Chapter 21: Cardinal Heroes vs Three Heroes Church: Part 1
"Wh-What was that for?" One of the followers asked as the Priest was holding onto a golden weapon, which was responsible for creating a sudden attack onto the kingdom itself.
The Priest continued with his smile, his eyes looking like he saw God himself.
"It was needed, my child. The Devil of the Shield is here, attempting to hurt God's kingdom. It had to be done."
"Wait, the Devil of the Shield is here? How?!"
"It doesn't matter. The Devil himself is in God's kingdom. We must eradicate him."
"Yes, father."
The follower bowed as his faith in the Priest was absolute before awaiting for what the Priest was about to do next.
The Priest remained having a calm aura and a calm smile as he turns towards all of his followers that are with him to say:
"Prepare for battle. The Devil of the Shield wouldn't have foolishly come alone here to God's home without his victims that are possessed by that cursed shield of his."
"Is there no way to save them?" One of the nuns asked right before a follower could ask. The Priest turned towards the nun, trying to give a sadden smile with his response being one of a 'hesitant' tone,
"Unfortunately, the Shield Demon has them tied to his life. They must...unfortunately be sacrificed in order to truly kill the Shield Demon himself."
"Are you sure?" One of the more hesitant followers questioned, not liking the idea of sacrificing anyone. The Priest swiftly responded with:
"Trust in God. That's the only path to salvation. To hesitate means the eradication of everything he created and everything he stands for. Do you not stand with God?"
"O-Of course I do!" The follower said as he felt everyone's eyes looking at him, almost like they were giving killing intent.
The Priest remained with his smile before turning towards the hole from the attack of the weapon he's holding.
"Then let's focus on putting an end to this demon and his minions."
All of his followers cheered as they began to pray; While they started to do that, the Priest contemplated the situation.
Given that his spies had spotted Naofumi, Raphtalia, and Garfiel in the city, splitting up within the crowd, it gave him the impression that The Shield Demon came into the capital of Melromarc to try and get his ally, the fallen Sword Hero. He turned towards the strongest of his followers to tell them,
"Make sure that the Fallen Sword Hero is finished, as well as his allies. We can't allow the Shield Demon to gather his forces if we want to protect God's kingdom."
"Understood." The three strongest followers bowed in respect to the Priest, turned towards the cross and bowed in respect to God before turning towards the direction of the castle and made their way towards that direction. As they went off, he turned towards the spies that had originally alerted him of Naofumi's movements to give them their assignment.
"Follow them. Should anything happen, let me know. May God protect you."
The four spies bowed with respect before running off to follow the strongest trio of the followers towards the castle, understanding their assignment.
As they headed off, the priest smiled as he knew that this will be a glorious day for the Three Heroes Church, since he along with those following the church will finally have the chance to enact their plan to save God's Kingdom from the enemies that challenge God if not go against what God stands for.
'It'll be the end of the Devil of the Shield, the fallen Sword, the false heroes, and the fall of the foolish Queen and her family.'
Naofumi, Raphtalia, and Garfiel were making their way towards the assigned location though right as it seemed like they were about to reach their destination, the trio in separate areas all noticed a sudden light appear before firing down right onto the castle.
"What the?!"
"Th'hell's th't!"
"No..."
All three had different responses in their separate areas though seeing that only motivated them to quickly run right at the castle to check, neither knowing if the others had arrived.
As the three ran with everything they had towards the area Motoyasu had told them, the first one to arrive was Raphtalia as she noticed the Spear Hero sitting on the ground, looking roughed up.
"Motoyasu! Are you okay?"
"Y-Yeah...was just not expecting that..."
As he said this, Raphtalia immediately noticed that Filo wasn't around which caused her to worry.
"Where's Filo?"
"Filo...Filo-chan!" Although he did acknowledge the question the raccoon girl had asked him, it didn't cross his mind that she could've been hurt by the sudden attack since he was caught by the hit and somehow survived said attack. "I didn't think about her! I'm coming to rescue you, Filo-chan!"
Motoyasu jumped up and started to go into the castle in search of Filo.
Raphtalia was a bit taken aback by this, more surprised by the Spear Hero's sudden change in attitude though she was worried that he might hurt himself since she did find him injured.
Right before she followed Motoyasu into the castle, she heard someone approaching her.
She turned around with her left hand onto the hilt of her sword, ready for the possibility of being attacked only to see that it was Garfiel.
