trinock or the council. Though the occasional fanatic demi-human girl would try to sneak up to seduce or kiss Bakugou, but all they get in the end is an explosion to the face.

Bakugou and his crew had been mostly sleeping out in some uninhabited woods the last two nights as he did not trust sleeping in either the castle or at any inn or tavern in a public area where they can be stalked or spied on from fanatics or Siltvelts government.

Whenever Bakugou did come back to the castle, it was either to learn and research more on the country and its history, or just to mooch off Trinock and the council from all the free stuff that he can use to improve himself. Things like magic items, materials, ingredients of the highest grade and quality, potions, books, food, plants, and more money from many donors across the country. They also brought over hundreds of different shields for Bakugou to weapon copy them all for free. Most of them were weak or commonly used shields, but there was the occasional rare or special one with good stats or resistances to certain things. But even with the weak ones Bakugou still gained some benefits from the minor boosts they casually give and dozens of low stat shields do add up.

Of course at the same time as mooching, Trinock and the council continue to pester him on their stupid confederation and suggesting retribution from Melromarc which the shield hero had no interest in.

Right now past noon and the crew were at the castles spa, with Melty getting her nails and hair cleaned and pretty up. She is not as vain in her looks as her sister, but she still liked to look her best and have a clean body.

Bakugou was inside the steam room, to relax and allow his sweat pores to clean themselves out while he continues to do his research on Siltvelts history reading more scrolls and books with water and steam-proof magic covering them.

Kirishima was being scrubbed down and bathed as a crew of a dozen cleaners were going all around the large beast to wash the dragon down and his hard scales.

Rino and Neia were both laying down on massage tables as the massagers give their all on the two sidekicks.

The two loved it, "Ah this feels so nice." Neia commented.

"I know, as much as I never regret leaving that idiot and I'm glad to be doing heroing stuff for once, I do miss the weekly spa trips." Rino also comments, being at the spa was a more common thing when she was with Motoyasu, with Malty always wanting to be clean and pretty in a vane manner. And Motoyasu wanted all the girls in the party to "maintain" their beauty. It was probably her only highlight of being with Motoyasu. Of course it was also her lowest time with him as it was also where she got sold off to slavers. With the idiot making no attempt to stop it or look for her. It ruined any respect she had for the spear hero. And with her newfound power with Bakugou she didn't have to worry about such an event again and can enjoy herself.

Neia then continued, "Yeah I know we are heroes and all, but their is nothing wrong with having some days like this where we are not trouting in the woods or dealing with idiot heroes, madmen, or corrupt nobles."

"Yeah, hero work is always dirty and stressful, it's nice to feel clean and relaxed once in a while," Rino responds as she stretches her arms out and lays back again.

The two girls continue with their little conversation as they started to ask personal questions starting with Neia, " Say Rino out of curiosity, I don't want to offend you or anything, but did you and Motoyasu ever did... you know what?"

"Ha, he wished. No unlike the other girls I had integrity and didn't whore myself out to suck up to that idiot. He and Myne did it many times, Lesty a few times, and Elena did it about once or twice, but me zero. I didn't agree to join in arms with the cardinal heroes and fight the waves of catastrophe to reduce myself to be a sex toy that Motoyasu could play with." Rino answers and returns the favor, "Ok then, now since you asked me I'll ask you the same. Did you and Sir Bakugou do you know what?"

"Oh absolutely not, Sir Bakugou is way above that stuff. We always had separate beds or slept in different rooms altogether. And to be frank with you, I may respect and love him as a friend and master, but I can't ever see me and him or any other girl for that matter as a couple. He's not my type at all."

"I understand, I have similar feelings too. But did you ever have a boyfriend, lover, or whatnot?" Rino continues to ask.

Though unlike before Neia wasn't as upbeat about it, "Well I did once have someone who understood me before meeting Sir Bakugou. The only one who didn't see me as a failure back at home and was quite the handsome guy. But then he... he... he... Oh it doesn't matter, it's not like I'll ever see him again anyway. I might as well be dead to him, and he is probably with someone else by now. He most likely never really loved me anyway."

Rino noticed how upset Neia was starting to look now, she didn't realize she went into a deep topic for her, "Neia I'm so sorry I didn't mean.."

"No no, don't blame yourself, I should be the one who has to let it go and move on. I was more naive and stupid back then. I can't change the past and I should move on just as Sir Bakugou would do." she ensures Rino, though she could tell that Neia's past was still a sensitive topic of hers.

Rino knew Neia didn't want to go too deep into that subject, so she decided to changed it again, "Ok I understand, though you're willing to apologize to me easily and yet you can't do the same with Princess Melty."

"I thought you were supposed to make me feel better?" Neia questioned in a somewhat jokingly annoyed tone not wanting to hear that subject again.

"I'm just saying the more you say nothing to her the more awkward it's going to be fighting with her at arms during the waves or in anything else."

"I know I know, but it's... it's, what if she hates me now? What if she takes my apologies as hollow words like I once did toward her when she tried to be friends with me before?"

"Well for one thing she is not you so don't assume she'll act like how you did, two she doesn't hate you, even after everything you said to her she still tries to talk to you and help you in any way, if she didn't care she wouldn't have bothered, thirdly she is not her sister, I had to be stuck with her for almost two months and I know well Melty is nothing like that royal bitch. Just staring at a door won't make it open, you need to actually touch and push it to make it open. So just talk with Melty just the two of you, it doesn't have to be today, but the longer you wait the harder it will be for her to understand you." Rino finally says to Neia as she goes back to relaxing under the massage.

The whole thing still ate at Neia, she wants to stand up and say something to Melty whether it was an apology or not. But it's like anytime she is near the little princess she feels like her old weak self again. As she thought more about that whole event the more she thinks back on her old home where she got scolded and insulted by her piers and parents just for not meeting their impossible expectations or just assume she was hopeless. Long before Bakugou she remembered one who was willing to stand up to her, the one who went up to her to say something to her, and not treat her as a thing but as a person. The same one she discuss with Rino a minute ago. But when she needed him the most, she was left cold on her own, and the next thing she knew she was banished. Would she be no better than him if she says nothing to Melty? Maybe the situation wasn't the same but the principle of it was. Neia knew she had to finally say something to Melty, but as her friend Rino said not today, but to when it feels right.

She finally stopped thinking about it for now and went back to enjoy the massage.

Back with Bakugou in the steam room, he continues on his research. He had been reading over much of Siltvelts history, or at least their view on its history. He had learned that apparently Siltvelt was partially created by an old Shield hero centuries ago where he helped unite many demi-human tribes together to create the empire, but said hero eventually got assassinated in cold blood with it all being blamed on some human extremists who were against the unification of the demi-human tribes. But Bakugou wasn't going to draw conclusions yet if this was even true with the state-approved history.

He had also learned much about more recent history, specifically about over 20 years ago, mostly around the so-called, 'Great war'. It was the huge war between Siltvelt and Melromarc that went on for around 8 years, only to end in defeat for Siltvelt and the loss of its King who was apparently the current King's father. According to Siltvelts claims, the war started from Melromarc soldiers crossing over the borders to terrorize and attack Siltvelts towns and cities near the border, but again Bakugou has some doubts about it, they say history is written by the winners, but that is not always the case in some areas especially when the state controls this kind of information.

The war was originally in favor of Siltvelt with its armies not far from Melromarc's capital until they were pushed back by the appearance of a powerful Hero referred to as the hero of the cane or the Staff hero. With his strategic mind and powerful magic from his weapon he allowed Melromarc to make a comeback and the war finally turned for the worst for Siltvelt after the cane hero eventually killed the former King of Siltvelt Rohaw. Though that was the general basis of that war, Bakugou had to read in between the lines from all the propaganda behind it, the villainization of Melromarc and the cane hero, and the bias of Siltvelts government view on the war.

Another thing he forced himself to research was the holy shield hero Bible. Most of it was religious fluff like what he would use to hear out of class B's Ibara Shiozaki when she sometimes preaches out Bible lines after class to promote her Christian church. But it also gave him the idea of what the church itself was about and how it judges the current state of the holy book. He noticed how much it emphasizes maintaining "the chain of order", which was basically their way of describing the Siltvelt caste system. As well as the justification of human slavery and demi-human dominance saying it's god's punishment for betraying their shield hero. So the Shield Bible just agrees with the government's way of thinking which the church enforces to its followers making sure things remain the same as they were, with the 4 councilors' tribes remaining in control and the church playing along with them.

Bakugou knew that something had to be done about this and quickly.

But then as he was studying a messager dog demi-human man comes inside the steam room, "Lord Bakugou I hate to interrupt, but Lord Trinock would like you to meet him at the courtyard, he wants to show you something that will help you get stronger." the dogman explains to the shield hero.

But Bakugou hardly cared knowing it was just either another suck-up attempt or a way to use his Sheild status to Trinocks advantage. He might as well still see what stupid thing it was, but later, "Fine whatever, I'll meet with stripes whenever I feel like." he responds while he looks back into another history book.

"But uh, shield hero, Lord Trinock would prefer you to meet with him as soon as possible, he is a busy man with other things to do and..."

"AND I DON'T CARE! Tell stripes he can wait on me or he can deal with the stupid wave on his own tomorrow! Now screw off!" he yells at the dogman.

The dogman looked scared and surprise, but he wouldn't do anything against his god and bows to him, "Very well Lord Bakugou, but when you are done please don't forget about Trinock. Please." the messager responds with a scared tone in his voice, not knowing who's wrath he should fear more, Lord Trinocks or Lord Bakugou's. But he just leaves anyway as Bakugou sighs and went to his readings as he also relaxes at the steam room's heat.

---

About over an hour later Bakugou and his crew were all done at the spa as they head to the courtyard to see what Trinock wanted them for.

Once they were at the courtyard they all saw Trinock with what looks like a large group of armored demi-human adventurers and warriors who were all messing around or just drinking alcohol with each other.

Trinock noticed them and immediately approached the group, "I'm glad your here now sir Bakugou. I hope you enjoyed your time at the castle spa?" Trinock says in the same condescending fashion as usual.

But Bakugou wasn't in the mood for it, "Whatever stripes, what the hell do you want from me?!" Bakugou demanded with his arms crossed.

With a small smile, Trinock points his arm toward the large group, "I like to introduce you to the sons of Siltvelt, the strongest and most powerful offspring of the nobility. They are the best of the best Siltvelt has to offer and will be glad to follow you at arms during the waves and on any other adventure you will go on." he finishes introducing the group as they all gathered up in a line as they all bowed before to there shield hero or just flexing their bodies at him.

But Bakugou wasn't impressed, 'The best of the best huh? Yeah right, just more bullshit nepotism.' he says in his head seeing through what this is. From his shields menu he checks their statuses and can see the highest level of these fools was level 25. Even Melty who was a little girl was a higher level than a few of these guys. Most of their armor was just for show and they had no discipline or coordination of any kind. They were just a group of dumb meatheads who fight for fun or as a hobby to brag off to others only caring for their status and wealth and see helping to stop the waves as an afterthought.

Bakugou can tell this was just another way of Siltvelts government taking advantage of his shield hero status, first the daughters of Siltvelt, now the sons. Though at least these ones weren't trying to make him give them babies, at least he hoped so.

"So how about it Lord Bakugou?" Trinock asks in an enthusiastic tone.

"Sure they'll be good cannon fodder," Bakugou responds in a dismissive tone that surprised the group of young nobles on such a comment.

"No way are we fodder Lord Bakugou! We are absolutely the best!"

"Yeah my father spent a fortune to get this armor for me, so I'm all good to go as a party member!"

"Yeah and I wouldn't mind fighting alongside with the beautiful blue warrior of yours either."

The young nobles brag as a bunch more attempt to impress or suck up to Bakugou thinking they'll be picked to be a part of his team just from their flashy equipment or status.

But Bakugou just rolls his eyes, seeing this whole thing as a waste of time. But as he looked around he noticed one member that seemed different than the other ones. One who was just laying back on a tree twirling a knife-like sai around uninterested in what was going on.

It was a male cat demi-human who leaned on the human side with cat ears on top of his head, a long skinny tail, dark black fur and hair that partially covered one of his yellow normal human eyes, a slim body build but still had some muscle on him especially in his legs and arms with minor abs like Neia, wearing what looks like leather scout armor, and unlike the other losers here he looked like he had been through real combat with scars on his arms and face with some looking fresh. Through Bakugou's status menu, he finds out he was at level 42, just two above his other sidekicks with an affinity for dark magic.

But what drew his attention to the cat teen though was the fact he wasn't blindly worshiping at his feet or sucking up to him unlike everyone else in this crazy kingdom.

It sparked Bakugou's curiosity and decided to walk toward the guy which also surprised Trinock that he was focusing on him of all people.

Bakugou was now right beside to the cat demi-human teen and finally asked, "So who the hell are you?!"

"Daven, why do you even care?" the cat rogue responds getting to the point and sounding annoyed in his tone and the look of his eyes.

"Yeah and why the hell are you here for?!" Bakugou asked.

"I was dragged out here by my bastard Dad and his mistress to be a possible companion for some random asshole that people are claiming he's god. I just see another privilege lacky being pampered by the system." Daven rudely responds not sugarcoating anything.

"Young Serita! Watch your tongue to the shield hero!" Trinock yells at the cat teen who was ignoring the large tigerman.

Trinock quickly turns back to Bakugou, "I apologize my lord, young Serita is a bit of a problem child, he may not be of your tastes. Allow me to introduce you to one of our more powerful..."

"I'LL SAY WHATEVER OR NOT SOMETHING IS IN MY TASTES STRIPES! DON'T BE TELLING WHAT I DON'T LIKE!" he explodes at Trinock tired of him and the councilors constantly assuming things for him before he even says his opinion about it first.

Bakugou then turns back to Daven, "So catboy can you actually fight?" he asked.

"Yeah," Daven responds bluntly.

"Yeah and smartass can you fight well?!" Bakugou shouts back at him

"I can easily fight you off, the privileged pampered pet of the church and council. Just like the King." Daven responds looking more sternly at Bakugou now.

Bakugou sinisterly smiles now liking this, "Quiet the backbone to be saying those things at someone well above your level kid? Well let us see if you have the balls to back up those claims!" Bakugou responds as he turns toward Trinock, "Stripes I like to have a little contest."

"Contest?" Trinock questioned in surprise.

"Yeah a little tournament of sorts, I want all of these idiots to duel against my sidekicks, and if one can beat any of them they will not only become my new sidekick they'll replace one of my old ones they had beaten," Bakugou explains to the Prime Minister who was also liking that idea.

Melty on the other hand couldn't believe she had heard that last part, "What!? Sir Bakugou you're not really considering replacing Neia or Rino if they lose right?" she asks the shield hero.

"Quite frankly princess if they either blue or brown hair can't beat any one of these losers they don't deserve to be on the team." Bakugou responds which still confused Melty, she be anxious about Neia or Rino's safety and well-being, but the two don't look worried at all. They were just as unimpressed at these wannabe heroes as their master and were amused by the idea, especially when these losers were supposed to be the ones Trinock would've replaced them with had they taken the Prime Minster's bribe. They knew already Bakugou was fully confident in their abilities.

Trinock of course loves the idea, especially if it means that Neia and Rino would be out of his orange hair for good if one of them loses, "If that is what you desire Lord Bakugou then it shall be granted."

But Bakugou wasn't done yet as he points at Daven, "However I want him to be last. I want to choose who he will be fighting with." he requested.

Trinock wasn't sure why he was bothering with the problem child, but he wasn't going to argue with Bakugou either, "Very well, if that's what you want then I shall honor it." he then turns toward the young Siltvelt nobles, "Now then, let's get started."

After a few minutes of preparations, the courtyard was set up ready for the little tournament. Two sides were lined up, one being Bakugou and his team, the other was Lord Trinock and the noble boys.

The tournament started with Neia coming near the center of the field with a large Hankuko young adult nobleman coming up at the opposite end of her, he was large standing 6 feet tall carrying a large ax. But Neia didn't look the least bit worried.

The white tiger noble was acting cocky as he waves to the others until he was looking toward Neia, "I'm sorry to do this to you my little blue rose, but I must become the shield heroes worthy champion to immortalize my name, and if it means you're out of his team so be it. But you can still join me for dinner later if you are interested? Ha," he boasted.

Neia just rolls her eyes as she takes a battle-ready stance with the tigerman just showing off.

Once both were ready Trinock waves his hand down, "Now begin!"

The white tigerman goes running and screaming as he charges at Neia who didn't look the least bit intimidated by the charge.

Once right up to Neia he swings his ax down at her to quickly take her out.

But as if it was nothing Neia casually blocks the big ax with her dragon tooth sword, stabs his foot with her other blade, transfers her magic electricity through the blade, and electrocutes the wannabe warrior with thousands of volts. All in a manner of 5 seconds.

And just like that, the white Hankuko drops down to the ground groaning in deep pain while all of his fur was static out.

The sons of Siltvelt look on in horror from the display in fighting as the crying injured fighter is taken away to be healed up by some doctors.

