What is a hero?

The term 'hero' often refers to someone who does acts that others view as good or benevolent. Many people look up to heroes. Does doing good make someone a hero, though?

The Arcane Knights are sometimes called superheroes, as they have a level of power that goes beyond mortal limits, going past S+ Grade stats and skills, which they use to save the day. They battle monsters, evil mages, and forces and help keep their part of the world intact.

Without a doubt, a person could claim that the Arcane Knights, the way they exist and operate, are heroic, but does that mean they are heroes?

The job they have requires them to perform heroic deeds, but are they heroes because of these deeds? No. While it is good, and it does help people, and the act itself can be pure, a person who does their job and helps people because of their job, by following the rules of that job, is not inherently a hero.

When it comes to the term "hero," a hero should be someone who does good, even outside of their job. Someone who can act without having to be told. That is what a hero is.

The job of an Arcane Knight is to save people, but when a person is saved, the Knight no longer has to interact with them. The Knights saved Dandelion village by killing the boss, but they didn't truly help any of its people who were suffering from the attacks.

Likewise, in this current situation, a Knight would be expected to fight all the monsters that came before them, even at a cost to themselves.

Davi Hawker didn't care about being a Knight, though.

"Olivia," Davi spoke up.

"Y-Yeah?" Olivia struggled to breathe. The air burnt her lips as it forced its way past her mouth, and it scorched her lungs. Her flesh stung each time a small ember fell from the sky and landed on her.

If not for Quick Regeneration, she would have blacked out, but her healing factor managed to keep her body up. Unlike Davi, who had both a Heat Resistance trait and armor to keep him safe, she had nothing, and so her body was starting to rapidly burn. Just being on this floor was bad.

"Get out of here," Davi said calmly.

"W-What?"

"You can't handle being in this environment." Davi shook his head, and he glanced back at her. "You need to go."

"I'm a Knight, though? We said we'd clear this floor—"

"Olivia."

"Are you leaving also?" Olivia broke out into a rough cough and covered her mouth and nose, trying to block the fumes.

"No." Davi stared at the lake of lava once more. Something significant was pulling its way out. "That's the boss. I'm going to stay and fight it."

"Then I'll help—"

"I don't need help."

"Davi!"

"You're injured, and you're struggling to breathe," Davi responded sternly, and he smacked her over the head. Knights would fight to the death alongside other Knights if it meant taking down a powerful monster, but allowing Olivia to die for something as stupid as honor wasn't an ideal situation for Davi. He reached out and grabbed her body and the front of her clothing and picked her up.

"L-Let me down—"

Casually, Davi turned and tossed her at the opening of the tree. He had been hoping she'd go through and crash out onto the other side of the dungeon. There she'd be able to recover more, run, and get Ragna. That had been what he wanted to happen, but it wasn't what happened.

Instead of going through the gate, Olivia smacked face-first into a barrier. She groaned and dropped to the ground, rubbing at her busted nose.

"You've got to be shitting me," Davi grumbled and reached out. Sure enough, his hand felt an invisible force. This dungeon floor had a barrier around the way they came in. He was willing to bet it'd be the same at other entrances in the dungeon as well. If he wanted Olivia to get out, then the boss would have to be killed. "Damn it."

"There's a barrier?" Olivia shook her head and tried to stand up on wobbling legs once again. This area was seriously hot, and she could feel herself being cooked. "L-Look, now I can't leave, so let's just deal with this boss. Davi?"

Davi stayed silent. His gaze was fixed on the creature that was pulling its way out of the lake. The monster was making his Danger Sense go haywire. It was extremely tough, and if he was being honest, he didn't know if he'd be able to win. At the same time, he doubted he could just turn around and leave with Olivia.

Even if the barrier wasn't there, the monster had laid eyes upon him and her already, and so, it would track them down. If he had grabbed Olivia and left from the start, it would have chased them through the dungeon and no doubt slaughtered them while they were running away.

The only reason it hadn't come after them yet was because it knew it could take its time. Neither of them could escape due to the barrier, so the monster was letting the harsh conditions of the floors weaken them while it emerged from its bath slowly.