"Garf!"
"Talia! Yer okay!"
"Yes. I'm okay. Have you seen Naofumi-sama?"
"No. Thought he got here already."
"No...at least I don't think so..."
She was starting to worry about her master, thinking that perhaps he had arrived first before the attack had hit the castle.
Though if that was the case, it's more likely that Motoyasu would've mentioned something about that which helped her calm down.
"Were ya here when th't light hit th'castle?"
"No, I was just a bit away."
"Hm. I wonder what could've caused't."
This was worrying for both since they are not only dealing with the three heroes church, the soldiers that are looking for them and Naofumi, and now from the looks of it an enemy of Melromarc.
The two looked at the entrance into the castle, prompting Garfiel to ask,
"Did ya see th'Spear Hero?"
"Yes. He was injured when I found him. He's right now looking for Filo."
"Wasn't Filo with him?"
"That's what I also thought but it seems that they had split up."
"I wouldn't blame her. Spear guy can be annoyin' t'deal with."
"Yes, but we don't know if she got hurt from the attack."
"She'll be fine." Garfiel said with confidence, "She's a tough one. An attack like th't won't stop her."
Raphtalia was hesitant to think this though she did agree with Garfiel that Filo's a tough one.
With that being said, she was the first to start entering the castle, wanting to make sure that Filo's okay as well as having some concerns for Motoyasu's state.
Garfiel followed right behind her, wanting to check on Ren and see if Filo had managed to save him.
As they were entering the castle, the two were cautious when walking down the stairs as the attack had caused so much damage that one bad step could cause the entire staircase to collapse.
With the two walking all the way towards the ground floor with caution, Raphtalia couldn't help but question how Motoyasu managed to get through here without causing the unstable staircase to collapse considering how energized he seemed when heading downstairs to look for Filo.
Once the two had arrived on the ground floor, Raphtalia pulled out her sword just in case they ran into trouble all the while Garfiel took the lead.
The two walked into the dark ground floor with caution all the while keeping their eyes and ears open.
After a few minutes, the two started to worry a bit since they hadn't seen anyone aside from a few dead guards that were unfortunately crushed by the collapsed building.
"Do you think...?"
"No. I ain't gonna believe it." Garfiel spoke with a serious tone as he started to move pieces of stone around as he attempted to see if Filo, Motoyasu, Ren, or any of Ren's party members could've been trapped by stones. As he was moving stones around, he suddenly stopped as something had his attention.
"Is something wrong?"
"...someone's here."
As Garfiel said this, he used his strong sense of smell to quickly detect someone that's approaching them in rapid haste.
Garfiel quickly got right behind Raphtalia as he prepared for a fight only to see that it was a familiar ally.
"Garf! Raphtalia!"
"Filo!" Garfiel and Raphtalia shouted in unison, happy to see her.
Filo jumped to hug the two, happy that the two survived the attack that had hit them suddenly. As the two were hugged, they noticed Melty and Ren appear along with other allies of theirs.
"Sword guy!"
"Melty-sama!"
"Garfiel, Raphtalia, good to see you." Ren said with a smile, happy to see them.
"Good to see you are still alive, Ren-sama. Melty-sama, what are you doing here?"
"I had a bad feeling about the Sword Hero, so I went to check on the one place he would be held up in. When I came down here, my sister was causing trouble."
" 'f course she was." Garfiel commented with an annoyed expression. Melty took note of this, yet she continued:
"Aside from my sister, I believe that my father's in trouble."
"Why do you think that?" Raphtalia asked.
The second princess turned towards Raphtalia for a moment before turning towards the direction the blast came from. As she looked at the blast, she sighed before responding in a professional tone,
"Something tells me that an attack like that could only come from a legendary weapon."
These words caused all in the area to be somewhat hesitant since the only hero that they haven't accounted for would be Itsuki, the Bow Hero.
"You don't mean that..."
"I don't think it was any of you four cardinal heroes." Melty corrected. "I believe this attack was done intentional."
"Intentional? By whom?"
"By the Three heroes church..." Tersia spoke out while still being weak. This caught Garfiel, Melty, Raphtalia, and Filo's attention.
"They were...speaking about some plan..." Welt added.
"We believe...this was the plan...to start chaos...on the capital." Bakta continued.
"Fer what purpose 'r those idiots doin' th's fer?"
