The heroes arrived at the capital city of the Vualdulin Empire. They watched the city pass them by as they were driven to the palace.

“Things look pretty prosperous here.” Hana waved at a few children.

“Yeah, well, I am sure this place is worse than the kingdom I ended up in,” Haley commented, looking hard down the dark alleys.

“At least you can cut loose here. Seriously, it is difficult trying to live amongst the demons.” Greggory complained.

Lindsey sighed. “I really want to lie and say I don’t have the Remove Curse ability….” The Saintess was not looking forward to what she would have to do.

They arrived at the palace, where an older man with a muscular build met them.

“Greetings, Heroes. I am Grand Duke Lorenze, and his majesty has put me in charge of your accommodations and schedule.” The duke elegantly bowed.

“It is nice to meet you, sir.” Hana held out her hand.

The grand duke stared at it momentarily before smiling and shaking her hand. “I would like to be the first to say it is a pleasure to have true heroes like yourselves here. If only ours was half as good as just one of you.” He sighed.

The heroes looked at each other briefly before the duke began escorting them inside.

“Now, are all of you familiar with noble etiquette?” The duke asked.

Each hero confirmed.

“Excellent. I am happy to hear that. We will have a brief audience with his majesty in the throne room, and then I will take you all to meet… him.”

Hana felt that the grand duke had considerable animosity toward Gabriel, but she couldn’t blame the noble if the rumors of their hero were true.

“Has anything turned up during your investigation of him?” Haley asked.

“You mean the rumors? We will have time after meeting his majesty to speak on the subject. No need to rush to reunite you all.” The duke brought them before a large set of double doors.

After nodding to the fancily dressed man by the door, the two heavily armored guards opened the doors.

“Now announcing! Hana the Elementalist, Haley the Operator, Lindsey the Saintess, and Dragon Knight Greggory!” The man at the door loudly announced their presence.

The duke escorted the four heroes down the grand hall toward the raised throne.

Upon the throne sat the emperor of the empire. He was in his fifties with only a bit of gray in his brown, neatly trimmed beard. Next to him sat the empress, a woman who looked to be in her mid-forties, her red hair made up in a bun.

To the sides of the two rulers stood the crown prince next to his father. Next to the empress were the first and second princesses.

From what Hana could remember, the first prince was in his early twenties. There was a second prince, but he went through a political marriage with a neighboring kingdom. The two princesses were eighteen and fifteen if her memory was correct.

The emperor was known to be a stoic and hardened man. He was a capable ruler who brought prosperity to his empire. The part Hana thought was bad about him was that he was one man. Due to the empire’s vastness, his eyes and ears could not be everywhere, and he missed things. That is what led to the slave trade that occurred within his empire.

“Welcome, Divine Heroes. I thank you all for coming to our empire.” The emperor spoke.

“We thank you for having us, your majesty,” Hana replied from her bowing position.

“Such an excellent answer. Far better.” The emperor smiled down at them.

Hana and the others knew what he meant by that. He was saying that Gabriel did not answer in such a way.

“Grand Duke Lorenze will be handling your needs and deployment. There will be a banquet tonight celebrating your arrival and introducing you to many who will be supporting you.” The emperor spoke.

Then with a wave of his hand, the duke stepped forward to them. “We have been dismissed. Please follow me.”

They were gathered in a meeting room with the duke and a couple of other individuals, one being the first princess.

“Greetings, heroes. I am Lady Alicia Vualdulin, the first princess of the empire. I will be the royal you will be working with the most. My elder brother is far too busy with his training to become the next emperor, and my sister is far too young. Though she does desire to meet with you lady heroes at some point.” The princess introduced herself.

“It is a pleasure to see you again, Lady Alicia.” Hana smiled.

“Indeed, it is Lady Hana.” Lady Alicia replied.

Hana pouted at the princess’ answer.

“Ah, yes, it is good to see you, Hana.” The princess corrected herself.

“If you are addressing Hana as such, please call me the same. Name is Haley.”

“I am Lindsey.”

“Greggory.”

The heroes introduced themselves.

“It is a pleasure to meet you all. Now then, grand duke, if you would please.” The princess let him take the lead.