The shield crew cheered for her with even Bakugou smiling happily to see his sidekick fighting losers like nothing like he had done many times before in his old world.

Next up was Rino she was paired up with a Dragon-newt man mage who carried a book of magic spells and looked confident he was going to win.

Trinock once again said, "Now begin!"

The Dragon-newt man quickly reads through his book and creates a small magic fireball and launches at Rino.

But as she looked unimpressed by it, Rino without saying a word launches out a large energy ball that consumes the fireball and without a second to react, her opponent gets blasted by the same energy ball and was launch halfway across the yard until he smashes into a wall.

And yet again the sons of Siltvelt looked on horrified, now realizing how out of league they really were. All but Daven who found this whole thing amusing.

Bakugou and his crew cheered on again with Bakugou himself giving out another smile to his other sidekick.

After that the "tournament" basically went on with the same results. Both Neia and Rino were slaughtering the competition as each fight barely lasts no more than a few seconds as the sons of Siltvelt attempt to overcome the girl's strategies or overpower them and fail every time.

Bakugou even made Kirishima participate in a few fights to break the monotony of it, and even in his teen form, the dragon nearly breaks every bone in the body of all the opponents he fought.

And for shits and giggles, he made Melty fight off one opponent, who seemed confident he could beat the little girl. But just as with his other sidekicks Melty's water magic overwhelmed her opponent and a good water blast to the face quickly knocked him out and made her the winner.

And all the while Trinock continues to facepalm himself by the pathetic display of Siltvelts future nobility.

After nearly an hour later, the entire yard was full of doctors and healers doing their best to fix up Siltvelts "best of the best". After Rino quickly takes out her last opponent with a good swing of her staff spear in between his unarmored legs. Her last opponent falls down in deep pain and cries admitting his defeat.

The crew once again cheered in victory as the sidekicks high five together with Bakugou smiling knowing this was going to be the outcome anyway.

But then Bakugou looks back at Daven who finished watching the whole show himself and starts walking up to the shield hero, "Ok so who of your little harem do you want me to fight off now your gracious pampered shield?" he asked in a mocking sarcastic tone.

Bakugou smirks already knowing his answer to that, "Me."

"What!?" the shield group shouted in surprise to be seeing their master Bakugou wanting to directly fight now after letting them do it for him.

"And to make this a little fairer, I'll only use my default shield and I won't use any magic. Just my explosions." Bakugou tells the cat teen.

Daven raised his eyebrows a bit not sure what Bakugou was doing, but he didn't feel any less scared or worried about fighting this so-called hero, and him restraining himself will make it easier.

Even Trinock was surprised, "Sir Bakugou are you sure you want..."

"YES I KNOW WHAT I WANT STRIPES! SO SHUT UP!" Bakugou explodes at the Prime Minister making him quickly silence himself.

Without any more protests, the two walked toward the fields at opposite ends with the two opponents looking toward each other.

Bakugou had his hands out creating small explosions with his trademark smirk, while Daven pulls out his two Sai's and after twirling them a bit he quickly grips hold of them and got into a battle-ready position.

The two eyed each other with determination to beat one another with no hesitation and no fear.

"Now begin!" Trinock shouted once more and waved his arm down.

Bakugou immediately launches himself toward the cat teen with explosions and was prepared to blast him in the face.

But Daven just smiles knowing this battle will end quickly for the so-called shield hero.

Once Bakugou was right up to Daven he goes in with an explosion while Daven stood there. But as soon as Bakugou blasted his explosion at the cat rogue, in a blink of an eye Daven seemingly disappears in a puff of black smoke as Bakugou blasts the ground.

As the shield crew and audience wonder what happened, a smoke of dark magic appeared right behind Bakugou, with Daven emerging from that cloud as he grips his twin sai's and was about to stab Bakugou in the back.

But just before he could, Bakugou with his quick reflexes barely blocks the two sai's quickly confusing Daven. Before he got blasted in the face the cat rogue quickly jumped out of the way and stared back at Bakugou who was now grinning.

"Not bad catboy, you almost got me, not that it would've done much anyway." Bakugou taunts Daven who was unsure if that was supposed to be mocking or complimenting him. But either way, the rogue was not standing down and readies for another attack toward the shield hero.

Bakugou goes on the offense again and blasted at Daven with the cat rogue quickly dogging it. He then starts attacking himself with his sai's at fast speeds, but Bakugou had been able to block them off with his shield or dodge the bladed sai's.

When he had an opening Bakugou tries to blast the rogue, only for Daven to do his disappearing trick again and pops up at a different angle to strike Bakugou only for him to block the strike. Daven did this over and over again popping in and out all around the shield hero.

To Bakugou this reminded him a bit of that ancient comic X-men hero nightcrawler with a similar black cloud appearing whenever he teleported. He doubts the cat demi-humans magic was as powerful as that, but he was definitely using it well, as Bakugou had to continually turn around all over as Daven popped in and out of everywhere.

This continued with Daven attacking faster and faster hoping to exhaust his opponent, but he accidentally made one slip up and gave Bakugou another opening and the shield hero gives the rogue his first explosion in the face sending him rolling away on the ground.

But the rogue quickly stabs a sai on the ground to stop the rolling and got himself up fast as he grips his sai's again in a battle-ready stance.

Bakugou just smiles again, "Your quick. But you seem to lack much vitality or defense. That makes you a bit of a glass cannon without a shield on you catboy." Bakugou taunts

Daven was starting to look annoyed as he readies himself to attack again, "That's why I kill my opponents as fast as possible. But I shouldn't waste time talking and just take your privileged ass down already.", Daven taunts then quickly puts away his sai's and with his magic begins to create and throw energy knives at Bakugou as he blocks the fast projectiles with his shield over and over again as Bakugou runs toward the rogue again.

While still throwing the knives, Daven jumps up and takes his sai's out again and falls back toward Bakugou ready to stab him in the neck.

Bakugou holds his ground for the rogue as he also readies an explosion in his hand. But just like before Daven disappeared with a flash of smoke. He seemingly appears right on his side.

Bakugou blasted directly at him, but weirdly Daven just dissolves away into smoke, but not like a cloud but his whole body puffing out of existence. It was strange but Bakugou quickly knew what this could be, some type of a shadow clone ability.

And just a second after that the real Daven appears yet again from behind and attempts to stab Bakugou with both his sai's.

But Bakugou quickly saw it coming and block the first sai but the other does manage to strike his shoulder. To Bakugou's surprised the stab did actually hurt a tiny bit with the knife sai going a little into his skin.

But unfortunately for Daven, this barely did much and was nowhere near any vital organ or vein and artery and Bakugou pays him back with another explosion in the face sending Daven rolling again.

Just as before Daven quickly got himself up, but was starting to struggle more and was in some pain as he looks back at the shield hero with a mad look in his eyes.

"So you also have some minor armor piercing on you? Useful for an assassin to have." Bakugou mockingly says back at Daven as he wipes some of the blood from the minor stab that barely dents his already huge health pool.

But Daven was now getting pissed off that the shield hero had lasted this long and grips his weapons even harder than before.

The rogue yells again and runs toward Bakugou who decided to take a defensive approach for once as the cat rogue went all out on him.

Daven attacks and teleports all over the place trying to get a good strike on the shield hero and end this fight already. But Bakugou was not one to let himself lose as he fights just as valiantly now as he was in the beginning. While Daven was starting to get tired from fighting a hard defense opponent without much luck piercing through his high health.

He even resorted to wrapping a sai on his tail and used it as a third arm as Daven lets out his claws from his otherwise human-like hands and continued to try to stab or claw Bakugou, but at best he only manages to strike his shield.

Bakugou had about enough and just head butts Daven, stunning the rogue as Bakugou launches himself in the air and falls back down.

Boom!

He lets out an explosion on his stunned opponent.

After the smoke cleared from the explosion, Bakugou finally had the rogue on the ground with his right arm on Daven's throat while his arms were being pinned down by Bakugou's legs.

It seemed that Daven had lost and Bakugou was the winner, but the cat rogue was not giving up yet as he sternly looks at Bakugou who has a grin on his face.

"So are you going to admit defeat catboy?" Bakugou taunts him as it seemed like there wasn't anything Daven could do.

But as Bakugou looks down at Daven, his tail was up with a sai still wrapped around it.

He goes for the attack on Bakugou's back with the audience gasping.

But Bakugou just turns his spine anticipating such an attack in time and grabs the tail with his left shield arm.

Daven squirms in pain as his tail was sensitive and attempts to get himself out, but to no avail as Bakugou was stronger than him.

Bakugou again looks down at his opponent, "Nice try, but no dice. Now are you giving up finally?!" Bakugou taunts again as Daven was truly out of tricks now.

But unlike the other Sons of Siltvelt "best of the best" here, Daven wasn't crying uncle or anything, he just continues to look up at Bakugou in the eyes sternly in silence not conceding or anything.

It was silent for another minute as everyone looks toward the two as they wait for something to happen.

But as Daven remains silent Bakugou just smiles a smug grin, "So your also some stubborn brat who won't admit defeat…. Just what I want. You're in catboy"

"In what?" Daven finally asked confused.

"In the Bakugou agency idiot. You officially won this stupid tournament."

"WHAT!?" Team Bakugou, Trinock, and the other injured noble boys watching all shouted.

Daven was also just as confused as he clearly lost but still got rewarded. Not that this silly tournment had much rules or stipulations to begin with. Bakugou stands up and gets off the cat rogue as Daven himself gets back up and wipes so e of the dirt from his leather armor.

Trinock quickly walks up to Bakugou, "But… but.. but my lord, you had beaten him, he lost? How could he have possibly won the tournament?"

"Because I said so stripes! This was my tournament! And it's my team, I can invite anyone I feel like! He's the only one worth any damn in a sea of losers!" Bakugou responds.

This deeply annoyed the tigerman, but after sighing he knew he didn't have much of a choice but to agree with the shield hero, "Very well Lord Bakugou, if young lord Serita is who you desire I'll allow it."

Bakugou then turns back to Daven who remained silent, he looked annoyed by all this. Though he was not protesting or anything knowing he didn't have much of a choice either way, though he was still salty from that loss.

Bakugou goes on to his menu to set him up as a new sidekick. After some button pressing, and Daven reluctantly accepts when the invitation menu popped up for him. Daven was now an official party member on Bakugou's team.

The rest of Bakugou's team were still confused as to why Bakugou was so accepting of the demi-human rogue after he was beaten by him up in their match. But Neia decided to just walk up to Daven and raised her hand out to him, "Welcome to the group sir Daven, my name is Neia and it'll be fun to fight beside you." She greeted him expecting the cat rogue to shake her hand.

But Daven just softly pushed it away, "You are expecting me to just become best buddies with you like that? I'm not naive or stupid." He told her bluntly as Neia stood there quietly not understanding him.

He then turns toward Bakugou again, "I'm also not some tool you can just make me do whatever either shield. Just like a knife, you can get yourself cut if you play around with me. Got it?" Daven tells off Bakugou who just stood there amused.

"A lot of talkback from someone who just got their ass kicked a minute ago." Bakugou amuses back.

Daven just growls annoyed to be reminded of that. He then just turns and starts to walk his way out of the courtyard, "Whatever, I'll be seeing you again tomorrow shield, don't be bothering me about crap until then." He responds as he walks out of the courtyard annoyed by this entire thing.

Bakugou just huffs to himself after all of that. He then looks back at Trinock, "So what's the story on catboy?" he casually asked the Prime Minister.

"Young lord Serita? Well he is the stepson of a well-known Shusaku lorddess after his minor lord father remarried. A few years ago he became a part of our espionage spy force, trained to be a scout and spy for our grand nation. He is strong and skillful I admit, but unfortunately, he is a bit… problematic in listening. He is always dismissive of his superiors and has to constantly argue when given any mission or order. It's why I didn't recommend him, he probably won't be very helpful to you during missions." Trinock explains.

All of that just made Bakugou curious, wanting to know more about his new cat rogue intern. And judging how he describe a low opinion of his father earlier, he knew Daven had to have family problems with him and his step-mom who he called a mistress. It would not be the first time he worked with someone who had daddy issues, "Fine whatever, he can have any issues, it'll be just another challenge for me to conquer." He boasts out loud which put a smile on his crew's face from another one of Bakugou's new proclamations.

Trinock then backs up and points toward the injured sons of Siltvelt, "But please give the other candidates a chance as well. I mean this is their first time after all, let them at least fight with you in the wave tomorrow and some might surprise you." He begs still wanting to get the noble kids to be his companions, ones unlike Daven would be kiss-ups to the state.

Bakugou just rolls his eyes, 'First time? Didn't you say they were the best of the best stripes?' he says in his head and finally just sighs, "Fine these losers can join in with me at the wave if they follow my orders." Bakugou accepts in an uncaring tone, at best these losers will be cannon fodder during the waves and get themselves killed in it, at least if they die he won't have to worry about Trinock pushing them at him anymore.

"Excellent! I'll be sure they are all ready by next morning and they will be placed under your direct command. I'll also make sure young Serita is there as well, he'll definitely be on the frontlines tomorrow." Trinock finishes with a slight annoyance in his tone after mentioning Daven again as he walks away toward the injured noble boys. He be happy if the pest Daven just dies and would no longer be his problem anymore along with Neia and Rino.

Bakugou just huffs again about tired of Trinock's and the council's ass-kissing and just wants to fight the wave and get it done and over with.

Bakugou's group then walk up to him, with Neia speaking up first, "Sir Bakugou not that I'm complaining, but why did you just invite sir Daven in? Usually you're a lot pickier of your choices?"

"I picked you when you were a worthless cry baby. Hell of a lot less qualified than even these other losers" Bakugou jokingly answers and brings up.

"Hey that was not the same Sir Bakugou!?" Neia defends herself in playful irritation while Bakugou just laughs.

Rino then spoke up, "Yeah and what about his time in 'the Katsuki Bakugou training camp?'"

"That is to get those behind in shape, and judging by his scars, he seemed to have had enough experience in the real battlefield compared to you and blue."

Both Rino and Neia look on to Bakugou with slight annoyance.

"And what about his 50 gold admission fee?" Melty brought up with an unamused tone.

"Ok to be honest with that, I just wanted to see how desperate you were into giving me whatever I asked for." Bakugou jokingly admits.

Melty then joins in with the Rino and Neia annoyance group.

Bakugou finally said to them, "Look it's not like catboy is even 100% in yet. He's pretty much just an intern like brown hair was once. He'll have to prove himself tomorrow for me to bother with him. If he sucks in the battlefield I'll cut him off and he can rot with the rest of the corpses of "Siltvelts best of the best"."

Neia then asks him, "I see what you're getting at Sir Bakugou, but I'm sure there's more to it than that considering your character.".

Bakugou sighed but answered anyway, "Well to be frank with you blue, he's been the only furry around here who doesn't just kiss my ass constantly or acts like a spoiled lazy racist brat like that wimpy king of there's. I trust him more than anyone else here but you four, as I know he is not just some other puppet or spy to Stripes and the corrupt council if even he hates their guts. But again he'll have to prove to me if he is worth dick, if not no major loss for me. It is nice to have my own scout and specialized rogue fighter though, he be handy in many missions and quests"

With that said Bakugou's group mostly understood his logic and reasoning. Daven didn't seem to be the most friendly person, but then again neither is Bakugou so they'll just have to wait and see what he can do in the wave tomorrow.

"Now then enough of this shit, let's head down to my church again and see how much more free stuff those suck ups will give me this time.", Bakugou announced to his crew as they all nod in agreement and Bakugou uses his shields fast travel to instantly go to the church.

When they finally teleported out of sight little did they know that they were being watched during their little conversation. By the cat rogue himself Daven who sat up on a tree close by the group the whole time and listened to all their talk since Trinock was explaining his character, without the shield hero knowing.

He now knew of what the shield hero really is, unlike what he feared, he was not just some content puppet to the corrupt council or church of Siltvelt just like the King. He sees through their bullshit as he had long ago.

The rogue was now interested and intrigued by the shield hero, "Impressive Mr. Bakugou, you have me halfway, now prove to me tomorrow if you are an actual hero and not a self-interested pawn." He says to himself and in a blink of an eye Daven disappears in a puff of dark magic smoke and begins to prepare himself for the wave tomorrow and see if the human with the magic shield deserves to be called a hero.

---

Back in Melromarcs capital inside the castle, King Aultcray is getting quite the call from his daughter via crystal ball, "Where in the hell is that pompous churchman at!? I want to shove that bastard's damn branding iron right back up his lying asshole!" Malty yells at her father, her attitude had been worse than usual after the sword hero got away and made a fool out of her and the other heroes. Right now she was blaming Pope Balmus over the branding iron failing her and was not in the mood to be using her good girl act with her father.

Aultcray did his best to calm down his daughter, "Please understand my dear Malty, Sir Balmus is currently doing important business for daddy right now and cannot be here. I'll still send in more troops to support you if you can..."

