Morning came and Toriel was starting to get used to taking care of both raphtalia and rifana, she had a lot of experience with handling and providing for children and this two were no different, rifana was still recovering from her sickness but it only appeared as a occasional coughing thanks to the many shields that Toriel had unlocked that improved her medicine and healing, raphtalia was more or less completely fine physical speaking but she had these night terrors every so often, rifana would do her best to comfort her while toriel came to help as soon as she heard the screaming, this was a issue that both Toriel, Rifana and even Erhard didn't know how to solve, but that was something for the now surrogate mother and the best friend of the raccoon girl to figure out later

"Breakfast ready!" Toriel called out as she set up the table and the two girls and blacksmith came

"Rifana have you taken your medicine already?" Toriel asked as she knew that she might try to avoid taking it do to the bitterness, raphtalia would almost not take it if toriel hadn't added some fruit juice to make it less bitter to the child

"Yes mom" rifana responded while bitting the omelette with toast in her plate to get some of the left over bitterness from her mouth

"Uh well then" Toriel replied, she was both happy and a bit worried at already being called mother by rifana, as raphtalia still called her mrs, but it was still a bit weird for her in how quickly the weasel girl was at accepting her as a parental figure

"Thanks for letting us stay here for so long mister Erhard, I hope that we aren't being a inconvenience" Toriel says while pouring some orange juice in the cups on the table

"No problem, plus with grub this good, there's no reason to be bothered" Erhard responded, he knew why she had come to him for a safe place for the two girls to stay, as they were not slaves and thus not protected by the law against being taken away, and even then, he didn't mind as this few days he had tasted some of the best meals in his live

"Uh! You're food is the best thing ever!" Raphtalia added on as she ate through her own plate, making sure to chew the food well as to not choke while being distracted by the amazing flavor of the meal as she did a few times before

"Please is nothing really, is just the Shield that provides the increase in the quality of the meals I make, you all should stop with the praises, I'm just a mediocre cook at best" Toriel said as she sat down on her chair and started to eat as well, she was not a fan of those praises as she chalk it up to some of the shields she had unlocked that provided recipes and better skills at cooking meals, she felt wrong to be praised when she was basically cheating

"Even if that's the case, it would take a great talent to cook like you do, the shield is just improving what's already there" rifana said as she continued her meal

After finishing their meals, Toriel cleaned the table and washed the dishes, and after dressing up in her armor and cape, she made her way to exit the place so she could adventure a bit, but before that, she approached the two girls to talk with them before she went out

"Now you two remember, no going out unsupervised, no playing with dangerous weapons, I left some sandwiches for lunch, I promise to come back around dinner time" she said as she looked over the two girls, smiling at seeing how well they had recovered from the state she found them

"Yes Miss Toriel" both respond as Toriel plants a kiss in their forehands and waves goodbye as she opened the door

"Bye" she said as she closed the door behind her, rifana looked out the window at toriel until she was far away enough

"Clear!" She said as she and a slightly uninterested raphtalia approached the blacksmith, who just sighed as a response

"Now let's go to our lesson! Can't wait to cut some stuff!" She excitedly says as both she and raphtalia go into a lower floor of the blacksmith shop, in there was a couple of wooden dummies and some weapon stands, rifana quickly goes and grabs a small axe while raphtalia picks a short sword

"Okay, now before you two do anything, remember that you have to be careful with how you swing your weapon, you have to know how to manage the weight and managing of the weapon in question" Erhard said as he crossed his arms and gave them a serious look at the pair

"Raphtalia, practice your horizontal swings, remember how much your posture can affect the strength of you're attacks" he said as he looked over to raphtalia, most sword fighters have to capitalize on speed and agility during a battle, of course this had exceptions but it was the general role they fill, so before she could attempt the fancy footwork that she tries to reproduce from the memories she had from some knight lady that lived in her village apparently, she would need to learn how to wield a blade first

"Right" raphtalia said as she entered a basic combat posture that Erhard had taught her, she began to swing on her wooden opponent while keeping the sword closed to her while she recuperated for her previous strikes before preparo for another

