[00:00:00]

The gem on Toriel's shield began to glow and grew in intensity, blinding the three of them. In the next moment thay were somewhere else. Toriel looked up and she saw twisted cracks in the sky, filling it with unnatural colors. They were seeing in real time, the land being overrun by all manner of fiends. Zombies in various armors and several large insects poured over the land. This was all more than Toriel expected, she was in a state of shock.

"Onward to the boss!" Motoyasu shouted as he and his team charged forward, turning his head back and giving a wink to the Rifana, Raphtalia and one of Ren's party members

"A head-start wont help either of you" Ren ran after. He was by far the fastest and was quickly passing Motoyasu, but his party was left in the dust. They did their best to keep pace at the rear.

"You guys are not showing me up! good luck for you Toriel" Itsuki said as he looked back at her before soon following the other two heroes

"Good luck to all of you!" Toriel yelled out to the others who were quickly distancing themselves from the goat lady and her party.

"Let's go! we can't let them be the only ones fighting" Rifana said as she took her axe out of her back, ready to start cutting the heads of whatever was the monsters in this wave

"Yes I suppose we should... this forest looks familiar or I am imagining it?" Toriel said as she was quite sure that they had been here before, there was a weird tree formation that she was sure that they saw before

"Lady Toriel! Look!" Raphtalia shouted as she pointed to a small village in the horizon.

"Is that Lute village?" Rifana asked as she squinted her eyes to try and get a better view, sure enough it was the mine by the south that prove it that it was the village the trio had visited

Toriel's mind begins to race as with a village being this close it meant that it could be attacked, she thinks of calling the other heroes but they were already too fair away, she then considered the fact that they might have evacuated. Likely to the mine she cleared out for them. It made sense for her and yet Toriel was on the fence, but then a flare shot up. While not well versed in this worlds procedures, she knew very well what that meant. Toriel changed her plan immediately. She was grateful for having had the foresight to make extra potions for this wave.

"I will have to hope the boys can handle the boss. We have to help the village first. after an evacuation of the non-combatants, we'll regroup with them." Toriel said as she turned to talk with the two before the trio began to run in the direction of the village

Rifana was pumped up with adrenaline, she would be fighting by the side of the legendary shield hero against a wave like she dreamed off, it didn't matter that it wasn't going to be romantic or anything like she imagined back in Lurolona, she was going to be helping the legendary hero she always heard tales about and that alone was enough to make her feel happy

Raphtalia was pleased by this. She'd get a chance to save those who were in a position similar to her own just 2 or so months back. This is what she had seen from Toriel over their time together. A truly good person who will help anyone in need no matter what, not minding what they think of her in any way.


A cornered man raised his rake in desperation before a zombie with a sword in one hand and an axe in the other. The zombie cut right through the tool with the axe and took a step in to follow through with his sword.

"[Air Strike Shield]!" A voice called out as a shield-shaped force field manifested just before the kill could be made. The forming of the wall pushed the weapon out of that space, resulting in disarming its sword. Before the monster could do much else a large fire ball came down to it's head and exploded with three more coming before the head of the creature was destroyed, Toriel came down from the roof and landed in front of the man. Two more zombies ran at Toriel in response to his appearance.

"Depending on the positioning of this [Air Strike Shield] it can force movement of sorts to free up the space it will occupy? Good to know, I'll keep that in mind" Toriel said as she prepared to strike back at this undead, their glowing red eyes gave her the feeling that they didn't have a soul or conscious

The zombies raised their arms to strike, but were cut in half in the next moment. Toriel put a a confident smile as she saw raphtalia handle the two monster's with relative easy, she never had to pay those enemies any attention, as she knew the young warrior could handle it, but she did cast a small ring of fireballs to protect her, same with Rifana.

"Sir, get to the mine! Tell everyone else the same!" The man simply nodded before he fled in the direction of the mine, obviously too scared to do much else.

Next as they properly entered the town, Toriel saw a screaming mother running with her two kids in the wrong direction. 3 bees the size of his arm came at them, but-

"[Shield Prison]!" She screamed out as the ball cage formed around the 3 villagers, as Toriel ran directly into the bees. covering her fist on fire as she punched one of the bee's and they tried to sting her, but dealt no damage. Toriel was somewhat over took by rage but it was because she couldn't stand seeing a poor mother and her two kids being attacked, it triggered her a bit but she recompose herself after killing the last one

"Lost a bit of my temper there, but this should have done it." Toriel saw another insect "is that a... Grasshopper? No. Locusts maybe?" she pondered for a moment, but it didn't matter as she shot it with more fire

Toriel spoke to the 3 in her [Shield Prison] "Listen! Once the ball fades away, head towards the mine!" She saw there were too many bugs gathering around when suddenly...

