"Ah, Hero, we should start exploring the cave if we intend to make any headway," the old witch said.

"Yeah, I'll explore your damp cave, just give me a moment," Suzuki said.

"Oh, my my," the witch said, blushing. "I'm a bit too old for you, Hero."

Suzuki snorted- just how dirty were these people's thoughts? Like seriously, why didn't he have a 'Thot Slayer Shield' yet? He needed a 'Thot Repelling' barrier skill or something like that ASAP.

"I don't get it," Melty said, feeling that a joke had been said, but that she also wasn't in on it so to speak.

"Forget about it," Suzuki said. "Let's go in- but first-"

He snapped his fingers and his Hanzo appeared, seemingly out of the ether. "Reporting, Suzuki-sama." Both Eclair and the witch jumped, but Suzuki paid them no mind.

"What kind of enemies are we facing?" Suzuki asked.

"The cave is filled with creatures that resemble bats and rats, though they are making a strange noise," the Hanzo said.

"Voice Gengars," the old with said. "Ah, they can mimic the noises of those you know, and then they strike out at you."

To Suzuki, that seemed like a kind of psychic attack- or at least, it would be in Yggdrasil, though on discussing this with Eclair and the witch, it seemed that it was a sound-based attack. That didn't really make sense to Suzuki- how did the monsters know what kind of voices they had to mimic unless they had some kind of mind-reading ability? Even if it was an illusion, the caster needed to know what they were making an illusion of before they could cast it. If he was still an undead, he likely would've been completely immune to such effect anyway, though now he had to watch out for such.

"They are not too strong," the Hanzo said, handing Suzuki the corpses of two which he promptly added to the shied to unlock the Voice Gengar Bat and Voice Gengar Rat shields, which improved resistance to sound-based attacks, and also had a Megaphone ability. "Deeper in the cave is a location filled with crystals that glow, and a monster that I can only describe as a nue."

"A nue?" Suzuki asked. 'Not a chimera or manticore?" The monsters were similar, but this country was seemingly based entirely on western mythology and the monsters reflected that. It was similar in Yggdrasil, which while it did have areas that had Eastern-mythology based monsters, they were usually in specific locations cordoned off from others, in other words, areas were different in order to contribute to the immersion of the world. After all, if one saw a fire dragon in a ice cave, one would naturally wonder why it was there.

"Ah, it must be imported from the east then," Melty said. "Someone might've abandoned it after they couldn't take care of it."

Suzuki felt a pang of pity- abandoning a pet was something he detested, though depending on how violent the monster one it might've been justified. "How strong?"

"It was unable to detect this one's presence, so sixty at most, though I doubt it was that strong," the Hanzo said. Indeed, Suzuki had not seen something that strong in all his time in this place.

"Anything else?"

"No, my liege," the Hanzo said before disappearing into the shadows again.

"Alright, let's go," Suzuki said. The cave was pitch-black, but Suzuki had mastered the Goblin's Gaze Shield which granted him the eyesight as good as a goblin's even in the pitch darkness. It was quite useful, though what it couldn't do was let him read the text inscribed in front of him. If he had taken those glasses of his and added them to the shield, he had no doubt that it would turn out something like it. "What's that say?"

"Hmm..." Melty said, peering at the inscription just above the chest. "It says here 'Here lies the seed, which was supposed to be our savior from famine, now can only lead to destruction. It should never be released.' Huh, seems to be from an alchemist who made something he sealed away."

Suzuki snorted. If the guy didn't want it to be released, why not destroy it instead of dumping it here?

As a matter of fact, his inner gamer was itching to open the chest to find what was inside- this was a typical prelude to finding something amazing in video games, and that chest was bound to have something exciting inside. His hands almost reached for the lid- but then stopped. If this was a game and he could just reset it back to the last save, he would've had no problem in opening it up to see what was inside. However, everything he had experienced up to this point told him that it was real and he had a feeling he wouldn't just get to reset it if he died. Not to mention it could be a trap- he had not heard of anything like dungeon mimics in this world, and Yggdrasil didn't have them either for that matter (though it was possible to disguise a monster or trap as a chest via illusion magic- the first few floors of Nazarick had several such traps) but he didn't want to be the first to find out.