“Thank you, your grace. Now I am sure you have questions, but let me review what little we know of the Demon-Lord so far. Since your arrival in our world, he had kept quiet until a month and a half ago when he entered the Galgalake dungeon. No one saw what the Demon-Lord looked like at the time. That was when all of you were brought together, and the fortress was built. Sadly, the Demon-Lord seemed to have escaped.”

“Do we know how he escaped?” Haley asked.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“We believe he might have used the dungeon’s teleportation function to send him farther away from the gate.”

“What of the dungeon? I heard that kind of thing doesn’t happen.” Greggory asked.

“It doesn’t happen often, but dungeon collapses can occur. We speculate that the Demon-Lord destroyed the core.”

With the questions out of the way, the duke continued.

“The next two sightings were close to each other. Hero Gabriel was attempting to run a dungeon mining operation in the town of Flower. The Demon-Lord must have found out that it was a fresh dungeon that had yet to be fully conquered and wanted the guaranteed ability. Supposedly he finished the dungeon in less than a week, which is bad news.”

“How so?” Greggory asked.

“The first dungeon took him a month. The second took less than a quarter of the time. It means he is amassing personal power quickly. This means that each of you will have to be at a minimum of rank 30 in your classes before facing him together. With your combined Heroes Call, you should be able to weaken him enough to defeat him.”

“What’s this about a dungeon mining operation?” Haley asked.

“Hero Gabriel has a mercenary group called the Silver Bloods. It is made up of many knights, soldiers, and young nobles. They had special mining tools called ‘drills’ that were capable of breaking apart the dungeon walls. Dungeons are masses of condensed mana. At first, it seemed promising, but the project was scrapped.”

“Why?” Lindsey asked.

“The wall sections can turn into monsters. We had an assessor sent to the location, and he nearly died. If it was not for the small mercenary group, things could have been worse.”

“What happened to the Silver Bloods there?” Hana asked.

She had heard many rumors about the group, but none of them were good.

“They were arrested and charged with several crimes. The uncle of the local lord attempted a coup to usurp her. I heard the same elite mercenary group exposed the plot and saved Lady Temerilla.”

“Really? Maybe we should recruit them? Do they have a name?” Haley asked.

The grand duke thought for a moment. “I don’t remember hearing of a name. Perhaps they have not officially formed a group yet. I will look into it. From what I remember, it was a large man and several women.”

“Hah! A true man!” Greggory joked.

To Hana, only one large person came to mind, the demon Caeldaemos.

“Was the man a demon by the name of Caeldaemos?” Hana asked.

“Huh?” The duke paused before laughing briefly. “I doubt there would be a demon that far out west. Hmm… I think his name might have been Michael?”

“Hana, you know Sir Caeldaemos?” Lady Alicia asked.

“Your grace?” The duke was surprised.

“Yes. He saved a town by the name of Hallibrush from that slaver baron. How do you know him?” Hana asked.

“I met him on my way to Galgalake. He was the one who saved my caravan from destruction. He is quite powerful. We should think of recruiting him as well.” Lady Alicia stated.

Hana laughed. “Yeah, though the big guy seemed kind of nervous being around me.”

“Most people would be nervous or in awe in the presence of a hero.” Lady Alicia giggled.

“Is he like most demons?” Greggory asked.

“Oh no, you would like him, Greggory. He did not seem so wound up like the others.” Hana answered.

Greggory nodded and agreed to try to recruit the demon.

“Very well. I will see what I can do about recruiting the mercenary group and the demon.” The duke shook his head. The man was quite happy with the heroes before him. They were intelligent, humble, committed to the cause, and seemed to know what they were doing.

“The final event that took place was the sighting of the Avatar. We pieced together a drawing of it.” The duke’s assistant unrolled a poster.

Upon the poster was a giant demon who looked to be made from darkness.

“This looks powerful….” Greggory commented.

“That’s… the Demon-Lord?” Lindsey asked with a shaky voice.

“This is the best we could do with the witness statements. If the Avatar is a replica of the Demon-Lord, we are looking for a large, winged demon with four horns and over seven-feet tall. Do you have any thoughts or advice, Greggory?”

The large man thought for a moment. “There are many demons who could fulfill the height requirement. Winged demons are not uncommon in their country, same with multiple horns. But to fulfill all the requirements, that would be rare. I can contact my allies in the demon capital if that helps.”

