“On the ashes of the fallen, the blood of the murdered and the path taken by the forsaken, I charge forward with courage!” Lard shouted at the top of his lungs as he ride on top of my cassowary.

“If you don’t stop doing that, I’m dropping you in the middle of the monster and spider infested mess,” I threatened. Lard gulped hard and kept his mouth zipped.

“I don’t feel good…” The Duke’s daughter Aera muttered just before she started puking on the side.

“HEY! That’s my bird’s feather’s you’re soiling!” I cursed. After the spiders had arrived, I grabbed the heroes and tossed them on top of my cassowary. The spiders attacked every monster but prioritized the monsters that blocked my path.

My cassowary stopped on its tracks as a giant half-lizard half-man roared at us. It was about to swing its fists down towards us when a spider roughly the same size as the monster rammed its side, clearing a path for us.

I kicked the cassowary forward, pumping mana into it to enhance its speed. The cassowary itself rammed through monsters smaller than itself. Occasionally, it gobbled the monsters up.

The priestess girl Leyna fired her holy spells whenever she could, the elf archer Arrowsky rained multiple arrows towards anything coming at us and Kendra was casting her spells at various enemies. Though, I told them not to hit the spiders.

“Why not the spiders?! They’re obviously monsters!” Aera shouted.

“Because spiders are important in the ecosystem! They eat flies and frogs eats spiders! Should we kill spiders then the number of flies will increase and the frogs will starve, causing a-…”

“I GET IT! I GET IT…Buuuaaaahhh!” Aera once again puked on my poor bird’s side.

My cassowary ran through the streets, turning whenever possible. We weren’t going on a straight line towards the portal since many of the path was blocked. As my group plowed through into one of the streets, we got surrounded by a horde of monsters. My cassowary attempted to run away but we were effectively caged in.

“You got wings, couldn’t you fly?!” I asked my bird.

The bird chirped then stopped moving. It unfolded its wings menacingly. The monsters backed off, scared of what the cassowary might do. Through my pulsing mana into the cassowary, I could feel the bird tensing its leg muscles. This was it! My bird will majestically fly!

…

Or not. The bird jumped, tried to flap its wings and majestically failed. It ended up tripping, taking us with it. Damned bird! The monsters started to close the gap between us until monsters around started being thrown around.

Knights in plate armor, riding horses plated in equally heavy armor lanced their way through the monsters. The impacts of their charges were so strong that the ground shook every time a knight slammed his lance into a monster. The monsters started retreating back towards the portal as the knights chased them in.

A knight with bright silver armor approached us. His round helmet had a lot of blue and red feathers, his necks guarded by steel and he was wearing a cape made out of wyvern skin. He raised his visor up, revealing his identity.

“What a surprise, it’s the heroes,” Archduke Francois said as he got off his horse and helped us up. He pointed at my bird and commented, “That’s an interesting mount.”

“Not for sale.” I grunted.

Knights in golden armor approached us, escorting someone in the middle of them. King Argo had his crown on while boasting a golden suit of armor. On his shoulders were the heads of lions, complimenting his wyvernskin cape.

“I tried looking for you in the castle but I would’ve figured that you would be heading towards the portal by now. As expected for someone who defeated a demon. Very brave and righteous.” King Argo nodded approvingly.

I just shrugged as I got on top of my cassowary along with the heroes. Luckily, my ride didn’t break any of his bones but I would definitely break all of his bones if he was going to pull that shit on me ever again.

“Come. There is little time to be wasted. We shall charge towards the heart of the menace.” The king pulled out a sword and pointed forward with it. This sword struck my interest as the aura of dominance and authority flowed through it. No doubt, this sword was made from heavenium.

The Duke’s knights lead the way further into the portal. We were making good progress until giant frog monsters that vomited acid blocked our path. We tried making our way around but the frogs were always there to block us. We used ranged weapons against them but there were too many.

Great, I would have to use my magic. Tsk, I was hoping to do nothing but ride my bird gloriously. I was about to gather magic until a rain of arrows flew over us and towards the frogs. There was no escape from the arrows as the rain covered the entire street.

I looked at where they came from and saw a bunch of hooded men on top of houses. One of them dropped down, then ran towards me. I dropped off my cassowary to meet this mysteriously familiar person.

“Boss, it’s me, Beor,” The man whispered to me.

“Beor? What the hell? Why are you are here?” I questioned my spymaster.

