While standing around at the main plaza, I watched an armored knight ram his bannered lance into a horned frog-like beast. The knight proceeded to pull his lance out, causing the frog to explode. Unharmed, the knight rallied some militiamen and continued to charge. I was impressed with the efficiency of the Angolian knights, but I supposed that it was expected of knights from one of the largest nation on the continent.

My group decided to go closer to where the portal was at, with the main plaza heading towards the dungeon. Near the dungeon, there was a garrison stationed along with some elite knights who were able to respond to the sudden threat.

So far, they were able to hold the monsters at bay but I didn’t think they would last long. It doesn’t help the fact that the portal kept churning out all types of monsters.

“Oi, screw loose. Do you know where the rest of the heroes are at?” I asked Lard.

“The great Vakasa of the Darkness has a lot of knowledge of the worlds of here and beyond. Limitless data flowed through my-“

“Shut up and tell me.” I cracked my knuckles.

“I heard they were at one of the market districts….”

“Was it the one we were at?” I questioned.

“Maybe? I don’t know. I mean…This knowledge has been locked by a foe of the Darkest Empire! I must find this worthy foe!” Lard placed a hand over his face, looking proud at the fact that he doesn’t know anything that could help us.

“Tell me, Sarjay. How were you able to beat this thing before?” I whispered to Sarjay about the portal.

“If I could recall, brute force. A lot of it. But this portal seemed tremendously bigger than I remembered. It’s going to need a lot of brute force,” He said as he observed the portal from a distance.

“We don’t have that so-called ‘brute force’ right now. Back then we had legions.” I shook my head.

“We also have to use Phollician Fire. It’s one of the only things that could cut through dimensional entities like that portal.” He conjured a ball of fire, changing its color from blue to white occasionally.

I looked at his fire, then down at his feet. Asha was crouched down, covering her head like usual. That reminded me, in every fight we had, Asha would always be protected by one of my companions or she would just find a hole to hide in.

Well, it was reasonable. She never fought before and she probably doesn’t know how to fight. However, I also remembered that Sarjay was teaching her how to use Phollician Fire.

“What about Asha?” I pointed at her.

“Hmm…actually, I suppose that she could instead-...” Sarjay allowed his fireball to dissipate.

A roar sounded throughout the city, causing the ground to shake. I looked up and saw a huge lizard standing on two legs. It had reddish-brown scales with tendrils growing out of its back. Its four arms were bashing down buildings and people alike, however its rampage ended when a beam of light went through the lizard.

Multiple fireballs were also thrown at the lizard, slowly roasting it. The lizard monster threw its four arms down but was sliced off by air blades. With its last roar, the monster fell down, taking down multiple buildings with it.

“Let’s head that way.” I pointed. Our group made our way to where the dead lizard was at by jumping over houses, shops and monsters.

In the sky, knights on what appeared to be flying manta rays fought flying monsters. Magnifying my vision with magic, I saw that the knights wore just leather armor and had some kind of mask with tube connected to them.

“Skylord Knights!” Asha proclaimed.

“The what knights?” I asked.

“Skylords are those majestic beasts they ride on to battle. I heard the skylords could fly so high up that riders had to wear special equipment for riding at high altitudes," Asha explained as I lugged her around my arms.

“Majestic sky flap flaps are called Skylords. Noted. Never seen them before,” I commented as I jumped over a monster. I could wonder about where the sky flaps flaps came from and find the person who didn’t take the chance to call them sky flaps flaps later.

We were near where the lizard had fallen and there, we spotted the heroes party along with some people in red and blue robes. Angolian soldiers and militiamen were pushing towards the portal but were having trouble.

“We can’t do this alone. I’m calling up the spiders,” I groaned.

“Spiders?” “Spiders?” Lard picked his nose looking bored while Sarjay flinced. Ah right, one didn’t knew I was a thousand year old lich and another was afraid of spiders.

“Well, just ignore what I said, Lard. As for you, Sarjay, just suck it up.” I pressed my palm on the ground. Mana in the surroundings swam towards my hand and within a second, made a clean, small hole going underground.

It took a few minutes for the familiar aura of death essence to be felt. A tiny spider crawled out of the hole and spotted me. It did a spider version of a bow. I crouched and leaned towards the spider.

“Call up your ALL of your buddies. There are all these annoying monsters coming out of a damned portal. I want them all gone,” I ordered. The spider nodded and ran back into the hole.

“Teacher! What the hell are you doing talking to a hole?!” The duke’s daughter Aera called out to me as the heroes’ party approached me.

“Never mind what you saw. Kids, we’ve got a portal to destroy.” I got up and patted my robe clean. I inspected the party and saw that they were already geared. Blackhair had his usual cuirass and Aera had her short dress and her new mithril rapier. The priestess Leyna still had her robes while Kendra was geared for close combat with light armor.

