The Wrong Hero

Chapter 66 - Family Matters

The next few hours were a blur of activity.

The first step was convincing Aultcray to denounce the Three Heroes Church and allow their destruction. That would not be an easy task and time was not on their side. Whoever was registered to Malty's slave seal would have known it was terminated and informed others. It was the main reason she needed Dante to come to Melromarc as quickly as possible.

Luckily, Dante had become better at negotiation. That being, he promised to bring Melty back once they took care of business. Aultcray's family-first attitude worked in their favor.

Then, it was a dual-action plan. Dante and his party made their way to the church invisibly while Malty worked in the castle to broadcast a message. Since it was short notice, it was only to be spread in the city for now. In said message, she revealed that the Three Heroes Church plotted to overthrow the kingdom, having enslaved her and framed the Shield Hero for a crime he didn't commit. Malty also added how she worked in secret with the Shield Hero to purge the country of the filth that had infested it, legitimizing Dante's killings. It was a clever touch.

By the time the message aired to the major sections of the city, Raphtalia returned to where the party hid near the church. From what she could tell, the priests, nuns, and knights inside were working fast to move out. It seemed like there wasn't enough there to try taking the castle, unless there were more knights loyal to the church there. Dante's party figured if Aultcray was killed, they'd have been able to take over quickly.

A casting of Liberation Firestorm X halted any such potential ideas.

While Sadeena wasn't happy about him using it, Dante persuaded her of its lessened effect on him. Now that he had Way of the Dragon Vein, the only thing his Curse of Greed had to do was combine that, standard magic, and SP in a way for the spell to function properly. He still needed to learn it himself, but that was one of his next things to do.

With the large cathedral either burning or crumbling, Dante's party returned to the castle. They could sift through the remains later when they had more hands, or let knights actually loyal to the royal family handle it.

Once back in the castle, Dante fulfilled his promise. He brought Motoyasu and Raphtalia back to the village and—with two people having a saved location—brought back Melty, the rest of Motoyasu's party, and a few more from Dante's. Melty reunited with her father, making him forget his hatred for the Shield Hero. For a moment, at least. Seeing Rifana with his old staff, as well as more demi-humans, put his emotions back where the old man wanted them.

The destruction of the cathedral was a good demoralizer for the less faithful. Dante didn't care for staying in the castle, but those more loyal to the church were probably still around. The shadows were one such troublesome group. So, in order to ensure the safety of Melty and Malty, and begrudgingly Aultcray, Dante was to spend the night there. They could always teleport back to the village at the first sign of trouble at either location.

As a bonus, Dante and Sadeena were able to kill two more shadows. The church sent one with each hero group to aid in reconnaissance and information gathering. The one in Zeltoble just knew what to say to live, at least initially. The heroes would teleport back at the end of the day to report on what they found. For his patience, Dante was rewarded with Itsuki's shocked/angry/horrified face when he grabbed the shadow the moment they appeared and had Sadeena skewer them. Ren was the same, minus the angry part.

Motoyasu and Malty were mostly able to keep a fight from breaking out, though that didn't stop Armor's sister from trying. Given the time, they put off having a large discussion about what to do next until the morning, when everyone had a night to process what all happened.