"I do not need any more morons be sent to me to screw up! I want that incense addict to answer me NOW!" Malty yells again as she ends the call by smashing the crystal ball on her end as the image disappears.

King Aultcray sighs to himself after all of that

Not too long after that an advisor comes into the room, "Are you ok your majesty? Sounds like you had quite the conversation with your daughter." he asked in a snarky matter.

Aultcray sighed again and answered him, "I have never seen her this angry in my life, I know she can be bratty at times, but this is something else entirely. I think she must be stressed out and is scared over her sister's disappearance just as I am." he concludes to himself.

A bunch of people in the room from the servants and soldiers just rolled their eyes to that, thinking their king has never seen much of the real Malty before.

Aultcray then asked the advisor, "Well anyway, do we have any more info on the whereabouts of the sword hero?"

"I'm afraid we don't, despite the increased patrols and Sir Itsuki and Motoyasu's searching all around we can't find sir Ren anywhere. Even with his captured party members that were interrogated by your request with slave crests they didn't have much to say. No secret hideouts or lairs or anything, they are just as clueless as we are to where Sir Ren could be at." the Advisor in his King looking annoyed.

"Damn it! They should've known something! Keep them alive for now until we find something!" Aultcray shouts out loud, but after some deep breaths he calmed himself down and spoke again, "No matter anyway he can't hide forever. We must continue to send out as many patrols as we can and keep the borders guarded." he responds to the adviser then went on to the next question, "And are there any updates from the nobles? Have anymore realized how much of a fool Van Reichnott and his ilk are?"

The advisor shook his head and answers his king, "I'm afraid not sire, the exact opposite has happened actually. A few of the nobles that were on the fence of the war have changed their tones. When word had got out that you and the other heroes attempted to arrest and enslave sir Ren, it has soured their opinion of you and 2 other heroes for trying such a thing to a cardinal hero. They are now joining Van Reichnott's side. And it is not just the nobles, it seems even a few of our generals, majors, and lieutenants of the crown's directly controlled armies are now speaking out against you. So if war were to happen, we won't be just dealing with the noble's troops, but some of our own levies as well."

Aultcray shakes his head starting to develop a headache, "Those damn traitors. We must find the sword hero as soon as we can and make those spoiled blue bloods remember who is in charge here. The last thing we need is a rebellion or a civil war. So onto the next topic, how are the loyalists doing?"

"They are all heading toward lord Idol Rabiers castle as Pope Balmus insisted

"Perfect, at least one thing is going fine. They'll be discussing on how to deal with the rebelling nobles as well as our plans for war with Siltvelt afterward."

"But why are you not attending with them, this seems to be too important to not be involved in?" the advisor questioned.

"It's too risky for me to leave the castle with the likes of Van Reichnott still out there waiting for the right opportunity for weakness and attack as Pope Balmus advise me on the manner. I'll remain here, while Pope Balmus is on his way there himself and I'll be able to talk with the loyalist nobles via crystal ball and discuss our future plans of engagement from then." he answers then went on to ask another subject, "Speaking of lord Rabier, is there any update on the knight unit heading for Mirso?"

"Yes I've been made aware that he and the knight unit you assigned are on their way to Mirso right now, too... Uh... "Demolish" the newly established Demi-human district over there." the advisor answered with a hint of concern in his tone.

"Perfect, now another stain of Melromarc will be cleansed. And if we are lucky, this will force the sword hero out of hiding and we can capture him from there. You may be dismissed for now, and please come to me again if you have any more updates on those matters." Aultcray responds and ends the conversation. He had been aware of Ren's take over of the small town for a few weeks and had been begrudgingly tolerating it for a while, but now since he was actively rebelling against the crown his tolerance of the slavery abolished region was gone. Now he wanted it removed as he did with lord Seaetto's land months ago.

"Of course your majesty. But if you don't mind me speaking my thoughts, are you sure we shouldn't at least wait for the Queen to return, the constant antagonizing of the nobles will lead to many needless deaths that could not only compromise the war you want to start, but it will be leaving us more defenseless against the waves." he lightly asked, in reality he was hugely against these wars in general finding them to be terrible ideas, but he knew the last thing he wants to do is piss off his king.

But Aultcray just lightly sighed more, "Like I told the nobles before, we do not have time to wait. Every day we waste the more prepared those animals will get to invade us and more days Melty will be held prisoner. I will not let her sit months inside a dirty dungeon waiting for my wife to come back. Mirelia will understand when she does come back. She'll understand everything I have done was necessary for the good of our kingdom and family." he finished as the King walked away out of the room.

The advisor sighed again not saying anything back and quietly said to himself, "I don't think she will."

---

Far away from the castle but still in Melromarc, a large force of soldiers on horses are galloping their way toward Mirso town by order of their king. This knight unit consisted of dozens of soldiers in armor with a few of their horses hauling large cage wagons, ready to stuff numerous demi-humans in them.

This very unit has done this before with the late lord Seaettos land not long and was eager to do it again.

And among them was a fairly large nobleman carrying 2 magically enhanced whips on him. It was Lord Idol Rabier, an infamous nobleman who is known for his sadism and hatred for demi-humans. He had been a devoted follower of the 3 heroes church for years and a strong loyalist of King Aultcray. He was among the loyalists who supports the war with Siltvelt and was glad to offer his castle to be the meeting place where the loyalists can be safe and debate at.

As they continue to head toward there destination, the knight commander decided to finally speak to the Nobleman, "Thank you again for coming Lord Rabier, we appreciate the help."

"It's no problem. I honestly wished I was there myself when you destroyed that damn demi-human pigsty at Seaetto, and now I get the same opportunity again by participating in this. It will be a lot of fun. And besides this town is supposed to be mine anyway." Rabier answers the commander.

"What do you mean suppose to be yours?" he asked

"The land belonged to my late cousin lord Smi. He never had any children or named any heirs, so by the succession laws that land should already be mine. But then this traitorous brat sword hero just takes it for himself and lets it grow into a tumor for those dirty demi's. But now I get to fix it up again and get plenty of new toys to play with. And if you don't mind, I would like for you to help me visit Mr. Reinchnott later on and teach him a lesson for wanting to rebel against the crown" Rabier answered now giving a sadistic smile.

The commander was also smiling back now more enthusiastic about the idea of killing and enslaving more demi-humans then later capture that Demi-loving traitor, "Sounds great, we be glad to help with that later and I'm sure his majesty would approve of it." he responds as he turns his head toward his men, "Come on pick up the pace! We are not much farther from Mirso! Be ready to kill off any resistance! And put as many in the cages as possible like last time!" he shouted with the other demi-human hating knights smiling back as the unit of corrupt soldiers ready themselves for a fun time.

---

At Mirso town, things have radically changed since the last time the shield crew came by. What was originally a tiny hamlet was now starting to become a developing town. Not only from many new human travelers coming in to set up shop to an area now controlled by a cardinal hero but also numerous demi-humans coming in to settle down. Many of them come from all over the country, whether as wandering Vegabombs, escaped slaves, or just those wanting to escape prosecution when they all heard word that the sword hero made slavery in the area illegal. Despite some of the uneasiness from some of the human townsfolk, they began to become more tolerant and learned to get along with their new demi-human townsfolk. Any of the humans that owned slaves and didn't free them by Ren's deadline had already moved away. They would never say or do anything against their cardinal hero lord or the giant dragon that guards the town now.

Most of the new demi-human settlers had been settling up around the lord mansion with tents, originally belonging to corrupt former lord Smi, it was now Ren's and he permitted all demi-humans to be freely allowed to go in or live around the mansion and be protected under his laws.

One particular person living in the mansion now was Wyndia who she and her father were left in charge of the town while Ren was away and handled any major affairs with the growing town. Out in the backyard, she had also been starting up what looks like a mini zoo with numerous types of sick or injured monsters she decided to take care of and help. It was something she could never do in the caves so she had never been happier.

But as she was taking care of some baby saber-toothed cats, someone came running toward her, "Miss Wyndia there is a large unit of soldiers heading their way here! And they brought cages!"

This surprised the girl and looked concerned. She didn't ask anything else already knowing what this entails and runs with him toward the front of the mansion.

Once at the front, Wyndia witnesses groups demi-human including families with children looking forward in fear as they see a large unit of many knights finally at the town as they and a large nobleman jump off their horses and slowly approach the demi-human people with their swords drawn.

Everyone began to slowly walk back as they fear on what they were intending to do. With a few there who had just experience such an event as recent as after the first wave. Some of the demi-human men had their weapons drawn out to help protect them and their friends and families, but they knew how outnumbered and out armored they were so the best they could do was slow the unit down when they start attacking.

For the rest of the human folk in town, they all ran off inside their homes and stores and lock themselves in not wanting to be involved in this. Even the town's guards all fled to the stone barracks not even wanting to help or participate with their fellow soldiers.

The large unit continued to slowly advance toward the demi-humans as they had grins on their faces with the fat lord Rabier having the largest out of all of them, they could've started attacking now, but they were just toying with them for the fun of it knowing they had no chance like last time.

Eventually the soldiers stopped when most of the demi-human population was backed into the front of the mansion. They all continued to look on in fear, but not Wyndia, she grew braver since her experience with Bakugou and Ren. She was not scared and she stood her ground looking on with anger to the smugly smiling soldiers who find her foolish resistance amusing.

Lord Rabier finally made his way through the front of the men and looks down at Wyndia, "Well well, look at this. Some little pup think she is so brave. Hahaha. Demi's like you always amuse me, especially after seeing the looks you start to make when you're beaten to near death." the sadistic lord mocks out loud to the wolf girl who refused to be intimidated by these horrible people.

"Why are you here for?" Wyndia asked not scared by Rabiers threats.

The fat lord just giggles some more, "Why young lady, I'm just here to reclaim my new property and anything around it. Which includes you as well."

"This land belongs to the Sword hero Ren Amaki and he made slavery here illegal. Nothing here is yours."

Rabier just laughed some more, "Hahahaha, sorry if the news hasn't spread fast enough out here but this land was never the sword heroes to take in the first place, he illegally acquired it. Any stupid law he made before is irrelevant And besides that he is currently a traitor to the crown and is on the run, so he has doesn't have anything to his name anymore." he and the other knights laugh at this knowing there was nothing she or the demi-humans could do about it.

But Wyndia wasn't wavering, in fact she walked up closer to the ugly fat man to say, "You may take this land but we are not your property! You and these corrupt knights are nothing more than a bunch of bullies. Who are so weak they have to fight and mock those helpless against them and won't be able to fight back, all of you lack any backbone or real strength to fight like real soldiers!"

Rabiers smile immediately disappeared and now looked pissed off at Wyndia. Without responding back the large man backhand's Wyndia in the face as she falls to the ground, "Tie that brat up! And make sure she goes with me back to my castle! Let's see if she still has that big mouth after I burn her tongue off later." Rabier orders the soldiers and they proceed to grab hold of Wyndia and wrap her around with rope. The rest of the men and Rabier then look back on all the demi-humans scared out their minds ready to collect them.

But despite the hit and being tied up Wyndia was not remaining quiet, "Just wait until you meet my father, and you'll see what it feels like fighting against someone far stronger than you and don't have a chance in beating them."

But all it did was make the knights and Rabier smile in amusement, "Sounds like fun. Why doesn't he walk up here and duel me face to face, and show me what a tough guy he really is." Rabier amuses while taping on his whips expecting another weak demi to challenge him until he just easily beats the shit out of them and afterward gauges their eyes out. He and the other soldiers began to laugh again expecting some amusing pushover to beat to a pulp and after that gather up the rest of the demi-humans to later sell off to slavery.

RRROOOOAAAARRRRRRR!

The atmosphere quickly changed after that large roar with the knights and Rabiers smiles disappearing as they look around the area confused, "What the hell was that! It sounded like a... Like a... dragon." Rabier demands until he looks near the side of the mansion in horror along with the rest of the knights, now have gone from confused to horrified with their faces turning pale white as they look over at the manors hedges dividing the back and front yard and saw the massive Dragon Emperor Gaelion standing high above the hedge looking very pissed off at the soldiers and was growling.

The soldiers were now completely scared out of their minds, they were not fit or prepared to fight a massive pure-blood dragon.

"Wha... What the hell?! The reports didn't mention anything about the demi's having a dragon?" the knight commander stutters trying to maintain some of his cool, but he was about as terrified as his men were.

"That would be my father." Wyndia muses out loud with a smug smile of her own, with the knights and Rabier looking at her in complete shock and surprise. They didn't know what to do now.

Gaelion finally moves and stomps his way to the knights making them back up in fear as the demi-humans did once before with said demi-humans all fleeing inside the mansion.

Once right beside his daughter, Gaelion finally says, "Explain well why you are here, and why you have my daughter in rope? Say the wrong words and you will all pay the price!"

All of them were looking up in horror to the tall dragon not wanting to say a peep to it and piss it off even more, but they knew they had to say something or he would get bored and just eat them anyway.

Rabier immediately turned toward the knight who had all the legal documents in case he had to encounter or deal with the likes of Reinchnott or any other demi-human loving do-gooder. The fat lord quickly grabs him by the collar of the armor, "Your the one with the decree, say something to it!" Rabier rudely orders the startled knight and threw him at the massive beast.

The soldier was terrified as hell and even peed in his own armor, but his commander wasn't going to let him remain silent, "Well come on soldier! Do your duty!"

After some heavy breathing to himself, the soldier went into his bag to find what he was looking for. Eventually he found it and quickly unraveled the decree and after clearing his throat to himself, he finally said, "Ahem, By order of King Aultcray the thirty seconded of Melromarc, this current region and township of Mirso is to now be under the ownership of Lord Idol Rabier. Which includes the former lord's property and all items in the property line including those of living and non-living things. Any resistance against this order shall be charged with crimes of treason against the crown of Melrom..."

*Smash!*

With no warning, Gaelion instantly smashes the man with a fist turning him into a bloody mess having enough of these slavers stupid legal excuses. The knights and Rabier look on horrified as the man got squished like a bug and had their eyes back on Gaelion.

"Wrong words!" Gaelion growls out loud and had enough playing around with them and was ready to just kill them all.

Despite his fear the commander wasn't going to stand there and do nothing and raise his sword high, "Men raise your arms and attack!"

And with that order many of the knights shouting and charged right at Gaelion thinking superior numbers will overwhelm the Dragon.

But Gaelion showed no fear as he charges up his attack and finally releases his fire breath at the charging knights. Making all who got caught in the attack scream in agony as they panic and run all over the place while on fire burning to death. Any knight that escaped that attack or dodged it go on to attack the dragon's legs. But their swords could barely leave even a scratch on his skin and Gaelion proceed to step on the soldiers one by one like ants or just eating them.

Other knights attempt to use magic on Gaelion from offensive to defensive spells as well as some support spells on their fellow men. But like their swords the offensive magic barely did a dent on the dragon's health, their defensive spells and shield barriers only slowed him down, and the support magic barely did much of a difference. In the end, Gaelion just smashes all the magic casters with his long tail.

Despite their numbers, things were going horribly for the soldiers and the commander knew it. But as he looked around he noticed Rabier wasn't there anymore until he saw the fat lord running away toward his horse planning to make a run for it, "That damn coward!" he shouts out loud.

But after one more charge of the knight unit, Gaelion lets out another fire attack on the group setting more on fire. One of the burning knights after screaming in pain completely collapsed on the ground near the commander as he burns in front of him. After that the commander's attitude quickly changes, "You know what, maybe he has the right idea." he says to himself with fear in his tone.

After that he finally shouts, "MEN RETREAT! RETREAT!"

And without any hesitation, the soldiers dropped their weapons and ran off for their horses. But Gaelion was not going to let them escape. As he noticed Rabier getting on his horse and was ready to run off on it, Gaelion lets out a mighty roar.

RRRRROOOOOOAAAAAARRRRR!

But it was no ordinary roar, it had a charmed effect on many low-level animals and monsters. Making all of them wanting to run away from danger while ignoring everything else. Rabiers horse quickly rose up on its hind legs dropping its heavy load as Rabier is thrown off its back then the horse sends him a few feet away by kicking him at his fat chest, "You stupid horse!" the fat lord yells at it while sitting in pain on the ground, but the horse didn't care as it gallops away, now horrifying Rabier on the implications of having no means of getting out of this death trap town.

And just like it all the other horses were influenced by the roars charm and were all running away out of town without their riders.

"Wait come back! Don't run without us!" one of the knights shouted as all of their horses run away and escape from the dragon leaving their riders for dead. One knight grabbed onto a dragging rope of one of the horses and attempt to make it stop but all that accomplished was him getting dragged across the ground with it until his face smashes into a large rock and losing the horse.

With all the horses now gone in the woods the soldiers look back in horror at the giant dragon as he continues his killing spree. Without any plan or strategy all of the knights scattered around town trying to escape or find a place to hide as Gaelion rampages across the area of cages and crates that were intended to put away demi-humans as he smashes and destroys all of them along with any knights around them.