"And you, don't swing your weapon around without considering you're surroundings, with a weapon like that, is important how to best position yourself as to make all you're attacks count" Erhard explained to Rifana, with heavier weapons like axes and hammer were slow and hard to manage without proper strength, they had devastating power when hitting, but that ain't much useful if you end up hitting you're party members accidentally because you weren't paying attention to your placement in the battle

"Understood" Rifana said as she began her practice, making sure to not over extend her swings while fighting 'professionally' as Erhard said for her not to be so 'flashy' when fighting

Erhard watched as the two girls practiced against the wooden dummies, a brief smile appeared on his face as he began to understand how his old master felt when he was teaching him

"Oops" rifana left out as the wooden dummy she was fighting got cut in half "I put a bit too much *cough* force there" she said as she scratched her head with a smile on her face

"Huff...I gonna get another one" Erhard said as he went to get a spare


Toriel made her way to the guild after leaving Erhard's with the goal of completing more quests as she didn't know when the wave was going to happen but she knew that at her current level she wouldn't be able to fight it off, entering the guild she saw the familiar face of Itsuki and his party members

"Itsuki! How have you been?" Toriel asked as she approached him

"Ah! toriel-sama is good to see you" the boy greeted her while his teammates looked away in disgust

"I was just about to go get a quest on the quest-board, i assume you are here to do the same" Toriel said, now that she knew how to read, it was really easy to pick the more helpful quest, like delivering milk, finding a lost pet or clearing up a garden infested with monsters

"Yes i am, although Ren always gets the best ones so i mostly try to find a good one in the mix of all of this" Itsuki said, he knew that Ren was just picking up all of the good ones, as all the time he would try and pick one of the better ones, Ren would just either swoop in and pick the quest before he could or return after completing one and pick up more, it was frankly annoying

"I'm sure there is plenty of... Oh my..." Toriel stops as she picks a quest from the board

"Something wrong?" Itsuki asked, worried that it was a quest to slay goat monsters or something, which definitely would be disturbing to a goat person

"This one is talking about missing people, it seems over 11 people have disappeared in the last two weeks" she explains showing the paper to Itsuki, who doesn't understand a thing but trust her word as Toriel didn't even seemed capable of lying

"That's horrible, is it a monster or-"

"It doesn't say, they don't know why people are going missing only that it happened around these places" she points at a couple ruff drawings of forest's marked by red circles

"Then it is my job to figure it out!" Itsuki confidant proclaimed, as this was what hero would do

"I agree we should do something about this before it escalates" Toriel said as decides to join in

"We?" A man in bulky armor with a big mustache said, he didn't want toriel to go along with them because of her looks

"Mald..." Itsuki grunted, he knew that this one of his teammates was racist towards demi humans but he hoped he wouldn't just go around saying in front of them, much more Toriel

"Yes I'm going too, i can't just let something like this go by and even if i trust your strength to do this we should assume that it might be more complicated than it seems" she says with a determined look making Itsuki smile at her drive to do what was right, as it should she was a allie of justice like himself

"Very well" Itsuki responds which surprises his teammates and infuriates Mald, after getting the information of the quest with the receptionist the group arrives at the small village where this was all taking place

"Hello travelers" a old man in a brown attire holding a cane greeted them

"I am the Bow hero Itsuki and this is the Shield hero Toriel, we came here because of the missing people problem" Itsuki says with a cool hero tone that he practice daily, the reveal of their titles as heroes seemly surprising and filling the old man with hope

"Ah yes... two weeks ago a group of kids had gone into the forest at the day and had gone missing, we sent a group to go and find them but they have also disappear" the old man explained while sighing

"What do you think caused this?" Toriel asked as in the mission description there was nothing saying what was causing the disappearing person's, she assumed it might have been a monster but then it would have been in the quest paper

"We aren't quite sure, we assumed it was a mole monster that may have made a nest in a nearby forest, but last night... A light was saw in the forest of we assume a campfire, so now we are worried that bandits may have taken them hostages" the man said as looked down in worry

