The group made their way towards the mountain.

They didn't run into any issues on their journey to the foot of it, given the fact that they were so high levelled.

"Alright, let's go right in," Naofumi said. "Now, remember what I told you guys?"

"Yes!" the group of demihuman kids said as they took out their pickaxes, and started mining. The mineral ore in this place had skyrocketed in value kudos to not only the Waves, but because the local supply had dried up as no one was willing to mine the stuff given the monsters in the place.

As such, Naofumi wanted to take full opportunity of this lack of supply to make as much money as possible.

The kids began banging their pickaxes and collecting as much ore as possible quite enthusiastically- Naofumi hadn't been wrong, he felt- the kids clearly yearned for the mines.

Despite their relative lack of combat experience, the group got through the mountain's initial path easily enough. They then came upon a large cavern that had what looked like a forest of this magical ore.

"Alright kids, time to start really working," Naofumi said. He tried feeding some of the ore and the mining equipment to his shield, but they didn't really unlock anything.

As a matter of fact, ever since he had locked himself to the Enslavement Shield, he wasn't really able to get many other shield even from monster drops- there were a few ones he could get, eventually obtaining abilities like [Shield Prison] and [Air Strike Shield] but most things didn't unlock anything for him.

Likely this was a major drawback of using the Enslavement Shield Series, but you can't have everything in life.

As such, he had to leave the mining entirely to the children. The more that they mined, the easier it was for them to do it- it seemed this was a side effect of the Enslavement Shield. It wanted him to use his slaves for tasks as much as possible rather than doing things himself- that was what he felt when he began tinkering with it and finding out how it worked.

Things were going smoothly until Milkie cried out. "Dog!" she yelled, pointing to a shadowy beast that had emerged over the cliff and was rapidly approaching them.

"Alright Raphtalia, time to face your fears and beat up this thing!" Naofumi said, approaching the dog.

"Waaaah!" Raphtalia began hyperventilating and screaming in panic at the mere site of the dog. And it wasn't just her, the other children were behaving similarly as well.

Naofumi sighed. "Remember, the only thing to fear is fear itself... that and foreign tourists coming to Japan ruining my beautiful country by acting all weird..." Naofumi said, however, his words of encouragement did little to raise morale as the monster leapt at him...

...and did positively nothing.

Naofumi grappled onto it as it tried to bite him, but here's the thing, Naofumi was now level 69 (nice) and he specialized in defense, not to mention his stats had gone sky-high kudos to the number of slaves he had to the point that his defense was now on par with a regular level 250 character.

The dog couldn't do anything to him as it tried to break free, but Naofumi wasn't letting go of it. "Who's a bad dog? That's right, you are!"

About two minutes of this and his slaves seemed to realize that the dog was nothing to fear. They came to his aid, but Naofumi held a hand up. "No, Raphtalia has to do this..."

"Go on, Raphtalia, we believe in you!" Keel said.

Raphtalia was still nervous, but with some more positive affirmation from her fellow slaves, she gained the courage she needed and plunged her sword into the beast's neck, cutting through it as easy as if it was made of paper with her monstrous stats.

"Great job gang," Naofumi said. "I knew we could do it. You guys are the best child soldiers a guy could ask for!"

Once they had harvested the dog's carcass, and mined all they could, they left the place, though not before Naofumi made Uma and Keel collapse a bit of the tunnel by ramming into the walls.

It wasn't to the point of making it completely inaccessible, but it would delay anyone going into the mine for a few days while the rubble was cleared. And with the Wave coming up, Naofumi knew that with the upcoming Wave, no one would have time for that right now.

Naofumi smirked- the supply shortage would continue for a while longer, letting him, as the only supplier, be able to reap far greater profits.

"...is this really how a Hero is supposed to act?" Keel asked as they left the place.


"What do you mean we can't class up?" Naofumi asked the nun, exasperated.

"Sorry, orders from the king forbid this," the nun said firmly.

"God, that guy is so annoying- this is why the French had the right idea in the late 1700s..." Noafumi sighed. "Oh well, let's leave."

The kids were a bit confused seeing how quickly Naofumi turned around to leave without giving the nun any pushback- they were sure that he was going to start a commotion or demand to speak to the manager, but he decided to quietly leave.

And as they walked out, they all saw the wicked grin on his face.

They all knew that nothing good was going to come out of this...

The day for the Wave had finally arrived, and it was now that the kids realized why Naofumi was so docile before.

Because it was time to class up!

The members of the Three Heroes Church had no clue what hit them- they were of course, making their own preparations for the Wave and there was a large influx of devotees today given people were praying that the Wave would pass with no casualties.