"To possibly blame the Shield Hero." An unfamiliar voice to Raphtalia and Garfiel spoke out, prompting the two to be on their guard.
"She's an ally." Ren said before turning towards the new female ally to the crew, "Her name's Eclair Seaetto."
"Eclair Seaetto?" Both Garfiel and Raphtalia questioned in unison.
"She's mother's right-hand guard. She's trustworthy."
Hearing this from Melty allowed both Garfiel and Raphtalia to remain calm. Eclair looked at the pair before turning towards the second princess to ask:
"Who are these two?"
"Raphtalia and Garfiel Tinsel, party members of the Shield Hero."
"I see." Eclair spoke with a calm yet stern voice before looking back at both Garfiel and Raphtalia. She could tell with that information given to her by the second princess that Garfiel is more of a brawler all the while Raphtalia being the Sword of the Shield Hero. "Two strong warriors. We are going to need that."
Garfiel smirked when hearing this though he, Raphtalia, and the others were a bit curious on what Eclair meant by her last part of the sentence.
"What do you mean we are going to need that?"
"The fight against the Three Heroes Church." Eclair proclaimed, "They have been making moves to take over Melromarc for themselves. We need to act now before they manage to do any more damage to the capital."
Understanding this, they all started to head towards the direction Garfiel and Raphtalia came from. Though, during the walk a thought had popped up on Raphtalia's mind, prompting her to ask:
"Wait, where's Motoyasu?"
"Hm?" Melty, Filo, and Ren all looked a bit puzzled.
"What about the Spear weirdo?" Filo questioned.
"He went ahead of us first...I would've thought that you'd bumped into him before us." Raphtalia responded, now starting to worry about Motoyasu's status.
The others were all a bit confused by this new information since they would've encountered him first if that was the case, considering how loud and noisy he can be.
As they were continuing towards the exit, they all noticed some odd figures in the dark.
"Hm? Motoyasu? Is that you?"
"..."
There was no response, making it worrying until this shadow figure was what seemed to be a knight.
"Who are you?" Eclair immediately spoke as she pulled out her sword. Though as she had her guard up and had asked that question, she looked at the armor of this knight and noticed that they had a three heroes church cross. "You are with the three heroes church!"
As she said this, two other knights appeared from the shadows. Seeing this caused Raphtalia, Garfiel, and Filo to all three be on guard. Ren prepared to summon his sword yet he still needed some time to recover.
"What th'hell do ya want, ya assholes?!" Garfiel shouted as he prepared to beat them up.
None of them answered his question and just began to pull out their swords, as if responding with the demi human boy with a threat.
Seeing this made it clear that they weren't getting out of this without a fight.
Eclair took the chance to attack first, not wanting the three heroes church knights to be on the offensive first.
As she charged without hesitation, Garfiel was the second to go for the attack, wanting to back Eclair up.
Raphtalia was about to charge herself so assist the two yet she realized that aside from Filo, Ren and the others won't be able to fend for themselves if they get attacked by other three heroes church members.
As she stayed put, Filo took this chance to join Garfiel in helping Eclair.
"Filo, wait!"
Raphtalia tried to stop her yet she sensed that someone was watching them from the shadows behind her.
She looked at said shadows and all she could feel was darkness, making her feel like for now her responsibility is protecting Ren and his party members until they have enough energy to protect themselves.
While she was protecting them, Eclair clashed with the first knight that appeared from the darkness.
Although it seemed like they were on equal footing, she was easily brushed to the side, surprising her just how weak she's gotten.
Garfiel closed the distance between himself and the knight he chose to fight against and quickly first managed to dodge his attack before attempting to land a punch right on the facial area.
Before his fist could land, the knight moved out of the way just in the nick of time and quickly re-adjusted his sword in an attempt to slice the demi human boy's bowel areas.
Garfiel was confident that he could avoid this though as he managed to move out of the way, he was left stunned when he was seeing Elsa Grainhart herself rather than the knight he was currently dealing with.
"Ara Ara."
"!"
Garfiel was stunned for a second as his whole atmosphere had suddenly turned red, almost as if he was surrounded by blood itself.
"Having fun without me." Elsa spoke as she charged right at him, aiming directly towards his bowels. He quickly jumped back in an attempt to avoid this attack though all he ended up doing was crashing on the wall and hitting his head very hard.