"Let's leave it be then," Suzuki said. If he was still an Overlord, he would've left the cave, and had one of his summons open the chest up, but frustratingly enough despite levelling up multiple times he was only granted access to warrior-type classes and couldn't cast a single spell as of now.

They ventured deeper into the cave, and as they did so, suddenly everything went dark, even to Suzuki's eyes, meaning that this was likely...

"...an illusion!" Suzki said. He heard a voice call out from the darkness.

"Suzuki-sama doesn't know what we're plotting, we will stab him in the back as soon as he has his guard down!" he heard Demiurge's voice call out- though it was odd, distorted, and staticky as if he was hearing it over a telephone with a bad connection.

"Suzuki-sama wants to be reunited with his friends, but if I ever saw one of them I'd kill them on the spot, Suzuki-sama belongs to me alone!" Albedo's voice said, similarly distorted.

Suzuki snorted- these were clearly attempts to demoralize him, but they wouldn't work. If he was sure of one thing, neither Demiurge nor Albedo would say anything like that. Demiurge was clearly loyal and if he was going to betray Suzuki he wouldn't blatantly say so. As for Albedo, she knew how important Suzuki's friends were to him, and she would consequently never harm them.

However, it still left the problem that it was too dark to see, and that he was sure the others were under the same effect of that spell. He needed to do something about that, but the downside to having so many shields unlocked was that he literally had thousands available at the moment- so many he hadn't even gone through all of their descriptions yet, and he wasn't sure which one to use in this scenario. There was no handy 'search by effect' function on his HUD.

He felt something pinch his arm- though it wasn't overly painful it was annoying nonetheless, and the fact that it had gotten through his enormous defense bothered him. Behind him, he heard cries of pain- meaning the others were clearly not taking the hits as easily as he was.

"Fast Anti-Bind!" the witch called out, and the strange voices disappeared. "Fast Fireball!" a spell that was similar to the first tier Sparks came out, illuminating the cavern, and with a few knife tosses from his Hanzo, everything was fine, and Suzuki could see again. Not for the first time, Suzuki was quite annoyed that someone else could cast magic while he couldn't. When would he get some levels in a spellcaster-type class? For some reason he couldn't 'assign' levels as he could in Yggdrasil, and he really wanted to be able to cast magic again.

"Master!" Filo called out and nearly smothered him while trying to hug him. "Please don't leave me! Please don't!" It appeared that the voice had told her some nasty things in Suzuki's voice.

After Suzuki had calmed her down and reassured her that he wasn't going to sell her, he got a good look at the others. Melty had a few scratches on her and so did Eclair, so he tossed them some cheap healing potions he had made (he wasn't about to give them any of the red ones from Yggdrasil), and they carried on.

Soon, Suzuki found that he didn't need to use his nightvision as there was a strange glow coming from up ahead- a type of crystal that shone with a strange blue light coming from within.

"Ah, this is just what we're looking for!" the old witch said. It was not enough for her mill, but up ahead, there was a cavern filled with them, as well as the sleeping form a creature with the body of a tiger, head of a baboon, and tail of a snake.

"The nue," Suzuki said. "What kind of abilities do they have?"

"Aside from their fangs and strength," Eclair said, "they have their venomous tails and lightning-based attacks."

"Lightning, huh..." Suzuki said. Good thing that he had fifty percent resistance to lightning- no wait, that was only while he was an Overlord. He groaned and switched his shield to something that granted him lightning resistance. "How do you want to play this?" Though he didn't want to use the Hanzo as a crutch all the time, the fact remained that there was no better strategy he could come up with.

The Hanzo leapt out from the shadows.

"Wh-where did he come from?" Melty asked.

"He's been with us the whole time," Suzuki said. Perhaps it was because the Hanzo was one of his party members, but he found that he could always find where the Hanzo was despite his own low stealth-detecting abilities.

A knife flew, expertly catching the nue in the base of the neck. It stood up only to find three more impaling it in the jugular, the heart, and the stomach. It fell over and the Hanzo dutifully handed Suzuki the body parts of the beast.

