"I'm leaving Ryu with you," I said, gesturing toward the beast. "He'll take care of you."
Ryu lowered his horned head slightly, playing the part of the stoic, noble guardian. *"I could not simply abandon a fragile human child to the wolves,"* the dragon rumbled aloud, his tone dripping with theatrical chivalry.
I suppressed a dry snort. Noble, my ass. The lizard just wanted an excuse to camp out in a universe where an opposite gender of his kind was still breathing—and more importantly, out of reach of my shield's essence-draining appetite. His self-preservation aligned seamlessly with my logistics. The best alliances are always built on mutual selfishness.
"Thank you, Mister Ryu," Naomi whispered, stepping forward to place a trembling hand against the dragon's scaled snout.
Ryu's hide violently twitched under her palm. He didn't pull away, purely out of pride, but the sheer disgust radiating off him was palpable.
That racist bastard. Even now, he hated the touch of lower lifeforms.
I stepped forward and placed a brief, heavy hand on Naomi's head. Not a comfort. A seal. "Goodbye, both of you." My gaze snapped to the dragon, sharpening into a silent threat. "Ryu. She's in your hands. If I come back and find a single scratch on her that wasn't earned in training, you know what will happen."
Ryu let out a sharp, irritated huff of smoke, giving a single, begrudging nod.
I didn't wait for another tear to fall. I triggered the Multiversal Pass.
Light fractured around me, swallowing the forest, the dragon, and the image of Naomi standing frozen with tears cutting tracks down her pale cheeks.
Reality snapped back into place with the scent of damp earth and pine.
I stood in the familiar woods outside Seyatte. A quick glance at the sun and the ambient mana told me everything: two days had passed since I left.
First priority: Raphtalia, Rifana, and Filo. I closed my eyes, tugging on the faint, thread-like resonance of the slave crests linked to my shield. Steady. Strong. No spikes of panic or injury. They were with Sadeena, grinding and safe. That box was checked.
Second priority: The chessboard.
I didn't waste time walking. I reached into the ambient mana, pinging the ancient, obnoxious frequency of the Filolial Queen, and dragged myself through a portal straight to Fitoria's ruins. She barely had time to lecture me before I cut her off, tossing a pouch of silver at her feet and demanding a spatial jump to wherever Queen Mirellia was currently putting out fires.
Ten minutes later, I was standing in a back alley in Faubrey, tossing gold coins at a local information broker. The intel was a predictable trainwreck. Melromarc's premature summoning had detonated an international powder keg. Assassins had been sent after Mirellia. King Faubrey was currently holding the Queen over a barrel at a global summit.
If I didn't step onto the board now, the nations would fracture before the next Wave even hit.
I infiltrated the grand palace with laughable ease—a basic cognition-inhibiting cloak, a shadow-step skill from my shield, and guards who were far too busy sweating over royal politics to look up. I reached the heavy oak doors of the primary conference hall just as the shouting inside hit a fever pitch.
Through the crack in the doors, I saw Mirellia—pale, running a fever, yet holding her folding fan with lethal grace while a bloated, pig-like man—King Faubrey—leered at her. Beside her, little Melty looked ready to pass out from the sheer toxicity in the room.
"—You liar!" a Siltvelt representative roared, slamming his fists onto the table so hard his goblet toppled. His eyes blazed with fanatical fury. "Have you heard the rumors?! That the Shield Hero himself demanded to be left alone?!"
The room erupted into venomous murmurs. Mirellia's eyes narrowed, preparing another diplomatic deflection.
My cue.
I dropped the cognition cloak, kicked the heavy double doors open just wide enough to slip through, and stepped into the threshold. The hinges groaned, cutting across the cacophony like a blade.
"I myself said it."
My voice wasn't loud, yet it carried the flat, heavy resonance of someone who had spent a decade staring down apocalypses.
Instant, suffocating silence dropped over the hall. Dozens of heads—kings, prime ministers, warlords, and high priests—snapped toward the entrance. They took in the travel-stained cloak, the rough leather boots, and the battered, unassuming buckler strapped to my left arm. A stark, filthy blemish in the middle of their gilded, perfume-choked sanctuary.