"We will get to the bottom of this don't worry" Itsuki gripped his bow "can you point at the forest that you mentioned" he asked

"Of course, it is the one in the north close to the blacksmith" the man said as used his cane to show the general direction of the area

"Thank you" itsuki thanked the man while going into the direction, the group made their way though the forest and as they got deeper signs of human interaction could be seen like a camp fire and a chopped down tree

"Itsuki! Over here" toriel called him while whispering, hiding behind a bush they could see that a group of men armed with weapons were preparing a wagon of which had a cage in it with the missing people

"Those bastards" he said preparing a arrow to shot at one of the bandits in the head when toriel placed her hand on his shoulder

"I agree that this is a horrible thing but we should try and subdue them first, at least leave killing them as the last option" Toriel said as she gave Itsuki a stern look, she wanted to kill those criminals as well, but she wouldn't allow such a tender soul turn to the dark side on her watch

"You're... You're right" Itsuki agreed, he need to make those criminals face justice first and not just kill them, he was a hero after all, not a anti-hero

"I think you can take about 3 of them out by yourself, your team can focus on the other 5 and since I am the shield hero i should probably give you cover" she laid down a plan for them

"That's a good plan Toriel-sama" Itsuki complemented

"Why thank you" she says before returning to her serious look

"Let's move this things and get ready f-" the bandit's sentence is stopped as a squishy arrow hits him in the eye blinding him

"What the hell!" Another men screamed out before seeing a young boy jump out a bush and shoot more arrows at the group, he goes into attack him but is hit by a fire ball in the chest

"What did you-"

"I just used a little trick, the fireballs won't hurt them much but it will help you get close" Toriel says as she hits one of the bandits with her shield, making the man confused before receiving a elbow hit making him go down to the ground

'how did she do that? Is it her shield form?' Itsuki thought for a brief moment before going back to the fight

With his party and toriel, it was 6 of them versus 20 or so bandits, but he wouldn't let the numbers get to him in the moment, while his party members took care of some of the bandits, he shot his arrows in the most of them, not even using skills as he was focused at shooting the group of men surrounding him while jumping and dodging them, usually he would be trying his hardest to look heroic but this time it was all seemly happening organically and as much he wanted to think about how cool he was being, his mind was just focusing on punishing this men

He was so focused on it, that he didn't notice one of the bandits in the back shoot a arrow in his direction, he would have lost a eye if Toriel didn't block the attack

"Be careful!" She says while blocking another hit from a bandit with a axe

"Thanks..." Itsuki said as he shots two arrows into the archer's shoulder, making him unable to fire more shots

"I don't want to be rude, but we should finish this quickly" Toriel said as she kept making sure none of the bandits reach Itsuki, since a archer is always in a disavantage on close range

"Agreed, allow me to end it then" Itsuki says as he prepared a skill "[Rain arrow]!" Itsuki screams as he points his bow upwards and shots the arrow, that after hitting a certain height, it exploded into a bunch of smaller arrows, that all seemed to target the bandits and nobody else, with the bandits all getting knock out by it

"We did it sir Itsuki! All thanks to your glorious power!" His teammates began praising him, ignoring that Toriel was there

"...thanks guys, now help me tie up this crooks" Itsuki smiled as he found some rope close by

"I found the keys!" Toriel happily exclaimed as she took it out of one of the bandits belt

"Great, open the cages" Itsuki asks and toriel more than willing applied, opening all the cages with the people inside, who all rushed out and began crying and celebrating their saviors, while Itsuki finished tied the bandits, three kids approached him

"Thank you mister! You're the best!"

"Yeah! That thing you did was so cool!"

"You're my hero!"