Suzuki whistled- these were some good shields, and the Nue Viper Shield gave him another avenue to attack, though only in response to strikes.

He then took out a hammer and began pounding away at the crystal, mining as much as possible. If the place had been untraversed because of the monster, it meant that the crystal should be valuable and he should be able to sell it for a high price.

"Ah," Filo said, slumping to the floor, falling asleep. Suzuki snorted, other than running around with Melty the big fat chocobo-looking chicken hadn't done much, but he supposed that it was getting late. Melty went to go wake her up, but then immediately sank into her feathers before going to sleep. When Eclair went to go wake her up, she took found herself hitting the hay prematurely.

"My, my," the old witch said. Suzuki frowned, it looked like Filo's feathers had some kind of Sleep-inducing powers. They were not unheard of within Yggdrasil, and as he approached FIlo's sleeping form and his hand sank into the surprisingly soft feathers, a sense of comfort enveloped him, though likely because of his ring he did not fall asleep. "Well, it has gotten late." the witch said.

Suzuki stretched his arms- true, while he did not need to sleep, the others did, and it was probably late at night at this point. The old witch had joined the others and was dozing off, so that left Suzuki and the Hanzo.

Suzuki did his best to try and go through his shields, trying to understand their abilities, but it was like navigating a huge maze and he had made little headway when Filo's eyes opened, and she shouted out, "Master! Filo's hungry!" The others woke up, wiping the drool off their faces.

Suzuki sighed. He grabbed a cooking pot and prepared to skin the nue, with his shields that gave him bonuses to cooking helping.

An hour later, a rich stew had been made which the others were gouging themselves on. Suzuki had eaten premade canned meals back in the world of 2138, not seeing the need for spending more on actual food. A third of his salary had gone to things in Yggdrasil, as well as his summer and winter bonuses, which is why the game shutting down hit such a sore spot. The stew itself didn't taste all that good to him, though the others were downing it as if it was gourmet. Thing was that he was a bit afraid that cooking might give him levels in classes such as 'Chef' which in Yggdrasil were useful on NPCs but not for someone like him who had to fight. Build contamination was a real thing that he had to think about- a poorly made build could spell death for him. That said, all he had really unlocked up to the point were Shield-based and Hero-based levels as well as the odd 'Guildmaster' class.

Filo suddenly perked her head up. So did the Hanzo. "My liege- there are footsteps approaching us."

Suzuki got up, interested in who could possibly be coming here, when a group of knights walked in. They saw the corpse of the nue on the floor, and then looked at Suzuki. "Shield Hero, you're under arrest!"

Suzuki snorted, annoyed. "On what charges?"

"Poaching," the man who looked like their captain said.

"Poaching? You mean the nue?"

"Indeed, as an example of rare wildlife, you killing it is a crime," the captain said.

Suzuki had never heard such nonsense before. "This thing is a monster that was blocking this cavern- you can't really make me believe that hunting it was illegal!"

The captain smirked- the condescending, all-knowing smirk of those in power who knew that there was nothing people could do against them. "Tell that to the judge."

"What is this?!" Melty cried out, running out in front of Suzuki. "There are no such laws in this kingdom- and all that the Shield Hero has done is kill a great predator you can't just-"

She got no further- it looked like the knights had been waiting for Melty to step forward as one of them ran out, blade in hand, angled at Melty.

Eclair could not reach her in time, and as the Hanzo drew a knife, Suzuki activated a skill. "My Body As A Shield!" It was a skill he had gained from Albedo's 'Blackguard' job classes most likely- which redirected an enemy attack at him. The downside was that as compensation, his defense was lowered by thirty percent for that blow. However, he had tanked up considerably, and the knight's sword still shattered harmlessly against his shield.

This was more than enough time for the others to act.

"Look! The Shield Demon tried to assassinate Princess Melty!" the captain cried out.

Eclair rushed forward, placing herself between Melty and three more attackers. The Hanzo's blades had found their mark and the man in front of Suzuki died, and Suzuki swapped to his Nue Viper Shield as a means of defending himself. The old witch cast a bright light at two of the soldiers, blinding them. Filo tossed three others away with a gale from her wings, and Melty shot out a blast of water at two of them, knocking them out.

