Chapter 48.

"I suppose I should start with the basics." mused Adrian, while drawing the small knife he had hidden his sword as and changing it to the more recognizable base form, "I am the Sword Hero and I wish to ask for your aid in fighting the Waves of Calamity."

Their shocked expressions were something he would savour for a long time.

"The Sword Hero...you're the Sword Hero!" exclaimed the old man, "It's no wonder that you-"

The man cut himself off before standing up and then bowing low, lower than before, "Forgive us for our impertinence Holy Saint we meant no offence."

Nicol looked a little shocked at her father's subservient behaviour but followed his lead. Adrian felt his amusement wither. Was this all that he could expect from people? And why were two demi-humans so respectful anyway? He wasn't the Shield Hero.

"Oldrin, Nicol." he said, getting their attention, "Please sit down. I am still Adrian and nothing more and we have a lot more to discuss."

That woke them both up and they took their seats again. Nicol looked a little sheepish but Oldrin was basically vibrating.

"Yes Holy Saint," said the old man, his tone reverent.

Adrian ignored the discomfort and spoke, "I wanted to check if there was anyone in your town who'd be willing to volunteer to fight the Waves. The only requirement is some reasonable skill in combat, be it magical or with a weapon."

At this the old man's excitement faded a little. Adrian felt a spark of satisfaction. He should take this seriously. To most people, the Waves were more than a massive Experience lottery.

"The Waves my Lord," he said hesitantly, "I…"

Adrian raised an eyebrow at the 'my lord' thing but ignored it for the moment and expanded in the face of their worry, "The Waves are set to grow stronger over time. I fought a Wave yesterday and managed to suppress it but I suspect that to do so for future Waves I'll need a lot of allies. This Sword," he said, transforming the weapon to the Hourglass Sword, "is capable of empowering my allies to an incredible degree so strength is not really a requirement when it comes to selecting my allies…what matters is trust and I believe that your town is my best bet there."

"You honour us," said Nicol formally, when it was clear that her father wouldn't be saying anything, the old man actually had tears in his eyes. He clearly took the Legendary Heroes way too seriously.

Adrian snorted in response, "I'm not honouring you," he corrected, "I'm offering you a deal. Help me fight the Waves and I'll do my best to provide you training, equipment and most importantly experience and stat boosts. I do not exaggerate when I state that I can take a level 1 individual to level 60 in less than ten days, and thanks to my boosts they are on par with level 100's at that point."

He leaned forward, "In other words, you get a handful of incredibly powerful guardians for your town, who will be here with you unless a Wave is active or they are training and in return I get trustworthy warriors who will not betray me. What do you think?"

They looked a little stunned. Oldrin, in particular, looked like he would collapse but Nicol gathered her wits, "But we will have to risk our lives during the Waves."

"Correct," he said, not sugar-coating it, "your life will be at risk for as long as the Waves exist. I cannot promise that you will be safe even if I do promise to do everything in my power to bring you back alive and to take care of your dependents should you perish."

"We will do-"

"We would like to think on this matter," said Nicol, ignoring Oldrin's mutinous look.

"Of course," he said, "I would not have agreed to anything you said right in this moment anyway. Please discuss it with your candidates. Warn them that I will check to ensure their loyalty and dedication and then give me a response. I'll be back in two days."

She nodded and Adrian smiled before activating his Portal.

He didn't go far, just to the marker he had just made, but that small demonstration of power was an example of just how far beyond them he was. A reminder of just who they were dealing with...and it was damn funny to see their expressions with Blindsight.

He took a deep, cleansing, breath and opened up the Map Sword. Frustration manifested as the immense area that Fitoria had marked became obvious.

Adrian oriented himself according to Fitoria's poor directions and then moved. Hoping to get to Naofumi.

Naofumi

Naofumi was growing increasingly irritated.

Fenral, the three Fiolials that his current party were riding on and Mirza were not a problem. The three animals were nice and were very fond of him. Willing to stay quiet the moment he made the request. Mirza was a polite, professional young woman who reminded him of the many office going women from his world even though she was an adventurer dressed in eminently practical and rather dirty armour.

Rizwan and Ethan, on the other hand, had started to really piss him off.