“So, you got no elaborate plan to take down that portal other than charging straight at it?” Aera asked.

“Of course. What do you want me to do? Start diplomatic talks with the portal and see if we could find a compromise?” I looked towards where the frontline was and saw that monsters were slowly breaking through the defensive lines.

“Sir, we are honored to work with you.” The robed people approached me.

“What? Who are these guys?” I asked the heroes.

“They’re the kingdom’s mages. They helped us take down the large monster,” Blackhair explained.

“Right. You could be our meatshie-…I mean…assistance for our fight. Let’s go.” I lead the group towards the frontline. We reached the marksmen’s line at the back, where the archers and wounded were at. Specialists were treating the wounded, one of them looked like a knight captain. I crouched down to him and saw that one of his legs was missing. The specialist could only stop the bleeding and he was barely conscious.

“Well now, don’t go dying on me yet,” I told the captain.

“It’s….an honor…to talk to you, hero,” The captain said with a raspy voice. I placed one of my hands on his shoulders, diverting mana from the air towards my palm.

“Tell me, is the title ‘hero’ given to me just because I’m part of the heroes’ party? In my opinion, it should only be given after doing a heroic act,” I proclaimed.

“Ha..ha…no, sir…Many of us….heard that you defeated…a demon by yourself. To us, you’re….a hero…” The captain coughed as I roused his cells up to maximum overwork using magic.

“Well….I….Never mind that. I didn’t come here to debate what a hero is. Where is the kingdom’s army? Why are they all over the damned place?” I asked the captain.

“Ah…we were supposed to have…a parade. Most of the knights are stationed…at the castle. The portal…it came out of nowhere…Archduke Francois is organizing….a counterattack at the Saint’s Statue,” The captain explained. His breathing was better now and he wasted less of my time waiting for him to stop dying. Once he was well enough, I lifted my hand up and thanked him.

“Where is Saint’s Statue?” I asked my group.

“It’s to the west, but monsters have overrun the path to the statue. Either we have to detour or fight through the horde of monsters,” One of the mages explained.

I thought about my options. I could probably wipe out all of the monsters myself, but that was too much work…Wait, I wanted to see how good mages in Angolia were.

“We don’t have enough time! The more time we wasted, the more people will die! I shall not have innocent lives be wasted because of our cowardice!” I proclaimed heroically.

“Teacher…” “Hero…” My group muttered and nodded. Sarjay and Asha just sighed as they guessed my true intentions. Other than watching mages fight in action, I wanted to push Lard’s training to the next level.

“Oi, tubby, you better be prepared to fight to the death,” I whispered to him as we walked towards the main street going to the Saint’s Statue.

“Gulp…to the death…I..I mean…Of course! I, Vakasa of the Darkness, fear no foe!” Although he had place a hand over his face, he was obviously ready to piss his pants, just like the time in the tombs.

Really, world? I wanted to summon a hero. Give me some kind of bulky muscled man who eats his enemies’ babies for breakfast or somewhere along those lines. Ah well, he would eventually get used to it, I hoped.

“Monsters!” One of the mages warned. An oversized three-legged chicken with a gaping mouth at its chest was chasing a group of soldiers who were running towards our direction.

“Hey, mages. Do your thing.” I snapped my finger impatiently. Seeing this, the mages formed a line and started chanting in Commons. I tapped the ground with my foot impatiently waiting for the mages as the monster quickly closed the gap between us.

Just as the monster was about to collide with us, the mages summoned a giant arcane fist, slamming into the monster. With just one hit, the insides of the monster imploded and its guts was spilled everywhere.

Smaller monsters appeared behind the chicken monster but the soldiers who were being chased turned to face them. The mages joined into the fray, using a variety of basic spells. I grabbed Kendra by the shoulders as she was about to run towards the fight.

“Kendra, can the mages use anything other than weird magic fist spell?” I asked.

“Of course. The kingdom’s mages are renowned to be able to use such high tier spells,” Kendra explained.

Eh? Hold on there. She lost me there for a minute. High tier? If I could remember that arcane fist thing was somewhere around basic level when I was around. Actually, I just realized that every normal folk I encountered used basic spells.

The fireball when I fought the Inquisitors in Aon. Kendra’s choice of magic. The horribly weak healing magic used by the people here. They were all connected somehow…

Before I realized it, Kendra had already slipped my grip and was already fighting the monsters. Sarjay tapped me and pointed at an incoming monster.

“Wait!” I shouted at the monster. It stopped on its tracks and looked confused. I was still deep in my thought. I placed a hand on my chin and stared at the monster. It was slowly getting uncomfortable at my stare and looked away.