Mirellia's eyes widened by a fraction of a millimeter before her sovereign mask slammed back into place.
I didn't wait for an introduction. I walked straight down the central aisle, my boots thudding against the marble, owning every inch of space until I stood directly in the center of the floor.
"That's right," I said, letting my gaze sweep coldly across the stunned delegates. "I'm the Shield Hero. And before you start flapping your gums about treaties and abductions, let's get a few facts straight."
A collective gasp rippled through the Faubrey contingent. The Siltvelt envoy looked like he was about to drop to his knees and weep.
"I don't care about your borders," I continued, cutting off a minister before he could even inhale to speak. "I don't care about your petty trade routes, and I certainly don't care about the senile old fool sitting on Melromarc's throne who botched the summoning. You're all here screaming about who gets to hold the leashes of the four Heroes. Here's the bad news: there are no leashes."
I turned my head slightly, locking eyes with Queen Mirellia.
"Let me make this painfully clear for the record," I announced, projecting my voice to the far corners of the rafters. "Queen Mirellia is not holding us hostage. She hasn't 'tamed' us, and she isn't hiding us. If she had any control over me whatsoever, I wouldn't be standing in the middle of Faubrey right now, ruining her carefully crafted diplomatic lies."
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mirellia's shoulders drop by a fraction of an inch. I had just handed her an ironclad alibi on a silver platter. If the Shield Hero himself publicly declared his independence and insulted the Melromarc crown in the same breath, no one could accuse her of running a covert monopoly.
"How charming," a smooth, lazily amused voice drawled from the front row.
I shifted my gaze. A blond young man lounged in a high-backed velvet chair—sharp features, aristocratic posture, and eyes gleaming with the detached, cynical boredom of a predator watching a stage play. I have never seen his face before but I can tell that he's definitely a player.
"So the Queen hasn't tamed you," he continued, resting his chin on his knuckles with a faint, mocking smirk. "Yet here you are, still tethered to Melromarc. All four of you refused our envoys. Tell me, Shield Hero—if another nation had summoned you first, would you still be singing this tune of noble independence?"
A sly fox.
"Maybe not," I admitted readily. I refused to lie when a measured truth served better. "But that doesn't matter. What matters is that we were summoned here. King Aultcray is the one who acted prematurely and is now absent."
I glanced around the hall, establishing eye contact with several key delegates.
"You're wasting precious time dwelling on who is to blame," I pressed, injecting a hint of weary authority into my voice. "The Heroes exist to stop the Waves, not to be pawns in a political leverage game. My motivation is survival, not national allegiance."
A subtle shift. The mood was turning from outright hostility to pragmatic calculation. They were beginning to see me as a resource, not a captive.
"But you said you'll remain in Melromarc," a heavy-set envoy pressed, frowning. "How do you intend to help the rest of the world?"
"I can teleport" I explained, letting the word hang in the air. "To any location I've been before. Give me the coordinates and sufficient notice of an incoming Wave, and I will be there, it's an exclusive skill of shield hero." I don't know if the other heroes have discovered this skill or not.
The reaction was immediate—gasps, murmurs, and frantic note-taking. It was a clear display of unadvertised power. The sharp-eyed blond watched me, the smirk momentarily replaced by genuine fascination.
"That ability isn't unique to you, Hero," an older, experienced-looking king interjected, attempting to destabilize my claim. "All Heroes possess it. Did Melromarc fail to tell you that as well?"
So you want to turn me against the queen.
"I had assumed the ability was exclusive to me, yes," I replied, maintaining a calm, steady tone. "But if it's universal, that simplifies coordination. It means all four of us can respond to a global threat, not just a national one. Again, the facts change, but the objective remains the same: stop the Waves."
This diffused the political point. I used their attempt to corner me as a reason for international cooperation.
"So you'll only appear when there's a Wave, then?" the sharp-eyed blond asked, leaning forward with renewed interest.
"That's the plan," I affirmed, my voice final. "I am not a ruler, a general, or a diplomat. I am a fighter. My role is to fight. The rest," I paused, looking directly at the assembly of leaders, "is for the world's leaders to handle."