1013. The Goddesses' Bet on Shirou / 1014. What It Means to Be a Hero

Everything depends on the outcome of the Monster Festival.

The Monster Festival is a large-scale annual event in the labyrinth city of Orario, a very important celebration for both adventurers and gods seeking thrills and passing the time.

The event was claimed to be hosted by the guild, but in reality, it was only with the full assistance of the Ganesha Familia, which had many beast tamers, that this grand performance, presented by beast tamers and ferocious monsters, was able to be successfully held.

The original intention was to use this grand festival—a bloodless and clean taming—to dispel some of the prejudices that city dwellers held against adventurers, such as the idea that they were problematic, barbaric, or outlaws, and to reduce conflicts between ordinary people and adventurers.

Therefore, the performance involves the Ganesha Familia's beast tamers dealing with ferocious monsters brought from the labyrinth. The goal is not to defeat them, but to show the audience the entire taming process.

Many people have expressed doubts about this event planned by the guild.

Some worry that while they claim to maintain urban peace, they are actually releasing dangerous monsters onto the ground, which seems counterproductive; others laugh dismissively, saying it's nothing more than a superficial policy to appease the citizens.

However, where there is light, there is also darkness. While there are animal training performances in the outdoor arena, there are also animal fighting performances underground, but these are for the purpose of bloodshed and excitement.

On the day of the event, the entire city will become incredibly lively, but the most anticipated event will still be the underground Colosseum, where gladiators will engage in life-or-death battles with monsters. Compared to the animal taming performances in the circus, the battles here are naturally more captivating.

Orario, a labyrinth city that seeks to gain international dominance by controlling the sale of Magic Stone, finds itself in a position where guilds must protect adventurers in order to efficiently recycle Magic Stone from the labyrinth.

In fact, besides adventurers and gods, many ordinary citizens also come to watch this program. A large-scale gambling event will be held then, with bets made on whether the monster or the adventurer will live or die.

Penthesilea requested Shirou to participate, naturally referring to the latter.

People may tend to criticize barbarity and superficial, easily observable problems, hoping to use this to build rules and make people and society more civilized through constraints. However, the true darkness is not easily seen, and often such thoughts breed things that are more sordid and filthy than barbarity.

In the days that followed, Shirou continued living his life, creating new weapons and training with Bell.

A week later, the Monster Festival arrived as scheduled.

The east side of the main street, where the iconic Tower of Babel stands, is located, is already packed with people. For this day, many vendors line the street, creating a bustling scene that attracts crowds to stop and admire the offerings.

Humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, Little Folk, Amazon —people of all races, regardless of age or gender, mingled together in a breathtaking and spectacular sight. The overly excited crowds flooded the entire avenue, forming a long and thick procession that stretched all the way to the circular arena on the east side of the city.

Inside the open-air venue, the host and one of the organizers, the god Ganesha, appeared on a high platform to deliver the opening address to everyone.

"Then let Lord Ganesha, the organizer, say a few words to everyone," the host announced loudly, holding up a megaphone-like device.

"I am Ganesha!" said the white elephant-headed stone statue.

"Haha, how humorous! Now let's take a look at the contestants for this competition."

"I am Ganesha!" the white elephant-headed statue proclaimed once more.

"Hey, wait a minute, can you be serious for once?" the host complained.

"I am Ganesha ~!" the white elephant-headed god said like a broken record.

In reality, he was just a broken record; the real Ganesha was hiding in the little world inside the statue, living a decadent life as a recluse.

"I'll leave everything to Kama- chan, but is that really a good idea?"

Remembering Kama's sinister smile, Ganesha lay on the stall, pondering with some unease.

"Well, whatever, it doesn't affect me anyway, it has nothing to do with me. I stayed up too late last night, I'll sleep a little longer." Ganesha crossed his legs and fell fast asleep.

"I am Ganesha!!!" The white elephant-headed stone statue continued to shout in the venue.

"Hoo hoo hoo." Kama, a white-haired little girl with a sinister smile, walked barefoot to a temple not far away and went into the underground basement. Inside, there was a hidden world, with an underground Colosseum that was no smaller than the main arena outside.

Chapter 1013 The Goddesses' Bet on Shirou

The temple's basement is surrounded by a staircase forming a four-story-high platform. Separated by individual chambers, the platform houses the gods, while below sit people around the staircase. At the very bottom is a five-meter-high wall, smooth with moss, forming a circular enclosure. Only a few caves, sealed tightly with thick iron pillars, contain selected ferocious beasts.

Gladiators who challenged wild beasts would be lowered from a high platform using ropes, and only the victor would be brought back up.

The goddess with golden, drill-like curls stood atop the highest platform of the underground Colosseum, holding a sword and scales, and shouted loudly:

"This wager is presided over by me, the Goddess of Justice and Fairness, Astraea! My credibility is guaranteed; there will be absolutely no problems."

"If you're really so righteous, then don't open a casino for me! You hyena!" Ishtar cursed angrily.

"As long as this world needs justice, I will protect every industry! If you're not going to gamble, then shut up! Alright, you Goddess of Poverty, do you not even have enough decent money these days?"