Slash

Rifana cut through one of the bugs, eyes seemingly red of bloodlust as she began to fight each of them without speaking a single word, she was seemly lost in the heat of battle, killing locusts and bees like they were nothing more than wood planks for her to cut through. Toriel was impressed and somewhat concerned by how unhinged the small Rifana was killing them, but she shouldn't care about this right now as there were bigger concerns at hand.

The frightened family of three were freed from [Shield Prison] just in time to see the last bug by cut in half by Rifana. It looked impressive and served to give them hope even if it was gruesome. The mother thanked Toriel before they ran as instructed, but then Toriel felt... Danger!

Toriel felt the [two headed dog shield] ability warn her, telling her it was something behind her coming to attack. She barely moved out of the way as an axe came crashing down next to her. she motion her hand and various small fireballs circle around the hand and axe of the zombie, locking him in place.

"You're gonna pay for that!" Rifana shouted as the huge zombie struggled to lift his axe, the weasel girl swooped in and took off the zombie's head in one clean motion. Toriel saw she was going to be overrun soon, which would cause Rifana to to dive into the enemies too deeply, She knew that without Raphtalia the weasel had very little chances of beating all of them "I have to avoid that"

She used [Air Strike Shield] as a step to get atop a roof and see the larger situation. It was pretty bad. A few building were on fire. Some guards and adventurers were here putting up a decent fight. Her best bet was to prioritize saving the guards and adventurers first. Doing so she could rally them and begin to cut a path through the streets... But it wasn't the best option, nothing assured they would listen to her and considering the high stress situation, it was best to follow the original plan even if it was harder.

"Raphtalia! You're far faster on your own. Clear a path to the mine, I'll return you here once it has been made safe. Rifana will cover for me while I go find more citizens to help, now go!" Toriel said as she continued to use small fireballs to get the attention of the monsters away from any person or house they might be hiding

Raphtalia hated the idea of leaving Toriel alone, especially because she was afraid of Toriel getting overwhelmed amongst the wave creatures, but she was right. She turned towards the mine and ran, killing anything that came within striking distance.

"I'm ready to save this village Mom!" Rifana said as she continues to slice through the bugs and undead, not caring about how she was painting the area around her in blood

"Yes. Let's do our very best" Toriel said with a confident look, she tried her best not to show it, but she was a little scared about this. But she just had to stay moving, helping who she could along the way.


"Haha bring it on!" Motoyasu said as he exploded the head of a giant zombie with one of his skills

"Keep up the good work Motoyasu-sama!" Malty cheered the spear hero as she and the other girls of his party stood back behind everyone

"You know you could help us out right?" Itsuki commented as he shoots a arrow through a group of zombies, being a archer he was usually supposed to stay in the back but he was in basically placed in the middle/front in this wave

"Motoyasu-sama doesn't like when we fight so we just stand back and support him" one of motoyasu's party members responded in a bored tone as if she didn't care that a wave was happening around them

"I see..." Itsuki replies with a disappointed expression despite already expecting that response, he launch's a a strong AOE attack before beginning to walk towards the center of the action 'that guy is just... ugh forget it'

"This monsters are a joke" Ren said as he watched a group of zombies and bees he was fighting fall to the ground after being cut in half

"Yeah! maybe we are on easy mode" Motoyasu said as he was killing things left and right but always making sure to not be hit by any of the gore and blood that came from it

"Keep thinking like that and you see, this is just the beginning of the wave" Ren said as although he also was finding this ridiculously easy he wasn't going to let his guard down until the end of the wave

"Really man... the only thing we would have to worry about is the boss" Motoyasu said as he looked around a bit trying to see if the boss was anywhere near them

"Speaking of where is he by the way? shouldn't he have already spawned as soon as the wave started?" Itsuki asked having entered the conversation just now, he found it weird how they hadn't come across the boss by now.

"Maybe we haven't killed enough minions for him to appear" Motoyasu rationalize, once again applying the logic of his game to the situation.

