Chapter 27: Chapter 22
"Thank you for the meal, Holy Healer. Or do you prefer Shield Hero?
"Call me what you want, it won't matter to me. Take care ok?"
"Alright. Stay safe out there. If the job of a hero doesn't work out, you can come back here and be the village sheff."
Lyn smiled and shook his head.
"Sadly I can't. But thank you for the offer."
The men loaded into the carriage. Firo grabbed the reins and waved Lyn goodbye. He nodded and turned to face the black land in front of him.
"Now how the hell do I deal with this?" he muttered to himself.
I suppose I could just absorb the contamination into the shield and throw out regular soil I got from the beginners area. Or… does this shield….
Lyn took a handful of black dirt and threw it into his shield. Unfortunately for him, the contaminated dirt remained contaminated. He looked through his inventory and opened up the [Plant Reform] (Advanced) menu.
…
After a few minutes he stood up and dropped a seed onto the ground. It quickly grew to the size of a basketball and dug itself into the soil. One of its sides opened up and swallowed a bit of the dirt. A few seconds later clean dirt came out from the other side and a small pink pouch on the top of the creature slightly blackened and grew. It moved on to the next bit of soil and repeated the process. Lyn dropped down a few more and began walking back to the village, now followed by a bunch of little plant dirt eating creatures.
"Shield Demon!" a voice yelled behind Lyn as a cloaked man lunged at him with a knife, followed by a few people. A dark aura surrounded the knife, similar to a cursed weapon. However his level was over 70, and he had the rebirth bonus which basically put him almost at level 500, so Lyn easily dodged the dagger and tripped the man. Two others, with normal swords this time, tried to slice the hero's neck. Lyn ducked out of the way and threw one of the men into the other, forcing them to stab each other.
"You bastard! Die!" A woman screamed behind him. Lyn grabbed her by the wrist and threw her into the man with the cursed dagger. Several more people lunged at him but Lyn easily outspeed them. He reached into his shield, pulled out another seed and dropped onto the floor.
The seed grew vines and launched them at the attackers, wrapping them up and hanging them upside down. The vines grew spikes and impaled them, paralyzing them as it did. As soon as everyone was paralized, Lyn threw herbicide onto the plant and threw the remains into his shield.
"Well well well. Was that your entire plan? To stab me with a cursed dagger and hope for the best?" Lyn asked. He picked up the dagger with a piece of cloth and wrapped it tightly, throwing the cursed object into his jacket.
"We will never tell you anything Shield Devil!" the man who held the dagger yelled.
"I don't need you to tell you anything anyways. You can all just die now."
The assassins gasped in surprise. They tried to crawl away, but the poison in their body wouldn't let them move at all. The weird ball creatures finished up with cleaning the area where the dragon died and now had big black hats that were almost bigger than their body. They crawled over to Lyn, dropped them under his feet, and rolled away to clean more dirt.
"Those balls will soon make it here since you're laying on top of corrupted dirt. It eats dirt and spits it out after cleaning it inside its body. It also spits a really powerful acid in case there is something it can't bite."
"Why are you telling us this?"
"I just thought I'd let you know how you will die. Those things can't tell the difference between humans and dirt."
Lyn turned around and began walking away, pressing a few buttons in his status to remove the "Human Safety" option from his creatures. He heard the attackers grunt and struggle to move as the balls continued to make their way closer and closer.
"W-w-wait. No. NOO!" one of the men screamed as Lyn heard the hissing of acid and screams of pain. Soon more screams followed until all that remained was the quiet chewing of dirt as well as a grunting noise from the last man.
"Y-you really are a Demon through and through!" the man yelled and berated Lyn as the plant balls approached him. "Let your soul forever suffer in hell!"
Lyn grabbed the man last second and pulled him up to his eye level.
"Lookie here, cultist. I have no attack, however I have about 70 different ways to kill you and your entire army, hell, your whole country and you damn well believe they're all slow and painful. I can drown you, I can burn you, I can set up spikes and throw you into them, I can throw you into the sky and let you fall to your death, I can suffocate you, I can poison you and so much more. Now go back to the damn king who sent you and tell him that the more people he will send over, the slower and more painful they will die. And if any of them even dare touch my companions, " Lyn pulled the man closer and quietly whispered in his ear.
"I'll burn Merlomark to the ground."
He threw the man away and watched as he slowly began to crawl away, the paralyzing poison wearing off. Then Lyn turned to what remained of his attackers and threw everything into his shield.
He finished up just as he saw Firo coming back without a carriage.
"Are we going back daddy? What are those creatures?"