Itsuki had to hold all of his body from crying over being called a hero by kids he rescued, this felt way better than when his party members or anybody else in the capital calls him that, it was so authentic! So genuine! But he had to keep his cool in front of them

"It was nothing" he lied, this was everything he wished for "now we are gonna escort you all back and then handle this criminals to face Justice!" As he and everyone else cheered

As they returned to the village, they saw the missing villagers run out and call out their families and friends, all comenating in a beautiful scene of a reunion between loved ones, which brought tears to Toriel's eyes

"Here are the bandits, they were kidnapping people to sell them of as slaves" he said as he approached a guard while pulling the bandits, if slavery was allowed in this place it would make some twisted sense to sell people they had kidnapped but that was not a thing he would allow to happen

"What!? But slavery of humans is a grave crime! Thank you sir, we will make sure this men receive the highest of punishments!" The guard responds, Itsuki felt that it was hypocritical that the slavery of demi humans were allowed but human slavery wasn't, why couldn't both be illegal? Racism was really something evil that he would have to end when he was strong enough...

"Of course" Itsuki said as he stared at all the people of the village as he and his party left, all the people happily waving at them, with Itsuki and Toriel waving back

"Thank you toriel..." He said to her, the two more far ahead than the rest of the team, giving them enough space to talk privately

"Huh? Why? I just defended you with my shield, that's what I'm supposed to do" Toriel responded, not sure she deserved to be praised for doing her role and only task during a fight

"Not that, it's just that if it wasn't for you i might have not seen this quest and this people would have been sold off" he explained, this was the first time that he felt like a real hero, something about just saving those people without doing it for glory or reward was so right, and it seemed that they didn't knew he was a legendary hero, which only served to make their praises have a extra impact on him, it was authentic kindness and gratefulness, and that was the best thing he ever experienced up to this point, he couldn't thank Toriel enough for showing what real heroism was like

"It was nothing, even if i hadn't met with you in the guild i would still try and free them all by myself" Toriel explains, which only made Itsuki more admired by her selfless

"Your heroism is to be respected" Itsuki complimented her, as only she and him were going out off their way to help others, unlike Ren and Motoyasu

"Well we have to earn the title of Hero by doing what is right" Toriel cheerfully responded

"Yeah..." Itsuki softly replied while smiling

[Second condition for the bow of justice (blessed) met]

"You can keep the reward" Toriel said as they continued walking

"What? No you helped as well!" Itsuki protested

"Please, you did most of the heavy lifting, I barely helped in the actual fight..." Toriel tried to humbled herself, as she didn't feel like she was of real help during the whole ordeal

"You still need to be rewarded!" Itsuki spoke as he couldn't accept taking the money after already taking most of the credit

"Seeing all those people return home to their families, is all I need for a reward" Toriel gently said, as those images played in her head, filling her with happiness and a slight sadness

"...your too good for this world..." Itsuki whispered

"What was that?" Toriel asked as she had heard him say something

"Ah! Nothing! Just rambling to myself!" Itsuki embarrassedly said

"Okay then" she moves on from their conversation as they continue their way to the capital


"Is this the place?" The sword hero Ren asks one of his party members as they looked upon a cave up in a mountain

"Yes sir Ren" the mage of the group, Welt responded

"Then let's go in and kill that griffin already" he said ready to get this done with as soon as possible

"Ren?" A familiar voice says and as the sword hero turns around he sees motoyasu and his party

"Motoyasu? What are you doing here?" He asked

"I should be asking you that, I came to kill some type of monster there was here" the spear hero responded being just as confused 'was he passing by or something?'

"What!?" Ren shouted in confusion, there was no way motoyasu could have known about this quest, he got it from the quest board before motoyasu could even attempt to do it and if motoyasu had picked the paper before him then he shouldn't have been able to find this quest

"Wait don't tell me you came to do the same thing!" Motoyasu exclaimed if both got the same mission of killing the winged monster then this would make things complicated

"Of course I am! I got the quest to kill the griffin from the guild, did you follow me here!?" Ren asked mad, it was the only way someone like motoyasu could have found this place

"What!? No you dumbass!" the spear hero replied in anger at the implication before recomposing himself and explaining

"A fair maiden from a house nearby here asked me to defeat the winged beast once she saw that I was the spear hero and you know me i can never refuse a request made by a lady" he said with pride on his face, if it was a beautiful lady that needed help he would do anything in his power to do it, Ren rolled his eyes at this