He would have stayed behind and bought Olivia the time she needed to get out, but that plan was no longer on the table. Now, he'd have to win and make sure the two of them didn't die. It was as simple as that.

"Alright." Davi took his claymore and dragged it across the ground as he began to walk toward the monster. "You stay in the back and try to use your spell when you get the chance. This thing is tough and likely resistant to magic, so only use a spell when you know you can hit it hard."

"Sure, sure, what is it anyway?" Olivia called out.

Claws came out first, along with a head and a body, as the beast pulled itself to the shore. Lava dripped off its body, and it violently shook to get all the gunk off of it.

When it finished, Davi found himself looking at a massive wolf-like beast. It was as tall and long as a bus and stood on four legs, each possessing powerful claws that glowed white hot. Its fur was the color of ash, and fire gushed down its body and its eyes. What was most notable about it, though, was the fact that it had three heads in total.

A cerberus.

It wasn't alone either. More creatures came out of the lake. These ones were significantly smaller but still larger than normal wolves. They only had one head but looked similar to the three-headed boss. They were hellhounds.

Davi took a calming breath, and then he launched himself at the monsters as fast as he could. The hellhounds charged first, five of them jumping toward him, but he easily sliced them all to bits with a single swipe of his sword. The rest of the hellhounds all howled, and from their open snouts, orbs of fire blasted toward him.

"Row Blood Shield!" Olivia used her spell and sliced her scythe out. A wave of red blasted off her weapon and formed a barrier in front of Davi just in time to block the orbs of fire. She collapsed to her knees, breathing harder, and now she was smoking, but she forced herself to focus so as not to lose her shield or scythe.

Davi gave her a nod, and he took her blood shield, strapping it on one of his arms. With it, he charged through the fire and sliced at more of the hounds. All the while, the big three-headed one watched him with narrowed eyes. It didn't act or bother to attack him, wanting the little ones to slow him down a bit more.

Davi knew that it was planning on tiring him out, so he decided not to play its game. He used his shield to block an incoming hellhound's strike, and then he jumped onto its back and kicked off of it to launch himself into the sky. The other hellhounds all looked up at him and sent their flames upwards, but with Olivia's shield, he blocked them all and began to fall toward the cerberus. The force of the attacks all transferred into the arm that held the sword, and when he dropped down toward its head, he sliced out with his blade!

Davi's eyes went wide as he hit empty air. Mana Step wasn't something only mages could use.

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The cerberus appeared behind him, faster than he could see, and while he was still stuck in midair, it slammed one of its claws up, attempting to slice him in two.

Thanks to Danger Sense, Davi was able to twist his body just enough to raise his shield up, and it blocked the attack, but the force of the monster's strike sent him blasting back, and due to how close they were above the lake of lava, Davi found himself falling to his death! Not even he'd be able to survive in magma.

"Row Blood Cube!" Olivia screamed out just in time, and the shield Davi held bubbled and changed.

Davi found himself enveloped in a large, red box that formed around him. It plunged him into total darkness the moment he touched the lava. "Row Shadow Vault."

Davi shifted into his vault just in time, and he let out a sigh of relief as it closed. He wasn't flash-fried. This did prove to be another issue, though…

He couldn't escape from his vault.

His shadow determined the entrance and exit to his vault. Whenever he entered through the vault, he had to exit through the shadow he used to enter. If that shadow vanished, then he needed a new shadow to fall over that place. All shadows that touched his were part of him, but since the lake of lava was so bright, there was no shadow, and he had been sent to a point where no other shadow could reach him.

That effectively meant that until a shadow appeared in the spot he had dropped into, he'd be stuck. If he did try to exit his vault, he'd just reappear directly over the lava.

He could try to do what he had done to the lake, which was to pull all the lava in, but the issue was that he was now in his vault. He could shunt and move everything, but if he were a little too slow, then the lava would come pouring onto him before he could shift it, since it'd have to appear in the opening he left, which was wherever he was.

"Well… shit." Davi folded his arms and frowned. "Okay, plan B."

Back in the real world, Olivia suddenly felt nervous at the fact that she was alone. "Uh oh." All the hellhounds and the Cerberus turned to look at her. Dozens of hellhounds charged at her. "Row Blood Slice!" In a panic, Olivia sliced her weapon out, sending a jagged red blade, and while it did cut down a few hellhounds, it did nothing to stop the swarm. "Polymorph!"