Because the goddess runs the gambling den, the minimum bet is 10,000 falis. Ishtar, despite her wealthy family background, can never seem to save any money.

"Damn it! Who do you think you are! Give me 100,000 falies and I'll Shirou wins! I'll make you lose everything!" Ishtar roared angrily, pulling out a large bag of coins.

"As for Shirou, it's in the third match, the odds are 3:1, and the opponent is the Hell Rampage Bear that Amazon has provided before, the odds are 1:10. Are you really sure you want to bet?" Astraea asked, frowning. She didn't really want to open a betting game related to Shirou, since she also hoped that Shirou could win. However, the monster provided by Amazon this time is one of the most ferocious in the history of the Monster Festival, so it would be unreasonable not to open a betting game.

"Hey!! How do you have so much money?!" Ereshkigal asked, her expression changing.

"What? This is the clan's membership fee that I entrusted to you for safekeeping. Don't worry, I'll only buy Shirou. I'll definitely make it back. I want to see it," Ishtar said confidently.

That's what they say... but...

This amount of money is nothing compared to Astraea's casino and money exchange business. Ultimately, in gambling, the house has countless ways to guarantee a profit. Even if they do lose, they can simply donate and walk away; they're practically invincible. Ishtar's dreams are just wishful thinking.

And the fact that Ishtar, who could never save any money, was actually winning money made Ereshkigal feel like something bad was about to happen.

In order to ignite the atmosphere, the first two matches were quickly concluded with adventurers using flashy moves to defeat the monsters.

The third match is what people are really looking forward to.

The 'Berserker Bear' was released by Penthesilea, a level 6 member of the Amazon royal family.

Inside the cave, a colossal beast, dragging enormous iron balls on each of its four limbs, crawled out.

At this moment, the iron ball was released, and the bear exuded a murderous aura. Its body was covered with recently healed wounds, which made its bulging muscles appear even more ferocious and savage. Its gaping maw revealed sharp fangs, and its blood-red eyes were filled with rage towards humans, like a berserker who had lost his mind.

Even more outrageous, the provider equipped the bear with spiked armor, covering most of its vital organs.

"Hey, hey, this is going too far. This bear is old enough to be a level master, isn't it? It was sent by the Amazon, so it's no wonder."

"My opponent is a free agent with no rating or record, haha, isn't this a freebie!"

During this week, this berserk bear was fed large amounts of heads from higher-level monsters and underwent weight training. Anyone who dared to slack off would be caught and beaten. It had now become a muscle-modified berserk bear, with all its body fat forcibly catalyzed into massive muscles.

It is twice the size of a normal bear, its muscles are more than three times stronger, its body fat percentage is extremely low, and every muscle is bulging, hard and powerful. The claws on its two giant paws are also twice the size of those of a normal bear.

This is an extremely ferocious super monster!

"I'm betting on the Bear to win completely, 100,000!"

"That's too stingy! I want to buy a bear that can kill a gladiator in five minutes! Five hundred thousand!!! Enough to make a year's worth in one go."

An unexpected event occurred as Shirou landed.

The ground was shaking, something enormous was there, and then long shadows emerged from underground.

"What's wrong? What's wrong?"

Meanwhile, a problem also occurred on the ground. Someone had somehow managed to unlock the cages holding the monsters imprisoned by the Ganesha Familia. The frightened beasts rushed out of the warehouses and ran rampant throughout the human cities.

The Freya Familia and Loki Familia have begun to address these issues, striving to minimize the damage caused by this 'accident'.

The Sword Princess, the Amazon sisters, and the elf girl were cleaning up monsters in the streets, while Bell, who was shopping with Hestia on the other side, was also caught up in the chaos.

Between Shirou and the bear, a new type of monster appeared, a creature resembling a faceless snake.

The body is slender with smooth skin. The head—the front part of the body—lacks eyes or other organs and has a somewhat swollen shape resembling a sunflower seed. The entire body is a pale yellowish-green.

Gaaaaaaah!!!

The head suddenly split into multiple petals, revealing itself to be a flower with its mouth wide open. Its slender body was the flower stem, which swung its powerful body like a hammer, smashing in all directions and sending pebbles flying.

"The power of the fairy spirits? My target is the fire giant further inside. Can you please stop interfering with me?" Shirou said, looking at the new plant-type monster emerging from the ground.

"Gah gah!!" The plant-like monster raised its vines high, something even harder than ordinary steel bars, and slammed them down towards Shirou's head.

"It seems the negotiations have broken down. In that case, we'll just have to cut you all off!" Shirou said helplessly.

Bang bang bang!!!

Tentacles of monsters kept emerging from the ground, pushing open the iron bars that imprisoned them, including those intended for use in the fourth and fifth arenas.

The gate was breached, and monsters poured out one after another, running around wildly and causing chaos.

"Aaaaaah!!!" Some people in the Colosseum were so frightened by the rampaging monster that they tried to flee.

"Everyone, there's no need to panic!" A calm and confident voice came from underground.

Seemingly influenced by this voice, even the most vulnerable ordinary people fell silent.