"...what do you know human? It is your misjudgement that has placed the Lord at risk-"

"First off," replied Ethan, in a dry voice, "your Lord is human as well. Second, I've been the one helping him while you lot decided to play politics."

Ethan spat out the last word in the same way Rizwan had when pronouncing 'human' and Naofumi's patience snapped.

"Shut up." he hissed, turning back to look at the two men, both of them who were older than he was, "We are on the run from a bloody cult and you two morons are wasting energy insulting each other. Keep your mouth shut unless you have something useful to say."

He turned back around, revelled in the silence, and kept moving.

Mirza's amused, "Nice," was ignored.

Right now they were riding their mounts, Fenral and three Filolials that Van Reichnott had provided, through the mountainous terrain that was so common in Melromarc. Their goal was the border in order to crossover into a country that would eventually lead to Siltvelt or at least would not be Melromarc.

The problem, of course, was that the Church had moved before them. Two days in the past, after they had just finished meeting Rizwan and Mirza for the first time, Ethan had received a message from Edgar, a message confirmed by one of Van Reichnott's shadows', that the Church had started to mobilize against him.

They had nothing more than guesses about why but Naofumi was fairly certain that Ethan's theory was correct. He believed that it was King Melromarc who had decided to remove the last hero from the Game and had pressured the Church, who were already biased against him, into doing so. Even Rizwan had agreed with the theory, a rare thing as he now knew, so he was pretty sure that he was right.

Honestly, Naofumi was stunned to realize just how dangerous that old man was. It was hard to think of that old man slouching on the throne as the great King of Wisdom or the Star Hero of the Cane or even the Demon of Melromarc but he supposed it was an excellent example of how appearances could be deceptive.

So, with a cult potentially coming to kill him, he had chosen to leave. It was odd to have his decision made for him, slightly relieving but mostly terrifying given that the choice had become obvious because his other option was to be executed.

They'd encountered a small group of soldiers under the Church's command but it had cost them no real effort to take them apart. Between Naofumi's skills and his party's attack, they had not struggled at all. Though it had been a surprise to realize that it was Mirza who was the highest level member of their party at level 68, which was absurdly high, while he was only at 32 and amusingly enough both his other members were at the same level 54, though it was pretty clear that Ethan was a hell of a lot better at combat. The Filolials and Fenral, unfortunately, weren't very high level at all, with all of them being in their tens or in Fenral's case twenties, but that wasn't a surprise, their job was transportation not combat.

Naofumi tried to dismiss his nausea at the thought of the dead church agents.

None of his party members had shown a hint of mercy, even Ethan whom he had assumed would hold back against humans had killed them, it made sense, anyone alive would give away the position and information about who they were travelling with but it had made him sick to watch them die.

He was hoping not to get into another fight.

It was a wish he knew would not come true.

Naofumi grimaced as he stared at the border wall from the cliffside. It was infested with soldiers. They were checking every single person who was going through and he could see a lot of mages on the walls.

Ethan voiced his thoughts, "We cannot pass through from here. Those men...they are from specialized squads meant to be able to use Ceremonial Magics. I believe they may have activated the alarm wards along the walls."

Naofumi sighed, "Any ideas?" he asked. Their plan to move around to find a slightly poorly defended section of the border had crashed before it could even get started. He was beginning to wonder just how the Church had moved so quickly...or was it that it was their moves that were predictable?

"I believe that we should move to the coast," stated Rizwan, "there is always some form of smuggling in the docks we can make use of them to move out into the open ocean. The ward is unlikely to be able to extend there."

Ethan considered that before nodding slowly, "I agree," he said in a voice that made it clear that the agreement was positively painful.

Naofumi looked to his last party member, "They're right," she said, "but Melromarc is going to be expecting it, we'll need a plan or we'll get trapped just like we are now...and they're going to be chasing us the whole way, we'll need a lot of luck to survive, especially if they start pulling out things like Judgements,"

"Judgements?" he asked, feeling unnerved by the name.

Mirza smiled coldly, "It is the favourite Combat Ceremonial Spell of Melromarc. A massive beam of mana that strikes a target with enough force that even well-defended fortresses end up annihilated. It was created by the Church of Three Heroes, inspired by an attack that the other Heroes have."

