The Max Level Hero Strikes Back!

A sharp and loud roar resonated through the entire forest. The flames burned even brighter, as if displaying Fire Chicken’s desires. The forest became a huge sea of flames.

Fire Chicken was delighted, but it was also extremely furious. It was angry at the beings who had attacked it first. It was definitely delighted at this opportunity to go wild and not hold back.

‘Nothing in this place can stop me! I am not born weak! I am a powerful Divine Beast! I am a miraculous and wise being!’

Screech!!

Fire Chicken boasted its presence by flapping its large fiery wings. It stepped on the man and woman, staring at both beings who were made out of water droplets.

The man and woman struggled to breathe, because all of the oxygen in the air was being burned up.

For Fire Chicken, there was no better situation than this. It was the Vermillion Bird, the Divine Beast of fire; the situation obviously became more advantageous to Fire Chicken the more fire there was.

“Y… You monster.”

Fire Chicken let out a disappointed sigh when the long-eared human mumbled in exhaustion. Then, it flapped its large wings to float up into the air, opened its mouth, and gathered a large ball of scorching energy in its beak.

Zing!! 

It didn’t take long for Fire Chicken to shoot the ray of energy toward the man and the woman. The ray burned its surroundings red and caused even more fires. It was so intense that even the ground melted upon contact.

Instinctively understanding the danger of this situation, the long-eared man grabbed the woman and ran.

Zing!!

Of course, nothing stopped Fire Chicken from using its fire breath again. Another ray of hot energy shot through the trees, as if it was a fiery sword slicing through the entire forest.

“S-Sir Yulrgen!”

“How is a damn high-ranking water spirit not able to do anything?!”

“It’s dangerous. Let’s run away for now.”

“No, we cannot! Do not forget our mission: we must go to the human’s Pallan Empire and seize the human who cursed the Mother of the Divine Tree!”

Fire Chicken squinted at the shouting man. It understood what he was saying, but did not know who they were talking about. Most of all, it did not care. What did it matter? The most important thing was that they were irritating!

‘Ah, whatever. Burn them all!’

-Kyehh!!!

Another large roar rang out in the surroundings.

“But it is too strong!”

“Damn it!”

The long-eared humans shouted before the woman pulled out a staff. She shouted urgently, “Get out of here for now! The opponent is too strong!”

As a distinct light began to flow out of the woman’s staff, Fire Chicken felt that something was odd. It began charging its fire breath again, then blasted it once more. As the ground went up in flames, Fire Chicken flew high up in the air. Then, in a flash, Fire Chicken flew toward the long-eared humans and snatched up one of them.

“Emilia!!” The man shouted in shock.

Fire Chicken grabbed the woman by the back of her clothing and mercilessly shook her in the air. Once the woman fell unconscious, it stomped on the man.

‘I’m not allowed to kill innocent humans? When they attacked me first? Just burn them up!’

Fire Chicken could no longer use its breath, since it was holding the woman in his mouth. Of course, it could do other things even if it did not have its breath. Fire Chicken flew into the air and flapped its wings hard.

Rumble…

Balls of fire began to fall from the large clouds that covered the small area, which soon darkened. The man named Yulrgen looked like he had given up after seeing the unbelievable attack.

“Oh my… Where did such a monster come from…?”

Watching the rain of fire falling from the sky, the man pointed at the woman who Fire Chicken had seized. He took a step forward, ignoring the flames that would fall soon and turn his entire body into ashes. Then…

Pshhh!!

All of a sudden, the flames that were turning the forest into hell disappeared at once. Fire Chicken froze for a moment. There wasn’t a signal or anything, but it could tell instinctively that something really bad would happen if it didn’t return right away.

Fire Chicken immediately turned and began flying away with great speed, even forgetting about the fact that someone was dangling from its beak.

* * *

“I was going to control its temper, but it lost its temper as soon as it went for a flight.”

-Whether it be regular beasts or divine ones, they are free beings. How long did you think you would be able to control its urges?

“...That is true. And especially since Fire Chicken is young.”

There was no physical difference in size between Fire Chicken right now and a fully grown adult. However, it was still mentally very young; Davey knew that there would be great consequences if he just controlled it, so he had let it go free for a flight.

Since it was a Divine Beast of anger, Fire Chicken needed an appropriate way to let out that anger. It would be able to control its own anger and contain it later on, but that much control was just too much to expect from a little kid right now.

Davey smiled at the red being that quickly flew over to him and waved his hand.

Whoosh!!

Fire Chicken landed in front of Davey and stared at him with an anxious gaze. Then, it threw the thing that it held onto on the ground and rubbed its beak against Davey.

Davey could clearly see that Fire Chicken was trying to appeal to him by acting cute. He knew that it thought that he was going to punish it.

-S… So cute…

The former Demon Lord, realizing what Fire Chicken was doing, giggled at how cute it was.

Rinne, on the other hand, pouted a little. Davey wanted to tell her to not be jealous of a Divine Beast, but he first had to take care of this bird who was charging into him with its beak and begging for him to pet it.

“Aww, dear Fire Chicken.”

Davey felt Fire Chicken’s slight tremble when he called its name; it seemed fear had been instilled in it well.

“Did you have fun?”

-W… Whimper…

Davey chuckled as Fire Chicken whimpered and instinctively rubbed its beak on his hand. He would quite like these beasts if they learned how to control their temper.

As Davey held up Fire Chicken’s chin with his left hand and stroked its beak with his right hand, Fire Chicken began to relax and be comforted.

“But, you know…”

That was when Fire Chicken flinched.

“What is that piece of coal?” Davey asked.