"Well you can go back now, this monster is already mine" the sword wielder said before turning around to go climb the place

"Who told you that? Because I'm not going until I have that thing's head!" Motoyasu said aggressively while grabbing Ren's blue scarf annoying the sword hero

"I was here first!" Ren said now angry at motoyasu, the idiot couldn't just go out and leave him to do his thing, no he just had to put his nose in someone's else business

"Well I'm better for this job!" motoyasu proclaimed as he pointed at his chest, up until now he had killed any monster he had fought with minimum effort and he thought that it would be the same with the griffin

"I doubt that" Ren said while looking away, he didn't know much about motoyasu's method of farming monster's or his battle strategy but from what he heard in the guild, the guy just does flash attacks with his spear while having his party be his personal cheerleaders and from what Itsuki describe, he spends valuable farming time on useless dates, Ren was confident that in a fight between the two he would win

"Huh!? You wanna go you project of a edge-lord!?" Motoyasu was now with his blood boiling at Ren's serious attitude, the guy can't just let him get the really good quests in the guild but now he was also stopping him from completing the one he got, motoyasu thought it was time for him to get a reality check

"Big words from the horny lap dog!" Ren responded with just as much anger, motoyasu was a stupid punk who was only doing this for the women and he couldn't seen to get that he was talking smack to a stronger and more skilled person than he was, maybe he would show where motoyasu was in the food chain compared to him

"Sir heroes please calm down" Farrie tried to calm both down, the party members of both groups didn't want a fight between the two legendary heroes to broke out as it would no doubt be destructive and could end in one of them dying or being incredibly hurt

"Motoyasu sama I'm sure we can come to a understanding" Myne came in and said in her charming way, Ren could almost feel a seductive tone in her voice but he couldn't care less as she was clearly using it to make motoyasu focus on her

"...If you say so Myne" motoyasu lowers his tone and backs off a bit, he still frowned at Ren though

'and the dog goes back to his collar' Ren said in his head while he dropped his combat position

"Maybe we can share it? What if we get the money from the quest and the monster head while you get to kill it and gain its exp?" the red haired girl proposed, she just wanted the money from the quest and didn't mind if the sword hero killed the monster

"I prefer to stay with the whole body" Ren responds, as he got a better sword if he absorbed the whole thing and although getting the individual parts gave more sword forms, the stats difference didn't compensate for it

"Fine but we get the credit from killing it" she said giving a wink, the sword hero was annoyed but motoyasu didn't seem to care, he looked more confident in her idea than before

"Or you guys can buzz off" Ren replied, he got the quest from the guild right and square but just because a woman asked for help motoyasu and his group were thinking they were entitled to it, he didn't liked that at all

"Is either you accept Myne's conditions or I'm going to go there and kill it myself" motoyasu responded angrily in defense of myne, he had a lot of confidence in the red head which Ren thought was stupid as it only showed that the spear hero was unable to think for himself

"Fine... But you better stay here, I won't get any experience if our weapons are close together" the sword hero says while pointing to the ground, due to their weapon restrictions if either of them kill a monster while they are close to each other then none would get the experience from it

"Ok jerk" motoyasu insults Ren while reluctantly agreeing

"Alright idiot" Ren responded back before going to the cave of the monster with his party

"Ugh that guy is so hard to work with, why did we let him just go there?" the frustrated spear hero said as he went to put his back on a tree

"You don't need to worry about that Motoyasu sama, the sword hero needs experience as much as we do" Myne said although having ulterior motives 'I just care about the money reward anyways, all I have to do is wait for the sword hero to do all the work and that 700 silver is mine!'