"Fuck," he muttered and stared at his Shield. He liked it but he doubted that it would let him survive a hit from something like that.

"I believe we should keep moving Naofumi," said Ethan, "we don't have the time to spare."

He nodded and they slowly backtracked, moving over the narrow mountain passes, trying to start moving towards the Seaetto Region, which held the coasts of Melromarc.

They moved for hours until the sun had long since set before the took a small breather in a cave system, Ethan quickly cleared out the area of any monsters and then they took a small meal of rations. Naofumi made a note to thank Ethan and Van Reichnott, it had been Ethan who had suggested taking the ration bars and Van Reichnott who had provided them.

He wondered if the man was okay, it was entirely likely that the Church had decided to interrogate him...or if they knew that he had been in the area, kill him.

Naofumi tried to shake off the guilt and convince himself that the Lord and his people would have no trouble with the Church as he leaned against Fenral in an attempt to sleep.

He failed.

It was hours later, during Mirza's watch, that he was awakened by the insistent movement of his shoulders.

He jerked upwards to see Rizwan shaking his shoulder while Mirza and Ethan rushed to the mouth of the cave. Their mounts had also gotten up and were milling about nervously.

Naofumi stood up, his best Shield at the ready, and whispered to Rizwan, "What is it?"

"Mirza sensed some people nearby, my lord," he said, his voice quiet, "she is attempting to assess the situation."

He nodded, trying to stay calm, as thanked his night vision skill, it let him see in the darkness of the cave.

The next couple of minutes were the tensest of his life. More than once an innocent sound sent his heartbeat haywire but he did his best to look and stay calm, even as he regretted ever being summoned into this hell hole.

Then, Ethan arrived to speak to them at the back of the cave, "It's clear for now," he whispered, "but they were close and Miss Mirza is quite certain that they were looking for us. We shall wait for a few minutes before moving."

He nodded and then tried to keep himself busy, tried not to think about how this was easily the worst moment of his life and tried not to think of home.

"Kill the Shield Demon!" came the warcry from the soldiers that swarmed over their position.

Mirza began to glow as she chanted quietly while she stood behind him, "Stone to Boulder," she exclaimed and then launched some small orbs of golden light.

For a second he grimaced, wondering if the spell had gone wrong, and moved in front of their only true mage. Then, the small spheres expanded and turned into massive, five-meter diameter, boulders, crushing the poor bastards who had the fate of being underneath them.

Most of the Soldiers were dealt with so he nodded at Mirza and moved to support Rizwan who was struggling with his own group.

Time seemed to flow oddly, slowing and speeding up without rhyme or reason, a blocked fireball, a slash from a sword that he just ignored, a Zuerst Shield to help out Ethan as a mage took a pot shot at him. It all blurred together.

By the time the battle ended he was covered in blood but had no wounds. His party was not as fortunate.

He spat on the ground, the ambush had gotten their Filolials killed, Fenral was badly injured and while they were mostly okay, they were out of food and medicine.

Naofumi walked up to his party members and chanted, "Zuerst Heal,"

Fenral got four extra doses but the first level spell he had learned from the Orb could only heal basics wounds and did nothing for fatigue. So he left it to Ethan to bandage the wing so with some of the tunics from their enemies.

He tried not to think of the many dead bodies littering the clearing.

"We need to move," he said, "Now!"

His party nodded grimly even as Naofumi knelt at the side of the Filolials and absorbed them fully. The mastered shields would be worth it.

Then he looked at the dismembered corpses that Ethan had made. The crushed ones that Mirza was responsible for and the poisoned ones that Rizwan had killed. Naofumi swallowed his disgust and absorbed them all until he had mastered all the anti-human shields.

"Let's go," he said and his party followed. Their morale shot and prospects dim. Their only hope, reaching the coast or a town where Edgar might be able to support them, was unlikely to manifest into anything. None of them were particularly optimistic, though he could tell that Rizwan was taking a grim satisfaction at dying at the side of the Shield Hero.

Naofumi felt a surge of bitter amusement at the idea. At least one of them would die happy.

***