Two of the soldiers were holding a crystal ball, and Suzuki assumed that they were charging some sort of magical attack which is why he rushed at them, only for them to drop it and hastily draw away.

There was one difference between how Suzuki and his Hanzo fought versus the others- the two were fighting to kill, the others were simply trying to incapacitate them. Suzuki had no such reservations, though he did leave a group of three alive.

"In the name of the Queen's justice, what were you all doing?" Eclair asked.

One of the soldiers spat at her. "We have nothing to say to the Shield Demon and his whores!"

Killing the soldiers had let Suzuki unlock some new shields, and one of them caught his eye. Indeed, this was the perfect thing to use in this sort of situation.

"A demon you say?" Suzuki asked, changing his shield to the Burning Inferno Shield, something unlocked from Demiurge's shield series. A dark flame began to engulf the shield and Suzuki had a wicked look on his face as he stepped forward. "Allow me to show you a real demonic shield... do you see these flames? Do you see how they envelop me? Those aren't your regular mill-of-the-run flames, these burn not the flesh, but the soul itself." Suzuki's grin widened.

"You-you fiend!" the man cried out.

"Not fiend," Suzuki said. "Call me by my true title- archfiend, if you will." He did his best to sound offended, as if the knight had misgendered him. "Ah, I'm sure your screams will be exquisite as it devours your soul slowly- do you know what it's like when your soul is burnt to a crips, slowly, bit by bit? Ah, I was going to say that I would be dragging you down to hell, but I guess you'll be getting a quick preview before I send you there."

"Shield Hero!" Melty called out, distressed at what Suzuki was saying, but he paid her no mind. He took a step forward, the flames only spreading over his body, causing him no harm but giving him a ghoulish appearance. The soldiers could even swear they saw his eyes flicker red as the image of a monster appeared in the gem of his shield, a monster which glared at them seperate of Ainz's glare.

"AIEEE!" the soldier finally cried out, looking like he was about to wet himself.

"Crying already? I haven't even given you a taste of what getting your soul destroyed feels like," Suzuki said.

"Wait, please wait! We'll tell you everything!"

Suzuki paused. Good thing they had all broken down too, because Suzuki was just roleplaying. This shield had no such ability, the flames were an offensive debuff that would latch onto anyone who came into contact with him, but they did not do damage. Perhaps one of the shields later on in the series would have that kind of power, but this didn't. In addition though, it had a Fear effect that it would cast on anyone who looked at it, which seemed to have done the trick. It would also boost the power of any of his allies with karmic values lower than -300, but given that didn't apply to anyone there, this was just flavor text for now.

"Why'd you try to kill Melty?"

"It was all part of the plan!" he cried out in response. "We were supposed to kill the princess and frame the Shield Demon for it!"

"Well, it looks like you failed," Suzuki said with a smirk.

"I wouldn't be too sure of that," Eclair said, picking up the crystal ball. "This is a recording crystal, and it's transmitting to somewhere else."

"Where?" Suzuki demanded to know.

"T-To our allies in the church! They were going to alter the imagery to make it seem like you had committed the crime!"

Suzuki groaned- such a thing was not unheard of in the world of 2138. People being framed by video editing software- that was why some people wore their headsets almost all the time, so that they would have their own recordings of what they were doing. He just hadn't expected to run into this kind of problem in a medieval world of all places.

"Why though? There must be more to the plot than that," Suzuki said. He had already been framed pretty neatly, this seemed excessive.

"We- the Pope found it! He found the ancient relic that would place him on par with any hero!" the soldier cried out.

"The relic!" Melty gasped.

"Yes indeed," the soldier said. "You might best us here, Shield Demon, but the Pope will soon avenge us! The relic has power beyond what you could ever hope to wield, and you will meet your maker soon!"

Suzuki had heard enough, and he motioned for the Hanzo to slit the three's throats. "Alright, let's get out of here." The original plan to get clothes for Filo would have to be put on hold. Their next move was to leave the place ASAP.

