farm in the west of Siltvelt
"well, that was a shuffle" superman said as he stared at the remains of his battle against a fleet of balloons and their king, dozens upon dozens of orange, yellow and red rubber scraps laying on the floor below him as he held the crown of the balloon king in his hand
"it's alright, you can come out now, I have dealt with the balloons" superman says as he turns around to look at a small barn and garden behind him, with a demi human fox man coming out from the his tool shed after hearing the shield hero's voice
"praise be your name shield hero! those creatures would have chew me alive if you didn't come and save me!" the fox farmer happily exclaimed as he looked at the shield hero
"it was nothing, but it seems odd that a bunch of these creatures would come attack your farm, have you made something to attract them?" superman asked, so far from what he had seen from the balloon creatures, only the young and small ones would go out to attack people out like this, but for the adult and the king to descend from the skies and go to attack a random farmer, it seemed pretty abnormal
"huh... I recently planted some exotic plant seeds from a merchant, they might have been draw to its smell since they are finally getting ripe enough to harvest" the fox farmer says as he points to the now destroyed plants
"that might be it, be careful when planting those" superman warns as he prepares to fly away
"oh wait! shield hero!" the fox farmer calls out
"yes?" superman says as he looked back to the farmer ready to politely decline if the farmer would offer him to stay for a bit more or if he wanted to introduce him to his daughter, he had been getting that a lot from the people of this country
"If it isn't asking much, could you tell me when the wave is going to happen, I planned on traveling across the country to visit family, but I worry of doing it while a wave may happen" the fox farmer asked since it had becomed a recurring fear for travellers that were not combat prepared to travel across the continent while the threat of the waves happening... plus he could ask the shield hero to take him there and introduce him to his niece, she was a pretty girl and he was sure that the shield hero could give her a try
"I'm not sure I can give you the exact date" Superman responded, he knew there was a way to see when they were going to happen through a dragon hourglass but the king never gave him more information about that.
"Really? can't you see the timer?" the farmer asked, he was somewhat surprised by the shield hero's response
"Timer?" Superman asked surprised, not knowing the hourglass was that technological but he rationalize that it would be displayed through his status window
"You... you don't know about the timer? that means you haven't synchronized with the dragon hourglass!" the fox farmer screamed out as he realized that their savior had yet to go to the capital and synchronize with the hourglass.
"Saint of the Shield! you must go to the church in the capital city of Siltvelt! if you synchronize with the hourglass it will allow you to be teleport to when a Wave hit our country Immediately!" The farmer exclaimed in a determined look, if he did this then no demi human in the country of Siltvelt would have to worry of the Waves looming threat, because their saint of the shield would be there to save all of them.
"Alright, until then stay safe" Clark flies off to the capital
Siltvelt capital - Church of the Holy Shield
"do you know why we had to install so many crystal balls to film the inside of the church? I know it was a order by a political leader, but it seems unnecessary" a cat demi human with orange fur asked his fellow guard
"well, no harm to it? maybe they want to keep check of who does a class upgrade or maybe they think someone is stealing from the offerings..." a lizard man with dark green scales says before noticing something small flying their way
"what the heck is..." he stopped as he and his companion saw the fabled shield hero slowly descend to the ground, standing in front of them with a smile
"hello, I am here to synchronize with the hourglass" superman said as he greeted the two awe-struck guards, some citizens walking by were also awe-struck by his sight for a moment before commemorating his arrival
"right this way... it's in the center of the church..." the cat man said as he pointed to the inside of the church while his lizard companion opened the gate for the hero, superman walked inside, noticing how admittedly beautiful the church was decorated, a few nuns and guards installing crystal balls around the place stopped what they were doing just to look at the shield hero with their jaws dropped
"this must be it" superman said as he looked at the golden hourglass with blue sand pouring from the top and into the bottom
"halt!" a tall and muscular female demi human wearing the mixture between a guard's outfit and a nun outfit with dog ears shouts as superman approached
"who is entering the chamber of the hour-" she stopped her sentence as she saw the man of steel, analyzing the shield in his arm carefully, making sure the outfit matched with the rumors and taking in a bit of his smell which was described as otherworldly and spacey, and sure enough, it all matched up with the amazing rumors