"Maybe but... what if we have to find him manually, track him down" Ren said as he thought about that possibility and immediately hated it, that was just going to make the wave drag on

"You're over thinking it" Itsuki said as the second wave wouldn't have any of those types of things, but he would keep in mind to improve his tracking skills afterwards if it does come a time where they have to do that

"I know is just we can't expect him to just drop out of now-"

THUD

something big fell a few feet close to the heroes, with the dust cloud it made briefly masking its appearance before the beast dispensed the dust cloud with a roar

"Rooooaaaarrr!!!" a quimera with a lion, goat, dragon and snake head all scream in union as they land. Making it's presence known to the three heroes and their partys, the three heroes received a brief notification from their status magic

[Horror of Nature: The Quimera Beast]

{HP remaining: 13,000}

"You were saying?" Motoyasu says smugly before getting in a battle position, the three heroes stare down the monster before they rush at it, ready to slash each ot it's heads


Toriel was so thankful to have Rifana by her side, without her she would have been completely out of breath from fighting the wave minions, but thanks to the seemly unending battle drive of the weasel girl. she was able to get a good-

"[Danger! Enemy close!]"

Toriel was alerted once again by the [Alertness] ability and was able to turn around to see the enemy, but the fatigue left her a moment too slow. As she turned to put up her shield, she was caught at the stomach by the axe of yet another giant zombie. It barely cut her at all thanks to the great armor made by Erhard, but the force of the attack was tremendous. It launched her into a wall and now she was struggling to catch her breath.

"Mom!" Rifana shouted as she saw Toriel being send to the wall, she didn't even paid mind at the giant zombie that approached her.

"I'm going to slaughter all of you" Rifana said in a sinister tone as she looked at the zombies. Even with dozens of them gathering, she wasn't worried one bit. No, a pure rush of unrelenting bloodlust was on the weasel's eyes as she raised her axe in a attack position. the zombies begin rush her, but she keep her pose without flinching, closing her eyes before...in a blink she had dashed through them, the glow in the zombies eyes disappeared as the top half of their bodies began to slide and fall down

"Ugh..." Toriel said as she began to lift herself, still one of the larger zombies rush at her, but before she could even shot a fire ball, Raphtalia appeared. She tore into the large zombie too fast for it to lift it's weapon. It was down in the next moment. Toriel and Raphtalia regrouped, they watched the gathering monsters before they were slaughtered by a still enraged Rifana. "Likely me crashing into that wall was what brought them... Come to think of it, the villagers being pursued were screaming very loudly. If I had a way to produce a large noise..."

"Raphtalia they seem to simply travel toward the largest noise. They focus villagers that scream and yell, they ignore me when Rifana yelled, an earlier noise brought that huge crowd of them to me. Hammer into my shield!" She switched to her [Light Metal Shield] hoping for it's design and material to make a loud noise similar to a metal drum

Without hesitation she struck the shield several times with the broad side of her sword. The [Light Metal Shield] rung out greatly. As planned the monsters that weren't fighting Rifana began gathering to them and Raphtalia stopped as the two prepared for combat. As they went to move in though.

"[Danger! Strong attack incoming!]"

Toriel was warned and looked for the source, she saw a gigantic fire ball coming down their way. It was terrifying but she knew what to do in this situation, she lifted her hands up in the direction of the ball and tried to control it, she was struggling but was able to slow it before it could fall down on their head.

"Rifana! Get... here... quickly!" Toriel orders as she has trouble holding the blast as both her stamina and magic reserves were being drained very fast just by attempting to stop the thing, the weasel girl upon hearing this rushes to her side with the monster's begging to follow her.

"Gaah!" Toriel screamed out as she disperses the gigantic fire ball into multiple smaller ones, minimizing the damage to area. She grabbed both Raphtalia and Rifana, throwing her cloak around both and placing her shield above the three of them. Fire rained down around them striking every foe, but also destroying a couple of houses. After about 20 seconds of hellfire, it stopped abruptly. Toriel was out of breath and physically exhausted beyond belief as she felt that she could fell at any minute but she looked up at the source of this destruction. What she saw was as confusing as it was angrying.

It was the knights from the capital. They'd just arrived and they first thing they did was try to destroy several houses and could have hurt or killed them and any remaining civilians.

"Haha, they all burned simple enough. But what was that weird delay?" the knight in front of the group, mostly likely the captain asked as he didn't understand why their spell would go from [fiery doom] to its inferior version [rain of fire] for no apparent reason

"Wait is that? Yes, the shield hero. Your durability lives up to that title if nothing else" the captain said as he saw the goat lady coming up the hill, with Raphtalia helping her walk due to the exhaustion she got from dispersing the fire attack of the knights.

