Light Novel Volume 11/Synopsis

Prologue: To Market
Naofumi, along with Sadeena, Raphtalia, Rishia, Filo, and Raph-chan went to the Zeltoble underground slave market to purchase additional slaves. The Slave Traders shows a rather beautiful slave that turned out to be a combat-proficient demi-human type known as a Kiki. Naofumi passes on the offer because she reminds him of Malty.

Chapter 1: Sacred Tree Elixir
The Slave Traders shows a few other slaves, but Naofumi noticed that something is odd. The offered slaves aren't really slaves, instead, they are children of wealthy and noble families from Siltvelt sent to set up an arranged marriage. Naofumi proceeds to the next slave offer and recognizes it since it belongs to the same type as Imiya and turned out to be her relative. Naofumi then bought other slaves whose origin was the same as Imiya's relative. Slave Traders bring Naofumi to the next offers, a pair of young demi-humans. The first one, Fohl, is Sadeena's acquaintance. The other one, Atla, as told by the Slave Trader, has a genetic disorder and doesn't have much longer to live. Both are Hakuko type of demi-humans and turned out to be siblings. Naofumi gives Atla a medicine and she gradually feels better. They then proceed to perform the slave registration.

Chapter 2: Return of the Village
After the shopping, Naofumi sends the slaves to the village with his portal skill, but due to its limitation, the teleport is divided into batches. Atla and Fohl belong to the second batch, and before they depart, Naofumi gives Atla another dose of medicine. Arrived at the village, Naofumi treats the slaves for extra motivation.

Chapter 3: Alps
A few days later, Atla complained about itchiness, so Naofumi tries to check her condition. He removes Atla's bandages and finds out that she is in a significantly better condition now. They then talk about the village and Atla decided to learn how to fight. Fohl and Sadeena decided to reset their level to get Naofumi's heroic growth boost.

Chapter 4: A Shield to Protect the Shield
Later at night, Atla came to Naofumi to sleep with him. They have a conversation about Naofumi's persona and Atla offered herself to be his shield, parallels to Raphtalia being his sword. Atla then fell asleep and Naofumi carries her to the house where Fohl is sleeping. Naofumi wakes Fohl up and they talk briefly.

Chapter 5: Trash and the Hakuko
The next morning, Naofumi is making breakfast for the village and he noticed a human stranger among them. The stranger turned out to be Murder Pierrot he fought at Zeltoble, without her mask. Naofumi gives her food and they talk after the meal. Murder Pierrot asked Naofumi for a job and he quickly stated that he doesn't need a mercenary. She then asked Naofumi to be friends, but their conversation didn't go well and Naofumi asked her to leave the village. As planned, Naofumi brings Sadeena and Fohl to the Melromarc castle to reset their level, with Raphtalia and Atla tagging along. When Naofumi and co. trying to find the Queen, Trash appears and enraged as usual. Strangely, the blind Atla notices that there are two of Fohl, mistaken Trash for the other one. Equally strange, after he sees Atla, Trash stopped his rage and walked away. A moment later, the Queen appears, and after analyzing what just happened, she explains it to Naofumi. She tells how the king's life has been destroyed more than once by Hakuko and how Atla reminds him of his thought-to-be dead sister. Before they went to the Dragon Hourglass to reset their level, the Queen asked Naofumi to capture Motoyasu by using his former companion later when they have done the level reset.

Chapter 6: The Fruits of Training
The level reset ceremony went smoothly, and they went back to the village using his portal shield. Naofumi ordered Sadeena, Fohl, and Atla to start leveling up. After gathering Raphtalia and Filo as party members in the mission to lure Motoyasu out, Naofumi went to get Motoyasu's companion the Queen mentioned before.

Chapter 7: The Plan to Capture the Spear Hero
At the designated location, Naofumi sees Motoyasu himself talking to Elena, his companion. He observes them from a distance, and see Motoyasu is treated poorly by Elena. Naofumi then greets Motoyasu and complaining about how he carried the Legendary Heroes' job. Motoyasu ignoring Naofumi's words and prepares to retaliate. Just as they want to capture him, Motoyasu teleported using his portal spear. Naofumi talk with Elena regarding what happened in the Spirit Tortoise accident.

Chapter 8: The Day the Game Ended
Naofumi stopping by in a commotion involving Ren, some familiar bandits, and vigilante corps. He quickly sorts things out and managed to take Ren to a tavern to talk. Raphtalia and Filo are sent to retrieve other bandits so Naofumi can talk without Ren getting cautious. Ren tells how his party got obliterated by Spirit Tortoise and became the sole survivor. Naofumi offers Ren to stay at his village to keep a low profile, and he accepted it. After the talk, Naofumi exits the tavern and tells Ren to wait for him. Naofumi then rushing off in pursuit of a figure he just caught a glimpse of.