"S-shield saint!" the dog guard stuttered as she realized the identity of the man in front of her, squatting down to be below his eye level as a sign of respect... and submission
"uh hello?" superman said as he noticed the strange way the woman was looking at him and how frantically her tail swinged side to side
"You came! woof! what are your business in this temple... oh what a silly question! woof! you came for the offerings? to give us a holy sermon? use the hourglass? or to satisfy your earthly desires?! woof! woof!" the dog guard said as she had her toungue out and put her hands up to her chest and started to act as a pet dog, a mad blush on her face as she began to woof and growl as a sort of verbal tick from how excited she was
"I'm just going to synchronize to the hourglass..." superman said as he found himself slightly weird out, as this woman who was much more physically bigger than him was acting in such a matter
"yes! of course! woof!" she said as she walked on her legs and hands like a quadrupled, taking him to the hourglass before running out to get something, as she was doing that, superman went to the hourglass and touch it, as the sand inside the hourglass and the gem of his shield began to glow for a bit
[hourglass connection: Siltvelt stablish]
[wave countdown: 72 hours]
"huh? that should allow me to prepare" he said as he prepared to leave but before he could, the dog guard came back holding a plater with various bags on it, all were brown in color except for a single smaller blue bag with a gold nod around
"what is this?" superman asked before using his x-ray vision to see inside the bags, with the exception of the blue bag that contain sand similar to the one in the hourglass, the rest were filled with gold coins
"offerings! from us devoted followers! woof! also sand from the hourglass! woof!" she said as she placed the plate closer to his face
"... thanks" superman said as he picked the bags of money to use on the village, and since he was not sure why he was given the sand, he decided to absorb it as well
[Dragon Hourglass shield LV1]
[Ability Teleport: Allows you to teleport into a location you have visited up to 3 times before recharging]
"please return as often as you like! woof!" the dog guard said as she waved at him, still squatting over like a actual dog
superman flew out, thinking about the whole ordeal, eclair had said to him that the citizens of Siltvelt were very fanatics about him, but he didn't expect to see one of them literally act like a pet animal because of him
"*aff* he is so *aff* beautiful! woof! I hope he will come back eventually woof!" the dog guard said as she was out of breath from how fast her heart was racing
"... Oh! I must notify lord Hamlet! he has to know that our god has visited! woof!" she said as she ran off to send out a message to the dragonic counsel member
Melromarc - Lurolona village
superman lands close to the village and begins to think about how to tackle this Wave, he thought to asked a villager that was there when the wave in Melromarc happened, but decided not to since he couldn't asked someone to try and remember what was sure to be a traumatic event such as this
"ah! Shield hero, how was your travel? did you fight something cool?" Keel said as he came in running to ask about the shield hero's adventures since he always seemed to be doing cool stuff
"ah, well, I fought a balloon king, but I don't think that's as cool as the other monsters I fought" superman said as he thought the whole confrontation pretty tame, considering that the balloons just popped instantly by him just pointing his heat vision in their direction, the entire fight only lasted 12 seconds
"a balloon king... oh wow!" Keel said as stars filled his eyes
"you had a battle against a battalion of balloons in the skies? that must have been exciting! you flying shooting lasers at hundreds of flying monster the size of two men! how big was the king?" Keel asked amazed, balloon kings and their hordes were rare and dangerous threats since they were such huge number of foes to fight and thinking about the man of steel battling this whole army of creatures the size of people and with triple the length was a amazing fight in his head
"... the size of your house" superman said as he took the crown from the monster out of his inventory and gave it to Keel
"really?! man, that was awesome for sure!" Keel said as he had to use his two arms to hold the larger crown that was surprisingly light
"it certainly-" superman stopped once he feels something hit his leg and hold on to it, he looked down to see Rifana hugging his leg with her arms and legs very strongly
"hello~" Rifana said as she looked up at the hero of her dreams
"uh hi Rifana" superman said as he gotten somewhat used to this kind of bizarre behavior from the girl
"heee! he said my name!" she happily screamed as Keel looked at her disappointed
"Can you let go of his leg? guy needs to walk" Keel said annoyed with her
"It's no problem I will just hover" superman says as he begins to fly just a centimeter above the ground