“Daggerless told me that you were here so I figured it would’ve been nice to bring the entire group to you. But then the portal appeared and I also figured that you would try to destroy the portal. All according to my calculations.” My spymaster proudly dusted off his shoulders.

“Ah, right. The Skeleton Crew.” I nodded.

“Should we help you destroy the portal, Boss? I have already made multiple plans to destroy it. Including torture,” Beor asked as he pulled out a jar of Maven’s cooking. Wait, was this guy serious?

“Don’t directly help. I was planning on using you guys to tour the kingdom anonymously so I don’t want you guys getting too much attention,” I ordered.

“Ah, that’s also within the margin of my plans. If you wish so.” Beor bowed then went back to the rooftop.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

The Duke and King asked me who he was but I refused to answer. They didn’t bother asking any further since there were monsters everywhere. They continued to charge forward, ramming into monsters of every type and size.

The number of knights was slowly dwindling but we were making good progress. Familiar walls were soon seen as we made our way through. Those were the walls designed to wall the dungeon in!

A giant hole was breached at the wall. It was more like the entire gate was ripped out as resistance intensified the closer we approached the dungeon section. The heroes got off my bird and started fighting their way through the horde of beasts. Well, Aera first had to puke onto the floor.

“Lard, you can’t just sit here and act heroic. You’ll have to be heroic yourself.” I grabbed Lard and tossed him towards the fight.

“WAIT! LET ME MENTALLY PREPARE! AAAAH!” Lard’s screams were muted out as he got buried into the sea of monsters. Well, he should be fine.

With Asha lugged around in my arm, I got off my bird. I told him to sit still and play dead after putting Asha down onto the ground. I pulled out a few tomatoes out of my robes and smeared them all over me. I proceeded to lean onto my cassowary.

“…What are you doing?” Asha asked me.

“Pretending to be dead,” I said.

“Why?”

“So I could watch the view. First class seat, right here,” I said as I fixed my positioning.

“...Can I play dead with you?”

“No way. Sarjay expects you to burn that portal down, you better do it. You don’t want to make him angry. On the other hand, I could sit here and be dead,” I warned.

“Your tomatoes aren’t even doing any good! It just looked like you were hit by tomatoes!” Asha retorted.

“Then I guess I could take off my mask. I’m already dead, anyway.” I sighed.

“Are you serious? I’ll just snitch you on the heroes!” Asha tried running towards the heroes but was too afraid to move any further than two steps.

“Well? I’m waiting?” I snickered.

“TEACHER!”

Oh Goddess damn it. I saw a fat blob running towards me. His clothing was torn, his sword was turned into a knife and his armor was non-existent. How was this guy alive?!

“What do you want, tubby?!” I raised myself up, disgruntled that my entertainment program was being disturbed.

“Oh, thank the Darkness you’re fine! I, Vakasa of the Darkness, managed to fight my way out of the monsters to regroup with you!” He raised his barely-a-sword up into the air. Ah, I see. So he just wanted me to protect him or something.

I wouldn’t do that. I stood up and patted myself clean. Instead of babysitting these two, I’ll just have the heroes babysit them. Then, I would run off and mysteriously disappear. I think that wall over there would make a good viewing spot.

With a cassowary and two kids in tow, I blasted my way towards where the group of heroes was at. They were about to be overwhelmed by three five-headed dogs until Archduke Francois charged at the monsters.

His lance went cleanly through the first dog. He went for another one but the dog dodged by throwing its body away from the lance. The archduke’s horse stopped on its track to turn towards the dog, but the third dog took advantage and leapt at the archduke with insane speed.

The archduke was viciously gnawed at by the five heads until the dog was skewered by Blackhair’s sword. The heroes surrounded Archduke Francois, with the priestess tending to him.

The last five-headed dog growled angrily at the heroes’ party. Instead of waiting for this dog to viciously destroy my babysitters, I decided to deal with it personally. With a snap of my finger, the dog exploded into gore and bits.

I ran towards the archduke to check up on him. Crouching next to him, the archduke grabbed my hand.

“Cough…gah…Hero….will you grant this old man one last request…cough!” The archduke muttered. Er…I would have told him that I was healing him but I didn’t want to make this awkward.

“Y…yes? What is it? I will try my best to do your last wish.” I decided to go along anyway.

“On my hip…is a heavenium knife…Please…”

“Please….take the knife and keep it, right?”