"I guess he needs to be strong for that wave coming up, but I'm sure that I can carry the whole fight by myself" motoyasu rationalize as he saw himself as the strongest amongst the four, in Emerald online the spear class was the best class against archer's and sword users with the only weakness being the hammer wielder class and the mage class, so out of the four he could win against all of them easy especially toriel, but he knew that it would never get to that as she was a much more of a casual player than anything from what he heard which suites the shield class and her personality

'This must be it's nest' Ren thought while analysing the place

'I will cut it's head clean off, simple and easy' Ren prepared for a clean strike of his sword, lifting over his head to d-

*Crack*

The sound of the small branch breaking is enough to awaken the best who let's out a furious roar as it lifts itself up to attack the group, Ren tries to rush into the creature and cut it's neck but is send away by a back hand swipe from the creatures claws while one of his teammates tries to use a fire ball to hurt the griffin but it is send back at him by a strong wind wave it makes using it's wings

"We should go and fight it off for mister Ren to finish it" Tersia said as he prepared his dagger to fight off the beast

"I would but i don't think my martial arts are gonna work on it from here, I need to get close to it" Farrie responded, although her martial arts prepared her for fighting large monsters, she was useless at long range as she couldn't cast any skill that could hurt the monster from a distance

"I better use a little more force this time" Ren says as he equips his [gold sword] for it's high attack, he was going to cut the creature's wings from the back since it would give him the opportunity to strike it down, but the creature whipped him with it tail, Ren is able to land on his feet and looks at it with just a hint of annoyance, he goes to it and when the griffin tried to hit him with it claws, he blocked with his sword and push it back before making a cut in the hand of the creature

The creature in return open it's beak as lighting and sparks began to form inside it, Ren instinctively jumped back and the griffin fired a ball of thunder upon him, Ren barely dodges it and sees what would be of him as he observed the results of the blast as it completely destroyed a rock, gulping a bit of saliva, he assumes a defensive stance and begins to dodge the continue barrage of lightning attacks of the griffin, noticing how it always starts to pull air in before firing, which helped him come up with a plan

"[Spore Spread]!" Ren actives the skill of his Mush blade and throws a slash shaped projectile at the monster, once it hit it's target, it bursted into a cloud of green and yellow spore's, the griffin was briefly stun but it recuperated and started to charge up a attack but as soon as it tried, it started to cough uncontrollably, disrupting the magical attack

He once again goes to the direction of the creature but instead of jumping, he slides in between it's legs and cuts open it's chest and stomach

He lifts up and stands with his back towards the griffin, who turned around to try and hit him, but felt to the ground as it lost its strength and life

"That was incredible sir Ren!" His party commemorated his win

"..." Ren didn't respond as he started to cut the head of the creature and absorbed it into his sword

[Griffin series unlocked]

[Baby griffin sword]

19 attack 7 wind resistance

[Ability: feather feet: you can move more graciously through the air]

'Baby?!' Ren screamed in his head as he processed the fact he had killed a newborn

"We were luck to fight a young one, adult griffins are usually taller than trees" Tersia says as him and the others approached Ren

"B-but where was it's parent then?" Ren asked still confused for what he had done, there should have been a father taking care of it's infant here, as being part eagle and lion the monster should special take care of it's young right?

"Once a baby griffin hatches the parent leaves them to fend off on their own" Welt explained, once a griffin had laid a egg in one of its territories it would leave the infant to protect the territory while the parent would go to conquer more land from dragons or filolians, or die trying

"..." Ren stood in silence still processing the whole ordeal 'it wasn't my fault... The sword is stronger but now I wish that I had just handed the quest to motoyasu...'

"Aren't you going to absorb the rest of it sir Ren?" Bakta asked, Ren usually absorbed the entire monster once he killed them

"You know what, maybe motoyasu could use it too" Ren said as he wanted to get away from the body as soon as possible

"About time! I could have finished that in a minute" motoyasu say's as he got up from the ground, if he had gone there it would have been over in 10 seconds flat but that only enforced the idea that he was the strongest hero amongst the four

"Just... Shut up, you can keep the rest of the body to prove that you killed the griffin" Ren said as he dropped the body, not wanting to keep it close for one second

"Fine let me just absorb it's wings, I wonder what I will-" the spear hero stopped his speech as he saw the status window show his [baby griffin wing spear] he had unlocked

"Dude you did not just-"

