A New Generation of Heroes

A/N: Sorry if this chapter seemed a bit rushed. I was originally going to dedicate several chapters to the events within, like showing how Chloe sealed Veldora and a few of Velgaia's disciples' adventures, but they felt more like side stories that weren't necessary for the main plot, so I skipped them. I will definitely write some side stories with Lilith, Morgan, and Yumina in the future, but I really want to get to the "Canon" timeline (i.e. Rimuru stuff) by the next chapter, so bare with me.

.~.~.~.

Training.

That's all I did with Chloe during the next few hundred years. She was strong and a ridiculously good swordswoman and her magic was nothing to scoff at, but I really didn't understand why she was labeled as the 'Ultimate Hero' in canon. Rudra far outstripped her in terms of ability.

Sure, to someone like Veldora, she was a threat, but if I'm being honest, he was the weakest of the category I would call 'Strong'. I could still one-shot him casually while Luminas, who was only really a mid-tier Demon Lord, was able to fight him and not die immediately as she would to any of the people I'd put above her in terms of power, so he couldn't really be used as anything other than the benchmark for the bare minimum.

Hell, even Zelanus once fought him to a draw in a serious fight. His battles with Dagruel were more of spars for Dagruel or warmups compared to when the two of us went at it. Hell, Yumina, Milim, Velgaia, and Obera even killed him once, which was actually the achievement they needed to become the First S-Ranked Party of the Guild, so it wasn't like 'being able to defeat Veldora' was a real accomplishment at the level she should have been at considering her energy values.

My disappointment with her pretty much all came down to the fact she didn't have an Ultimate Skill despite how strong of a will she had and the potential for growth her Unique Skills possessed. I even told her to acquire one at one point, being so fed up with her, but that was a century ago and she still hasn't gotten on.

Hell, Evelyn, who is weaker than her by a mile, still has some kind of Ultimate Skill, but whatever.

Lots of things happened over the centuries. The first big one was that two more Tenma Wars occurred. This wouldn't have really been a noteworthy event, as most nations had, by now, created various plans and procedures to deal with them and keep their populations safe from them. They mostly consisted of Fallout-style Bunkers spread throughout the countryside and hidden with magic that people would be taught about and trained to go to during the last few decades before the Angel Attacks.

Sure, the infrastructure would be destroyed, but buildings can always be rebuilt, and for the most part, small and minor villages wouldn't be attacked if they didn't have anything considered to be 'too advanced' like wireless communication devices of any kind or any mechanisms more advanced than a watermill or windmill.

No, what became annoying was the constant attacks from the southern continent where Zelanus had set up shop. Despite having a landmass the size of Australia to colonize, the insectars had overbred too much and had to ship out their excess population to the Magic Continent in an attempt to colonize it.

Obviously being overrun by giant monster insects wasn't exactly anyone's cup of tea, so the nations of Humanity were able to put up a united front against the hoards of enemies whenever the invasions occurred.

It was actually because of this that I came 'out of retirement' for a while. I'd kill off any Insect General who strayed too close and let the multinational task force dealing with the weaker bugs. Chloe also stood strong against the hordes very publicly, so she was given the title of 'hero' by the people, but in reality, it was mostly me just throwing her at the problem and calling it training in the hope she'd acquire an Ultimate Skill one day.

'Maybe that's why she hates me in the future?' I thought before brushing it aside.

'Nah, it must be something else.' I thought after looking at an annoyed Chloe coming back to base camp covered in insectar guts and green blood.

...

At some point in time, Dragon Wing disbanded. Milim went on her own adventure with Obera at her side, eventually becoming the Dragon Princess of the Dragon Kingdom of Nava in the southeast of the continent near to Evelyn's territory. She even trained up a large quantity of Dragons she managed to wrangle up along with their Dragonewt offspring, producing some of the world's finest warriors when it came to hand-to-hand martial arts.

Yumina took up the role as Grandmaster of the Guild, expanding it in many different ways, including adding a postal service and research department which dramatically lowered the price of magic tools worldwide. She even expanded upon the Guild's banking system by minting her own coinage, which eventually came to be the world's default currency in place of Dwarven Gold coins.

Velgaia was the most unique out of all the former members though. She wandered the world living freely. While she wasn't exactly trying to do it, she tended to bring together young people who had a certain fate or destiny to them, as many of the apprentices she taught went on to become Heroes.

Her first student was Maria Rosso, who later went on to become known as the 'White Saint' and married one of the Seven Luminaries, Granbell Rozzo, Rudra's disciple who was working for Luminous.

Her second student was a woman named Aria, the Sword Princess. A beautiful woman who fought with Lilith more than a few times over the years. While she never won, the fact she didn't lose either was a testament to how strong she became, as Lilith was about on par with Luminous in terms of strength.

Her next set of students was a group of young men going by Adalman, the First Saint. Albert, the Sword Saint, and Gadora, the Sage. All of them eventually became part of Luminous' forces and were rather powerful Saint-Level Humans. As a matter of fact, Albert was actually a comparable swordsman to Chloe at the time. /1\

Then there was also Morgan, Lilith's Daughter, who was picked up by the True Dragoness, during one of Morgan's visits to my place. My little Morgan was so cute using her magic to destroy entire bandit camps in one shot or cutting dragons in half with her sword. Morgan admired her Aunt Yumina a lot, so she eventually decided to become the Guild Master of Amarita, which was great, since I could see her all day.

Although she did break my heart when she said I couldn't keep coming over every day to see her work because it was distracting.

She even said if I didn't stop smothering her she'd hate me!

I was devastated!

But she was cute when she was embarrassed that I dotted on her in the Guild, so I forgave her.

The final party Velgaia trained was highly unique and very interesting. It was a party of Leon, Elmesia, and Nolla.

The reason this was interesting wasn't just that my old magic teacher was hanging around young people at a party again, but that Velgaia seemed to have fallen head-over-heels for Leon of all people. /2\

I get that the guy was actually really nice, not that his stern outward countenance helped with expressing that to others, but she straight-up went full Yandere with him too.

How someone goes full yandere over a guy who keeps rejecting you with the excuse he is in love with another woman is beyond me, but considering how often Velgrynd gets cucked by Rudra having kids to act as his reincarnation vessels with other women, maybe its secretly a rule of the universe that all women True Dragons are yandere cucks.

"Honey?" I called out to Velzard.

"Yes, Dear?" She called back, sticking her head out of the mound of blankets and pillows she was napping under.

"Are you secretly a cuckquean?" I asked genuinely and tried to sound supportive of her hidden fetish.

"..."

<<...>>

She punched me so hard I thought I saw my father waving at me from across a river with one hand and squeezing my mother's ass with the other.

.~.~.~.

/1\:

Adalman never died to the Dragon Zombie in this timeline due to the Luminaries plot because he was stronger by being trained by Velgaia, who was trained by the MC.

/2\:

Leon, in my canon, is going to be a dense harem protagonist, with Nolla, Guy, Velgaia, and Elmesia being into him, but he only has eyes from Chloe, kind of like how Kirito from SAO having a 'harem' of women but only being with Asuna.