“No…cough….no. Eat it. Shove it down your throat.” The archduke coughed.

“What.”

“Just do it. Eat it. Choke on it…I mean…Er…It’s a tradition of my family to eat a knife when someone dies. Just do it.” The archduke was adamant about his last request.

“No way.”

“What?! But you promised to try your best to fulfill my request!” He looked at me with disdain.

“No, it’s fine, old man. Look, I’ve healed you up.” I raised my hand from his wound, the bite was just replaced with scars. The priestess Leyna was sobbing happily and started praying to the Goddess.

“Oh. Well…Ahem. Never mind, then. Some other day, then.” The archduke sat up straight and fixed his cape up. What did you mean by ‘some other day’?

“Attention! A behemoth has come!” Someone shouted amidst the chaos. We all looked at the portal and noticed a colossal two-legged monster. It had grey scales, almost like shells. Its head was like a snapping turtle but its two arms were instead two large scythes. It roared and shot a beam from its mouth towards a group of knights, disintegrating them.

“Oh boy. Looks like Big Daddy has come to play with us.” I sighed. The archduke quickly got onto his horse and started rallying his men. The king started chanting and his escorts tried to protect him.

From his hands, he started spewing a stream of fire towards the behemoth. The monster was annoyed by this and threw his scythe-like arm down towards the king. The king stopped casting his spell and drew out his sword to meet with the scythe of the behemoth.

The behemoth stomped his feet down, causing a small earthquake which cause the knights and king to lose their balance. The king fell off his horse and nearly got crushed by the weight of the behemoth’s scythe.

Monsters continued to swarm us but the biggest problem right now was that behemoth. Well, not my problem. It was their problem. To me, the portal was open right now.

“Alright, Asha. It’s time to show your true inheritance.” I tugged Asha’s back as she watched the clash between the king and the behemoth.

“What?”

“Heroes, escort me towards the portal! Here I come!” I grabbed Asha and raised her up like I was carrying a piece of log.

“PUT ME DOWN YOU IDIOT! AAAAAAAAH!” Asha screamed as I started charging towards the portal. I ran right under the behemoth which ignored me as the knights were distracting it.

As I drew closer, Asha was starting to get more alarmed at her impending doom. In a panic, both of her hands caught on fire. Both of the fires were small, but it was enough for me. I pulled my arm back, preparing to throw Asha like a javelin towards the portal.

“YOU IDIOT, WAIT UNTIL GRANDPAPA HEARS ABOUT THIS!” Asha continued to cry as I threw her towards the portal. Midflight, Asha’s fire turned into a raging ball of fire, engulfing her and turning her into a shooting star towards the portal.

Monsters attempted to stop the shooting star but got melted just by being near her. Soon the star transformed into a dragon made out of fire. The knights, the monsters, the king, the behemoth, everyone watched as a pure white dragon slammed into the portal, disintegrating it.

“…True Angolian fire…” I heard the king muttered.

The portal broke like a broken window, pieces of it falling onto the ground and smashing into ashes. Monsters tried to get back in but the portal soon broke into nothing.

With victory imminent, the knights renewed their assault and slaughtered the last few remaining monsters. The behemoth itself was backed into a wall as the knights threw arcane spears at it. With its last breathe, the behemoth roared loudly and finally fell onto the cold, hard ground.

Meanwhile, the pure white dragon was still flying up higher. The entire city could probably see the dragon, or maybe even the entire region. It started to dissipate into nothing, as it slowed its flight up.

With the dragon gone, Asha started falling from the sky. I roused up the mana in the air to create a cushion of air, slowing her fall into a glide. I guided her fall towards me until she landed softly onto the ground in front of me.

“Ahh….” She muttered as I walked over to where she was.

“If you could turn into that thing, couldn’t you do it earlier?” I placed my hands on my hips, voicing my displeasure.

“…I’m too tired to retort that.” Asha groaned as she sat up. From my robe, I threw her a blanket as her clothes got burnt into ashes from the transformation.

“Huh. What do you even keep inside your robe? Your house?” Asha croaked as she covered herself with a blanket.

“Eh. Just necessities the such as food, water, clothes and spare masks. Stuff like that.” I shrugged. With the entire ordeal done, I decided to just sit down and relax. Or that was what I wanted until the king’s escorts surrounded Asha and me.

“By the order of the King, come with us.” The captain of the guards drew his sword at me. Oh boy.