And then, the door was kicked down and before you knew it, a hurricane had ripped through the rooms of the Church. Nothing could stop Naofumi and his merry band of slaves as they beat up everyone in their path in a bid to make it to the Hourglass given just how strong they all were.

"Alright," Naofumi said, barring the door shut with [Air Strike Shield]. By now, he had levelled up to level 78, and at this point the Church couldn't do anything to him even if they cast [Judgement] upon him. "Class up!"

As each of his party members went to class up, with the option given to Naofumi to be able to choose their classes for them- though he let them decide, being a very forward-thinking slave owner by giving them the choice.

The Church had managed to regroup and reform at this point, but there was a reason that Naofumi had chosen this day in particular to do this. Because the timer near his screen finally touched zero, and the world went white as they were transported to the Wave.

"It's Shield Hero'ing time!"


We arrived at the outskirts of a village, while Naofumi saw that the sky was torn like a shattered mirror. Monsters appeared from the cracks, descending onto the village, and onto them.

"Ah!" Uma said as a zombie approached him and took a swing at him... only for the sword to bounce harmlessly off of his armor.

Naofumi grinned. Thanks to the Enslavement Shield, his slaves got seven to eight times the normal stat changes per level, and their stats had just tripled the moment they classed up. It had truly been worth it even if it meant pissing off the king and the Church, because what use were insults and threats of arrest if they could not be enforced? Naofumi's little party was now uncontested in the entire Kingdom of Melromarc when it came to strength!

Not to mention it just wasn't the levelling bonuses, but the fact that they all gained a portion of Naofumi's massive defense- was it no wonder that these weaklings spawned by the Waves could do nothing to them?

Naofumi did not have the coin to purchase full armor sets for any of them, though they had all had jerkins made of hardened leather sewn by him made which provided some level of protection, though they did not scale with their defense like magical armor did. Still, that strike had not even broken through Uma's skin.

For weapons, though they had been using their fists up till now in the Church to avoid casualties, they were, with the exception of Rapthalia who had a sword, armed with long pikes courtesy of Erhard. They had not identified a specific weapon with which they wanted to train as of yet, and as such, the pikes were a good fit given how cheap they were and that they could easily be wielded in formation together.

Naofumi could've bought some last minute slaves- but he had decided that with the upcoming Wave, it was better to focus on quality rather than quantity for now- as it was, once this was over, he absolutely intended to use his newfound wealth to expand his operations.

For now though, they had to focus on surviving... which given the fact that they were tearing through their enemies like paper mache. Still, it was good practice for all of them.

Naofumi had now identified a key weakness in his strategy up till now- yes, his party was overleveled and overpowered as can be, but they had little to no actual experience fighting. This, combined with a lack of adequate weaponry, mean that they were not as effective as they could be.

He had thought it was better to grind for XP using the sapphire mine back in his plantation, as it eliminated the risk of being injured while trying to level up, but this also meant that they had no real combat experience.

But no matter- after all, this was probably why the first Wave was so easy. It was so that he could find flaws within his strategy, modify it, and then return with a vengeance.

"Guard the villagers and lead them away," Naofumi instructed. It was then that something caught his eye out in the distance. "Hey kids- I need some of you to continue saving the villagers... I just got an idea..."

"Master Naofumi, you're thinking something evil again, aren't you?" Raphtalia asked while swatting away an undead knight. It was three times her size, but that didn't stop her from sweeping its feet from under itself and then decapitating it in one stroke.

"Oh, I'm thinking of doing something evil- the most evil thing a gamer can do," Naofumi said.

Meanwhile, the three Heroes were fighting the Wave boss.

"Motoyasu, did you have to dress up in a fur suit even for this fight?" Ren asked.

"Hey, this gives pretty good stat bonuses," Motoyasu said.

"Of course, that's why you're wearing it," Itsuki said, rolling his eyes, not believing Motoyasu.

"Hey... what's that sound?" Ren asked as he swerved to doge a strike.

"I... wait, it seems to be getting closer," Itsuki said.

"I hear it too... it almost sounds like..."

"MineMineMineMineMineMineMineMineMineMine..." they heard in the distance, though it was rapidly coming closer.

"Is that... Naofumi?" Motoyasu asked.

Naofumi was running as fast as he could (pretty fast given all of his stat boosts), and with a final, "Mine!" he threw Keel at the Wave boss.

Keel landed about three feet away from the boss, and then, in a single strike, impaled it in the chest, finishing it off.

"Yes, kill stolen!" Naofumi said, pumping his fist in the air.

The sky turned to its normal azure color as the Wave was now over.

"Hey- Naofumi, not cool man!" Ren said. "We can overlook your other crimes, but you don't just steal someone else's kill!"

Naofumi snorted coldly. "Sounds like a skill issue. C'mon, Keel, let's go!"