A hellhound jumped at her, but in a flash of gold, Olivia sliced it in half with her scythe, and she let out a sigh of relief and then used her weapon to cut another two monsters in half as they jumped at her.

"Finally. I'm not as hot." Olivia cheered as she now wore a black witch outfit. It left a little too much of her exposed for her liking, but having a skirt and a magical dress that kept her flesh cool was handy. "Now, how do I save Davi?"

One good thing about the revealing witch outfit was that it wasn't as bad as her leather one had been. The outfit was made of pure magic and kept cool, unlike her actual clothes, which were starting to boil. The hat was also helpful because it now blocked the raining embers that came down. Not only that, but now that she was in her Polymorph state, all her blood was back, as was all the mana she had used, basically giving her a complete restart.

Of course, that didn't mean she was suddenly able to do more than she normally could. She was still facing down a massive horde of hellhounds, and the cerberus growled and took notice of her, its three heads gushing fire.

The cerberus opened all its jaws, and the fire ignited the landscape. "Row Blood Hawk!" She had learned Blood Hawk randomly, back when she used to buy spells off the gacha. In the battle with Ken Yuan, she had modified the spell without fully understanding how Enchantment worked. After learning a bit more, she further modified the spell.

As the wave of fire blasted toward her, a massive pair of wings jutted out of the handle of her scythe. They flapped and fired up, and Olivia squeezed her eyes shut as she was dragged into the air.

The fire narrowly missed her, and she dangled in the sky, holding onto her scythe. The wings flapped, and the weapon flew around, carrying her away as the heads glared at her and kept their barrage of flames up.

Olivia gritted her teeth and pulled up with her body, flipping herself over the handle of the weapon, and she sat on it as if it were a witch's broom. She gripped it with both hands and was able to regain control, blasting through the skies. She was shocked at how fast she was moving, as the cerberus failed to hit her.

"Come and get me!" She yelled out, and she flew out across the lake of lava. The cerberus roared, and it jumped onto the lake. Its feet glowed, and it was able to run on the surface using a form of Water-Walking.

The Cerberus kept chasing her, and she led it over the lake; then, rapidly, she pulled back with her body. Her scythe jutted backwards, and she appeared directly over the beast, her shadow casting down onto its back.

"Row Shadow Vault."

The area they were above was directly where Davi had sunk, and the shadow she created for him instantly exploded open. It wasn't Davi that came out, though. Instead, from the cerberus's back, a wave of ice-cold water came flowing out.

The force and weight of the water made the monster's eyes go wide, and its legs buckled as the pressure began to slam it into the ground. It pressed into the surface of the lava, and more water continued to flow out. The vault's entrance was forced to expand, increasing the flow, and all at once, the previous lake Davi absorbed was shoved out of the vault.

The sudden appearance of cold water inches above a lake of lava, which was just as dense, triggered a chain reaction. Steam wasn't even able to form before a tremendous explosion of pure heat expanded out. A gigantic wave of force was launched outward in all directions, expanding the crater, pushing the lava in, killing all the hellhounds that were on the shore, and sending Olivia flying into the air even further.

She spun out of control, rising higher and higher. She was unable to control her flight path at all, being flung straight up, and the number of times she spun nearly made her throw up. When the spinning finally stopped, she was well above the clouds, miles up, and her eyes went wide when she saw the destruction down below.

The rapid temperature change, as well as a tremendous amount of new matter that had magically appeared over the lava, had generated a tremendous blast. Neither water nor lava remained, and the crater had expanded and jutted out, filled to the brim with jagged, molten rock. Thick steam formed heavy clouds above the land, and the shore around the lake had been smothered and fried; not a single hellhound, nor the cerberus, remained.

Olivia was finally able to stop herself from flying up. The shockwave alone had thrown her away for miles, so it wasn't shocking that everything that had been closer to the blast had been reduced to atoms.

It was like a small nuke had gone off.

As she flew down, Olivia worriedly studied the jagged rocks that had formed where the lake of lava had been. They were molten and hot still, some even being on fire, but they went deep into the crater. Standing on a section of them was Davi.