"It doesn't matter! It's Dead! it's Done! we don't have to talk about it!" Ren screamed out embarrassed, his teammates thought it was weird but then thought that Ren was embarrassed from killing a baby monster for the first time

"Ok...sicko" motoyasu whispered as he was glad to not have been the one to kill the poor thing


Back at the capital

"We are almost at the guild motoyasu-sama" myne says as the two groups made their way across castle town

"Great we can show the body and get the reward" motoyasu said, although it was a bit awful of him to do that to the poor animal he couldn't deny that it was more beneficial for him to do it

"We could also sell it at a good price" myne said once again only thinking on her own profit

"Yeah..." motoyasu replied not really liking the idea of just selling a dead baby's body for profit even if it was a monster

"It's that Itsuki?" Ren said as he saw the bow hero walking down the street with various people praising him

"Oh Motoyasu, Ren i didn't expect to see you guys here together" Itsuki greeted the other two legendary heroes, it was unusual to see them together especially Ren as he was the lone wolf type of guy

"I was returning from a quest and was gonna collect the reward, Ren was going to the guild to get a mission" motoyasu lied as he didn't want to talk about the whole encounter with Ren

"You seem more popular than usual today" Ren comments as it wasn't unusual to see people praising them or Itsuki but today it seemed that a lot more people were praising the bow hero

"Well I just saved a couple human people from being sold as slaves, so I guess it makes sense for me to be getting so much praise but I'm surprised the news spread out so fast" Itsuki said as it had not being a day since he did the quest that talk about his feat of heroism had already spread around the capital, he was a bit confused about the rumors not mentioning toriel at all but he assumed it was because she allowed him to take all the credit for it

"Slaves?" Ren asked confused as this was the first time he heard about this sort of thing here 'although that explains the demi humans in rags and metal collars I saw, Brave Star online didn't had that...'

"You serious!?" Motoyasu was flabbergasted at this revelation 'I knew alot of Isekai's used slavery for their harems and stuff but i didn't expect this place to have it too!' motoyasu thought to himself

"Oh my goodness! How could someone do such a awful thing?" Myne falsely said as she not only partook in human slavery but also used it to get rid of any one she considered expendable

"Yeah it's horrible, but thankfully I was there to save them" itsuki said while closing his fist in anger, although he saved those people from that horrible fate he still didn't like how much of a hypocrite the people were about slavery 'why is demi human slavery okay? is there a good reason or... what I'm thinking! there is no good reason to enslave someone'

"You are truly a great hero for doing such thing" Rino, one of motoyasu's party members complimented Itsuki

"Thanks" the bow hero replied, the amount of praise he has been getting was all he wanted back home as it reminded him of his time back at kindergarten were he was the most unique and coolest kid, but here every time he got a authentic the impact was much deeper and good but he now felt that some of the praise was also shallow, as if some of the people weren't really praising for being a true hero instead they were praising him for just being the legendary bow hero

"That's much more heroic than what Ren did, he killed a-"

"I told you that it was done and that we didn't have to talk about it!" Ren interrupted motoyasu stopping him before he could reveal that he had killed a baby even if it was a monster, it still felt that he had committed something horrendous 'I blame Toriel for this, if she wasn't a monster I wouldn't have to question about killing monsters, she is making me fell sorry for them by just existing'

"What's wrong?" Itsuki asked as Ren's reaction was very uncommon from his normal behavior

"It's nothing! I did nothing wrong and I am leaving right now!" Ren said as he then leaves in a rush embarrassed, his party members following soon

"Yeah alright... Myne could you show this to the guild and get the reward for us? I have to catch up with Itsuki on something" motoyasu said while dropping the griffin body out of his inventory space

"Of course motoyasu-sama!" The red head said while clapping her hands, she commanded the other party members to pick up the body and go to the guild while she collected the money already planning on spending all of it for herself

"Why did Ren stormed off like that?" Itsuki asked as it was weird to see Ren drop the cool guy persona like that, he must have done something incredible embarrassing for him to just-

