Dire Situation -1

Earlier that day a portal opened near the village and around 20 appeared out of it. Their leader appeared to be a middle-aged man with silver-white hair. He took out a pocket watch and said " just on time ".

A magic boar nearby saw the people and attacked them but got frozen on the way. All the people ignored the boar and moved towards the village.

The leader turned toward one of the subordinates and said " Do it "

" yes Heath -sama "

Subordinate released a large about of mana which quickly surrounded the village.

" Some of you come with me and the rest search around the village ".

They nodded and followed him to the village.

By now the entire village was covered in fog which made the villagers panic. Everyone came out of their homes towards the center of the village to see what happened. While the village chief was calming everyone down, Heath took out his pocket watch and said

" This should be over in five minutes."

"Tell me the location of the magic stone or else you all will suffer "

" What magic stone, we don't have such thing " – villager 1

" Don't mess around, leave our village " -villager 2

" Seems like you won't understand like this

Men go kill half of them " Heath's emotionless voice rang out

" weren't we just supposed to search for the stone, " one person said.

" Are you disobeying me? I won't mind killing you first then "

" NONO Heath same I won't dare disobey ."

The village chief understood something and ordered the able-bodied man to protect the woman's children.

Chief didn't wait for them and attacked the person who seemed the leader with swords made from metal magic. A slab of ice was erected before him blocking the attacks.

" Look like there is someone who can put up a fight ."

After a while

Asta was moving through the fog removing it with anti-magic. Noelle, Julian, and Magna followed behind him. Julian decided that he would let the trio defeat the main people while he would watch from the sideline or heal people near the dead.

Julian knew what was happening as he had some of his birds watch everything going on in the village.

As they reached the village, they saw a horrifying scene. A lot of people were lying around with injuries on their bodies but the most injured was one with big ice shards sticking out of his body.

Just the chief was going to be killed, a ball of fire hit Heath to divert the spell.

" Tsk ! pests "

Magna was fire seeing the condition of his bellowed villagers. " Julian !"

" yeh, I know ". Julian went ahead and cast a healing spell on every injured person. Fortunately, no one died.

" I sense more people from around the houses, I will go take care of them, you three take care of them ".Julian said before going in one direction.

"Who gave the permission you to leave " shouted one grunt and followed him through the fog.

He shot a spell in the direction of Julian and found that it hit something. As he thought that he had hit Julian, he saw two red menacing eyes from the fog. It was the last thing he saw before losing consciousness.

Julian didn't waste time and started beating up all the people who were with Heath. Some people in the house had not gone out. They were beaten up for not giving information so he cast a healing spell on them too.

'Now time to watch the show'

Secre who was sitting on his shoulder looked in a specific direction.

'That energy, I cannot be mistaken, it belongs to one of the stones that can turn everything upside down.'

Asta and Heath's battle had heated up. Magna too understood Julian's gesture so didn't go all out. As long as Julian was around the chance of people dying was minimal.

Asta with the help of Magna was able to defeat the goons one by one but they were not successful in hurting Heath yet. The most annoying was the one with the fog magic. He was able to constantly invade their attacks. After a lot of practice along with surprise attacks from Noelle, they were able to take down the fog mage. Heath was annoyed by this and used a wide range of spells. Both Asta and Magna have some damage. A lot of ice swords hovered around the villagers.

" Move one inch and all of them die " shouted Heath.

" One after another annoying people are emerging. Stop wasting my time ."

Asta and Magna got into a dilemma.

Noelle seeing this panicked. A small girl tucked Noelle's clothes and said.

" Please big sister protect us. I don't want to die. Please "

Noelle seeing this gritted her teeth. 'What am I doing! It's my job to protect them but I am still hesitating, what can I do. What magic knight what royalty wasn't everything in naught'

This is why Julian and Magna were helping from the sidelines to make Asta and Noelle realize their responsibility. They could train their entire lives behind closed doors and gain strength but that would be useless if they cannot use that in the proper place.

Everything happening there was under Julian's observation.

" Protect them Noelle !!!" shouted Asta

'Asta …he is there fighting with his life whereas I am hesitating. I have to protect them and do my job, I won't let all my practice go to waste. I will become a new person'

It said that a grimoire responds to the true desire of the wielder At that moment responding to Noelle's feeling a new spell got engraved in her Grimoire

[water creation magic: sea dragon's lair]

A large amount of water emerged from Noelle's hands and formed a large dome covering all the villages. The dome even destroyed ice swords aimed at the villagers.

" I will protect them, you can focus on the fight Asta!!" Noelle shouted

" Good job Noelle, now leave the rest to me!! " said Asta and ran towards Heath.