The corrupt knights did everything in their power to run or hide, but it was hopeless as a dragon's sense of smell is legendary. Gaelion continued to smash, burn, and eat every last of the knights not leaving a single survivor. Some try to flee or hide in the woods only to be caught quickly and eaten by Gaelion. Other desperate knights tried to knock and yell at some of the people's houses or stores, hoping they would let them in but none of the people were going to help the people who did this to themselves in the first place and not want to face the wrath of the dragon emperor. And all the same Gaelion catches up to the cowardly knights and eats them.

The commander and his best men were doing the same, but with the guard garrison barracks that was a stone building built with a metal door that was locked up from the inside, "Open up! I said open up! By order of the crown, I demand you traitors to open up!" the commander yells in desperation trying to get inside. But unlike them these knights the guards inside were true soldiers who wanted to protect the people and not abuse their power and invoke the wrath of the dragon. They continued to keep the barracks locked and remain safely inside.

The commander attempts to use his sword at the cracks of the door and attempt to break in, but it was too late as a shadow appears before the commander and his men as they looked up in fear at pure horror with Gaelion standing tall in front of them, and without another word Gaelion breathes fire down on them and burn the screaming commander and his men to a crisp while not damaging the stone barracks or the men inside it.

All of the corrupt knights were dead, all that was left was Lord Rabier who was attempting the same thing back at the Manor. The dragon lord proceeds to walk his way toward the fat noble.

Said fat noble was aggressively trying to bust down the doors and force himself in, but it was doing him no good, "Let me in! Let me in my mansion! You god damn dirty animals! I order you to let me in!" he yells at the doors knowing the demi-human civilians inside can hear him, but they were doing nothing knowing his threats reign hollow now.

Rabier continues to do this while throwing his weight at the doors hoping they'll eventually break down, but unfortunately for him a shadow appears above himself as he slowly turns to see a mad Gaelion right behind him, with no more soldiers he could throw at it to save his own skin.

Gaelion finally spoke up, "Looks like it's just you left, I always save the best for last." Gaelion mocks the terrified lord as he sweats buckets.

Gaelion reaches out his claw hand to grab him. But quickly Rabier grabs hold of one of his whips and with a flash he strikes the dragon's clawed hand. It made Gaelion pause as the strike of the enchanted whip actually did sting him a little.

Rabier quickly grabs his other whip and starts double whipping the dragon to force him away, "Get back! Get back you damn hell beast!" he yells at the dragon no longer showing fear as the whip attacks continue Gaelion backed away a little, though he was not scared the least of Rabier he was more annoyed then anything else.

But Rabier himself thought he was pushing back the dragon as he smiles again and shouts, "Ha! You are no better than these damn farm animals! We humans are always superior and we will make the likes of you to learn their place! Hahaha!"

But Gaelion just puts out one of his claws and the two whips and wrap themselves around the dragon's finger.

And the smile Rabier had immediately disappeared and looked toward Gaelion in complete fear knowing how screwed he was.

And without a second more to think, Gaelion raises the fat man with his whips still wrapped on his claw lifting him off the ground as Rabier still holds on to the whips until the fat nobleman was right up at Gaelions face.

Rabier was having a panic attack as he was forced to stare at the giant dragon with his teeth still coated with the blood of the knights. He lets go of one of the whips and grabs hold of his 3 heroes church rosary as he makes many prayers in his head and many out loud begging his god to save his sorry ass.

Gaelion just found it more amusing, "Praying to your so-called God when you are left with nothing. Ha, and to think the likes of you and those men were about to do the same with innocent beings while you laughed about it. Well who is laughing now?" Gaelion lectures the panicking noble as he grips his necklace harder and harder. Gaelion continued mocking him as he smells Rabier, "Your stench is familiar. You must share the same blood with another fat fool I burned and ate not too long ago. He had the nerve to order me to be killed and then steal away my daughter into slavery. I have a feeling you'll be meeting him again down in hell soon."

Rabier was wondering what he was even talking about until he realized the dragon was referring to his late cousin Smi. From what the reports said when he last read them, he thought the sword hero had killed Smi in cold blood by himself. Now he sees that Ren and the dragon were in cohoats with each other and he was now at the end of it.

Gaelion then continued, "I would just burn and eat you now but honestly I probably won't, that Smi fellow tasted terrible. Too much fat on him and had the taste of old beer and alcohol in his blood."

Rabier finally spoke up when he heard that, "Yes yes yes yes! I've been putting on a lot of weight lately most of my body weight is just fat now. And I've also been drinking a lot of wine lately, yes lots of it. In fact I just drank recently before I left home."

But Gaelion just found that amusing, "Ha! You pathetic cowards are always trying to think you can just talk your way off the hook, thinking that I am stupid enough to fall for it. No I won't eat you, but let me ask you this? Do you think your God loves you?"

"Huh?" Rabier says in confusion to that question.

"I said do you think your God loves you?!" Gaelion demanded more aggressively as he opens his mouth showing his blood-coated teeth and his deep dark throat.

Rabier panicked and quickly answered him, "Yes yes yes! I've done everything in my power to make God proud of me." though he still didn't know what this was about.

"Ha, let's test it then." Gaelion laughs and after flapping his wings Gaelion rises himself in the air still holding on to the whips dragging Rabier higher up with him as the fat noble starts to panic some more as they were now well over 50 feet in the air.

"What the hell are you doing!?" Rabier yelled in fear as he looks down.

Gaelion then moves his other hand with his claws near the whips, "To see if your God loves you." and with a quick swift of his claws Gaelion cuts the whips into two.

As expected Rabier quickly falls, he screams as he spins and drops like a fat fruit from a tree descending down with nothing to cushion him.

In a few seconds Rabier finally lands. By a slim chance he managed to land on his feet, but...

*Snap*

Rabiers legs instantly broke and his bones snapped in half from the force of the fall, "AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" he screams in agony as Rabier holds on to his broken legs. They were so bad part of his leg bones had pierced through the skin.

A few demi-humans began to come out of the mansion as they watch on this horrible man's suffering.

As Rabier continues to cry in agony Gaelion flies back down in front of Rabier as the dragon smiles, "Ha, looks like your God doesn't love you after all." he muses out loud.

Rabier still couldn't wrap his head around what all of that even meant, "How the fuck did this prove anything to you! You damn lizard!" he yells as he tries to fix his broken legs somehow with no healing magic or health potions.

Gaelion then continued, "Because if your God really loved you, you be dead already."

"What!?" Rabier wondered what he means by that.

"Because in this town quite a few know who you are, and what you have done with them or their kin. And they're going to make you suffer for it. If you died now, you'd be free of the soon-to-be suffering. But it looks like the reality is that your God despises you, seeing you are not worth easing your misery. My work is done here, I'll let fate take care of the rest. I hope you enjoy the start of your pain now, because this is only the beginning, once you eventually die from it, you'll be in for an eternity of suffering." Gaelion finished lecturing as he walks away from the crippled confused and scared out of his mind nobleman.

Rabier still wasn't sure what he was talking about as he figures he can just get his legs and knees fixed by healing mages later, but those plans got dashed when he looks behind himself and saw a bunch of Demi-humans gathering around him, not showing fear but deep anger.

And that hit Rabier, now he knew how screwed he was. He recognized a few of their faces as ones he or his friends had bought once and tortured them before or with their families and sold them away when he got bored of them. Now those same demi's are ready to take their vengeance on him.

Rabier attempts to cowardly crawl away until a large bull demi-human steps on his fat back stopping the pathetic man from escaping, "Get the nails and the hot irons ready, time to have our fun will the new toy." the Bullman orders to the demi-humans surrounding him nodding in and grinning in agreement.

Two other former victims of Rabier grabbed hold of his broken legs and started to drag him off toward a tool shed ready to see what it feels like to be on the other end the torture chamber.

Rabier continued to desperately try to crawl away but it was no good as he is dragged toward his ultimate dose of karma. He even resorted to begging, "Wait I'll give all of you whatever you want! All the money and even my Castle if you like! Anything your little demi hearts desire!"

But none of them were buying it, even if it was true, no money would be enough to have the satisfaction to brutally torture the man that had tortured them or their loved ones back.

He even resorted to begging toward Gaelion when he was almost to the shed, "Please! please! Just eat me now! Just kill me quickly! Please please!" But the Dragon did nothing as he watches the pathetic man be dragged to the shed that numerous hooks and chains hanging from the ceiling.

The doors opened and they dragged the despicable man inside, "No! No! NOOOOOOOOO!" Rabier finally shouts out until the demi's close the doors behind them now ready to skin their fat pig alive.

Gaelion then looks back at his daughter as he quickly cuts the rope binds the now dead knights tied her up with, "Are you okay Wyndia?" Gaelion asked concern of his daughter after the knights attempted to capture and enslave her.

"I'm fine dad, at least those bad men were taken care of." Wyndia responds with a smile showing she was alright to Gaelion.

"For now anyway. I just hope they don't send in more after this, with a bigger army or have dragon-killing specialists this time." Gaelion responds back slightly concern about the consequences of this.

Wyndia also felt concerned, "They mention that Sir Ren was on the run as a traitor. Do you think he might be ok?" she asked

"I don't know either, it is too dangerous to be going out looking for him while leaving the village unprotected. We shall remain here for now and can only hope that he can get help and protect himself." Gaelion says giving his view on the situation.

"I sure he will father, he and sir Bakugou are the cardinal heroes after all. I'm sure they can find a way to fix this mess." Wyndia says in a hopeful mood confident they can get out of their bad situation they might be in.

"Let's hope they do." Gaelion said in a concerned tone, not 100% sure himself but wants to not worry his daughter too much either and also wanted to think positively.

"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! HEEEEEELLLLLPPPPP!" Rabier screams from within the shed as his former victims begin his long and very painful torture, wanting to make it last as long and painful as possible.

A confused Wyndia looks back up silently at her father as the screams continue, "Wyndia I recommend you wear earmuffs for a few nights. You're going to be needing them." Gaelion suggests to her.

Wyndia didn't know what was going on beyond those shed doors. But it was best she never finds out what they were doing to Rabier.

She still looks out toward the falling sun and continues to pray in her head that Ren and Bakugou will find each other and get out of any danger there in.

---

Back at Siltvelt, it was now the next day, the day of Siltvelt's next wave. Like in Melromarc everyone was preparing for the invasion of monsters at the capital. Doors were being shut and locked up, and soldiers and adventurers were standing their grounds waiting for the monsters to start pouring in.

Bakugou and his crew were all ready for battle as they anticipate the wave incoming. And they would be on their own with no Ren, Motoyasu, or Itsuki around. Though this wasn't a major loss for them as they barely did much to begin with and Bakugou had already killed off two wave bosses without their help. They also wonder if they'll encounter the glass woman again, it had only been a few days since their fight and she wasn't anywhere to be seen in the first wave, so it was hard to say, but they were all ready to fight her if need be.

Melty was even participating, Bakugou wasn't big on it at first for a little girl to be involved in this but as he thought about it, considering she was still the princess of Siltvelts greatest enemy, it would be a bad idea to leave her anywhere out of his and his team's sight. Bakugou ordered her to remain on adult form Kirishima for the whole time as he was sure any monster outside of the boss would not stand against a giant ferocious dragon, that was about the safest spot she would be at until the wave ends.

And among the team was Daven the intern as Bakugou called him, with an uninterested look on his face as he grips his Sai's. But inside his head he was curious and was awaiting the wave to see if this human guy with a magic shield deserves to be called a hero and not just an arrogant meathead.

Though the same can't be said with the rest of "the sons of Siltvelt", they had recovered from their injuries from the little tournament yesterday, but their arrogant attitudes haven't changed much and were not taking the whole event seriously to Bakugou's annoyance. He only hopes that they either cry back to their mommies or just die in a few minutes of the wave so he doesn't have to be pestered by them or the council again.

With the last-minute ticking down Bakugou shouts out to his crew, "Alright! Not much has changed in our strategy! We protect and evacuate whatever village we are teleported to, send as many of these monster bastards to hell as possible, then we find the boss kill its ugly ass, and end this shit! Are all of you ready!"

"Yes Sir!" Bakugou's crew shouted and Kirishima roars.

The noble sons cheer on to, but less like motivated soldiers and more like cheerleaders.

Daven just says, "Sure." though in his head he was actually impressed that the human hero can actually motivate so many and be a leader, but sounding like a leader is different than acting like one. This would be the start of his test for Bakugou the so-called shield hero.

5...4...3...2...1... 0

And just like the waves before in Melromarc, the sky turns red and portals appeared to drop off the monster hordes.

The crew are then teleported toward the head of the wave.

Siltvelts wave had just begun.

---

The crew was teleported outside of a mining town not too far from a stone quarry.

Bakugou took immediate action and had his team go into town to evacuate the civilians and kill all the monsters in or around the town.

The monsters of the wave this time are giant scorpions and spiders, mutant pig-like orcs, and large flying bats.

Like before the teams were divided up to take care of certain monsters and protect the civilians in different areas.

Bakugou was the most active and was aggressively blasting and blowing up every enemy in sight all the while giving out his defense magic to any of his team or the fleeing people.

Neia went after mainly the orcs as she slices through their armor openings, killing off the armored pigs with quick precision.

Rino was blasting her magic up into the sky at the swarms of human-sized bats and helped out Neia in blowing away many groups of mutant orcs.

Daven was ordered to take out any of the outlier's going after the more problematic enemies and their weak spots like the giant spiders and scorpions eyes or stabbing the throats or backs of the large orc lieutenants killing them silently and quickly. He showed no fear and kills the evil beings and protect the civilians in danger, regardless of rank, tribe, or caste.

Kirishima was just let loose and rampages across the monster hordes. Eating and killing everything in sight as the monster armies retreat from the dragon. And on his back, Melty helped out Kirishima as she attacks with her water magic at any monsters that were in his blind spots.

Just as before they were all tearing through the wave hordes.

Unfortunately this didn't apply to the sons of Siltvelt.

Most could barely take on a few monsters and had no discipline or coordination and were all basically acting on their own, and only focused on killing and barely caring about the civilians, especially toward the lower castes.

Bakugou was forced to save many of them from getting themselves killed though he becomes more and more hesitant with each save.

But despite that a few of the more arrogant ones were getting impatient with fighting some supposed fodder and want to fight off the stronger enemy force to prove themselves, or they think everything was too hard and want to deal with easier targets as if that was an option in a wave. They were all now pestering Bakugou about it and had stopped fighting the wave monsters altogether

At that point he was about done with them, "Alright fine losers!" he shouts at them as some of the hordes start to fall back, most of the young nobles gather around Bakugou to listen to what the shield hero had to say, "Go down to the quarry and kill any enemies in there, that's where many are retreating to and we want to make sure they don't come back! Got it!"

The young nobles all saluted, "Sir yes Sir!"

"Yeah let's send them all to hell as lord Bakugou had just said!" A white tiger noble shouts out, who had an eye patch on from when Rino nearly stabbed his eye out from the tournament yesterday.

They all yelled battle cries and charge toward the stone quarry.

"Finally!" Bakugou sighs in relief as he no longer has to deal with them anymore and can now focus back on the town and the wave monsters.

This continued for over an hour with the town being successfully evacuated as they head for an army fort down the highway road where they will be sheltered with the high walls and be protected by the army stationed there.

There was a problem though, the army was only allowing those of higher caste inside the fort while the rest were expected to fend for themselves.

Daven was currently arguing with the forts Captain, a bear demi-human beastman who was in charge of the fort and troops stationed there to let them in but that was going nowhere.

After Neia rushed to Bakugou and told him about the situation Bakugou quickly stopped his monster killing and blasted himself toward the fort with the elf warrior.

Back with Daven things haven't changed much as he and Rino continue to argue with the stubborn and racist captain while the lower caste townsfolk wait and hoped that they would be allowed in.

"These people have nowhere else to go! They are just as much citizens of this country as you and me! They all have paid their taxes so fat fucks like you can eat and fit in that oversized armor!" Daven yells at the Captain.

"I said no! The fort is crowded as it is! We do not need to have a bunch of low caste bottom feeders spreading their stench around!" The Bear Captain yells back, not in the mood to argue with the cat rogue.

Rino then spoke up, "But they're children here along with those sick and old! You must at least let them in!"

But that didn't help matters, "Silence Monkey! I don't need to listen to what you or this pest have to say! You and the rest of these vermin leave now or we will treat you as enemies of the wave to kill!"

"Why not start with me? You fat ass!" shouted a voice that pissed off the captain as he takes out his sword.

"Who dared say that! I'll kil... Uhhhhh!" the captain shouted but quickly stopped himself and drops his sword as soon as he saw who it was, Shield hero Katsuki Bakugou who had blasted his way there until he lands on the ground with Neia catching up with him and was now with the group.

The Captain attempts to save face, "Ugh... Ugh... My lord Bakugou, I'm so sorry for saying such a thing I was just..."

"Don't waste my time with your stupid apologies! Why are you not letting the rest of the villagers in!?" Bakugou interrupts and demands from the nervous captain.

"Well ugh... You see lord Bakugou, we don't have enough room in the fort and for safety reasons we must..."