Raphtalia was angry at the captain and his knights, normally her anger was nothing more than a simple frown but this time it showed. But it was nothing compared to Rifana, before anyone knew what was happening, the weasel girl shot off from the side of Toriel and made a straight shot to the Knight captain talking aiming for his throat, a man of below average build with a small mustache. Her axe was intercepted by his direct subordinate, a man with a large scar across his face. The man crossing his sword with her axe and yet he was somewhat struggling to keep her at bay, which seemed to surprise him. The captain himself looked to be scared

"Did you know Toriel, the shield hero was there?! Did you do it deliberately?! I'll have your head!" Her face in fury and her eyes seemingly glowing out of bloodlust which made for a threatening sight. the knight captain was scared but tried to act tough

"I couldn't be sure why, but the monsters gathered very heavily in this one location seemed like a great chance to curl the enemy numbers. Either way, she came out well enough for a beast. So, what's the problem?" The Captain spoke somewhat smugly, Toriel just looked at the man expressionless, as Raphtalia helped her stand. Toriel was honestly baffled at how bad the captain was in hiding the fact he most likely did that on purpose, but after letting out a heavy sigh, she approached Rifana and touched her shoulder to calm her down

"Stop Rifana. It's as he says. The creatures were defeated and we are well enough. Please drop it. We need to focus on protecting what is left of this village, maybe find of few holdouts that refused to evacuate" She said, it was best to let it go since the knights are supposed to be on their side but considering everything she learned about them thanks to rapthalia and what they showed just now, they didn't deserve this treatment.

Rifana didn't want to, but Raphtalia nodded so she relented and disengaged. The scarred man seemed not to take it personally and no conflict between the two groups was going to escalate further.

"Hmm. Much wiser than your appearance would lead you to believe. Indeed, as long as you stay out of our way, we won't make any mistakes..." the captain responded, he was definitely trying his best to make her angry by not only putting a threat but also insulting her appearance, Rifana wanted to cut his throat off badly, but she restrained herself for Toriel's sake. but she noticed something moving behind the group of knights

"Fine...After all, the three of us can stay out of your way and watch as your forces eat shit. It'd bet it would be a good view from here" The weasel girl said in a sarcastic tone with Raphtalia being annoyed at the attitude while Toriel was confused by what she meant before she looked at what was behind the knight squad

"Watch out!" She screamed out while extending a hand which the knights didn't quite catch what she meant until three shadows engulfed them. They turned to see more monsters, 3 of which were those larger zombies. Before anyone could respond the first axe came down. The unlucky soldier was thrown back and sunk into the dirt. It had to of hurt, but since they were wearing full plate armor and hopefully not cheap full plate at that, he'd live.

"Don't panic!" The captain said in a panic, "Form up, shields out, mages in back". No sooner did the words leave him did he see the second axe come down, this time on him.

Cling

Toriel ran in front of the man and knocked the giant zombie back. "We'll buy you time, so use it wisely".

As the giant zombie fell back, Raphtalia ran up his front. She slices his head off, then jumped toward the next one. While she did that, Rifana dodged another one's attack and ran up it's arm before he could lift it up, unable to raise it in time, the weasel girl's axe laid into his skull.

The third had already swung at Raphtalia, not caring about taking out the other giant zombie with her. The raccoon girl is able to dodge it mid air with a bit of struggle but the attack still hits one of the knights, before anyone else can be hurt the guard with a scar on his cuts the knee of the monster down, giving raphtalia the perfect opportunity to kill it

Toriel used her [army of fire] as Rifana called to scatter the bugs accompaning the zombies and kill them. The knights watched in awe as all 3 of the giant zombies were laid to rest in moments with the bugs burned away by the shear force of the shield hero.

By this time the knights were in formation and ready. "I can draw all the enemies to me with sound from a couple of fire balls I can produce. We'll move down the main street. Doing so will not only clear out more of the monsters, but will serve to let holdouts know they can escape now." Toriel laid out a simple plan that they could do to try and minimize damages

"A animal does not command me!" the captain half turned and gave her an ominous glare, but she looked back at him, her expression was one of annoyance but her eyes showed how mad she was, combined with her armors bonus effect, it left the captain more than a little spooked.