"Watch out, Garfiel!" Melty shouted, warning Garfiel of the impending attack, he snapped out of the mental state he was in.
This allowed him to quickly avoid being stabbed in the chest by his current opponent he's facing off.
The third remaining knight looked at Filo and was able to easily block away all of her attacks with his sword.
While blocking all of this, Filo was about to transform into her filolial form though she realized that if she did that, she wouldn't be able to do much due to spacing.
This had left her open to be kicked in the gut by her opponent, which had knocked the wind out of her.
"Filo-chan!"
When hearing Melty shout this, Raphtalia turned towards the direction of Filo to see what Melty was seeing, Filo getting hurt.
"Filo!"
This distraction prompted the spies to move out of the shadows in an attempt to assist the strong followers of the three heroes church in taking out the Sword Hero and his party members while they were weak.
Before the spies could even harm any of his party members, Ren with all of his strength quickly summoned his sword and without a second thought made a simple swing.
This swing of his blade contained powerful electrical time magic that shot at all of the spies, knocking all out upon contact.
"Nobody...will hurt...my friends..." Ren spoke with a determined voice, wanting to protect his party members, people he should've considered friends from the start. He turned towards Raphtalia to tell her, "Go help Filo. I'll protect Melty-sama and my friends."
Raphtalia nodded as she could see the strong determination on the Sword Hero's face before quickly charging at the knight that had landed a kick on Filo.
With her immense speed, she was able to reach the gap that was where she was and where the knight's located right in the nick of time as she blocked away a sword attack intended in harming Filo.
As she blocked this attack, her and her opponent were engaged in a blade lock.
While Raphtalia seemed to be the same level of strength as the knight, Eclair recovered and quickly clashed swords with her opponent all the while Garfiel continued to dodge all of the attacks thrown towards him while he waited for the right moment to strike with all of his strength.
Once he spotted the right moment, he quickly used everything he had to land one hell of a punch to the knight's chest.
This punch unlike the last one had some elements of his beast form that assisted in doing some serious damage.
As the punch had landed, he was able to knock the wind out of the knight, leaving him open for a following attack.
As the Shield of Sanctuary went for another attack, this one being a kick to the side of the head, it was enough to break the helmet all the while knocking him out.
"Yer done, ya bastard!"
"..."
The knight didn't respond as he collapsed to the ground, having been defeated by Garfiel Tinsel.
While he was doing that, Filo had managed to recover and provided some aid to Raphtalia, wanting to payback the knight that had landed a kick onto her in kind.
With her assistance, the two worked on an aggressive offense, pushing their opponent back enough to where Raphtalia managed to knock the sword he was wielding out of his hands.
This left him wide open for Filo to return the knight the favor by managing to land a brutal hit directly at the knight's face.
"Take this!"
"Agh!"
The knight was caught off guard by Filo's true strength that this had also caused him to be knocked out with a broken nose and part of his helmet destroyed upon Filo's punch making contact with said helmet.
As the two knights were defeated, the last one was still standing and giving Eclair trouble. It had been some time since Eclair had tasted combat, making this fight a challenge for her.
The knight's movements and skills were surely impressive for her, seeing that this isn't some rookie or some wannabe fighter but a real knight that's fighting for his cause.
Although she disagrees with the cause her opponent's fighting for, she can't help but admire the swordsmanship he's showing.
Raphtalia and Filo were both prepared to jump in and give some aid to their new ally only for Garfiel to step in and stop the two.
"Garf? What are you doing?!"
"We want to help!"
Garfiel looked at the two for a moment before turning towards Eclair, observing the way she's fighting.
"Leave her be. She's got th's."
As he said it with confidence, he smiled as he knew that Eclair needed this win on her own.
"Ya gotta let her handle th's. She's a warrior after all."
As he said this, the three watched as Eclair was slowly starting to match the knight she was facing off.
Her skills were starting to come back to her every swing of her current blade, starting to slowly overpower her opponent with each swing.
After a few seconds of continuing to clash swords, she was able to suddenly knock the sword out of the knight's hand, leaving him open for an attack.
She didn't hesitate to swing with everything she had in order to strike down the knight, somewhat feeling herself back in top form only to nearly collapse upon having achieved her victory.
As she nearly hit the ground, Garfiel caught her while saying:
"Ya okay?"
"...yeah...didn't think I was pretty weak..."
"Yer not weak. Just gotta get used to it."