But Bakugou interrupts with an explosive punch to the captain's face as he falls on his back on the ground, "Bullshit! I was high enough in the air and saw plenty of room in the fort! Don't lie to your God you damn sinner!"

"Well... Uh ok so we do have room but I.. But.."

Bakugou then steps on top of the down Captain's chest, "If you keep wasting my time with bullshit and not let them all in now! I'll end your lineage right here by blowing your balls up! GOT IT!"

After a big gulp, the Captain shakes his head up in down, terrified out of his mind, more so than the wave itself. Bakugou gets off of him and the Captain gets up to shout toward the guard tower, "OPEN THE GATE! LET THEM ALL IN!"

And with that the fort gate opens as the lower caste civilians storm in the fort to be protected from the monsters.

As the civilians rush in Kirishima and Melty arrive near the fort as well along with a large number of human slaves and vagabonds, "Sir Shield hero, we found them from all over, is their room for them to go inside." she asked Bakugou

"Well I say!.." the captain shouts about to yell at the human for such as suggestion, but he stops himself as soon as he looks back at the shield hero Who was pissed off and was growling toward him ready to explode at the racist Captain again if he finishes that sentence.

Knowing better now, the Captain said the smart thing, "I say Yes! Yes of course they can all come in." he responds and with that dozens of humans slaves or freedmen rush into safety. And once the last of them were in, the gates were closed up again with the Captain rubbing his head from a bad headache as he goes inside the fort

And with that done Neia finally asked, "So what are your orders now?"

Bakugou got straight to the point, "Since most of the civilians have been evacuated in the area, we can now focus on finding the boss enemy and kill it to end the wave." Bakugou then activates his map shield and thanks to the many free maps Siltvelts court offered he has a well-detailed map of most of Siltvelt. With his cardinal weapon it also showed off where the boss of the wave was most likely at. There was nothing there before but after some time the energy of the boss finally exposes itself, it could be the nature of the wave. Not wanting one hero to end it too quickly by speedrunning towards the boss.

After some looking around the area of the map, the boss hotspot was found, and of all places, it was at the stone quarry, "What a damn coincidence I sent out the losers of Siltvelt in that direction. Well if they were smart enough they would've gotten out when they knew they were out of their leagues." Bakugou says out loud in an unsurprised tone not caring that he accidentally sent out a group of wannabe heroes to the most powerful enemy of the wave. Though most of them wanted to not fight fodder and continued to complain about it, so they got what they wished for.

Bakugou finally turns the map off and shouts his next orders to the sidekicks, "Brown hair, Blue! You're coming with me to the boss!" the two nodded in agreement knowing they'll be dealing with the hardest part of the mission.

"Kirishima, blue hair princess! You two will go around the area to other towns and settlements and help them to kill the monsters or evacuate the non-combatants out of harm's way!" Melty nods in agreement and Kirishima gives out a large roar to also agree to his father, Bakugou knew the boss would be too dangerous to be letting Melty get involved so it was for the best.

Bakugou then finally turns to Daven who just stood there with his arms crossed, "And catboy you will scout the town we were just in and check to be sure there is no one else in it and evacuate them to the fort and kill whatever other bastards you encounter. If you are 100% sure everyone is out safe meet up with me at the quarry! Got it!"

While that didn't sound like the most glorious job, Daven didn't protest and understands the shield's reasoning, "Very well, just don't get yourself kill though." he playfully responds.

Bakugou gives him his trademark grin, "Oh trust me, there will be killing, just don't take too long catboy, I like to see if your big mouth can continue to talk when fighting the big boy monsters." Bakugou playfully mocks back as Daven makes a simple nod. Bakugou knew he might've been more useful to scout ahead for the boss, though he didn't 100% trusted Daven yet, but if he could follow this one order he might eventually open up and trust the rogue more to be his scout.

"Ok team! Let's go!" Bakugou shouts and the shield team split off to go off on their missions.

As Daven was running, he was thinking a lot to himself, 'So the shield not only cares about helping civilians and doesn't distinguish by caste at all. But he was willing to stand up and put bastards like the Captain in there place. Your getting close to earning my trust shield. Keep it up and I might finally call you a hero.

---

After some running Bakugou, Neia, and Rino were at the large stone quarry. It was just a giant hole in the ground with lots of stone and rocks all around, as well as some large boulders and mining equipment scattered across the area.

It was quiet, too quiet for Bakugou's taste, the wave was still continuing but there were no monsters in sight despite this area being the hotspot for the boss. But Bakugou was remaining cautious as he and Neia and Rino held their guard as they wait for something to jump out but so far nothing.

The crew kept close to each other as they look around, only to be hearing some slidding sounds but no monsters yet.

But when they came near the center of the quarry the three saw a very strange sight. Many random statues were all over the area, many of them being looking like monsters and a few that looked like demi-humans just standing about in the middle of nowhere, all with the look of horror on their faces

It started to make the three very suspicious, "Sir Bakugou what do you think all of this is?" Neia finally asked out loud knowing these were not handmade statues.

"No clue yet blue, but don't let your guard down. Though something about these things seems familiar?" Bakugou responds as he gets a closer look at the statues with some of their faces looking familiar. Many of the monster statues were of giant Spiders, Scorpions, and the mutant orcs, but after he gets a closer look at the demi-human statues he recognized a statue's face, one of a White Tiger Demi-human with an eye patch. Exactly like the who was in with the sons of Siltvelt. He looks at all the demi-human statues and finally recognizes most of them. These were all the sons of Siltvelt, now immortalized in stone.

Bakugou finally put two and two together on what they were going to be dealing with and it won't be pretty at all.

Bakugou finally shouts, "BLUE! BROWN HAIR! Close your eyes right now and don't open them at any time no matter what until I say so!"

Both Neia and Rino quickly shut their eyes though were still confused, "Yes Sir But why? What are were dealing with?" Rino questioned with her eyes still shut as she walks back to back with Neia.

"We're dealing with ugly bitches that are so hideous, they'll literally kill you with one direct look and turn your whole body into stone so don't open your eyes at any cost or you're going to be another of the statues." Bakugou responds then shouts, "Mirror shield!" with the shield turning into a big portable mirror on his arm.

And with it he moved it at an angle and just in time he sees an unexpected visitor.

As soon it was noticed the monster jumps at Bakugou with the shield hero just in the nick of time jumps and blasting himself over the thing backward and while mid-air he blasts the green snake-like monster in the back of its head as it blows up into a million pieces.

But as soon as it dies, out came many more of them. They were tall Green skinned women with snake lower bodies, and on top of their heads was not hair but a mess of living snakes as hair. Bakugou knew exactly what these monsters were.

Gorgons.

Monsters he learned about from Greek mythology, the most notable ones being the infamous Medusa and her sisters. And judging by all the statues around the area, they all have the same ability of petrification, which would basically be an instant kill to whoever looks at them directly in the eyes.

Many of the Gorgons quickly went to attack Bakugou as he dodges the monsters relying on the mirror shield to be able to see anything, as even without petrification these gorgons were still deadly with their sharp teeth, whip-like tails, and poisonous claws and blood.

"Sir Bakugou what's going on!?" Neia yelled concern from all the commotion she can't see with her eyes still shut.

"Blue! Brown hair! Keep your eyes shut at all cost, or you'll be dead!" Bakugou shouts as he awkwardly fights the monsters trying to overwhelm him, but Bakugou was still agile with his quirk and managed to kill a couple of the gorgons but they were still many with even more appearing all around. Some start to head toward Neia and Rino knowing they were vulnerable without their eyesight.

But when one gorgan pounces toward Neia, Bakugou shouts, "Airstrike shield!"

And the energy shield appears right in front of his elf sidekick as the gorgan bashes itself into it.

"Blue! Stab your sword at 12:00!" Bakugou ordered and Neia quickly stabs her sword with her eyes closed at the Gorgons chest and killed it instantly.

"Brown hair! Stab high at 3:00!" Bakugou yells and activates another airstrike shield at Rino's side as she stabs the gorgons forehead blindly.

This continued on a few more times while Bakugou focused on the main group, but these monsters were not stupid and were seeing through the shield heroes strategy and were now able to dodge the two sidekicks' blind attacks and manage to get a few hits on the girls.

They were rapidly losing their health but Bakugou continued to spam out his quick heal magic spells, but he knew he had to think of something else to protect his sidekicks as more incoming gorgons started to focus on them.

After some quick thinking, he came up with some ideas.

"Shield Prison!" and with that ability Rino is enveloped in a metal ball now protected from the snake women, "Brown hair just give us boosts and any protection magic while the ball is active!" he ordered with Rino understanding the order as she starts conducting stat boost spells while not having to worry about the mysterious monsters she is not allowed to see. A few of the Gorgons still attempt to attack and open up the ball. but it'll take them a while to do so, keeping a bunch of them distracted from the rest of team Bakugou.

He then turns to Neia, "Blue! If you want to see shit keep your eyes barely open and use your weak shiny sword reflection to see, but keep your eyesight only looking toward the ground at all costs and only for a few seconds at most!" Bakugou ordered her as he blows up the head of another gorgon.

Neia did exactly as she was told and looks downward with her eyes barely open to using one of her swords as a tiny mirror, and now she can barely see the ugly snake woman attacking her. And just in a couple of seconds of looking she closes her eyes again and attacks the general area where the monsters were at and manage to kill a few of them with her other dragon tooth sword and electric magic. It wasn't perfect though as she was still fighting relatively blind and the Gorgons still get the occasional hit on her, but not as much as before and with Neia still being able to kill and fight them off.

Bakugou continued on his fight as the Gorgons attempt to overwhelm the hero but had no luck with their poison barely doing anything from his high poison resistance.

But they kept coming and coming with seemingly no end, and if things weren't bad already the crew start to feel the earth shaking, and when Bakugou moves his mirror toward that rumblings direction he sees what it was. It was a fat giant-sized Gorgan popping out of the wall tunnel from the quarry wall which his menu dubs as "Gorgon Queen".

This Queen Gorgon was about Kirishima's size, had a fatty build with saggy skin flaps all around her stomach and arms, and the snakes on her head were nearly Python size. All with an obscenely high health bar. Bakugou was not surprised to see that this was the main boss of the wave

"So that's the mother of all fat ugly bitchs?"

The gorgan queen immediately slides its way toward Bakugou and attempts to smash him with her fists.

But Bakugou blasts himself out of the way in time as he continues to rely on the mirror shield as her minions attempt to kill him.

The Gorgon queen continues throwing her weight around the area trying to smash the shield hero as he continued to dodge and blast attacks at her all the while her minions are beginning to gang up on the hero as Bakugou continues to blasts and kill a few of them.

It was a hard battle as it was mostly Bakugou on his own as Neia was too occupied with her gorgan problem with limited vision. While Rino was still in the ball as more Gorgons continue to scratch on its sides getting closer to opening it.

As this was going on Bakugou then heard, "Lord Bakugou we have come back to help?!"

He looks into his mirror to see 4 random surviving members of the sons of Siltvelt running from the quarry cliffs intending to help their shield hero unfortunately.

"Lord Bakugou how can we.." But before the 4 could say another word they all got a look at the giant Gorgon queen directly and with a bright red glow from those eyes, in just a few seconds the 4 wannabe warriors had instantly turned into stone basically killing them. And to add mockery to it the Queen Gorgon destroys the statues with a whip of her long fat tail.

Her Gorgon minions then began to spit poison at Bakugou, but not at Bakugou directly but at his mirror shield covering it up forcing Bakugou to close his eyes and fight blind as he attempts to wipe the poison spit off. But he was starting to get overwhelmed by all the gorgons. He started to blindly set off his explosions everywhere to get the gorgons off of him, but the Queen began to punch and whip with her tail at Bakugou starting to really injure him. If it wasn't for his high defense he be dead already.

The Gorgon minions began to dogpile on Bakugou with some even sacrificing their lives to his explosions to finally hold him down as they try to go after his eyes to forcibly open them to get a good look at their Queen.

With the Gorgon Queen herself just standing in front of the shield hero laughing at him speaking a language Bakugou can't understand.

It seemed hopeless for the crew, but,

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!" The Gorgan Queen screams in agony when seemingly out of nowhere an energy knife flies right into one of her eyes. She then pressed both her hands on her stabbed eye as she screams and squirms all around crashing and smashing herself into the quarry walls.

The other Gorgons were caught off guard and confused by this attack of their queen and looked around to see who dared to do that. But Bakugou took advantage of the situation and used his quirk to blast himself out of the gorgons dogpile and propelled himself in the air with his eyes still shut.

As the Gorgon minions watched on, two furthest from the Gorgon group had been instantly decapitated by a slice of a dark energy cut and another getting an energy knife through its forehead.

The gorgons attempt to find this attacker, but they just kept seeing some random dark magic smoke appearing and disappearing as a few more Gorgons ended up with their throats cut through in barely a second.

Bakugou remained in the air as he activates his mirror shield again and finally wiped away all the poison smearing the glass allowing him to see through it again.

And once it was cleared, he finally sees from the reflection who or what gave him the opening and possibly saved him.

It was Daven who was using his dark magic to appear and disappear all around the gorgons and killing a few of them while he had a blindfold on his head to prevent petrification.

Bakugou just smiles proudly as his potential new sidekick intern outmaneuver the snake-woman while fighting basically blind. But before he could watch more he turns back to Neia and Rino who the former was being overwhelmed by numerous Gorgons and latter was still in the ball that was about to break from all the enemies scratching at it.

Once Bakugou got a good look through the mirror, he blasted himself back down with his eyes shut and once he lands.

Boom!

He blows away a group of the gorgons near Neia. And while the monsters were still confused by the explosion Neia shouts "Electric shock!" and places her hand on the ground causing the ground around her to electrify all the monsters stunning them while doing nothing to the electric resistant shield hero. And after that both she and Bakugou quickly kill off the stunned enemies together.

With Rino the gorgons finally destroy the last of the ball's vitality as it breaks apart and dissolves.

The monsters were ready to pounce on the mage girl, only to hear instantly, "Intensifying Light!" And Rino activates a bright light spell that instantly blinded the gorgons unable to see her or anything else. And not a second after that, she creates a bunch of magic energy balls around her body and then forces them out with her magic, and with the energy balls around herself and shouts, "Arcane missiles!", and on all sides she blows away and kills all the surrounding gorgons with there heads or chests being blown to bits by the magic missile balls. All done with her eyes shut.

After that with the reflections of their weapons, Neia and Bakugou rush toward Rino as he quickly distributed health potions for them. Finally with a second to breathe.

Daven was still dealing with the last of the Gorgon minions, jumping and vanishing all over allowing easy kills as the snake women have no idea where he keeps disappearing to as heads continue to roll.

The last of the minor Gorgans seemingly catches him off guard and grabs hold of his blindfold. After pulling it off the monster attempts to petrify him with a good look in the eyes.

But rather than turn to stone, his body just dissolves into smoke.

The Gorgon looked confused until an energy knife pierces right through its skull and falls forward dead.

Devan did the old shadow clone trick on her.

After it was dead the cat rogue meets up with his team leader. By sensing him with his magic as Bakugou continues to use his mirror, "So what took your cat ass so long?!" Bakugou demanded from the rogue.

"I did exactly what you told me to do, scout the town for any more survivors and come back here when I was done. And yeah your welcome for me saving you." Daven responds with a hint of smugness in his tone.

Bakugou just huffs, "Whatever, the important thing now is to kill that fat one-eyed bitch and end this stupid wave already. Brown hair use this mirror to see and get as far to the other side of the quarry as you can and fire all you can at the giant bitch from there, but don't look at the ground for any reason, you can still get turned to stone from the dead bitches corpses, Blue you stay near with me to do as much damage to the fat bitch as possible, and catboy you annoy and distract the shit out of her! Do all of you get it!?" He ordered with the crew nodding as Bakugou tosses the random mirror to Rino so she can somewhat see her target, "Good and now let's kill the bitch!"

And just after that speech, the Gorgon queen finally stopped squirming from the pain and look on absolutely pissed off and began to drag itself toward the shield crew.

Bakugou and crew then split up with Bakugou and Neia running toward the boss using their bare amount sight of from their weapons reflections. The Queen was about to smash her body on the two but then Daven pops up in front of her face and slices at her fat face cheeks She and her snake hairs attempt to bite him but he dodges away from them as he slides down her equally fat back.

And while she was focused on him, Bakugou and Neia attacked her from below with Bakugou laying out his explosions and Neia slicing her up with her swords and electric magic.

The Queen started to notice the pain and looks down on herself. She was going to swat the two away with her hands like flys but she then gets hit by a bunch of explosive magic projectiles. All from Rino firing far enough away as she looks in the mirror to aim and fire at her target.

Though Rino's attacks didn't always hit the Gorgon queen with half her blasts missing the target and just hits the walls of the quarry or nearly hitting her allies as she nearly did with Bakugou while he was in the air, "Hey watch it brown hair!"

"Sorry Sir! But it's hard to aim when you have to awkwardly look at a mirror!" Rino yells out to defend herself.