"[Air Strike Shield]" The barrier appeared behind the captain saving him from a zombie preforming a stabbing motion. As soon as that attack was a failure, Raphtalia fell upon him. He scattered under her blade, knocking the remains violently in every direction. The force field saving him twice in a row.

"I will not repeat myself, you can put your pride aside and focus on the good of the others or be selfish and fight against this alone, your choice" Toriel threatened, being feed up with the attitude of the guard, in this high stress situation he was making things more frustrating. Raphtalia nodded in agreement and even the captain's second in command agreed.

"Tsk, understood. Men, march!" The captain caved. He wanted glory, but his life took priority. Just then a piercing noise was heard throughout the town and beyond. Moments later the wave of catastrophe faded from the sky, which felt like a relief but they still had work to do

"Keep your heads, no new threat's does not mean anything. There are plenty of enemies left to deal with!" Toriel told the group, they begin to march towards the village.


"Pretty easy for a boss". Ren commented as he and the others watched the dead body of the wave boss on the floor.

"I know, right? If the wave didn't stop I wouldn't believe it." Motoyasu said with a laugh as he kicked the sudes of the thing.

"It's probably that we're too strong, not that it's too weak". Itsuki added smugly, feeling satisfied and less worried, if this wave was so easy then the ones that will come after would not be much harder

The three were silent a moment as the three heroes could only think of one question.

"So how do we decide the loot?" Ren eyed the other two, with them looking back at him

"What do you mean? One head a piece seems appropriate, right?" Motoyasu saw no problem with that approach since the creature had four distinct heads for them to absorb.

"True, but who gets what?" Itsuki cut to the heart of the matter, since each of the chimera's head were different from one another, the weapon forms they would get from one would not have the same abilities and skills as the others.

"I want the dragons head, I focused it the whole fight". Ren made his claim first, he knew that the dragon head was the best out of the four for what he wanted to do after the wave, there was a dragon slaying quest coming up in a few days if his game knowledge was correct which it was, so the ability to increase his resistance to attack from dragon type monsters by 15% was essential.

"Why do you get to have first pick? I finished the fight. I'm MVP" Motoyasu said in that perfect combination of ignorance and matter-o-factly that was unique his own.

"A guy like you could never be MVP" Ren said as he definitely was the one worthy of the title since he fought the thing without being hit once while causing the most DPS

"What!? I dealt the most damage! I'm clearly the MVP you self absorbed edge lord!" Motoyasu screamed at Ren, not only was he the one that was the target of the boss for the most part, meaning he had to play the role of tank for these two, but he also was the one who was causing the damage to the main body while the two focused on individual heads and he dealt the final blow

They argued for quite some time until Itsuki spoke up,not only feed up with their arguing but also because he noticed something problematic

"Could you guys stop?! don't you see the bigger problem?" Itsuki screamed out to catch their attention, and the other two heroes eyed him back annoyed

"And what would that be?" Motoyasu asked not seeing any problem other than Ren's greediness

"Who gets the goat head, because I don't think we should give it to Toriel, since she is a goat, it would be like one of us receiving a decapitated human head as a reward, totally disturbing" Itsuki said as he pointed at the awkward situation at hand with both Motoyasu and Ren going silent before looking at each other not knowing what to do


With Toriel leading the way, the knights did great work. They swept through the main street of the village first, finding the holdouts that she hoped she was wrong about. After this they made sure to clean up some remaining monsters but as the Captain was no longer in life or death danger, his priority now was to reach the other heroes.

Toriel, Raphtalia and Rifana split up to cover more ground. Toriel searched for survivors and began handing out potions or medicine if it was needed. Raphtalia was sent off to finishing the foes that remained. She was told to prioritize the normal zombies and the bees, Rifana was in charge of hunting down the giant zombies and then the locusts. Toriel of course ran into a few fights, but nothing major as her fire did quick work of the bee's and locusts. Toriel had trouble with the zombies as they kept trying to attack despite being set on fire, but at least the larger ones were all taken care of.

After they swept through the village, treated the villagers and made sure that they were safe. Toriel and Raphtalia were exhausted by this point with only Rifana really having energy to fight at this point. They stopped to catch their breath.