He began to heal her with healing magic, having a feeling that this might assist her in getting back on her feet, even if it's temporary. As he's healing her, Ren and the others approached them with Ren saying:
"That was some amazing swordsmanship."
"...Coming from a Cardinal hero, that says a lot. Thanks." Eclair spoke as she was getting her bearings. Once she was ready to go, she got up and turned towards the exit.
"We should get moving."
"Agreed."
As they were preparing to leave, Welt asked,
"What about the Spear Hero?"
"He should be fine." Garfiel responded. "Th'moron will find us. He's good at th't."
As he said this, they started making their way up the staircase though with caution since they immediately noticed that it was unstable. While on their way up, Ren thought back to something the second princess had said.
"You were speaking before about possibly knowing what caused the attack."
"Yes. There's a possible weapon that can do that. Something that rivals the cardinal weapons."
"And what might that be?" Raphtalia asked as she was both curious and worried. Right before Melty had the chance to respond, Eclair took this chance to answer first:
"Replica, a legendary weapon."
"Replica?" Garfiel, Filo, Ren, and Raphtalia all at the same time asked. Welt, Bakta, Farrie, and Tersia were all silent, all four also curious though having an odd feeling they've heard of this weapon before.
Eclair turned towards Melty, seeing that she wanted to deliver the information about this specific legendary weapon.
She bows in respects before remaining silent, allowing the younger princess to explain:
"It's a relic of the past, a legendary weapon used by a legendary hero."
"Replica...isn't it just a weapon that can copy other weapons?" Ren questioned.
"In a sense, yes. The weapon was created to rival the cardinal weapons, from what history says."
"Wait, there's a weapon that can copy our legendary weapons? Wouldn't that be much more useful than summoning four cardinal heroes?"
"The Replica Legendary Weapon doesn't just copy the cardinal weapons on command, it requires the accumulation of hundreds of people's magic over the course of a month and mass production."
"Interesting." Ren said as he began to think on how a weapon like that could be helpful to them though something was still bugging him. "Wait, how come we are hearing of this legendary weapon now? Shouldn't that be something we should've been alerted to from the beginning?"
Melty looked with a serious expression when this question was asked.
"The Legendary Weapon, Replica, should've been destroyed. That's what was known, but it seems that the weapon was really with the Three Heroes Church."
" 'F course it would be. Those tricky bastards." Garfiel was annoyed by this before turning his attention towards the exit. As they reached the outside, they all noticed an injured Motoyasu was having his weapon on his side to hold himself up, wanting to stay standing.
"Oi! What're ya doin', Spear guy?"
"..."
He had no response to Garfiel's question. That annoyed him for a moment before he and the others noticed that he was injured.
Raphtalia was the only one that could tell that Motoyasu was much more injured than before.
"What happened, Motoyasu?!" Raphtalia asked with concern before her along with the others noticed that in front of him was Itsuki with his bow out, looking like he was fighting.
With just placing two and two together, it's revealed that the two cardinal heroes were fighting.
Before anyone could ask questions, Garfiel sensed someone about to hit him.
He turned towards his right side and noticed an axe being swung right towards his face.
Without any hesitation, he grabbed the weapon right before it had the chance to do any kind of damage.
Once he managed to stop the attack, he looked at Mald, one of Itsuki's party members, and gave him a stern expression before managing to knock the hell out of him.
"Been meanin' th'do th't fer a long time."
After doing that, he along with Ren, Raphtalia, and Filo noticed the other members of Itsuki's party surrounding them. The Bow Hero looked at Motoyasu for a moment before turning his direction towards Melty and the others, finally noticing them. He prepared his bow for an attack all the while saying,
"Princess Melty-sama, please stay away from them."
Ren, Raphtalia, and the others didn't like what the Bow Hero was saying, causing the tension to rise with Garfiel preparing to attack him should he try anything.
"Ya might wanna reconsider th't, jackass." He says this as he begins to crack his knuckles. Hearing this prompted Itsuki to point the bow and arrow towards Garfiel, very angry when hearing the demi human boy's voice.
"You can keep your mouth shut if you want to still have a head intact."
"Ha! Th't ain't how a hero should be talkin', no?"
"Shut. Up." Itsuki spoke as he fired an arrow right past the demi human boy, making it clear that this shot will be the only warning shot. "Next one will go through your thick skull."
"Bring 't then, ya prick!"