"Those will clean up any pollution left behind by the dragon. We should head back to the village and warn them about it. I should also give them herbicide for later," Lyn explained, turning the 'Human Safety' feature back on.
"Do you want Firo to run us down quickly?" Firo asked.
"Hmm… nah. Why don't we talk and chat for a bit?"
"Okay~! What should we talk about?"
"Hmmmmmmmmmmm…. I don't know. Anything really."
"Um… that cloud looks like a tree," Firo said, pointing to a cloud.
"Oh yeah. I guess it does."
"Daddy, is something wrong?"
"No, not at all. Why do you think so?"
"You keep doing something on your own all the time, you keep looking around as if someone is following us, you also always have a worried expression when you think that no one is looking."
Am I really that obvious?
"Well… come to think of it, you haven't fought the waves yet so I guess you don't know the severity of the situation. It's not a walk in the park, any wrong move can be your last, so I'm always nervous before a wave. Plus the entire kingdom of Merlomak hates us and the king is trying to have us killed, and Motoyasu the spear hero still thinks I'm some sort of villain. Then there is a whole religion after my head, and finally, I need to prepare tools to deal with rampaging heroes and Cursed Weapon forms."
"And the people with knives and swords that follow us everywhere?" Firo asked.
"Did they have dark cloaks?"
"Yep. Firo kicked them whenever they approached too close. They yelled some mean things at me like 'Demon's pet' and 'Demonic Bird' and 'ugly monster'."
"Aw. You're not ugly. And great job of dealing with the attackers, now let's head back to the rest of the team," Lyn began to pet Firo's head as he looked towards the village.
"Okay~!" Firo smiled. The two quickly made their way into the village. Lyn explained everything about the weird dirt eating plants and gave the villagers a box of herbicide to get rid of the plants when they were done. After getting paid and saying their final goodbyes Lyn lifted his shield and teleported them back to the rest of the team.
"We're back and... what the hell?!"
The gang was trying to put out a burning tree surrounded by a bunch of villagers who were trying to help. He hid his shield and looked around.
I left for a couple of hours, what the hell did I miss?!
"[Airstrike Shield], 1 through 57. [Inventory Shield] water," Lyn muttered, summoning a large amount of shields over the forest and dumping a bunch of water on the fire.
"Lyn-sama! I'm so glad you're back."
"Yeah and apparently I missed a lot! What the hell happened?"
Kayda was sitting in the carriage with her head down.
"I'm sorry," she muttered just loud enough for Lyn to hear. Sky was standing next to her, nibbling on some food, while Filo was on top of the second carriage, sitting down with the biggest grin on her face.
"Thank you for putting out the fire Holy Healer. Some big green monster started a forest fire and disappeared. We tried to get the fire under control, however it quickly grew and began taking over the forest," one of the men said. A few other villagers muttered thanks, but didn't want to approach.
Shit. This is just fuel for the church now.
"Well then it's a good thing I got here when I did," Lyn replied to the man. He pulled some money out of his shield in his pocket and handed it to the man.
"We can't take this, you already did enough for us."
"Use it for whatever burned down."
"But nothing of importance burned down."
"Use it for future waves then, take some of this medicine while you're at it," Lyn replied, giving him a box of medicine from the inside of his carriage.
"Oh, we can't thank you enough Holy Healer. Travel safely and thanks again for the silver razorback," the man replied, walking away.
The what?
Lyn looked at Raphtalia who gave him a look saying 'I'll explain later.'
Ping*
A status update made Lyn stop for a second.
Ah right, the job level cooldown ran out. Let's just continue increasing my defence.
Defense Lv. 46 [0/51:
Defence Scale is Full!
Defence Lv. 47 [0/52:
New Skill Unlocked.
Area Control
"YES!" Lyn yelled at the top of his lungs, scaring everyone around him. "A new skill! [Area Control]!
The area around Lyn was covered in a thin green glow but other than that nothing happened. The villagers were either looking in awe, some of them muttering things like 'the Holy Healers power is amazing. Could he be one of the seven star heroes?'
"It looks cool, but what does it do?" Wyndia asked.
"Check your status."
Everyone quickly opened their status and looked at their stats.
"Woah. My defence stat has increased drastically!"
"Yep. As long as you're inside my 'area', you're pretty much invincible. Now let's go, I want to get some ores from that mine and make you guys some accessories," Lyn said, jumping into the carriage with the green glow following him and enveloping the carriage.
Everyone quickly got inside, Raphtalia, Kayda, Lyn were inside Firo's carriage while Rino, Wyndia and Gaelion were inside Sky's carriage.
"So… Kayda… would you like to tell me anything?" Lyn asked, putting on a big smile and a happy voice.