"So, that was a wave? My goodness..." Toriel said as she sit on some of the rumble, this was the most exhausted she felt in years and she definitely felt so much stress and worried during the whole thing that she was sure that she would have popped a vein

'This is what Raphtalia and Rifana had to live through? they had survived one of these and still found the courage to fight.' thought as she looked over to the two girls, while Rifana was kicking one of the dead monsters, Raphtalia was standing still with a expressionless look on her face

"Lady Toriel... we won, right?" Raphtalia seemed lost as she looked around the damaged houses of the village and the dead monstes on the floor.

"Of course we did! the sky is back to normal" Rifana said as she couldn't be feeling better, fighting and winning a wave was such a good sensation, as she felt that she was getting her revenge on the waves for what it caused her

"Yes. We saved as many people as we could... There wouldn't be a Lute village without your help. You were exceptional" She placed a hand on Raphtalia's head. She let a few tears out as she reached around her and hugged her.

"Hey, I want some too!" Rifana spoke as she ran up to Toriel and hugged her, she didn't know what to do, so she began patting her head and she also awkwardly places her hand on Raphtalia's head and began patting as well. They stood there for a bit, partly due to exhaustion, partly due to neither of the girls wanting it to stop. They were interrupted however.

"Um, excuse me shield hero?" It was the woman that Toriel saved along with her two children. Raphtalia pulled away from Toriel while Rifana had to be pushed aside by Toriel herself, the three then faced the woman

"Thank you so very much! We live by your mercy" She bowed deeply before her as she said it with all her sincerity

Toriel was taken aback by this. She didn't expect this sort of compliment but it was only natural for a mother to thank someone that saved her children

"Don't worry about it. I just-"

More people were gathering. The first man she saved, the holdouts they saved, the first woman's children, the village lord who Rifana browbeat into paying more a not so long ago, and many more. They all had the same thankful look on their faces. They all bowed deeply before her. All thanking Toriel for saving them.

Toriel didn't know how to respond at first. She smiled for a moment before saying "it is all fine, I'm sorry for not having stopped the houses from being destroyed. I promise to come by and help however I can" she turned away from the citizens and began to walk towards the direction the other heroes left initially, Raphtalia was inspired by what she said and Rifana was also happy by how the people acknowledged Toriel's help.


"So I get the goat head? Ugh... why did we decided on a game of rock, paper, scissors?" Itsuki complained, he really wanted the lion or dragon, but he was okay with having the goat, the knockback ability it had was decent and it was better for him to have it than Toriel, since it might be a disturbing thing for her since she was a goat

"Too bad, the dragon head is mine." Ren was tired of arguing and took the head he claimed into his sword.

"Well I guess it's fine. The lion's head has a awesome look, the lance form it'll take might have a good skill or ability" Motoyasu reasoned to himself as he was satisfied with it but he still felt that he should have gotten the dragon head

Itsuki just looked at the dead quimera for a moment before then turning to the other two "I guess that leaves the snake head to Toriel"

"I feel bad for giving her the scrapes. It seems inappropriate" Itsuki said as he had this lingering thought on the back of his head that he was brushing over how bad it must be for the goat lady with the discrimination issue she must be facing

"Yeah, she is already so far behind us. We kinda have to leave her some, otherwise she'll stay weak. But in the end one of us would end up with the worst part regardless" Ren commented, it was only nature for the shield to be the one left behind, he wondered how was Toriel able to keep going while being such a pathetic class

"Totally... you know, you could have taken one for the team and let the dragon head for her while absorbing the snake head mister 'I'm so far above you guys' and all that" Motoyasu said as he stared smugly at Ren with a obvious smidge of aggression towards him

"Please don't get me started on how you could have done the same thing mister horny lap dog, if you're teammates were actually helping this would have ended sooner" Ren responded as he stared back at him, both annoyed at the others attitude

"For god's sake can you to not try to fight each other for one moment?" Itsuki said as he really disliked working with these two, it seemed like they began to fight over everything every few seconds

"Ah great heroes!" The knight captain called out to the group as he reached their location.

"You did a marvelous job defeating the wave boss. You should make preparations. The king has ordered a banquet to honor you" the knight captain said as he styled his mustache

"Shouldn't we wait for Toriel?" Itsuki asked, he was really wanting to take a bath, but they should at least inform her where the boss was so she could collect her part of it

"Don't worry, I'm sure she is already there waiting for the party to start" Motoyasu said as he couldn't wait to get some rest, he hoped that Toriel or her party members would go with dresses for the celebration, reveling dresses at that

"Yes the shield hero has been notified, she decided to stay behind and look for more threats, I'll send some knights to give her a ride or whatever" the knight captain said in a very dismissive way, the heroes and their whole groups cheered as they slowly made their way to the capital.