Garfiel said as he was prepared to fight against the Bow Hero. Right before a fight could break out, Melty shouted:
"Enough!" This garnered everyone's attention, prompting them to turn towards her direction.
"Apologies princess, but I must stop them before—"
"Before what? Hurting me? Do you realize that they are the reason I'm still alive?" She rebutled, causing Itsuki to be taken aback. He didn't have a comment to this, to which Melty took the chance to explain the situation to him, "The three heroes church are currently attacking the capital. We have to stop them before they harm father or mother!"
"..."
The members of the Bow Hero's party look at one another upon hearing this before turning towards their leader's direction, wondering how he would respond to what the second princess had said.
Itsuki remained silent as he contemplated what was said before he looked with a sharp expression.
"Why would the Three Heroes Church attack their own kingdom? That doesn't make any sense."
"It may not, but it's the truth." Ren added in as he walked towards Motoyasu to check on him. While doing this, Itsuki pointed his bow right at him, preparing to fire.
Garfiel, Raphtalia, and Filo were the first to prepare to protect Ren should Itsuki attempt to actually try to hurt the Sword Hero yet Ren moved his hand to signal them to stay put. The three noticed this and stopped on their tracks, trusting in Ren's judgment.
Ren continued to look at Itsuki as he attempted to reason with him:
"Do you honestly think that we had anything to do with all of this? My party and I are still pretty weak from being tortured. Naofumi and his group don't have the firepower to do an attack like that. And we both know that Motoyasu is focused on girls wanting to do something this reckless. Come on Itsuki, you aren't stupid. You know that we are innocent in this matter."
"Why should I trust you when you've been brainwashed by that—"
"Are you seriously going to continue thinking like that? Like an ignorant brat?!"
"Shut up!"
He fired the arrow at Ren, angry that he was called a brat. Garfiel, Eclair, Filo, and Raphtalia were all about to move as fast as they could to protect Ren only to see Motoyasu move his staff to block away the attack.
Itsuki was shocked by this, not expecting to see him having energy to block one of his attacks. Motoyasu looked at the ground for a second before looking at Itsuki with a confident smile despite having the right side of his head bleeding.
Although taken aback for a moment, he looked frustrated that Motoyasu was still standing.
"Why should I believe you two?"
"Because it would be foolish not to." Eclair interjected as she walked right by Ren and Motoyasu, seeing that this situation was wasting time. She pointed her sword right towards Itsuki, making it clear that she's not going to hold back against him if he continues. "We are wasting time here. The Three Heroes Church could be gathering power to the Replica weapon all the while we are squabbling like children here. You either assist us or you get out of our way!"
"Don't speak to Sir Itsuki in such a disrespectful manner!" One of Itsuki's party members shouted as they prepared to attack Eclair only for Garfiel and Raphtalia to quickly run to Eclair's side, showing that they are ready to fight as well. Right before a fight could genuinely break out, Itsuki lowered his bow upon thinking of the situation. His party members saw this and started to follow their leader's actions.
"My goal is to stop Naofumi. Considering that he's not here, I don't see a reason to waste either of our time." As he said this, he turned towards Garfiel with a spiteful expression. "As for you, once the Shield Demon is taken down first, my crew and I will be coming for you."
"Bring it then! Yer not gonna be able t'do jackshit."
"Hmph."
The Bow Hero put away his bow and signaled his party members to follow him as he began to walk away.
"You know what we say is important, Itsuki." Ren spoke out, holding no real aggression towards Ituski. "The Three Heroes Church has been doing shady things in the shadows. If you are this hero of justice, you know that investigating the church is the least you can do."
"..."
Itsuki continued to head off into the city, seemingly ignoring Ren's comments since his focus is to stop the Shield Demon. While he and his party members left, Motoyasu nearly collapsed only for both Garfiel and Filo to catch him before that could happen.
"Ya look like shit. What happened?"
"..." He was silent as he struggled to stay up though he did notice Filo before his vision had completely blacked out. "F-F-F...Filo-chan!"
He jumped up with a sudden adrenaline kick as he was extremely happy to reunite with Filo again. She was very annoyed with this attitude, prompting her to punch Motoyasu in the gut.
"Stupid Spear guy."
She was genuinely worried for him only to act like an idiot. She walked towards Ren to be by his side all the while Garfiel laughed at this.
"Ya know how t'piss people off, now tell us what had happened."