"I'm sorry," she muttered again.
"Kayda is getting in trouble," Firo snickered.
"So why did it happen?" he asked, his smile not faltering.
"Well, this annoying monster would keep jumping around, and it shot a needle at me! So I burned it! And I accidentally set a tree onfireItriedtoputitoutwithmywingsbutitjustspreadfasterandthenpeopleraninshoutingandigotscaredandran!" Kayda yelled the last sentence so fast that Lyn just barely understood every other word.
"I see. Well since I gave that man some money for possible damages, I have to make some more accessories so I won't have time to cook you food with my hands, so you will eat what the shield made for a week."
"Nooooooo! It's not nearly as tasty as what you make!" Kayda exclaimed, tears brimming in her eyes. Firo giggled and muttered 'Kayda is in trouble'
Lyn turned to Firo.
"And you can join her because you shouldn't laugh at other people's misery."
"Nooooooooo!" Firo yelled.
"Also, what's this about a silver boar?" Lyn asked.
"Oh, we found some boar that was out in the forest and it was pretty important to the people since they use razorbacks as offerings in town rituals. I also found a rare crystal called latinum," Raphtalia exclaimed, pulling a small purple crystal from her pocket. Lyn noticed that next to the different materials and monster corpses in the back of the carriage were a few large eggs.
"And those?"
"Firo heard that the eggs of a gagocco are a rare delicacy, so she hunted down one and got them."
"Daddy… please don't cook the eggs with your shield! It tastes weird!"
"I wanted *sob* to try *sob* some eggs…." Kayda muttered in between sobs, curled into a ball in the back of the carriage.
Should I just save them for later?
"Daddy, there's some weird guy on the road with your shield," Firo said, interrupting his train of thought.
"Huh?"
"Halt! For I am the Shield Hero! Give me your possessions and I'll let you live."
In front of them stood a man with a half assed copy of Lyn's shield, a bag of money on his belt and a poor attempt at Lyn's clothes. The green shirt was brown, the grey pants were black, and the jacket was just a ripped up long sleeved shirt. The man had a big grin on his face.
Honestly, as much as he tried to look threatening, he just looked pathetic.
""""""""…""""""""
"Wanna eat him, Firo?"
"W-what?"
"Ew, no. He smells really bad."
"H-hey!"
"Why are there people like this?"
"It's profitable so why not?"
"Hey!" the man continued to yell, but no one paid him any mind.
"How does it work tho? Are people really falling for this?"
"People might have paid him just so that he would take his stench away."
"Give me your money or face the wrath of the shield!"
"Possibly, his stench is worse than his threats."
"Kya kya kya?" Can I eat him? Kayda asked in her dragon form.
"Gua gua gua!" He's insulting master.
Before anyone could react, Sky ran towards the man and kicked him into the ground.
"Gah!?" the man yelled in pain as he fell to the ground. The shield on his arm was thrown towards Lyn, who copied it.
[The requirements for the Scrap Shield have been met]
[Scrap Shield] (Unawakened) Lv. 1 0/5 C
Abilities Unmastered:
Equip Bonus: [1 Defense]
Well, two free defense points is still something.
Lyn absorbed the scrap shield into his own and walked towards the man, equipping his normal clothes.
"N-no way. Y-you're the Sh-shield Hero!? The one with the man eating dragon!"
"Damn right I am."
He picked the man up with one hand and raised him to eye level.
"Now here's what's going to happen buddy. You and I are going to go into the village you just robbed and you will apologize to everyone who you robbed. You will give them back the money you stole and you will turn yourself in. Ok?" Lyn asked, giving him a big smile. Kayda jumped out of the carriage and looked at the man.
"Agh! Ok, ok! I will return everything, just don't feed me to your monster!"
"Good to hear, let's go to the town you robbed. Will you be so kind as to lead the way?"
"J-just behind that mountain over there. Only a few kilometers away."
"Ok, let's go!"
It only took them a few minutes to arrive at the village. People were surprised to see the 'shield hero' that robbed them a few hours ago suddenly return and give back the money he stole. But they were even more surprised to see the real shield hero stand behind him with a dragon.
A few minutes later Lyn finished escorting the fake shield hero to the knights and ran back to his crew. Raphtalia, escorted by Firo, went to restock on some supplies while Rino, accompanied by Wyndia, went to check in at an inn and Kayda and Gaelion stayed with the carriages.
They dropped in for the night and found a tailor to make clothes for Kayda using the magic thread they made with some of the crystals Lyn still had. In her dragon form it stayed as a small band on her wrist, and in her human form she now wore dark green overalls and a bright green t-shirt.
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