"Don't remind me!" he yells back hating having to constantly look at a mirror just to not turn into stone.

The Queen Gorgon was focused on the ones attacking the enemies around her, but that didn't stop it from spitting giant poison balls toward Rino, which Bakugou created 2 airstrike shields to protect her from above.

This multi-attack strategy was starting to work as the Queen's health was nearly down a quarter left, either the Gorgon queen had less health and defense than the souleater, or Bakugou's team was that much stronger. Bakugou of course likes to think the latter.

But as its health gets lower, the more aggressive it got as she finally decided to completely focus on Neia and Bakugou as she barfs out poison all around the ground forcing them to back away as she attempts to smash them with her fists again.

Bakugou knew this was the time to make this half-crippled creature into a complete crippled one now. Bakugou yells out to Daven as he teleports away from the poison himself as it drips down the monster's large body, "Catboy! Can you take out the bitches other eye!?"

"Only if she keeps it wide open and tries not to attack or look at me directly," Daven responds as he puts away his sai's and forms up another energy-throwing dagger seeing where this was going.

Bakugou just smiles back, "Leave it to me then." Bakugou then yells and rushes his way right at the Queen and blasts himself in the air still looking through the mirror shield. The Queen and her snakes attempt to bite him in the air, only for the hero to keep dodging them.

And back on the ground Daven sees his opening after he looks at the situation from his own personal mini mirror after he puts back on the blindfold, "Miss give me a boost up." he asked Neia with her obliging. She stabs her swords on the ground and puts her hands together and out as Daven back jumps toward her. Once his foot was on her hands with her power jump ability she jumps high with him until she threw him up higher allowing Daven to aim downward with his energy throwing daggers.

Once he senses the Queen is in the right place, he throws down the dagger at an angle, and with high speed it hits the Gorgon queen's other eye.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!" It screams again in agony as she was now completely blind as she squirms again over the quarry smashing into everything in sight.

Daven teleports himself back down on the ground with his dark magic ability while Bakugou remains up in the air not giving the ok yet for everyone to open up their eyes as he didn't want to take chances with the blinded queen or from the heads of her minion's corpses.

When it finally stops wailing in pain the Queen despite her loss of sight could still hear and smell her enemies as she starts to rampage all around herself smashing everything and barfing poison all around the ground.

After Rino saw the whole thing through her mirror she knew this was her time to act again, as she runs toward the Queen monster with her eyes still shut and shouts, "Restraining chains!" and like the soul eater before she creates a magic circle that allowed her to create multiple large and powerful magic chains as they wrap around the lower part of the Gorgon queen forcing the monster boss to remain in place.

The Queen didn't know what was going on and was just smashing and squirming all over while stuck where she was at.

Neia then moves in as she cuts more on her tail and jumps on the giant gorgons back and stabs both her swords deep into its skin and shouts, "Electric shock!" and electrifies the boss using all her mana to make it stop squirming from the deep pain of its lost sight.

Rino expands more of her power and creates more chains now covering the boss's arms keeping it more in place though she was starting to struggle to maintain it with all the mana and concentration it was using.

Bakugou remains in the air as he looks back at Daven through the mirror shield, "Catboy! Cut the bitches hair for me and I'll take care of the rest!" he ordered with Daven nodding in agreement.

With his minor teleportation magic, he launches himself up at the monster's body and used the magic chains to get himself up toward its head.

Despite the gorgon queen still being stunned by Neia electric attack, her snakeheads were still active as the 15 set of heads attack the cat rogue at once.

But with his magic and agility Daven easily dodges the snakes as he began to chop them away one by one until the only things left on the Gorgon's head were its ugly face and 15 bleeding hair stubs.

With his job done Daven teleports away again.

Bakugou was now ready for his job as he collected enough sweat from his gauntlets. He blasts himself downward at the struggling gorgon queen as he twirls around to take in as much oxygen as possible as he goes for the kill.

Once right at its ugly blinded head Bakugou shouts, "Howerzer impact!"

Boooooom!

Like dynamite Bakugou went off at the boss's head as it explodes into a billion pieces.

Bakugou launches forward until he lands himself on the ground as the giant headless body flings around a little more as Neia removed her swords from its back and ran off it.

It continued to wave itself around without her head some more, but eventually the gorgon queen's body had enough as Rino's chains disappeared and eventually stops moving around and it finally falls down dead.

And just like that, portals disappeared from above and the sky itself turns blue again, the Siltvelt wave was now over.

"Can we open our eyes now sir Bakugou?" Neia asked.

Bakugou quickly responds, "No, we need to destroy the heads to the rest of these things first. From one of the stories I've read about them in my homeworld, they could still petrify you even when dead so pile the heads up first."

And with that, after a few minutes of being very careful the team gathered all the decapitated gorgon heads on a pile and Bakugou proceeds to destroy the heads with one big explosion.

All but one head that Bakugou decided to put into the shield in which the shields menu pops up, *Shield unlocked: Inter-Dimensional Regular Gorgon head shield, grants shielder and party members complete immunity to petrification*, Bakugou liked the sound of that and that was just with the regular gorgon.

With that out of the way they can relax, "Ok all of you can look around normally now." Bakugou informs them.

And after opening their eyes up and throwing away the annoying mirrors Neia and Rino cheer on to victory, not only defeating yet another boss but another wave as well. Bakugou just smiles knowing every single one of them deserves a pat on the back.

Daven continued to remain silent and to himself, though unlike before he gave out a subtle little smile from their victory.

The crew was surprised though to not see glass again, though it would be something to think about later as the crew just wanted to relax after all of that.

Bakugou then turns himself toward the town, "Ok enough sappy celebrating, let's find Kirishima and princess Blue hair and help clean up the town." he ordered with his sidekicks following suit, including Daven.

While they were walking Neia decided to open up a conversation with the new intern, "That was impressive out there Daven, you got a lot of skill in you."

"When you're forced into backbreaking training in the shadow corps, you either do well or just die." Daven said bluntly.

But despite that awkward answer, it didn't stop Neia from being friendly, "I see, well we still did well together. You especially did well with the blindfold."

"I was trained to fight with minimal light and sight, so I use my senses and my detection magic to 'see'. And it's not the first time I fought with such type of a monster, I had to fight against one embezzling bastard noble's pet guard basilisk without looking at it in the eyes. I actually killed said noble with his pets decapitated head and smashed the bastard's statue"

Bakugou then decided to add to the conversation, "Still how did you know ahead of time about the petrification catboy?"

"Simple, when I went to find any more survivors at the town, all I could find was 4 individuals who got separated from the 'sons of Siltvelt' fighting and barely surviving against a group of monsters that I had to save them from. I told them where you were going and they just rushed into the quarry hoping to fight for you. I watch far from behind and the next thing I observed was them all turning into stone from afar. That was when I knew about what I was going to deal with."

"So wait you basically used them as bait and let them die?" Rino asked though less in a concerned tone and more one of sarcasm.

"Hey all I did was tell them where you were at and they didn't think about anything or took caution. And they paid the price for it." Daven defends himself.

"I couldn't agree more." Bakugou comments, he more or less did the same with the rest of the sons of Siltvelt pointing their way toward the quarry. Granted unintentionally as he didn't expect the boss to appear there, but he was just glad they were out of his hair and now has a convenient excuse to say to Trinock and the council on to why all the wannabe hero noble boys ended up dead.

Rino didn't react much to it as she thought they were just a bunch of annoying suck ups that reminded her of when she was with Motoyasu with the other girls doing the same.

At first Neia felt somewhat disturbed by their lack of empathy on the admittedly obnoxious group, but as she thought to herself she almost made many stupid decisions that could've gotten her killed if not for Bakugou, like nearly grabbing the jinxed chest with the magic seed or blindly accepting Mynes ring after Melromarc's wave. Like her, they chose to fight for a hero, but unlike her they didn't care about helping people or improve themselves. They were only in it for the glory and their search for that glory lead to them getting killed.

"Whatever they're dead now, boo hoo, let's just get a move on." Bakugou ends that conversation as the crew continued to head their way to town. Neia noticed that Daven was a lot more talkative compared to their first meeting. He was still a bit cold, but she knew it was a start. Just like with her equally cold master Bakugou she hopes to make another friend as they fight together from deadly waves, and if things don't improve soon from the greed of Siltvelts government.

---

After some walking later the crew were back at the town where they found Kirishima and Melty. They had gotten themselves back from another town not far from here and were clearing up what was left of the scattered monsters from the wave.

Thankfully both were unharmed as Kirishima chews on some dead orcs.

Once fully cleared up of remaining enemies, Bakugou and crew helped the civilians out from the fort after escorting them back to their village.

According to them and a few soldiers the Bear Captain was constantly threating them with violence, wanting to take out his anger on them from what Bakugou did earlier.

Bakugou of course was not happy about it. He immediately used his shield hero authority to forcibly demote the Bear Captain. Making him lose all his metals and titles, turning him into a stable boy. Making his new job to clean up after the knights horses for the rest of his military career. Which the racist bear had no choice but to accept it as who would argue against their god. All he could do was cry about it.

The team continued to help with the clean-up, with Neia, Rino, and Melty helping with the civilians and their children with healing magic or repair some damaged structures. Daven looks around for any more lost or injured survivors. And Bakugou was walking all around to pick off parts of the wave monsters to gain many more shields and Kirishima was following behind cleaning and eating up the corpses.

This lead back to the quarry with Bakugou grabbing pieces of the dead gorgons for more shields, many involved more resistance against poison, from this and other shields, Bakugou has almost complete immunity to all forms of poison.

The last was the gorgon queen and despite her size gave only one shield, *Shield unlocked: Gorgon Queen Shield: completely cures petrification* Bakugou was hoping it be a shield that caused petrification on an opponent like the famous Greek God Athena's shield she made from medusas' dead head But he'd guessed that be to overpowered if he can just petrify most of his enemies.

Bakugou still tested the shield and with it and some of his magic from his mana pool it did work to unpetrified some of the unlucky quarry workers that became the first victims of the waves Gorgon attack. And despite his reluctance to do so, he forced himself to cure what was left of the sons of Siltvelt that didn't get their statue bodies crushed to pieces.

They were thankful, but they all also decided to quit heroing after the traumatizing experience of the wave and turning into stone, which Bakugou was happy to accept.

All the while this was happening Daven was watching from above the quarry up in some trees as he observed his team leader as the sunsets.

And after all he had seen the rogue was impressed, "Hmmm, not only are you a strong and smart warrior, but are also one willing to help those regardless of caste or race. Katsuki Bakugou, I think you earned the right to be called a hero. And maybe now I can trust you to fix this nation run by a group of greedy corrupt individuals. One's that encourage other noble's to act just like them. Including my bastard father.". He says to himself as he went back to scouting.

But a strange thing he had noticed. It seemed that around after they got back to town, he felt a weird presence around the area. Like he and his team were being watched. He knew it wasn't of Siltvelts shadow spy force, he would've recognized them. This was different, it was of more powerful individuals, ones with murdering intent. But he wonders who in Siltvelt would want to kill their God? He only knew of one organization within Siltvelt that would, and if they are involved, his group is going to be in a hell of a lot of trouble soon.

---

Back at Melromarc once more in the middle of the night, deep in the woods of a forested mountainous area. Sword Hero Ren Amaki with his lone companion Scarlet were traveling secretly through lord Idol Rabier's lands to get on with their way toward the Queen of Melromarc. It had been a long and tiring journey as the two were on the run to avoid civilization as much as they could. Knowing they were wanted and had been evading Itsuki, Motoyasu, and Princess Maltys forces and patrols as much as possible. The two still had a long way to go. Ren had Scarlet remain in her human form for a while to give the girl some rest and not draw too much attention knowing knight unit search parties were all over in this pro-Aultcray area

Ren was persistent to make it to the Queen and fix this whole mess, free the rest of his party, and stop both a Civil war and a great war with Siltvelt.

Scarlet on the other hand was bored out of her mind, "Master Ren are we there yet?"

"Scarlet saying that over and over again won't magically get us there faster." Ren responds with a lighthearted tone wanting to bring light to this serious situation.

"But I miss the wagon, traveling light makes it so boring. Can't I go back to my bird form and at least carry you again?" Scarlet requests.

"Not at this time Scarlet, as to the shadows warnings from the map we need to be very careful around these parts, they're guards all over, and a fanatic supporter of Aultcray rules this region. We can't have you drawing attention and be faced with another army again." he responds but it didn't make Scarlet feel any better.

"But what am I suppose to do while we walk boringly?"

Ren just sighs now understanding what some parents have to deal with on long family road trips, "How about we play the quiet game again and see how long we can go without saying a single word." he suggested.

"I hate that stupid game, I always lose and nothing fun happens in it!"

Ren sighs again, "Why not count the stars and see how far you can get.

With nothing else to do Scarlet tilts her head up and started counting the stars, "1..2..3..4..5..6..7.. 8... 9... THIS IS SO BORING!"

---

Deep within the dungeons of Lord Rabiers castle was a terrible scene of imprisoned demi-humans of all shapes and sizes who had been tortured or were ready to be tortured by their cruel master.

It was a sad sight, and among those cages was a young dog demi-human, his name was Kiel and he had been sitting idly in his damp prison cell. He doesn't have too much to do but think about what has happened to his friends as of late.

A few months ago, he remembered a peaceful life at the village he lived his whole life at and he would always play with his friends he knew for years, Raphtalia and Rifana a Tamaki and Weasel demi-human respectively.

Life was happy as it was, but then out of nowhere the sky turned red and portals appeared with monsters pouring in. It was a horrifying event with many in the village slaughtered including his, Raphtalia, and Rifana's parents. It was like a living nightmare, but after some time the sky returned back to normal and all the monsters were gone.

But most of the village was left in ruins as the survivors try to recover and mourn for their dead with him and his friends.

After that it would've been a time to heal and rebuild, but instead a large group of Melromarc's soldiers raided the town and enslaved everyone including him and his friends. Locked them up in cages and eventually sold them off as property.

The three of them were eventually bought off by a evil nobleman Idol Rabier. Where he proceeds to torture the three of them for his sadistic pleasure. Admittedly Kiel had the least bad of it, only being whipped a few times and been mostly forgotten about, Raphtalia and Rifana on the other hand were beaten and whipped multiple times by the horrible man who took pleasure in hearing them scream.

It was torture in itself to hear them like that.

Though it seemed Rabier would sometimes get bored of torturing some of his slaves and eventually decided to return Raphtalia especially as she continued to have her nightmares and would scream in the middle of the night. She was now off to god knows where beaten and if some of her coughs were of any indication was sick.

Rifana was also a mystery to him, he hasn't heard from her in ages, not even from Rabiers sadist sensations. He recalled one night where Rabier was extremely mad at his guards and mentioned her by name, but that was all he knew of it. For all he knew, she was dead or her mind was breaking and she no longer talked to anybody from her loss of sanity.

It no longer matters too much for Kiel, he was stuck in here and there was nothing he could do about it. All he could do was pray for the shield hero to come and save them, but each night he was doubting more and more if that will do anything at all.

But as he sulks Kiel started to hear a strange sound and as he looks around he noticed his slave crest was on and was blinking. But it wasn't shocking him as it usually does, it just blinked and blinked over and over. And as he looked around he noticed it was doing the same thing with the other demi-human slaves and were just as perplexed by this.

But as Kiel looked back at the crest, the blinking started to go slower and slower and like glass falling on the hard floor the chest shatters and disappears from his chest as it did for everyone else.

The kid was understandably confused, "Wha.. what just happened?" he asked out loud with the rest of the slaves looking confused.

One elder slave did say something about it, "I'm not sure if this is the case, but I've heard rumors that if a slave owner dies, the original contract to the slave voids itself and if there is no shared ownership whether with a second owner, a family member, or with a slave trader, the crest destroys itself." he explains

To everyone in the cages they weren't sure if this was true or not, but either way, their crests were gone. They would be happy about this, but they were all still stuck in the cages, and nothing is stopping Rabier's guards, servants, or allies from just replanting new crests on them or sell them off to slavery again.

Kiel wasn't sure himself either, though he hoped it was true. He hoped that the evil man was dead and is going to hell for what he has done to his people and friends.

Little did he know that Rabier had spent over two days in complete and utter pure pain and agony, worst than he ever inflicted on his slaves.

---

Away from the dungeons inside the late lord Rabiers castle, there was a dinner party happening in the large dining hall consisting all of the pro-Aultcray nobles, major landowners, and merchant leaders that were all in favor of war with Siltvelt from the assembly a few days prior.

They were all indulging themselves in the festivities and drinks. Many were drunk off their asses, but a few others were just talking and discussing things with each other, mostly on the upcoming war with Siltvelt and the possible civil war with the nobles siding with lord Reichnotts side. They were mostly thinking of the spoils of their victories afterward.

"I hope those damn demi-lovers do go to war. We'll kick their asses, see their heads roll off their bodies, and take control of their lands afterward."