Chapter 9: I Dub Thee Witch
The mark turned to be Motoyasu who tails Bitch and Girl 2, his former companions who currently talking with Ren. Naofumi continues to observe while Motoyasu doesn't seem to notice him. Bitch frames Motoyasu, the Queen, and Naofumi for being evil while trying to win Ren over. Irritated by the lies, Motoyasu and Naofumi shows up and talk to Bitch, but Ren sided with her and starts a fight. Naofumi and Ren banter about how Ren is the one at fault in getting his party members killed. Bitch joins the conversation but Naofumi swiftly trapped her in shield prison. Ren relentlessly attacks Naofumi, but noticing the enormous gap in their strength, Naofumi didn't even bother the block. Naofumi orders the confused Motoyasu to capture her. Unfortunately, Ren stopped his pointless assault and prioritize to run away with Bitch. Heartbroken by the truth and his companions' attitude toward him, Motoyasu now resigned himself to Naofumi. Raphtalia and Filo arrived and Naofumi told them what just happened. To avoid any further problems if he brings the unstable Motoyasu to the village, Naofumi decided to get a room for the night.

Chapter 10: New Awakening
On the same night, Naofumi and co. brings Motoyasu to a tavern to have a meal. After recent tragedies that befell him, Motoyasu no longer shows interest in women. Filo tries to cheer him up, only to get a cold response. After Filo offers her food to cheer him up, Motoyasu suddenly embraces her and crying. Even after Filo transformed into her filolial form, Motoyasu doesn't let her go. Filo get out of the tavern and threw Motoyasu off some cliff. The next day, Motoyasu shows up and starts to call Naofumi as "Father". Annoyed by Motoyasu's new condition, Naofumi ran away using portal skill to Melromarc castle and meet the Queen to report the situation regarding other heroes and Malty (now called Witch). In response to the report, and after some discussion with Naofumi, the Queen decided to put a bounty on Witch.

Chapter 11: Loincloth Pup
Naofumi heads back to the village. Keel shows her recently discovered therianthrope form taught by Sadeena. Most villagers who have an interest in fighting are about to reach level 40 and are ready for the class up ceremony. Naofumi picked someone to learn blacksmithing from the Melromarc weapon shop guy. He also plans to employ a slave to work in the coal mines in the near future.

Chapter 12: The Decision
Naofumi splits the class up in batches between those who don't mind interfered by Filo's cowlick and those who do. They dropped by the Melromarc weapon shop to discuss Spirit Tortoise equipment and submit a slave for an apprenticeship. It turned out that the weapon shop guy and the slave knew each other. The guy called him Tollynemiya, so Naofumi named him Tolly in his mind to remember it easier.

Chapter 13: Oodles of Ambushes
On the way back to the village, a stranger appears and blocks the road. The stranger attacks Naofumi as soon as he learns that he is the shield hero. A battle ensued between the stranger and Naofumi, Filo, and Raphtalia. The enemy turned out to be a skilled combatant, capable of handling Filo and Raphtalia's unrestrained assault, even pushes the three of them to a corner. Keel tries to help, but Naofumi, aware of the gap in their power, warned Keel to stay back. Just as the enemy's attack is about to reach Keel, Murder Pierrot appears and saves her. The stranger talking with Murder Pierrot, reveals that she is a vassal wielder from a destroyed world. Due to his previous debuff on Raphtalia, the stranger accidentally lifted her curse and make her stronger. Cornered by Raphtalia's recovered power, the enemy tried to run away but Murder Pierrot killed him before he could. Oddly, the enemy's corpse faded away. Murder Pierrot tries to explain the situation, but as always, the static makes her voice incomprehensible. Naofumi thought that her voice was broken due to her vassal weapon from a destroyed world no longer functioning properly as the hero's translator. Despite the poor communication, Murder Pierrot managed to introduce herself as S'yne. Feel indebted to her, Naofumi accepts her staying at the village.

Chapter 14: Official Request
It's been a week since the ambush, Naofumi worries about other holy heroes being targeted by similar enemies. Eclair and Rishia are back to the village after some training with the Hengen Muso lady to experience real combat with the style. Eclair informs Naofumi about the rising appearance of monsters around the area and an official request to take out some bandits. Naofumi brings Raphtalia, Filo, Eclair, Rishia, Atla, Fohl, and Raph-chan to clear the monsters. Rishia and Eclair show some progress from the training, and Atla surprisingly talented in a barehanded fighting style. They continue to clear the monsters, and Rishia got 2 level ups with ridiculously high stat growth. Apparently, her growth changes considerably once she reaches level 71.