I studied the monster. It looked like a slightly bigger cassowary. In fact, it might be a cassowary. I ordered the monster to sit and it did as I told. I sat down, leaning myself against its feathery body. I went back to my deep thoughts while Sarjay just looked over me, sighing.

“Hey. Quit shaking.” I growled at the cassowary that was shaking with fear.

Oh, man. The magic in the world just went to the shitter along with its metallurgy. Well, for the metallurgy, it was understandable since the mithril trees just got up and left. But what about magic?

Well, no matter. What was in the past, remains in the past. Someone had to reintroduce proper magic into the world. Only a person who had the tenacity to master the old arts and teach them into the potential thousands or millions of magic users could do it. A person with the patience of a saint, and the will to break through the old norms. Someone….

Not me, of course. I probably would only want to teach magic to experiment on people.

A person got thrown into the air and slammed right into the ground in front of me. She started coughing up dust and a bit of blood. Getting up, she started cursing at herself for being beaten by a monster. Oooh. I got an idea. I snapped my finger towards that person.

“Kendra, get over here.” I beckoned her to come closer.

“W..what the hell are you doing, teacher?” Kendra clutched her left arm while walked towards me.

“I was thinking about some things and that I believe that the world of magic should be more than what it is now,” I started explaining.

“….What?”

“No, in fact, there is more than what there is right now. There are so much more the world can learn. So much has been lost and it is not right to have the world be lost its art on…”

“Wait, wait. First of all, what the hell are you blabbering about right now? Secondly, did you hit your head? Thirdly, why are you leaning against a monster that looked like an oversized peacock?” She looked at me baffled.

Once again, I beckoned for her to come over. She hesitated for a bit then shuffled towards me. I grabbed her arm and poured mana into her body. She flinched as her body fixed itself using magic.

“Continuing on from what I was saying, you should become a direct apprentice of mine.” I nodded confidently, I was sure her answer would be throwing herself at my feet and thanking me by giving me her firstborn son.

“What? Are you serious? I mean, why now of all times? Can we do this some other time? You know, when monsters and arrows aren’t flying all over the place?” She complained. Sarjay placed one of his hands on her shoulder then pushed her down. A lightning bolt flew over her head and slightly scorched the top of her hair.

“Hey! Watch where you’re firing your damned spells!” I shook my fist angrily at the source, a mage who was attacked while he was chanting causing him to lose control.

“He’s going to be eaten alive! Compression!” Kendra shouted as she held her hand towards the monster that was on top of the unfortunate mage. After chanting, she squeezed her hand and the air around the monster compressed, causing a small implosion within the monster.

Sarjay crouched down next to me and whispered to me, “What’s your end goal in having her as your apprentice?”

“I want to teach her my magic,” I whispered back.

“Yeah? But why? I’m not sure what you gain from all this,” He asked.

“Hmm..side project. I’d like to know how far she could go with our type of magic before she implodes. If she survives all this, I don’t care what she does with the magic I teach to her. She could cut this damned planet into two for all I care.”

“I…” Sarjay paused for a second, “Normally I would stop you, but I am curious as well.”

I leaned my back against the cassowary and it shook. I jabbed it with my elbow angrily then continued to lean against it. I coughed at Kendra who was crouched onto the floor, trying to take a break from her continuous streak of spells.

“Well?” I asked.

“F…fine. Can you first please help me here? No, in fact, help all of us.” Kendra looked at me with disdain as she slowly got up.

“Well, it was about time anyway.” I grabbed the cassowary by its feather and jumped on its back. The cassowary protested and I wasn’t fond of that.

“Do you wish to become my dinner?” I whispered to it and it stopped. It chirped and shook its head repeatedly.

“Sarjay. I’m not sure about you. What are you going to do?” I turned my ride towards Sarjay. He titled his head at me.

“What do you mean what am I going to…wait a minute. Oh shi-“

“SPIDERS!” An Angolian soldier screamed as a hole popped up and spiders started attacking monsters left and right.

“Our side or what?!” Another soldier screamed, confused because the spiders were ignoring him even as he stabbed one.

“God damn it, you didn’t…I can’t do this! Take Asha with you! She’s your only hope of destroying that portal!” He grabbed Asha by the arms and pushed her to me.

“EUGH?! WHAT? WHY ME?! CAN’T I JUST HIDE IN THE CASTLE?!” She screamed.

“Unfortunately, no. You’re the only other person other than me who knows Phollician Fire. And I…I have business to attend to! Do not disappoint the House of Phollicia!” The bulky black knight turned and ran after giving Asha to me.

Well whatever. My cassowary here could be replacement Sarjay.