They attempted to exit the cave, though the Hanzo stopped them, leapt out, and returned in a minute with three dead bodies. They were dressed up like ninjas, much like the shadows that Suzuki had seen earlier. "Ah, these ones were poised to attack." He then pulled out three rosaries of the Church of the Three Heroes.

"We need to get a move on," Suzuki said.

He had barely said this as suddenly Filo seemed to be growing crazy. "Master! Something big and bad is coming this way! You need to put up as much stuff above us as possible!"

Suzuki faltered- but Filo's instincts had rarely been wrong. He began to feel it too- as if he stood in this spot, something would hit him. It was a weird kind of 'sense' although he had no idea as to how this worked.

"Alright, everyone inside!" SUzuki said, casting Shield Prison. While inside, he lifted his shield up, and then called out, "Air Strike Shield! Second Shield! Dark Energy Shield!" The last skill was one he had gained from Albedo's line of shields which was especially effective against projectiles and holey magic, and he buffed his defense with another skill.

He heard a whistling sound, as if an arrow was flying towards him, and then... nothing.

Until it felt like the world had exploded around him. It felt like it was nearly impossible to keep his arm up, and the attack tore through his three shields as if they were made of paper. The shield prison rocked back and forth as the walls hummed, straining to keep pace with the attack. Just as he felt that this was the end, the attack ended. The shield prison was cracked, but had not completely broken, though he dispelled it.

They were now in a large crater in the ground, with their surroundings destroyed. Whatever spell had been used, it looked like it was about as powerful as the seventh tier Napalm with a slightly larger area of effect. It was not on the level of something like Nuclear Blast, thank goodness, but that meant that their enemy was at least in the level 50s or so.

And, standing before them, high up on the edge formed by the crater, was an old man dressed in a white robe. He held aloft in his hand a golden spear, and several hundred hooded figures chanting stood behind him.

"Well, well, well," the man said. "You truly do live up to your title as 'Shield Demon', Shield Hero. To withstand Judgement, the highest form of holy ritual magic... you really are something else..."

Suzuki bit back the urge to say that this was far from the most powerful holy spell he had seen- Crack In the Ground which the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown could use, was more terrifying than this. Not to mention Fallen Down would make it look like dogpiss, but there was no need for this man to know that. Speaking of which, if only he had the Staff with him, it would make this fight trivial.

Instead, he changed his shield to another one in Demiurge's series, casting the skill Rebellion Against Heaven which decreased the amount of Holy damage one would take. He felt his SP drop, but it was an AOE barrier so it would help protect the others as well.

The Hanzo tossed a dagger at the man, but for the first time in this world, someone was able to deflect it. No- it wasn't deflected per se, rather, a barrier had sprung up, and though cracked, did not break.

"Pope Balmus!" Eclair called out. "What is the meaning of this?"

"That weapon he's holding!" Melty cried out, pointing to the spear. "That's the relic we've been looking for!"

"Hmm...?" Balmus said. "Why would dead men care why they are dying? But, I suppose as a final act of mercy, I will enlighten you."

Suzuki snorted- people like him always felt the need to gloat. Punitto Moe, if he had been here, would have been shaking his head.

"Ah, we must purge this land of sin," the Pope waxed poetically. "Sin such as that demon there. And to do so, I had taken upon myself to wield the power of this weapon. We had thought that framing him for your murder would be a good start, but it appears he has grown too strong for such nuisances and so... more direct means are necessary. Normally we would have waited before moving forward with this bit, but alas, circumstances have forced our hand to expedite this course of action."

'This is treason!"

"What is treason to a god?" Balmus asked. Yeah, Suzuki thought, this guy was definitely crazy. Balmus then switched the relic so that he was holding a bow and launched a rain of arrows at Suzuki. Suzuki had an item that greatly weakened projectiles, and he switched to a shield better capable of handling the same. Only a single arrow got through, which the Hanzo caught in its hand.

Pope Balmus frowned- while he had not expected the attack to kill Suzuki, he hadn't expected such a lackluster result either. "It appears that the sinful are more resilient than we thought. No matter! Cathedral!" A dome of light extended from the pope, surrounding them, and caging them in.