"Oh shield he-" Eclair stopped for a moment as she saw Rifana hugging tightly to the leg of the hero, but at this point she didn't care anymore about the weird shenanigans that the weasel girl seemed to pull for the shield hero's attention
"anyways, I wanted to discuss about reinforcing the village's defenses" Eclair said as she was worried that slavers or the kingdom's knights would discover the existence of the village
"you can use this" Superman drops the many bags out of his inventory
"holy moly ravioli! how much is this... wait this are all gold coins?!" Keel said as he opened the bags to sell their golden glimmer, this only caused eclair, Keel and any passing villagers to stare in awe at the money that the shield hero had brought in, Rifana responded to another of the miracles from her beloved hero by hugging his leg even stronger
"... how did you get this much money?" eclair asked as she was in a lost of words in how in the world did the shield hero found this sort of treasure
"I visited a church in Siltvelt, they gave me this 'offerings' I thought the village could use it" superman said, Eclair did her best to recompose herself
"... you just solved most if not all of our money problems... wait, you visited the church? that means you synchronized with their hourglass right?" Eclair asked as she was sure that he wouldn't have been left out of there if he didn't synchronized with it, although she also thought how they would have tried to make sure he would have stayed by any means, after he is their 'God'
"yes, I am planning on doing the same here" superman said as he it only made sense to do the same here and he did appreciate knowing exactly when the waves would happen
"right... just be wary of them, I know for sure that the church of the three heroes will be reluctant to let you inside" Eclair warned, her experience with members of that cult tell her that they always took extra steps to ensure that their power was not challenged
"well, it's worth a shot" superman said as he grabbed Rifana and gently removed her from his leg before flying off
"aww he left..." Rifana sadly commented as she stared at the shield hero as he disappeared in the horizon
"this guy... we should open a fan club of him!" Keel excitedly says as he raised his arms to the skies, having put the big crown on his own head
"great idea Keel! and I will be the president of the club!" Rifana proudly proclaimed as she thought herself the best person for that position
"but I was the one that-" Keel stop's as he sees the look in Rifana's eyes, he felt that she would kill him if she was not elected the president of the fan club
"Y-you're right, you should be the president!" Keel said as he was afraid of challenging his friend from her scary she was when the topic involved the shield hero
Melromarc capital - random alleyway
after landing in a discreet place, Clark began to walk over to the church, many people in the streets gave him twisted looks but he tried to avoid them, he found the church, he had to admit, compared to the church in Siltvelt, this one was surprisingly small and tame
"halt! why are you here?" a guard in front of the door of the church said, with clear distain and fury in his raspy voice
"I just wanted to synchronize with the hourglass so I can know when the wave will happen and prepare accordingly for the time I have left" superman explained his reason to being there, since he was still a criminal in the eyes of the people in the capital
"...fine, 100 silver to enter" the guard responds as he put a hand out waiting to receive the coins
"for a visit to the church?" superman said as he raised a eyebrow to that statement
"criminals have to pay a fee if they want to enter the holy home of salvation" the guard said prideful, assuming that the shield hero would go away
"... okay" superman says as he takes the silver from his inventory and gives it to the guard before entering the church
"he actually payed you?" the other guard asked as he looked at his fellow companion
"I'm just as surprised, I didn't expect it him to do that, I thought he would go away..." the guard said as he looked back at the shield hero
"Ah shield hero, what do we owe this displeasure? have you come to ask forgiveness from god?" the nun said as she keep a neutral expression on her face as she looked at the hero
"no, I came here for the hourglass" superman explained
"I see, follow me" the nun said as she took him to where the hourglass was located, where once again superman goes and synchronizes with it
[connection to hourglass: Melromarc stablish]
[wave countdown: 8 days, 21 hours, 6 minutes and 45 seconds]
'huh, the one in Siltvelt will happen first?' superman thought over as he began to think over how to approach such a event, from what was described to him, he would probably have to make a bunch of medicine and potions in the case the wave happened close to a village or city
"At least you will fight to redeem yourself, but remember, the only salvation for you is if god gives you mercy...devil..." the nun finished whispering, superman did not care about being called such a thing
"I will think about that" he said as he began to walk the halls to the exit, he noted that she didn't offer the sand of the hourglass, but he assumed they didn't want a 'criminal' to be able to teleport around the country.