A golden arrow flew out, its high-explosive impact piercing the head of an ape-like monster trying to climb into the stands, pinning it to the ground.

A silver arrow flew out and melted a chameleon whose long tongue was trying to coil towards the audience with concentrated acid.

Chapter 1014 The So-Called Heroism

The bear roared! The strange flower swayed its stem, and the other monsters released scattered everywhere, seemingly climbing onto the stands. The spectators screamed, but the boy closest to the monsters in the arena remained calm.

Shirou stopped the monster climbing the wall with another arrow, and confidently declared:

"My gods and lords! Do not panic! With me here, no monster will reach you. You only need to keep your eyes wide open and watch my performance... that will be enough!"

Shirou lowered his bow, took out two Ōdachi from his back, each with a blade over 2 meters long, and drew them one by one. Just like the swordsman Miyamoto Musashi in history, who used his superhuman strength to wield dual swords and cut people down everywhere on the battlefield, he held the long swords in both hands and walked towards the middle of the raging bear and the plant monster.

Someone above said in surprise:

"What... what is he going to do? Does he intend to take care of all the monsters down there by himself?"

"Was this mere 'free agent' without any rank insane from the start?"

"But he killed two monsters."

"Wow..."

"At least it looks decent."

The higher-level adventurers figured out a bit of the trick.

Some of the gods showed interest in their eyes.

"That's an interesting sight. It would be a shame if he died like that. Why don't we have the child go and rescue him later?"

"I'm starting to want this child."

In a private box on the top floor, the young goddess, with shoulder-length white hair, looked at Shirou curiously and tilted her head.

"Is this person... a hero?"

As Shirou approached, the bear's muscles tensed and bulged, making it look like a Terminator over three meters tall, with even more exaggerated muscle mass. Its giant paws alone were over a meter long, and each slam on the ground would leave a large crater, like the footprint of Tyrannosaurus Rex.

The plant monster opened its flower buds, revealing sharp fangs like snakes. People didn't know if it was a man-eating flower, but its steel-like stems and vines could easily crush a person into mincemeat.

In the stands where the Amazon were gathered, Penthesilea, sitting in the center, had his eyes turn black, leaving only golden pupils that radiated madness. He grinned maliciously and said, "Hey! Let me see your strength, Shirou! If you win, then the Amazon will obey you."

When Shirou arrived in this world, he had become an ordinary person, unable to make a contract with the gods and therefore unable to receive any amplification from their blessings. As a result, he could not use skills or True Magic, and could only rely on special items and weapons.

Instead of using the poisoned arrow that had melted the minotaur, he set his bow aside and began fighting with the two katana he had forged himself.

Although Japanese swords appear thin and light, they are actually quite heavy because they are made from special steel produced using special techniques and materials dropped from dungeons, all designed to combat the monsters of this world.

In particular, the two swords Shirou is currently using are oversized nodachi, exceeding two meters in length, which is half a meter longer than Sasaki Kojiro's famous sword. These are no longer weapons that a normal person can use.

Normally, slashing weapons that exceed a person's height are practically useless unless it's Riding combat or the work of a weapon master like Jack. However, Shirou effortlessly lifted the two nodachi swords.

A beam of magical energy gathered on the blade, accumulating energy that had been nurtured for days. Shirou leaped high into the air and charged between the two monsters.

Indeed, Shirou's stats are still low, currently only at level 3, but he never relies on stats to fight.

The sword light flashed, landing on the claws of the ferocious bear and the plant monster without any obstruction, cutting right through them, and then unleashing another strike.

One sword has the attribute 'speed' attached to it, and another has the attribute 'ignore defense' attached to it. With the amplitude of the scabbard, these kinds of continuous weapons also unleash powerful force.

With triple speed and the blade's all-around sharpness, first use the black sword, which ignores defense, to cut a gash, then use the swift white sword to cut all the way through. The time it normally takes to swing one sword is enough to make three cuts, and so on, repeating the process.

Before the monster could react, it tried to swat the little bug that jumped in front of it, only to find that its body was no longer under its control.

Seconds later, Shirou landed, the two enormous beasts cut into pieces, their remains revealing a crystalline state, and collapsed in the Colosseum.

Then Shirou transformed into a blur and arrived at the east side of the Colosseum, beside the fleeing monster, as several flashes of light appeared.

Then, Shunying arrived at the west side of the Colosseum. With a flash of sword light, the demon was reduced to fragments, leaving only the shimmering Magic Stone crystals that fell to the ground.

Inside the Colosseum and in the stands of the Colosseum, all fell into silence.

Shirou, having accomplished all this, simply returned to his original spot, wiped the dirt off the blade, picked up the scabbard from the ground, and put it back in its sheath. He was very calm, seemingly not at all aware that he had done anything particularly significant.

His leisurely movements stood in stark contrast to the remaining corpses of the monsters that had previously ravaged the Colosseum.

It doesn't boast, yet it's more boastful than boasting.

The proudest person will never show their pride to anyone.

This is something that transcends the boundaries of ordinary people; only heroes possess such spirit!

"Oh my gosh!" The underground Colosseum resounded with cheers from the crowd!