The Wrong Hero

Chapter 61 - What Lurks in the Shadows

Another day had come and gone. Another day closer to the next wave. Dante had spent the majority of yesterday riding on Lilith with Rifana.

Mirellia was likely somewhere west of Melromarc. Per Melty's previous communications with her, she knew Dante was headed to the east and would likely have gone to Siltvelt at some point. That just left the other direction to worry about countries raising arms against Melromarc. Dante still had Reichnott's territory saved in his portal locations and it was the closest to where Mirellia was probably headed. Rifana came just in case they needed to teleport back right away. That was for if Melromarc gave them any trouble, or if someone saw Dante leaving and decided it was a good time to start something.

They did not run into trouble the moment they appeared.

Lilith did not need to burn a few knights before they took off.

They were not attacked by soldiers either riding flying dragons of their own or grounded knights casting cooperative magic.

And, most certainly, a fort they passed by did not fire siege weapons at them.

On a completely unrelated note, ballista arrows were smaller than what Dante thought they'd be.

Once they returned to the village, Sadeena was passing by and saw them. It was hard to hide what happened from her. Not because she was good at deducing things from Rifana's expressions, given that she hid the truth poorly, but because Dante had an arrow stuck in the rear of his shoulder.

The three of them agreed not to bring any of this up to Melty. She had enough to be concerned about peace-wise without learning of more conflict between Dante and Melromarc. That was especially true since only elite knights had flying dragons for mounts. The only good news, aside from getting closer to Melromarc's western border, was that no one had died. Probably. A knight had fallen off his mount and Dante wasn't sure if another one caught him.

Rifana also got to spend a lot of time with Dante, and not all of it was in combat, so that was another good thing.

Other than that, nothing particularly exciting happened. Raphtalia went out to get more weapon forms with Sadeena. Dio and JoJo, though pouting about Dante riding on Lilith, played in the village with the children, including Melty. After resting a bit, Dante went back to Beloukas with Rifana to buy a few more children before returning quickly. He prioritized any sick ones, which thankfully there weren't many of.

While the village has been progressing nicely, there were still things he wanted to improve on. Food and trade were going well, thanks to the bioplant and Fiadia's management skills, but security was still lacking. A wall was the main thing. A wooden one was being constructed, since there was more than enough wood to be harvested from the nearby forest. Build points for his Territorial Reform skill were coming in slowly, but the cost to build a wall with it was ridiculously high.

Dante also went back to Siltvelt castle to fulfill his obligations, and suffer through Sadeena's torment. He also had another chat with Werner, one that they had been having more of recently. It was about selecting a wife, or wives, among the noble daughters presented to him about a month ago. Dante had been putting it off as much as he could, since he already had someone specific in mind to be his first wife, but Werner was beginning to stress the importance of it.

Finally, after returning to the village, it was time for another night of rest. Before he could, something popped up. He did offer to do this before, so he followed through on it, which led to the current day.

~The Wrong Hero~

Dante lay on his side in the bed, just as he had for the majority of the night. There was little he could do, outside of looking at shield forms in his status. He would reset this shield's Mastery level to use the energy on other shields later. While he could do it at any time, more energy was released the higher the Mastery level was. The additional value varied from shield to shield, so it wasn't always worth the wait, but Dante figured he might be using this shield more.