'this two radically opposite treatments... I don't know if I prefer any of them over the other' superman thought as he moved out, noticing a heartbeat that was following him, he would generally not care about that if it was a normal one, but this one was slow, too slow pace compared to a normal one, as if someone was trying to avoid being heard, he tried to listen to the source, but he could only hear the heartbeat, which meant someone was making absolutely sure that they were not heard, and possibly seen
superman walked out of the capital through the gates this time, walking into the deepest part of the surrounding forest, he stopped and in less than a blink of a eye, he practically launched himself at a tree trunk like a cannon, as the dust cleared, it revealed a shadow, struggling to escape from the Man of Steel since he was holding them with his hand on their neck
"let's make this more private" superman said as he flew over to above the clouds so he could interrogate the shadow without being bothered by monsters or other people
"now, care to explain why you have been following me since I walked off the church? A reminder that we are currently 100 meters in the air, a fall from this height will either kill you or break all your bones, so unless you want to be safely put back at the ground, you better talk" superman threatened, as he was mostly used to running a interrogation, but he still wasn't as good as his pal Batman
"..." the shadow didn't say a thing as it began to analyze it's situation to try and found a way out, finding only one option...
"... I have failed..." the shadow said before cracking something in it's mouth
"Gough!..." the man let out a grunt of pain as his eyes became white and his skin slowly became purple as the man holded on superman's arms and suffocated before the skin began turning charcoal black and he stopped struggling
"a suicide pill... I should have known..." superman said as he descended back to the ground, placing the shadow's body on the ground before taking off
'I daresay, I almost died from a heart attack' another shadow said as she approached the body of the deceased shadow, casting a spell that made the ground below the body open and then close, burying the body and erasing the existence of the assassin
'he was able to listen to a shadow's heartbeat? thankful my own heartbeat was more silent than the one of the church's shadow... but to be able to hear such a thing... I will have to inform the shadow in lurolona to be more careful...' she mentally remarked as she looked over the cloudy sky
Melromarc capital - throne room
"so? anything?" the king asked as he sits on his throne, massaging his forehead due to stress he had been having recently
"no my majesty... no sights or traces of Eclair Seaetto have been found, the entire city, even the sewers, have been inspected for even a single piece of hair but we found nothing. we have been expanding the search for the neighboring regions but no luck yet" the king's advisor said as he was respectfully kneeling on the ground
"sigh... let's hope she was devoured by monsters... and the Black Tyrant?" the king asked since that was a more important matter than a runaway knight
"no news, the thing has seemly vanished from Melromarc" the advisor said as he saw the king let out a heavy sigh
"that's no good, we have to find it and either kill it or imprisoned it again" the king said as he put a hand to his chin, they had the requirements for a sealing spell ready but they needed to find the creature and lure it to where the ritual would take place and even then it wasn't a guarantee that the Tyrant dragon would be sealed like before, the best they could hope for would be to it become weaker and easier to kill
"it could have gone to another country? it would actually be good for us if it destroys that country of animals or that polluted mess that is Faubley" the advisor tried to look optimistic about the situation, a attempt that caused the king to look at him with infuriated eyes
"may I remind you that my wife and daughter is in that disgusting country, are you wishing for their deaths?!"the king screamed out from the fact that he now had to worry about the lives of his wife and youngest child being killed by a murderous dragon
"N-no your Majesty" the advisor said quivering
"plus... if it's out there, it might be looking for more emperor shards..." the king said as he looked at the horizon from the windows of the room
"excuse me? what are you talking about my knig?" the advisor asked in confusion at the mention of this shards
"it said in the oldest of records, that there are crystal shards of a ancient dragon scattered around the world, that if consumed or even held by any creature in this world, will turn them into dragon emperors, and if they are all brought together, the world will face something as powerful and catastrophic as the waves or guardian beasts" the king said as he walked over to the window and looked down to his kingdom, he was a firm believer that the tales of the dragon god entity of the ancient past was a exaggerated myth, but it didn't mean he wasn't afraid of the possibility of it being truth, nobody knew where to find or use a dragon emperor shard but a dragon emperor itself, and trying to capture and kill one was something only a hero could attempt, the advisor had to take a heavy gulp as he began to sweat in fear