The Hanzo now went for the others behind the Pope, launching shuriken after shuriken. It seemed the barrier was weaker on the sides, and aobut a dozen of his followers fell to the ground, ninja stars projecting from their skulls.

"Is that weapon powered by his followers?" Suzuki asked Melty. He could think of little other reason to bring so many other people- other than to cast that big ritual spell again, or as healers.

"I don't know," Melty said. "It's said to require a huge amount of mana to use, more than a person could ever have."

"IF you had something like this," Suzuki complained. "Why summon the Heroes in the first place."

"It's only as good as one-fourth the power of a real weapon," Melty said. "And it doesn't teleport you to the waves, or give monster drops, or other things that the Legendary Weapons can do."

The pope swapped his weapon for a sword this time, sending multiple blades of light at Suzuki and his team. Suzuki switched his shield to Moonlight Shield, casting Moonlight Barrier, which was highly effective against magical attacks.

The blades did not do anything more than the arrows had. The Pope clicked his tongue, again, he was expecting more of a result- but Suzuki couldn't get complacent with things. He had drained quite a bit of SP at this point, and he wouldn't be able to keep it up forever. And by the looks of things and the way the followers were acting-

"-behold once again, the greatest form of holy magic of them all, I cast Judgement!"

Suzuki grit his teeth and prepared himself.

Orchus groaned as he stomped through the halls. The barely fourteen-year-old was in a bad mood, and as he rounded the corner, he shoved the cause of his frustration in the chest.

"Rangobart! You swine!"

The other person, a student slightly taller than Orchus was surprised at first but then grinned. "What.. did little Lucille tell you what happened?"

The two of them were in one of the corridors of the Imperial Magic Academy of Baharuth, though their shouting attracted quite a crowd as students came in, wondering what was going on, with some of them hoping for a fight.

"She's my fiancé, you pig!"

"Hey, hey now, she was the one who came onto me!"

"Why you-"

"Look, I just can't help it if the ladies can't keep their hands off of me!"

Orchus had had enough, and threw a glove at the man. "A duel!"

There were gasps from the crowd that had gathered there- it had been some time since a formal Wizard's Duel had been declared.

Rangobart looked shocked, but then smirked. "FIne! This afternoon then!"

He was clearly confident in his victory, and though Orchus hated to admit it, the fact remained that Rangobart was more skilled than he was, but there was no way that Orchus was going to back down!

The time for the duel came- the late afternoon in the area normally reserved for magical experiments that could easily go awry. There, Rangobart stood at one end, and Orchus at the other. There were at least two hundred students in attendance- more than would ever attend a lecture, and Orchus could hear the bets already being called out.

He grit his teeth- most of the bets were against him.

"So, are you ready to be knocked on your ass in front of your girl?" Rangobart asked. Orchus glanced at the side, Lucille was there, with an unreadable expression on her face.

"Let's see who comes up on top!" Orchus said.

Rangobart wasted no time as he cast, "Magic Arrow!" There was no use in avoiding it, though to Orchus's surprise, before he could even react, the spell... just disappeared in the air.

Rangobart was confused- and clearly wondering what had happened. Cheers came from the crowd, who likely thought that Orchus had done something to cause the spell to fail... only he hadn't.

It was then that Orchus nearly wet himself- as a voice whispered in his hear, "Move towards the left." He whipped his head around, only to see no one there, though he knew he hadn't imagined it. But then... invisibility?

The voice repeated itself, and Orchus followed. As he moved to the side, a spell seemed to spring from in front of him, sending a great gust of wind that knocked Rangobart, flipping him in the air, and then he landed with a thud! on the ground.

As Rangobart got up, Orchus saw that his usual nearly-perfect face that he loved to flaunt (and his greatest asset when flirting with woman) was now bloody as his nose was broken. He was utterly shocked at what Orchus had pulled off, and the momentum of the crowd had shifted and they were now on Orchus's side. "Magic Arrow!" he cast, the spell hitting Rangobart in the chest. It couldnt' have done much damage, but it hurt nonetheless.

Rangobart no longer had the spirit to keep fighting and surrendered, leaving Orchus the victor.