Toriel fed remnants from the wave monsters to her shield that Raphtalia and Rifana had cut off to her

[Interdimensional Bee Shield LV 1 unlocked]

[equip bonus 1 agi 1 poison resistance]

[Ability Poison Needle Shield: (requires 'Change Shield') (requires 'Shield Prison') Poison captured targets from all sides.]

[Interdimensional Locust Shield LV 1 unlocked]

[equip bonus 1 def]

[Ability Swarm Stomach: Consumable goods used by you gain an area of effect of 5 feet plus 2 inches per level you possess. effects only affect desired targets within the area.]

[Interdimensional Zombie Shield Lv 1 unlocked]

[equip bonus 1 def, 3 to rot resistance]

[Interdimensional Zombie Shield LV2 unlocked]

[equip bonus 2 def, 5 to rot resistance]

Toriel and her party only found these 4 wave monsters as she traveled in the direction the heroes first left in. As they went, Raphtalia couldn't help but smile. They had saved a village and many people, they even acknowledged their efforts and thanked Toriel without prejudice. Rifana was happy of how things went and she knew they would be rewarded for their efforts, if not she would make sure the entitled nobles wouldn't dismiss them as she would not allow those lazy and greedy bastards to look down on the shield hero.

"There it is" They entered a clearing that wasn't natural in anyway. It was a man-made clearing adn likely created in the battle between the three heroes against the Wave boss, Toriel saw the large beast, It had 3 easily spotted missing heads, but she knew it was probably many times stronger than the giant zombies they fought. Toriel went around it cautiously, not getting too close. She felt somewhat uncomfortable seeing the state of the creature but at this point she couldn't just expect for something like this to not happen, whether she liked it or not, more gruesome things were waiting in the future waves and she would have to get used to it. Raphtalia stayed back behind Toriel while Rifana casually approached the body with a cheerful attitude.

"There we go" Rifana said as she sliced the snake head right off with her axe, blood spilling all over her as she does "ready for you to absorb Mom" the weasel girl did a thumbs up while doing a little smile, not seeming to care about all the blood over her

"Thanks dear..." Toriel said as she very reluctantly began to absorb parts of the monster

[Chimera Viper Shield LV 1](locked: Higher level required)

[equip Bonus 3 def, 3 mdef, 10 to poison resistance]

[Ability Antidote Compounding Up: Increase the effectiveness of anti-poison medicines you make by 25%.]

[Ability Change Shield: Switches shields instantly, Can be used on top of your shield or on another skill itself.]

[Unique Ability Hook: Grab onto something within 8 meters]

[Unique Ability Snake Venom Fang: After an enemy attacks this shield, poison them with snake bites. The power and affect of the venom is based on your poison resistance and some other resistances.]

[Chimera Meat Shield LV1]

[Ability Cooking ll: Moderately increase the taste and nutritional benefit of food you cook.]

[Chimera bone Shield LV1]

[equip bonus 10 dark resistance 5 slashing resistance]

Toriel finished absorbing the parts of the Chimera as she held in the urge to vomit from collecting its organs. after washing her hands and almost Rifana's entire body from blood using a [soap shield] she unlocked, one of the royal knights came to her and said that the king would be hosting a party in the name of the sucess against the wave and that she had to come to receive her reward afterwards, they were thankfully offered a carriage ride to the castle and they took the offer, after all of this they could use a little break

[Author Notes]

hope you all liked the chapter, leave a comment as it really helps

to Bomb: You're question was a bit hard to understand at first, but I get that you want me to more deviations from the main story and I assure you that not I plan to do that but it has already happened in quite significant. The trial didn't happen, the heroes are more friendly towards the shield, Rifana is alive and the most significant one was Itsuki being a better person (like legit, Itsuki has not a single likeable quality the more you look into it, out of all heroes he is the worst one from the start. he is a hypocrite, self entitled wannabe hero of justice and a total brat to the point I had and will have to do changes for him to be even be called a genuine hero)

Plus the thing with Filo is... understandable but the problem is that she is my favorite character from the story and so I don't want to change her. I think having Rifana in the already brings a new dynamic to the party ( she is sort of psychotic after all she went through) but I'm not against giving her a different character development than the original story, after all she would be getting raised by the ever so loving Toriel instead of the cold and rigid Naofumi