"Oh he killed a baby" motoyasu said like it was nothing at all

"Whaaat!?" Itsuki shouted in confusion and horror, he couldn't believe that Ren would do something so evil like that, he should have the title of hero taken from him and put in jail for such a-

"Yeah the guy killed a baby monster by accident thinking it was a full grown adult" motoyasu clarified as he was hiding a lot more context, he just wanted to see Itsuki's reaction "but hey congrats on saving those people"

itsuki just looked at motoyasu with frustration, as he couldn't accept that motoyasu did that on purpose and considering what he had seen from the spear wielder, he was probably right in assuming that he couldn't. he exhale and says "To be honest I wouldn't even had paid mind to that if not for toriel, if she hadn't read that quest paper I would have never learned about it"

"So toriel helped you?" motoyasu said with a smirk, he knew the goat lady was a good person from the beginning and hearing about this just proved that Ren's stupid 'your trusting her too much' was just as dumb as his face

"Yes... She let me take all the glory and money from that while she was satisfied with just helping, she is truly a good hearted hero" Itsuki had a soft smile on his face while saying, while he was justice, toriel was like the embodiment of kindness in his eyes as the goat lady put the well being of others above her's

"Yeah man she is the best, too bad Ren is such a jerk around her" the spear hero said, he couldn't understand why Ren couldn't trust Toriel but he just assumed Ren was being a complete jerk to her because she was not human or he was just so awkward around woman that he treats them bad on purpose to avoid having conversations with them

"I'm sure that if Ren saw what she does and how friendly she is, he would probably warm up to Toriel" Itsuki said optimistic that the cold and serious Sword hero would fall for Toriel's heart warming kindness

"Whatever man, i just hope I won't have to carry you three during the whole wave boss fight"motoyasu says very confident while placing his Spear on his shoulders and holding it with both hands as he starts to walk off

"Huh keep thinking like that, i will show you the true power of-" Itsuki stop's as he sees that Motoyasu had left, leaving him talking alone without even hearing his response

"...Justice"

[author's notes]

hope you liked this chapter, this is the longest chapter I wrote for the motherly hero and if you could leave a comment it would really help (but don't spam stuff not related to the fanfic)

I'm probably not going to upload a new chapter for a while as I'm going to focus on S stand for shield if I can be honest, but I will try to write both if possible

hope you're liking the other heroes, I'm giving Itsuki a lot more spot light and development then he actually got in the original story as all three heroes were, also Ren's and Motoyasu's part was the hardest one to write and I have no idea why like it took 3 days to finish their section when the toriel and itsuki one just took me one afternoon

things are a moving bit slow but this is mostly a more laid back shield hero fanfic, there is definitely going to have more intense moments as I have written them in this fanfic before but I'm mostly trying to make this fun

the hardest part of writing a history in my opinion is filling in the blanks, like I have already imagined some of what will happen until glass but the parts missing are hard to think of and even worst to write, example is the wave sure i have a general idea of what will happen but is just a bunch of dialogue that is very short and maybe a bit out of character so I end up having to sit down and try to write the chapter but for some reason I hit a road block that makes writing so frustrating and also makes just walking around my room with some music playing more appealing even if it is less productive, sometimes I force myself to write and it works about 50% of the time but still having weekly chapters is hard and having pre prepared chapters is also a bit hard, as soon as I get a chapter done I already want to post it but that can be sometimes a bad idea as posting it very soon in the morning can damage the amount of people that see it (it happened with the cardinal turtles, I woke up 5 in the morning to finish writing it and posted at around 6 AM expecting people to like it and barely anyone commented)

I also realized that the lampião fanfic is dead on the water as it has a very specific audience which meant that anyone outside that group wouldn't even try to read it, I could translate it to English but is best to have a smaller amount of fanfics to write about, this doesn't really have anything to do with the motherly hero but I just wanted to get this out and this also helps my point in how hard it is to write this stuff at times

I'm going to keep working on this fanfic but don't expect much, although I have a lot cool stuff I want to write in this I have to be realistic as to how much time I have and my priorities in terms of writing