"Wow." Davi looked around at the destruction he had caused. "I didn't see that coming."

"What did you do!" Olivia floated down on her flying scythe and gave Davi a dazed look.

Davi shrugged. "Well, my idea was that I could send all the water I gathered from that other lake onto the lava, which would cool it off enough for me to swim out of, but I didn't expect it to blow up like it did. Good thing I closed my vault door, or I would have been caught in the blast."

Olivia looked stupefied by his innocent answer. "Davi, dropping that much water onto that much lava caused such a drastic change in the environment that you basically just dropped a massive bomb!"

"Neat. Think I can recreate that force?"

"No!"

"Yeah, I'd need to find a bunch of lava and no safe way to get that much in my vault. Plus, it'd cool off way too much in there and likely wouldn't work. I'll find some nukes or something and carry those around to blow up in emergencies."

Olivia let out a sigh and rolled her eyes. "Anyway, it's safe to say you killed the boss with that attack. Why don't we see if we can head out now?" She began to float back up while Davi opened his vault again.

From his vault, Davi pulled out the anchor and the massive chain. He spun it around and let go of it, hurling it high into the air. It came crashing down and smashed into the top of the crater, jamming down in place. He then used the chain and climbed up it, crawling out of the crater. When he was done, he shoved the anchor back into his vault.

"Nice outfit by the way," Davi said casually.

Olivia was caught off guard, and she took a moment to realize he was talking about her witch outfit. Her face turned a little red, and she looked away. It was kind of embarrassing to be seen in this outfit. It showed off her shoulders and legs way more than the outfits she typically wore did, and it had an overall 'sexy' look to it, the dress having ribbons tied around it. It was also a little childish as well, since it looked very witch-like, as if she were to just take it from some random comic or show.

"That's the outfit made by Polymorph?" Davi questioned.

"Yeah. I think it's trying to copy Evelyn? I think because I looked up to her a lot." Olivia landed on the ground, and the wings on her scythe finally faded away. "Maybe it did the same when I did it to you."

Davi shook his head. "No, that's not right. When you used it on me, it also put me in those robes. I don't think it makes us who we want to be or who we look up to; I think it makes us a more ideal version of ourselves."

"So my ideal version is me in a witch outfit."

"Sure." In reality, it was much more likely that the Olivia who stood before him was a version who had never been left by her father. A witch, raised by a proper dragon, taught how to utilize her magic to its fullest.

"If that was the boss, did we finish the dungeon?" Olivia questioned.

"I guess. Not sure where the vault entrance is, though. Thankfully, the tree wasn't blown up, so we can—" A loud howl erupted from the crater of jagged rocks. Davi spun around, just in time, as something came leaping out of the hole. "It lived?"

The cerberus had changed. It no longer had three heads. Now it had only one head and a body that was ghostly and see-through, forged out of bright orange flames.

A cerberus was a special monster. It had to be killed four times. The first death occurred when the water crushed it. By using a powerful enchantment, the cerberus could sacrifice one of its heads in a binding vow to survive whatever killed it. This would fully restore it but permanently weaken it until it could recover its lost power. The second death occurred due to the drastic change in temperatures. The Cerberus was frozen and shattered as soon as it had recovered. It sacrificed another head to survive. The final death was when the shockwave ripped out. It was torn to bits and imploded from the force, but it sacrificed not just its last head but its entire body.

When all heads were gone, the cerberus would transform into a ghostly being, and only in this state could it be killed once and for all.

The newly transformed Cerberus began to run towards them, zipping across the battlefield. It was unable to use Mana Step now, due to how weakened it had become, but it was still a boss-level monster!

The creature jumped at them and snarled as both Davi and Olivia raised their weapons up and got ready to fight it, but before they could attack, there was a flash, and suddenly, Ragna appeared!

The massive man twisted his body and threw out a powerful punch directly into the ghost's face, hitting it with so much force its form cracked and shattered, ethereal shards going everywhere, as the cerberus finally died, and a large golden core dropped to the ground at Ragna's feet.

"Looks like I showed up just in time!" Ragna declared, and he let out a loud laugh.

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