Chapter 15: The Masked Man
Done with the monsters, Naofumi decided to go after the bandits. He split the party to four, each consist of a pair. Naofumi went down the mountain path with Raph-chan, where he is ambushed by Ren. This time, Ren is able to hurt Naofumi using a skill similar to Shield of Wrath's Iron Maiden. Raphtalia, alerted by Raph-chan, come to the scene to help, but Ren once again ran away. The other captured bandits spilled that they were released by Ren a week before. Naofumi now prioritizes to capture Ren and discusses the Cursed Series with the party to plan a countermeasure. They narrowed it down to greed, gluttony, vainglory, or pride based on Ren's behavior. Naofumi then calls S'yne and asked her to help to catch Ren. S'yne then goes to look for Ren, but immediately returned and pointed to the man she killed last week along with a companion.

Chapter 16: The Merits of Invading Other Worlds
The two enemies apparently in search of Ren but ends up met Naofumi first because they are hunting the same person. Aware of the gap in strength, Atla orders Fohl to stay back so they can avoid becoming burdens in the coming fight. Naofumi asked the enemies' goal in this world, and they explain the merits of destroying a world. Judging from S'yne's interaction with the enemies, they are likely to be the one who destroyed her world. Naofumi thought of the resurrection mechanic in a game to formulate a plan to break the enemies' resurrection loop. The fight ensues with the enemies having the upper hand despite being outnumbered. The enemy also learned from his previous mistake by not using a debuff on Filo. Instead, he uses a barrier skill to absorbs attacks. Naofumi, Raphtalia, and Filo managed to circumvent the barrier and landed some hits on the enemy. Eclair also caught the enemy off guard and managed to defeat the other enemy, though seconds later the enemy uses resurrection and continues to fight. As the fight dragged on, the enemies try to run away. Naofumi launches a coordinated combo with the entire party but didn't succeed to prevent their escape. After the fight, Atla and Fohl came back to the party. Besides Raphtalia, Filo, and S'yne who previously fought the enemy, the rest of the party are now aware of how powerful their enemy can be. Just when things seem to have calmed down, another presence is approaching them.

Chapter 17: Temptation
The nearby presence turned out to be a fight between Ren and Motoyasu who tries to help Naofumi capturing Ren. Motoyasu's area skill accidentally affects Naofumi's party, that's why they sensed an approaching presence before. Temptation, the skill Motoyasu has used, is an allurement type that can prevent enemies from escaping, so Ren who tries to run away can't use his teleport at the moment. Noticing that both Motoyasu and Ren now has a Cursed Series weapon as he does, Naofumi concluded that the curses are a defense mechanism that manifested when a hero was suffering from some psychological issue. Ren's weapon seems to evolve in the midst of the fight and enables him to use a new skill that parallels to Naofumi's Blood Sacrifice. Naofumi tanked the attack for his party and Raphtalia followed up to destroy it. Considering how much the world will be at risk if Ren got away for the third time and killed by World Destroyer, Naofumi decided to kill Ren if he won't cooperate. Eclair, trying to find another way, pleads for Naofumi's permission to have a duel with Ren. Despite being reluctant to the idea, Naofumi granted her wish on condition that she gets a Zweite Aura buff to even the odds against a hero.

Chapter 18: Flash
The duel dragged on and reached a stalemate where Ren couldn't land an attack, and Eclair's attacks were ineffective. Ren uses a deadly skill from the curse, but Eclair easily avoids it by leaping over it and landed in front of Ren. Eclair talks about what Ren really wanted and how he can repay his deceased companions. Despite being moved by Eclair's words, Ren went berserk and relentlessly attacks her. Learning Hengen Muso proved to be so useful when Eclair uses a defense rating attack and finally landed an effective hit. Ren collapsed and his cursed weapon revert back to a normal sword, winning Eclair the duel. The World Destroyers duo once again appears and tries to kill both Motoyasu and the collapsed Ren. Naofumi and the party try to save them, but Motoyasu by himself effortlessly defeats both of the enemies. It turned out that Motoyasu has followed Naofumi's level up advice and become significantly stronger. Just as the fight ended, Motoyasu ran off taking Filo's carriage. Naofumi notices enemies' souls are trapped in the area due to various effects of multiple cursed weapon skills and is reminded of how he finished Kyo off. Naofumi orders Raphtalia to attack the souls using Spirit Blade, killing them for good and solving the enemy's resurrection loops.

Epilogue: Making Peace with the Sword Hero
Naofumi took the unconscious Ren to the village. Ren woke up and get berated by Naofumi, but he remains calm and listens. Aware of his mistakes, Ren apologizes to Naofumi. Ren then tells Naofumi about how Witch betrayed him and stole his belonging. He also tells how he fell to the curse and formed his gang of bandits. Naofumi predicts where Witch is going, and according to her pattern, it is likely that she went to Itsuki. Now with Motoyasu got stronger and Ren secured, the force to fight the Wave is steadily increasing. Impressed by Eclair and Rishia's progress, Naofumi plans to train as well.