"I'm imaging all the slaves we will get off of this, so much free labor we won't have to worry about being careful with them."

"This war will make prices go up for food crops and weapons, oh man how much we will make out of all of this."

"We'll be happy to offer the crown any loans to fund these wars, with 25% interest of course."

"If good old Aultcray can win us a war once, he'll win us two more."

"Cheers to the cane hero!"

They all shouted and laugh, not concern what effects this will have on the country or if they will even succeed in winning either the war with Siltvelt or the Civil war.

Though some were losing their patience, they are all supposed to have a big meeting with Aultcray himself via crystal ball to discuss their plans and strategies on the wars. But their host lord Rabier hasn't come back yet from his raid on the sword heroes town, and Pope Balmus who helped set this whole thing up in the first place was nowhere to be seen.

"Where the fuck are those two?! I don't want to be up all night waiting for them!" one nobleman complains.

But another ensures him, "Eh, let the fatass and churchman take their time, let's just have a great time and maybe later we can have some fun with the demi's in the basement. Hahaha!" he laughed as he drinks his beer.

So the party continues as the nobles wait for the two to come back and discuss with their king again.

But as the party went on, randomly the dogs in the room begin to bark like mad looking outside of the window. Some thought they were just barking at some birds and moved on, but they kept barking and clawing at the windows they even started to wimper a bit as if they were afraid something bad was about to happen.

It was now starting to get on the noble's nerves and one decided to walk up to the window to see what's up, "What are you damn mutts barking about!? It's just a... WHAT IN GODS NAME!?"

He shouts as soon as he looked up and saw what they were barking for, he was about to warn everyone, but it was too late.

Just a second after, a giant beam of light strikes the castle as if it was divine judgment.

And just when everyone else inside noticed it was too late, the beam of light destroys almost the entire castle and everyone that is inside the area of the beam has all been vaporized as their bodies burn away into ashes.

Those outside the castle's grounds mostly the guards were taking cover from the attack and debris flying everywhere.

After half a minute, the energy beam died down until it finally disappears.

And in its aftermath almost the entire castle was reduced to a crater with only outside structures barely remaining up and barely missing the slave dungeons.

The outside guards look toward the crater staring at the view horrified, "What in the hell was that!?" one guard shouted with the others wondering the same.

They ran up toward the giant crater and looked down to see if there are any survivors, but there was pretty much nothing, not even any corpses or remains can be found. All of the pro-Aultcray nobles and high merchants were all dead along with any guards or servants inside.

But the political implications were the last of these knights' worries as they wonder what the hell did that attack.

"What kind of monster could have even done this?"

"It could've been the sword hero."

"But if the sword hero had this kind of power why didn't he displayed it during the waves or when the two other heroes attempted to capture him?"

"Maybe he was holding back to surprise us?"

"No this has to be the work of the Shield devil. This is probably his first act to declare war on Melromarc with Siltvelt!"

"But how could he have passed through the border!? He would've been seen with his flying dragon easily!"

The guards continue to argue and bicker about this until the captain stepped in.

"Alright! Shut up all of you! We can worry about what did this at some other time, we need to evacuate the town and warn the crown as soon as possib…"

"grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr"

The captain and the rest became silent when they heard the growling sound as they look all around, scared out of their minds.

The captain gulps to himself and attempts to ease the men as he walks near the edge of the crater cliff, "Alright don't panic men, it was probably just the wind. We are just acting paranoid from this crazy event. Let us just remain calm and head toward…"

*Chomp!*

In just one second the captain was eaten in half as the head of a giant monster just raised itself up from the crater and took its bite of the top half of him.

As blood covers the area the surviving soldiers scream in terror as a giant black scaled wingless dragon dinosaur monster climbs it's way out of the crater. It had been sealed in a magic prison by a group of heroes long ago around Rabiers castle, but the seal itself was destroyed along with everything else around it from the beam attack. After being trapped in there for centuries it was hungry, very very hungry.

The soldiers all ran toward the castle's gates at a bridge as the monster chases after them. Despite their cries for help from above the guards at the top of the gate were not taking chances and kept it closed as the dinosaur dragon stomp and devoured most of the surviving guards, the others took their chances and jumped off the sides only to fall into their deaths of the high cliffs the castle was built around on.

But keeping the gate closed was in vain as the monster just smashes right through it like paper, destroying the whole structure.

There was now nothing stopping this monster as it eyed the large town not far from what use to be the castle. It had been asleep for an extremely long time on an empty stomach and was ready to fill it up again as it stomps toward its all you can eat dinner.

While the dinosaur dragon started its rampage, the demi-human slaves in the cellars recovered from that large attacks shockwave with some still coughing from all the dust or ringing in their ears, but they were all still alive. None of them knew what the hell happened, but they didn't care, they wanted to get the hell out of there as soon as possible.

Thanks to the explosion many of the cages and prison cells were damaged from the shock waves and earth shaking, allowing many prisoners to just bust and walk out there cells. Those that didn't get their cell damage enough or their health was too bad for them to move around much, had the help from other fellow demi-humans as they go around the dungeon to help free everyone.

Especially Kiel as he opens and destroys prison doors. He was also looking around to see if he could find Rifana, even if she was dead he still wished to give her body a proper burial.

But when he got to the cell where she was last thrown in, there was nothing there. Not a body, corpse, or skeleton. This confused Kiel, but at the same time gave him some hope. Perhaps there was a slim chance she might be alive but was somewhere else along with Raphtalia.

But thinking where his friends were at was something he had to worry about later. As everyone made sure every single slave was free, the freed demi-humans all gathered together and were all going to make a run for it and escape together.

After peaking outside first to see if there were any guards left. When the coast was clear they all ran out of the dungeon doors and were running off together.

Rather than go toward where the rampaging dragon was walking toward the once there castles town, the demi-humans decided to head toward the cliff edges where it was safe to jump down then run toward the woods and head off to either Lord Va Reichnotts lands not far from here or toward the Sword heroes domain where it is rumored to be illegal to own slaves there and is protected under a large dragon.

As they all got down the cliffs safely including the sick and injured as the large group continued to make a run for it. Kiel couldn't help but look up in the sky to say, "I don't know what happened, but whoever did this. Thank you for finally listening to my prayers."

---

But far into the woods outside of Rabiers town, there was a huge gathering of people that were finished expelling out a lot of magic, and in front of the giant group was none other than Pope Balmus holding onto a long magical staff-like weapon and had a big smile on his face, "A job well done everyone, now our plan advances." He announced to every one of his followers.

One nun was somewhat confused though, "Not that I'm questioning your word my lord, but why must we kill those that were also devoted followers?" she asked.

But the Pope just smiles back at her, "It is sad to see so many donors and devoted followers of the faith be killed. But it was necessary to enact the plan, and they were going to eventually be eliminated anyway for our take over. Civil war would do no good for our nation, only weakening it, and Aultcray has done an awful job in preventing it. His side had to be destroyed to prevent such a pointless and costly conflict. They should've sworn full allegiance to me before, and they would be side by side with us today. But they let their pride and greed of their money and titles to got the better of them." He explains to her as she nodded understanding his logic and then turns toward the rest of his followers and says, "Lord Reichnott and his followers will be dead soon along with the royal family and false heroes, we all just need to learn patience and strike at the right time. Now my children let us leave before anyone finds us."

Before they head off nun again asked, "But what about the dragon monster? Are we just going to let it rampage?"

But the Pope shakes his head and finally says to her, "I'm afraid we need it to cover our tracks my dear. We must remain as uninvolved as possible or else Van Reichnott or the Queen will be onto us. We must let things go on as it is. All we need to do now is wait for King Aultcray to make his next move with the spear and bow hero, for the sword to meet with the Queen, and for our hired 'help' to take care of the shield devil. Once the rest of the pawns go to their right places we will end it all in one big checkmate." He finished with the nun still unsure as to what her pope was planning but decided to not say another word and just goes along with it.

And with that as the large church gathering was heading out to there hiding place. The Pope begins the next step in his plan to remove every single person that will stop him from taking over Melromarca and make him its new ruler.

---

Back with Ren, he and Scarlet were still wondering toward where that beam of light struck at over a hill and caused the ground to shake. Both were surprised and a little scared at the same time.

"Master Ren! What was that?!" Scarlet finally asked out loud.

"I don't know, but there is only one way to find out. Come on!" Ren tells and orders his companion as they both run up toward the top of the hill to see what could've caused such an attack He doubts that even Motoyasu and Itsuki could have such firepower by now.

After finally running up to the top of the hill, they poked out of some bushes remaining cautious as they were still being hunted down by the king's men. The two saw what was left of a large burning castle looking like it had been striked with a giant bomb or missile and left behind a burning ruin.

"Master Ren what could've done this?" Scarlet asked

"I have no idea Scarlet? Not sure if even Itsuki and Motoyasu have that kind of power, and Bakugou is in another country right now." Ren responds still confused by all of this.

But as the two looked on they hear screaming from the town not far from where there used to be a castle, it was hard to believe but Ren saw what looked to be a giant black Tyrannosaurus Rex that was destroying buildings and eating everything in sight.

Ren isn't sure if that was that Dinosaur monster that made that beam thing, but it was still a horrific sight as the monsters hunger wasn't slowing down and he doubts the knights in town can handle the thing.

Scarlet looked very worried about all of this, "Master Ren that evil dragon thing is killing everyone? What are we going to do?"

Ren was silent for a few seconds but finally answered as he looked away, "We need to move on Scarlet, get to the Queen to stop this madness." he responds as he starts to move back on track on their path.

But Scarlet was confused and worried as she runs back to her master, "But master Ren what about all of those people? Aren't we supposed to be heroes and stop evil monsters?"

"Scarlet we can't right now, we are still being hunted down, and if we expose ourselves out there I... I can't risk losing you again not be able to help free you or the rest of our team from those bastards." He responds back again, still feeling guilt in allowing the rest of his team to be captured and taken away to who knows where and Scarlet was all he had left of it.

"But Master Ren, aren't heroes suppose to go up against adversity and kick it in the face? To help those that can't fight for themselves? We are just going to let the evil dragon get away with this? It would've been easy for you to join up with the meanies in there wars but you told them no and did what was right? Are we just going to take the easy route and be no better than the meanies?" Scarlet lectures him.

Despite it sounding naive or immature to some, it did ate on Ren. He still remembers how he took another easy route long ago, doing nothing while an innocent victim was being treated horribly in an unfair trial. He backed away from that because he was afraid his reputation would be ruined and lose some benefits. At that time he was no better than Motoyasu or Itsuki who only cared about themselves and sold out to warmongers for petty pride and revenge toward someone who went against such adversity and slander and still came up top.

Ren remained silent for over a minute to think about it, would he be a coward again and allowed more bad things to happen to innocent people, or will he risk it all to be a better man?

It was a hard choice as Scarlet remained silent waiting for her master to say something.

After some more silence and a deep breath from Ren, he grips his hands and sword and turns around to smile and say, "Ok, let's be heroes and stop that thing."

Scarlet then made a bigger smile and cheered, "Yay! Let's save the day and eat that evil dragon thing!... Oh uh, I do have permission to kill and eat it right?" She asked remembering what he told her once before about killing random dragons.

Ren contiunes his smile, "Of course you can. Now turn into your bird form and let's get there quick." he allows and orders her.

Scarlet nods and quickly turns into her filolial form with Ren jumping on her back.

She rushes her way toward the town going as fast as possible while Ren thinks about what to do if anything happens in that town.

After a few minutes of running Scarlet and Ren were inside the town as people run away and scream for help.

Ren jumps off Scarlet as he examines the area. He quickly noticed some people stuck under some debris and crying for help, "Scarlet help get those people out!" he ordered her as he points to many groups of people with her immediately responding.

Scarlet kicks away a lot of the debris freeing the trapped people with Ren doing the same as he gave out health potions to heal them and they make a run for it. One of these people runs up to Ren, "Thank you so much, your the sword hero aren't you? If so I don't care what the crown says, thank you for saving us and being here to help."

"No problem but do you know what the hell happened or where that thing came from?" Ren asked getting to the point.

"I don't know, it was just a normal night for me and everyone, and then suddenly a giant beam of light came down from the sky and destroyed lord Rabiers castle. And not long after that, a giant monster appeared and started to go on a rampage and there is nothing the guards could do about it." she answers with a lot of fear in her tone.

It wasn't much to go by, but Ren knew that was all he was going to get out of the disgruntled woman and just nods, "Thank you for answering, just get out of here to safety and we'll handle this.".

The woman nods back and ran off.

Ren then rushes his way into the center of town with Scarlet to find this monster while helping more people on the way to evacuate.

This went on for a few minutes as Ren shouts to the people where to go to safety, but as he finishes the evacuation of a district he heard, "Stop right there!" yelled a voice.

As Ren turns back he saw a large group of soldiers gathered up looking toward the sword hero with Ren gripping onto his sword with caution.

"You are under arrest for treason and assault on the royal family!" the group leader shouted toward him.

Thankfully for Ren this was just a small unit with Itsuki and Motoyasu nowhere in sight. Then again he still didn't have any time for this nonsense, "Don't you idiots see what is going on?! They're more important matters to deal with than me right now!" he scolds the knights but they barely cared.

"Shut up! You'll be arrested immediately then we.."

*Crash*

From the side of the building by the Knights, the dinosaur dragon busted through as the building collapses next to them, and just as quickly bit down on the unit leader and chewed him up.

After that the horrified knights no longer cared about the sword hero and all made a run for it passing right by him.

Ren sighs at this display of cowardice, but got back on focus toward the dinosaur dragon, "Scarlet get it to focus on you and stop it from attacking other people!" he orders with Scarlet nodding in agreement.

Scarlet quickly speeds her way toward the monster and uses her wind magic to lift herself in the air. She then began to strike at the monster, despite her fast high attacks they were barely doing any sort of damage. But this did get the monster's attention as it focuses on the fat bird, now happy to be seeing a meal with more fat and meat on it.

The monster attempts to eat her as Scarlet jumps around the already ruined buildings, thankfully despite the strength and power of the monster it had very slow reflexes and moved slowly itself.

With the monster in place Ren quickly activates his sword attack, "Hundred swords!" and through his sword's magic he made around a hundred energy swords appear all around and fires them at the giant monster. Almost every single one of the swords hit their target, but despite that, barely any health was drained from the Dragon dino, that high-energy attack didn't even make it flinch as it still tries to eat Scarlet.

Ren was annoyed the attack didn't do much damage, but he was still determined to kill, and he starts slashing at the bottoms of its feet or its underbelly while it was focused on Scarlet. He slices and slices, but he eventually figured out that this was pretty much doing nothing, no cuts or anything.

Ren groans at this but he figured that he needs to start using more damage heavy attacks. Ren forced himself to attack close to the monster but avoiding its feet and tail as much as possible. Ren then shouts, "Thunder blade!" and blasts the monster's underbelly with a magic electricity bolt. But the monster didn't even react to it.

This was starting to piss off Ren as was Scarlet having no luck in leaving a mark on the dragon Trex.

Ren figured he go for a different element and changed his sword attack, "Crimson blade!" with his sword coated in fire he power jumps himself toward the stomach of the monster again to slash it like mad. He did this over a dozen times in rapid succession placing red hot slash marks on the monster.

But eventually the ability ran out forcing Ren to stop. Ren starts to breathe heavily in exhaustion. But to his displeasure, the hot marks fade away to show nothing left behind, no cuts, scars, burnt marks, or anything. It did nothing to it.

Ren was then forced to jump out of the way as the monster began to stomp around the ground trying to crush him while it continued its focus on Scarlet as she continued her assault on the monster's head.

Ren had to rethink his strategy again, if his attacks don't work on the outside, maybe they could on the inside, this time resorting to one of his strongest attacks, "Scarlet try to get it to open its mouth in front of me!" he ordered her as he charges up his attack.

Scarlet nods and understood that order and she started to move around forward toward her master with the monster following suit as it attempts to eat her.

With the monster focusing on her as it opens up its mouth over and over Ren readies his energy-charged blade and shouts, "Meteor blade!" and while the monster's mouth was opened he fires his attack.

The energy attack hit dead center inside the mouth.

It caused a small explosion and smoke around the monster's mouth.

But unfortunately, yet again it did barely any damage to the monster.

"You got to be shitting me!? What the hell kind of boss is this, even damage sponges have to take some form of significant damage!?" Ren yells to himself, he was out of attacks to use on the monster with Scarlet having just as much luck as he has. But as Ren stared up at the monster he looks toward its red eyes.

After a few seconds of thinking, he got another idea, "Scarlet give me a boost up!" he ordered her.

After escaping away from another chomp, Scarlet runs back toward her master as Ren also runs toward her. Ren quickly jumps on her beak and sends him in the air while the Trex dragon smashes its head on the ground missing and still trying to eat Scarlet as she continued to dodge the monster's attacks.

Scarlet then runs back on the buildings again with the Trex dragon moving its head up again.

Ren then lets out a magic attack to propel himself back down toward the monster's head. He soon lands right on it while it was distracted by Scarlet.