“Don’t worry about that. We have sent this drawing to all kingdoms. If the Demon-Lord is hiding among us, we will find him soon enough. To continue the summary, the Avatar cursed Gabriel with impotence and then proceeded to destroy the temple. After that, it vanished, and there have been no further sightings.” The duke concluded and opened for further questions.

“I heard something different about the temple.” Hana pointed out.

“My apologies for summarizing too much. The Avatar caused some damage to the temple structure by being present, but its target seemed to be anything related to the goddess of the sky and sun.” The duke answered.

“Do we know why only Sylfaerune?” Haley asked.

“We do not. The Avatar did not say much.”

“Are you sure the curse was not divine punishment? We have heard the rumors of Gabriel.” Lindsey said, hoping to get out of performing the ritual.

The grand duke chuckled. “I would not be surprised if it was.” He paused, and his expression changed to disappointment. “The rumors are most likely true, but there is no evidence. He has kept his status private from us.”

“Too bad we can’t check another hero’s status because the gods made it that way,” Hana commented.

Each of the heroes could check the status of everything apart from each other. There were also rare artifacts that could block or limit the information revealed. The items were rare, so many prominent or wealthy individuals possessed them.

“Perhaps we should hold off on curing him.” Haley offered.

The duke gave a reluctant smile. “I would agree, but I have been asked to have the curse removed.”

Lindsey sighed heavily. This would be her first curse removal, so a senior priest from the temple would be present to walk her through it.

“Any more questions?” The duke asked.

The heroes didn’t have any more, so the duke led them to see Gabriel.

They arrived at the room where the Hero of Sylfaerune stayed. A couple of Silver Bloods were at the door.

“Let him know I am here with the heroes.” The grand duke commanded.

“Hero Gabriel is not present.” One of the Silver Bloods pompously stated.

The duke narrowed his eyes at the man, causing him to shift nervously. “Where is he then?”

“H-He left.” The Silver Blood stammered.

“Where?!” The duke’s voice boomed.

“Dunluun! He was robbed by a couple of women, and we tracked them down! He went to go deal with them himself!” The man cried.

The grand duke was furious. “I ordered him to stay in the palace until the other heroes arrived! Dammit, all!”

The heroes looked at each other, wondering what to do. The duke led them back to the meeting room. He explained the situation to the princess, who left to notify the emperor.

The grand duke calmed himself down. “Heroes, I am sorry to ask this, but could you four please go to Dunluun to bring that fool back?”

“Of course,” Hana replied.

“Lady Hana, I understand you have taken on the role of party leader by majority vote. I will leave it to you. Also, take these amulets. They are powerful artifacts that will protect your minds.” The duke’s assistant handed them out to them.

“Why would we need these?” Haley asked.

The duke hesitated to answer. “This is… just in case the Demon-Lord can affect the mind. With how little information we have on him, we suspect he might have the ability. No matter what, wear them at all times. And I mean. At. All. Times.”

They checked the amulets.

Magic Amulet of Mental Freedom. This amulet is a powerful artifact that protects the wearer’s mind from any type of mental effects or attacks.

Wearing the amulets, they felt a sense of clarity within their minds.

“I wish you all the best of luck.” The grand duke bowed his head.

“Don’t worry, we’ll bring him back,” Hana replied with a smile.

The heroes gathered together and headed to their carriage, their caravan awaiting them.

“Miss Hana!” One of Hana’s party members rushed up to her.

“Yes?”

“We just received a report from Dunluun, Hero Gabriel is no longer in Dunluun. He continued to head east. The women he is pursuing are supposedly trying to escape to demi-human lands.”

Hana thought for a bit. “Okay. Head to the airfield and charter us an airship. It would be best for us to try to get ahead of him. Contact any of the city and town leaders we have contact with. We must catch up to him before he attracts the Demon-Lord’s attention again.”

“Maybe the Demon-Lord will do us a favor and curse him with a better personality?” Haley joked.

Greggory laughed as he climbed into the carriage.

So much information didn’t add up for Hana. Everything she had read and researched since arriving in the world said that the Demon-Lord was a violent and malevolent being of sin, yet this one did none of that. Other than a bit of destruction of property and doling out a blessing more than a curse, he has stayed quiet.

“What are you really?” Hana asked aloud before getting into the carriage.