"I was trying to find Filo-chan and somehow ended up here only to be in a fight with that brat of a hero."
"Yer sayin' th't he got th'best 'f ya?"
"He surprised attacked me!" Motoyasu immediately responded while looking at Garfiel with an annoyed look. "I didn't lose!"
"Yea, Yea." Garfiel said as he patted his shoulder. "Ya still did good."
"..."
The Spear Hero remained silent, annoyed at Garfiel, before turning towards Ren with a serious expression.
"So, what's the situation?"
"The Three Heroes church. They are the biggest threat to Melromarc. We have to stop them." Eclair responded in Ren's stead.
This attracted the Spear Hero's attention and upon seeing her, he was intrigued.
"Who are you?"
"An ally, if you wish to help—"
"Sure! Point me to where you require my expertise!"
Everyone was a bit dumbfounded by Motoyasu being willing to help Eclair without giving any explanation.
This only left Filo more annoyed by Motoyasu's antics, making her promise to herself to never feel bad for him again.
Ren just shook his head, having forgotten how Motoyasu is still a 'ladies' man'.
Raphtalia and Tersia sigh at this all the while Garfiel and the others had a blank expression, not really surprised but also having no real emotion to this attitude from the Spear Hero.
Eclair was surprised but only for a few seconds before turning towards the Three Heroes Church, pointed her sword right at that direction, and then said:
"Let's go and stop them!"
As they all were heading towards the church, Raphtalia couldn't help but think to herself:
'Where's Naofumi-sama?'
Naofumi had seen the attack and his instincts were telling him to run towards the side of the castle where Motoyasu said to meet up only for something to cause him to stop on his tracks. He thought carefully on this attack, seeing that said attack had come from the sky.
'Someone is attacking the kingdom.'
Considering that he knows the king wouldn't be stupid enough to attack his own kingdom, especially when the risks outweigh the payoff of trying to blame him for this ordeal, he can only think of someone else who would want to get rid of him.
Without thinking too much, he turned towards the direction of the church and started to make his way there.
While he was walking towards the direction of the church, he was passed by citizens that were running in terror.
Although this would annoy him greatly, he did view this as one of the rare scenarios that benefit him since he can blend into the chaos, allowing him to avoid both those that worked for the church and the knights from the kingdom that are on the lookout for him.
He put on the hood from his disguise and started to run along with some of the massive civilians running all over the place, managing to avoid a few knights that were heading towards the castle.
As for the church followers, it was difficult to tell who they are since they can be literally anybody in the chaotic crowd he's in.
However, even with that issue, he was also in the same boat since it seems that nobody had recognized him just yet.
He continued to walk towards the church and once he eventually reached the front of said church, he gave a serious expression since he knew that he's heading into enemy territory.
Once arriving at the front doors of the Three Heroes Church, he thought of possible traps he might have to deal with though he thinks back on how crazy things have gotten since arriving in this world.
Despite how shitty things had gone, Raphtalia was the first that assisted in fixing his hateful soul.
Garfiel Tinsel randomly cheering for him despite having no context on the situation, while very stupid, was actually something he appreciates from him as well as when he stopped bitch from attempting to rig the fight.
Although the worst thing Garfiel had done was punch him during his dismissal of Melty, he's still proven himself a useful ally, one that still needs work yet a useful one still.
Filo is someone special to him, similar to Raphtalia in how they like his daughters.
Melty, despite taking some time, he's grown accustomed to her long enough for him to have some care for the younger princess.
With Ren, it took a bit before he had considered him an ally, one that he can rely on should he need someone to take care of his party members should he be missing like right now.
He knows that right now Raphtalia, Filo, and Garfiel are probably wondering where he had gone.
He normally wouldn't go alone into enemy territory so foolishly, however, he does have a plan on how to deal with the Three Heroes Church.
He looked at his shield for a moment, knowing the trump card he would need to use should the trap he's walking into might be more than his current self can handle before turning towards the door.
'Let's do this.'
Being mentally ready, he kicked down the door which had gotten the attention of those inside. Naofumi removed his hood to reveal himself as he changed his shield to represent the one that resembles Garfiel Tinsel's shield.
The Priest turned towards the door that was kicked down and immediately saw Naofumi. The two locked eyes as they know that this is where their fight begins, the Priest and his followers of the Three Heroes Church against Naofumi Iwatani, the Shield Hero.