"Ah... the best case scenario is that it died by natural cause and one of the heroes has absorbed it's body, even if it was the shield hero or not..." he said as he placed his hand on his face, he would have to go to visit the church and pray for the damn thing to have a heart attack or something
[author's notes]
It took a while to make this, had a exam and my new computer came in this week so I had very little time to write. Hopefully I can finish either chapter 8 of this fanfic or a new chapter of the motherly hero by the end of this month ( I wish procrastinating by playing Shovel Knight and other indie games don't consume a lot of my time)
I can definitely see some people finding the dog woman acting the way she did being bizarre but it is fairly normal in shield hero for this sort of things to happen, as in female demi humans being super horny over the shield hero (since it's a light novel from japan and all that)
I'm thinking of adding super villains into the fanfic, but I also feel it would complicate things you know? since most shield hero villains don't pose a physical threat in any way, now the only reason I would add this is mostly to expand the world and have a way to make more action scenes that could be more interesting than what I have wrote so far( the black tirano fight is still the best fight scene I wrote) I have some what concrete ideas from them but at the same time I'm afraid of introducing too many ocs in here, the rest of the Siltvelt council was made out of necessarily because we have no idea of what they look or are supposed to act( the exception being Werner) please leave your feedback about this in the comments
speaking of action scenes I have been thinking about it and it would be somewhat easier to write them between characters that aren't as strong as superman, Ren is going to have his own solo Wave and I have a fight planned for... I guess that would be a spoiler so I better not tell. Regardless hope you enjoy this less action packed chapter as the next one will be the wave in Siltvelt which I will have to come up with everything since the canon and wiki is incredibly scarce on details like the waves in other countries
to Perseus12: there isn't going to be a duel between the two, remember the whole fight happened because Myne told Motoyasu that Naofumi had a slave but in this fanfic she couldn't say such thing, heck superman had disappear from the radar on Melromarc, I understand it would be fun for him to humiliate Motoyasu but this is not what I'm going for with this story
to AnimeFan13579: you're comments are always so detailed and inspiring man, I could definitely work some of those in. There are some fanfics I being working, nothing ready to release but once I'm done with them I hope to have done a good job that many could enjoy. From what I have written for the Batman it would start with Batman dying against darksied but your idea is just as good... I don't know if I should redo it but since it is on the freezer for now, I have time to think about it.
to Prustan: considering how slow pace my other fanfics are, I think it balances it out
to zanzara: so... I will not go with that direction as I have already written their interactions and I want to go in a more antagonistic direction fir them, but my logic is that with such a powerful Shield hero going around the council would want to secure him for their country and also have him... leave a lot of powerful sons... but yeah I hope you can see why I would go in thst direction (plus I think all countries in the world of shield hero would want a powerhouse like superman for themselves, that's something even Mirellia wants because she knows that this shield hero could change the entire world with his power)
side note king jaralis isn't going to play that big of role as I didn't even know he existed before you mentioned him
to Kmart 364: thank you, I appreciate.
to RavenBlu: thanks, The problem with that is Fitoria would not hesitate in killing him as soon as she laid eyes on him since the vassal claws would just go find a new wielder after he died and because she as all filolians hate dragons. Still would be funny to see her reaction
to ZukahaniMultiColor: that's a great idea, however finding people to join Clark could be a hustle as there isn't a lot of characters in the world of shield hero (that I know of) that could enter this profile, the least I could do is to make Sardina, Galileo and Clark form the trinity
to XaralandoWyattWyatt: he is not really raising them, he is taking care of them for sure but they are all not just gonna become filolian queens and kings, they were owned by the Idol Rapier state and they aren't in his party so they wouldn't turn into filolian queens and kings. I like filolians as much as the next guy but I'm not gonna just dump a bunch of them for no reason
to CriticaofRandomness: yes he is
to Austin: the church is actually not paying attention to the heroes that much, since they are stretched out thin trying to stop the positive rumors about the shield hero to enter Melromarc. Also the reason of the nun's openly passive aggressive behavior towards him and the shadow following him after he exit's the church, he is a giant wrench in their plans that needs to be removed but as it stands there is little they can do.
to 2zz3: Galileo has a lot of potential and he is going to become the vassal claw hero eventually, the whole reason he will fight superman in the first place is because he can sense the dragon emperor's core in superman's inventory so you can see why he would end up fighting him.