Ren quickly energizes his sword while activating his temporary double strength ability and goes for the weak spot and stab his sword deep in the monster's eye.

*clank*

But to Ren's horror, the sword just bounces off the monster's eye as if it was made of rock-hard solid material rather than soft flesh. Ren couldn't believe it and tries again and again to stab it in the eye, but his sword kept doing the same thing.

The monster itself finally decided to try to eat Ren, now getting annoyed at the pest poking his weapon in its eye. It started to swing around to get Ren off until it bashes itself into another building finally making Ren fall off.

But as he falls, Scarlet jumps in to save him just in time as the monster stands there and eyes at the two It just stood there and awaiting for them to make the next move, wanting to toy with its prey.

Scarlet then asked, "What do we do now Master Ren?"

"I have no idea Scarlet? Everything I threw at it didn't do a damn thing! It's got to have some weakness or something, but I don't know what." Ren responds as he continues to think as fast as he can. He looks around the town all over, with this whole block in ruins from the monster. He knew that this place won't take much more damage then it already has.

He then looks behind himself and saw the way out of town into the woods. He still had no idea how he was going to kill this thing, but he knew what they needed to leave now. To get this thing away from the civilians and the town. It seemed to be focusing on them now and was waiting for the two to make the next move.

Ren knew what they had to do and whispered in Scarlet's bird ear, "Scarlet when I count to three, we run south toward the outside of town and keep the monster on our tails as much as possible until we find a way to kill it. Got it?"

"Yes master Ren," she responds back as she steadies her feet as the dragon dino licks its sharp teeth.

"One... Two...THREE!"

Scarlet with Ren on her back runs for it toward the exit of the town as the giant monster follows to run and chase them.

Scarlet ran and ran as they escape the town and were now deep in the forest, but the monster kept pursuing them as it casually knocks over tree after tree keeping up with the two despite its size.

Ren blasts some magic attacks back at it, even though he knew it was doing nothing, he also knew the attacks would keep the dino interested in them and not make it want to go back to town.

This chase continued for over five minutes as the monster continues its chase as Ren tries his best to think of a way to kill it, otherwise even if loses it after like a hundred miles it will just go on to terrorize another town, and he doubts Itsuki and Motoyasu will have any better luck with this thing if the two encounter it.

As Scarlet was running though she noticed a large lake in the distance. It quickly gave her an idea, "Hey master Ren why don't we drown the stupid dragon?"

"Drown what do you mean drown?" Ren quickly asked not liking that word she used.

"There's a big lake over there, we can make it follow us, and if it can't swim, the stupid thing will drown itself in it." Scarlet finished already starting to lean toward that direction.

But all that did was make Ren widen his eyes, "Wa..wa... Wait! Lake! Do you mean a deep body of water!?" a very startled Ren asked with fear in his tone, and it had nothing to do with the giant man-eating dinosaur thing.

But Scarlet didn't answer back and decided herself to enact her plan and heads right toward the lake, "Come and get us you stupid ugly dragon!" she insults and taunts the thing as they both run toward the large lake.

Ren continues to startle in horror as he yanks on his bird companion, "Scarlet! NO NO NO NO!" he yells at Scarlet but she wasn't listening.

He didn't want to do this, but she gave him no choice, "I said no that's an order!"

Scarlet then gets shocked by her slave crest forcing her to stop her pursuit toward the lake.

And with just 2 seconds of pause, Scarlet barely jumps out of the way of the Dragon Trex's jaws.

Ren then ordered, "Go left! Go left now toward the small mountain!"

Scarlet quickly listened and turns left as the Dragon dino continued to follow them no matter how crazy its prey has been acting.

Ren was happy to be away from the lake, but Scarlet was somewhat upset by that whole thing, "Master Ren what was that about!?"

"I told you we are not going to that lake and that is final!" Ren responds sternly.

"But why?" She asked.

"It's... It's because... Because it wasn't deep enough, yeah it would only slow us down and not drown the monster so lets not waste our time with it and I'll think of something else." he excuses trying to forget about it.

The truth was, Ren not only couldn't swim, but he is deathly afraid of going into a large deep body of water, anything outside of a kiddy pool. He didn't have the guts to say such a wimpy thing to his companion and he was not going to risk the dragon drowning if he has to drown with it.

Scarlet still didn't understand him and was confused, but she just sighs and continued to run as usual with the dragon monster still on their tails.

After another minute, Ren kept thinking and thinking as much as he could, he knew Scarlet couldn't do this forever as he already notices her breathing heavily from all the running, but he can't think of anything that can kill this thing that doesn't involve water.

Ren tries to think harder and harder about this, "Come on Ren! Think! Think! You almost killed a dragon before, how did you almost do that? Let's see I attacked it for no reason, it tried to burn us, Bakugou then butted in, but he's not here so that's out of the window, then Gaelion got pissed off and nearly killed us by blowing us off the mountain with his wings, I charged up an attack to stop him, but then Bakugou blasts at my side making me miss, and the explosion caused an avalanche and then... Then... Wait. That's it!"

Ren finally had a eureka moment and finally says it out loud to Scarlet, "Scarlet I have a plan now. Get near that mountain and keep the monster on you and do exactly as I say."

"Yes Sir!" she responds and she runs faster toward the mountain as the dragon Trex continues to pursue them.

After a few more minutes they were near the base of the small steep mountain with a large rocky wall.

Ren looks back and still saw the monster running toward them in their long chase.

"Perfect." he smiles to himself as he looks back forward to see the mountain wall, he continued to have Scarlet run straight toward the wall with no sign of turning.

"Master Ren are you sure about this?" Scarlet asked with a concern of not only to herself but to her master wandering what he was planning.

"Yes your doing perfect, just keep running until we are right near the wall." he encourages her as he charges up his blade for an attack.

The two were getting closer and closer to the dead end as the monster began to run faster thinking it was about ready to catch its hard to get prey as it opens its mouth ready for the big chomp.

But once the two were right by the wall Ren finally shouts, "Scarlet quick! Cling on to the side of the wall with your feet!"

Scarlet did just that and jumps right on the side of the mountain wall with her feet and stood there as the dragon Trex finally lunges itself at the two.

Ren finally shouted, "NOW JUMP OUT OF THE WAY!"

Scarlet just in time jumps up out of the way and the dino dragon smashes itself into the mountainside missing its target.

"METEOR BLADE!" Ren shouts and blasts a magic attack up at the mountain and

Boom!

The attack caused a big explosion.

Tons of giant boulders began to fall and with the Trex dragon still dazed it was quickly getting buried by the avalanche.

The entire bottom wall area got completely covered up with rocks and dust as Ren and Scarlet got away safely from the deliberate act of nature.

Scarlet finally stopped and after Ren jumps off she turns back into her human form wanting to rest and sit down.

After the dust settled, the two look around the area, and where the dragon smashed itself in. It was covered completely inside a giant pile of boulders. Ren sighs in relief, now the monster was dead and no longer going on a rampage. Despite the odds, he showed himself he was not a coward and saved the village from the monster.

He then turns his head toward his bird companion and sat down with her as he pets her hair, "You did well out there. I'm very proud of you." he compliments her.

Scarlet smiles back toward him, "Thank you master Ren, you were extra better out there too."

All Ren could do is just smile, he intends to rest for a little bit and get back on track to their journey to the Queen.

But the celebration was cut short once Ren noticed some of the rocks in the pile moving.

"You got to be shitting me!?" Ren shouts out loud in fear as the shaking got louder and more noticeable.

Both he and Scarlet got themselves up and watched on as the boulders were being pushed off.

To their horror the Dinosaur Dragon was still alive as it blasts itself out of the boulder pile with its fire breath and strength. It stood up high again with its health not any smaller than before.

The two look on in horror as they stood there clueless, 'What the hell are we going to do now!?' he shouts in his head as he grips his sword. He was ready to fight to the death and was also ready to yell at Scarlet to run and save herself if things got really bad as the girl turns herself back into her bird form ready to protect him in any way she could.

But before anything could happen out of nowhere a large group of regular wild Filolial ran right out from the forest and had surrounded the area of the heroes and the dragon Trex.

Ren was completely baffled by this, "Uhh? Scarlet are you doing this?" he quickly asked her.

Scarlet just shakes her head no, just as confused by this, not sure why her own kind was doing something like this.

Even the dinosaur dragon remained still watching the weird display of the giant flightless birds.

Things continued to look awkward for a few seconds until everyone heard, "That's about enough."

Both Ren and Scarlet were confused as to who said that, as they look around.

But then a bright light appears in the sky, it looked as if a star from the sky was descending, but as it got closer the bright blob was shaping itself until the light disappears and something Ren would never expect had revealed itself.

It was a gigantic Filoila about the same size as the dragon. It was white feathered and had light pink eyes looking toward the hungry dragon Trex.

Ren was still completely confused by all of this, "Scarlet do you know what this is?" he asked hoping this was just some weird Filolial thing. Not sure if he should feel safe or scared more with two giant monsters here now.

"Nope not a clue." she answers bluntly as she changes back into her human form.

The giant Filolial then looks down at the two, "Stand back please." she speaks to them with an echo in her voice.

This surprised Ren to know that this one talks too. He still had a million questions but he wasn't going to argue with it as of now and watched on as she stared at the other giant monster.

With a stern look she says to it, "The dragon emperors fragment has made your body grow out of control. Please hand it over peacefully to me and leave these two be and I'll spare your life."

Despite the hand of peace to it, the Dragon dinosaur wasn't going to give up to a giant Filolial and starts to charge at her and intends to eat her.

The Giant Filolial just sighs as she readies her bird feet to attack, "Very well, you have been warned."

As the monster closes in at the giant bird, with a blink of an eye the massive bird kicks the equally massive thing away, and with another quick attack with her giant clawed feet, she slices right through the monster's throat. A massive amount of blood was lost from the attack and it struggled to stand up. But eventually the loss of blood was too much for it and the massive Tyrannosaurus rex dragon had collapsed on the ground and died.

Ren and Scarlet's jaws nearly dropped after that. The monster they were struggling with all night was one shoted by this huge bird thing that came out of nowhere.

Ren was unsure if he should be relieved or scared out of his mind as he looks on at the massive Queen Filolial.

The massive bird looks down at the two with a welcoming smile on her face with her beak, "I take it you are the sword hero?" she asked.

Ren remained silent for a few more seconds until he finally answered, "Uh yes, but who are you?"

"Pardon me, I wish to discuss more but this form is not suitable, one moment please." She responds, the giant Filolial then starts to glow a bright light around itself. The shape of her body then transformed as she shrinks down to just above Scarlet's height. The glow then disappeared after her transformation was completed. She now had the appearance of a 13-year-old human girl with short silver hair, big pink eyes, an elegant pink dress with a big bow at the center, and like Scarlet she had feathered wings coming out of her back. But unlike Scarlet's black feathers, hers were pure white.

Once the transformation finished the powerful shapeshifting bird girl finally says, "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Fitoria, Queen of all the Filolials in the world. Nice to meet you."

Ren was just standing there in slight awe at the majestic Queen not sure what to make of this random development, "Uh.. Nice to meet you too. Thank you for saving us back there your majesty I guess." he responds not 100% sure if he can trust a mysterious stranger that popped out of nowhere and saved them from the monster in just 2 kicks.

"Yes thanks miss Fitoria, you showed that stupid dragon who's boss." Scarlet thanked acting more friendly and trusting to her species Queen.

Fitoria nods and asks, "So can you two tell me your names back?"

Ren was still trying to comprehend most of this but he still answered her, "The names Ren Amaki, the cardinal sword hero."

"My name is Scarlet, the greatest and most loyal companion of master Ren." Scarlet responds for herself with Fitoria nodding to the both of them.

The whole situation still seemed awkward to Ren and wants to end it, "Ok can you please tell me why you are here and saved us from that thing?" Ren asked.

"Answering those questions will take time and this isn't the best place to chat, so why don't we go somewhere more comfortable to discuss at," Fitoria responds as she showed off a magical carriage that appears right by a group of wild filolials.

Scarlet was easily impressed by it, "Oooo pretty, and looks like fun. Let's go."

"Hold on a second Scarlet." Ren ordered and grabbed her shoulder as he remained where he was at, "How can we even trust you?"

"I just saved both of your lives, can't you give me the benefit of a doubt to trust me?"

"Sure but even then, look we are kind of on a serious quest right now to meet with someone important. She is still far away and we can't waste too much time." Ren responds remembering his original mission after all the sidetracking from tonight.

"Yes, I'm aware, you're trying to reach toward Princess Melty's mother."

The name drop surprised Ren, "Wait you know about the princess?" he quickly asked Fitoria.

"Yes we had our encounters before. But you don't need to worry about your mission. My magic allows me to travel almost everywhere in the world and quickly. If you are willing to come with me to talk, afterward I can teleport you to Melty's mom when we are done." she negotiates.

Ren thought about it for a minute. This whole event was still absurd even for a fantasy video game world, but if she is telling the truth, he can make it to the Queen of Melromarc faster than on foot, be safer as well as he can just avoid Itsuki and Motoyasu hunting him down altogether, and Scarlet won't have to be constantly bored.

After a minute of silence and thinking Ren finally made up his mind, "Alright if you are telling the truth I'll go with you. But only if you are just as willing to answer my questions when we get to wherever you want us to go to." Ren agreed with Scarlet nodding with him.

Fitoria nods in agreement and walks toward the carriage, "Ok let's go then."

"Wait one second," Ren requests back as he walks up toward the dragon Trex corpse wanting to get whatever materials on it for his sword.

Fitoria was quick to respond, "I'd prefer you not use dragon material Sword hero, it could potentially be dangerous of what it could unlock in your weapon."

"Why what's wrong with dragon material? I'm already sort of associated with a dragon, and a fellow cardinal hero of mine has a pet dragon himself." Ren responds referring to Gaelion and Kirishima respectively.

Fitoria then let out an out of character sigh, "Yes I am aware, you have been with that old fool Gaelion and made a mutual agreement with him, and I'm also aware of the shield hero's young companion, unfortunately. Very well, just get it over with."

Ren could tell Fitoria was doing her best to look professional and elegant, but it seems that even she can't look past her species rivalry with Dragons with annoyance in her tone.

It lightened the mood for him and Scarlet as Ren activates his sword ability to automatically absorb parts and material of a monster into his inventory and unlocking a few new swords.

After that Fitoria spoke up again, "Now if you are finished, please get in along with miss Scarlet, and we will be able to talk and exchange answers from there." she finally says as she walks inside the carriage.

Scarlet looks up at Ren again, "So are we really going with Fitoria master Ren?" she asked.

"Might as well, I don't think it is a good idea to say no to the girl that killed a super boss in 10 seconds. So let's just go." Ren finally says to his filolial as the two walk toward and got inside the magic carriage.

The doors of the carriage shut themselves and with a flash of light the carriage disappears to wherever the Filolial Queen wants to go.

This night will definitely be something Ren will never forget about.

---

Authors note:

So yeah a lot has happened in this chapter.

I was actually on the fence about adding in Daven or not. I wasn't sure if I should add in another sidekick to Bakugou's newfound agency this soon, but I figure the last thing Bakugou could use in his RPG team was a rogue character who fights like in a combination of X-men nightcrawler and Mileena from Mortal Kombat, and to add a new voice in the team dynamic. I know we don't know much of him as of now, but I intend to add more about his character and backstory in the next chapter. If he doesn't work out though I could just make him a Siltvelt only character and not have him be a permanent member, but I guess I'll see as the story goes on. He'll probably be the last sidekick I add in for a while in the first part of Shield heroes story, I don't want a Hobbit book situation where there are over a dozen members in a group but only three of them mattered and the rest are just background decoration.

I was also on the fence about the Pope scene, I wasn't sure if it was necessary to be there, but without it I think everyone would be confused by the churches/Popes motivations for why they did the attack on the pro-war nobles in the first place without everyone waiting a long time and thinking it be out of character for the Pope without giving an explanation to why he did it.

On other topics, I was originally going to have Rabier to be vaporized with the rest of the pro-Aultcray nobles, but I felt that the bastard deserved a more karmic death and added him along with the knight unit. I was still going to have that scene any way of the knight unit attacking Mirso, but I just added Rabier with it.

And I admit I might be somewhat railroading the story with the dinosaur dragon and Fitoria thing, but I figure it be more exciting than Fitoria just appearing in front of Ren to explain everything and not have the Trex dragon fight be exactly the same.

I also know some people might be disappointed that Bakugou wasn't the one to meet Fitoria, but I really couldn't see a reason to justify her going to Bakugou then Ren. In canon she went to Naofumi mostly because of Filo and her interest in making her Fitoria's next heir and Ren is the one with the filolial in this story. And with Kirishima around, Bakugou would be the last hero Fitoria would want to be around. Now it's not to say she and Bakugou won't ever meet with each other in person, but it will probably not be in the first part of Shield hero's story. So sorry to disappoint some people, but that is what I'm doing.

So again thank you for reading my story and hope to see you again soon.