Fire Chicken froze.

It looked like a piece of coal, but Davey could feel that a barrier of spirit mana was protecting the “piece of coal”.

“I think I was clear about the fact that you should not attack innocent humans.”

-Squeak!! Squeak!!

Due to Davey’s lower tone of voice and the fact that he was no longer smiling, Fire Chicken screamed like crazy and flapped its wings. Then, it even laid on the floor, showing its belly, and rolled around like it was trying to act cute.

-Chuckle…

“...”

Fire Chicken was going to act as cute as possible since it could not undo its actions.

Watching the Vermillion Bird throw any of its pride as a Divine Beast out the window and act all cute, Davey no longer wanted to scare it. He finally scratched its neck and approached the “piece of coal”. Then, he lifted up the burned robe. He immediately froze.

-Davey? What did… Oh my Freyja.

A little puzzled by Davey’s reaction, Perserque flew over to take a look. Her eyes widened after she lifted the robe and saw who it was.

-An elf..?

“Why is an elf here?” Davey was baffled. He grabbed the unconscious elf by the back of her neck and mumbled.

There was someone who knew better than anyone about elves at the Heins Territory.

“I’ve gotta go back to the Heins Territory for a little bit.”

When Davey said that, Rinne’s eyes shone. She urgently grabbed Davey’s leg.

“You’re going to go back to the Heins Territory? From here? How?” Illyna asked.

“Like this.”

Whoosh!!

When a magic circle was created with a strong rush of wind, Illyna stepped back. She had expected something like this to happen. She muttered, “Right… Who am I expecting logic from… Go. I’m going to go back, too.”

As Illyna turned away and left without hesitation, Davey jumped through dimensions.

* * *

“Oh! Gracious Savior?”

It had been quite a while since Davey last visited this place. Yuria Helishana, who was quietly enjoying her tea in her nature-friendly room, stared at him with wide eyes.

The house Yuria was in was a small beautiful wooden house that was in the center of where the elves lived. The wooden house was built with the elves’ distinct architecture style, so the wood was as tough as metal. Like the nature-friendly kind they were, the elves were maintaining their culture quite well.

“Did everything go well?”

“Well, up to an extent. I can’t help the fact that food prices are going to skyrocket, but I got something better.”

Now, Davey was able to access his handheld fan and charred twig with bells, and he had been given the Divine Beasts from his fight with Goddess Freyja.

The concept of Divine Beasts was much more important than summoning beasts; since the Vermillion Bird was in charge of fire, if Davey was contracted to it, his sorcery and daoist magic related to fire would become stronger as Fire Chicken got stronger. His sorcery or daoist magic related to thunder and wind would become stronger if he was contracted to the Azure Dragon, water for the Black Turtle, and earth for the White Tiger. This was a simple example, but this was also what the unlocking of the four Divine Beasts meant.

“Sorry for visiting you on such short notice. I have something to discuss.”

It would have been completely valid for Yuria to feel a little irritated by the sudden visit, but she set down another teacup in front of Davey like the visit was a good thing. She simply said, “Ah, what good timing. I have a new tea that I want to show you, Gracious Savior.”

“The ingredients?”

“Hehe.” Yuria giggled and her voice trailed off.

“It probably tastes pretty good if you’re drinking it.” Davey gulped down the tea. He could smell a faint scent that he had never smelled before, so he asked, “What did you put in here?”

“I brewed some husks of peppermint ants.”

“It gets stranger every time.” Davey scoffed.

Yuria giggled again. “Why does no one like my sense of taste? Even Myuu. The tea doesn’t even look that strange.”

“Speaking of which, where is she?”

“Giggle, she ran away. It was so cute how she rambled about something and backed away.”

Myuu had probably run away as fast as possible because she did not want to drink the tea, as it seemed like Myuu was currently living with Yuria.

No longer entertaining the small talk, Davey threw an unconscious girl in front of Yuria for her to see.

“Oh my,” Yuria gasped.

“Do you happen to know her?”

Yuria was momentarily silent before she whispered, “Third Central Official… Emilia… No way…”

Yuria stood up with wide eyes. Then, she ran up to the girl, checked her condition, and stared up at Davey. She yelled, “W… What happened?!”

Davey squinted. “Someone you know?”

“The previous… Saintess of the Divine Tree… I heard that she fell asleep along with the Divine Tree in the past…”

“Third Central Official Emilia?”

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“...Yes, the symbol on her forehead is given to elves who live alongside the Divine Tree.”

Just like Yuria said, there was a faded symbol of a dark moon on the unconscious girl’s forehead.

“The symbol is a crescent moon when one first becomes the Saintess of the Divine Tree. It grows into the first quarter moon, full moon, third quarter, and then the dark moon. Third Central Official Emilia has the symbol of a dark moon because she served the will of the Divine Tree until its death.”

Elves tended to live for around two hundred years, but they could live for up to five hundred years under special circumstances. The circumstances had to be extremely special, but it seemed that this girl called Third Central Official Emilia had her life prolonged due to these very circumstances.

Of course, the will of the Divine Tree was probably just a historical figure to the elves of this generation, but it wasn’t all that surprising to see Third Central Official Emilia. Davey had seen her sleeping in the crystal that existed in the Divine Tree’s treasury.

“How can Lady Emilia be in this world? And plus…”

“I don’t know. Fire Chicken captured her… But the conclusion is that this Emilia girl is an elf of the Divine Tree.”

“Technically, yes.”

“Alright, then she is a hostage.”

Yuria giggled. “You really do whatever you want. But, I will follow you, Gracious Savior. If I can, I will watch and care for this person by her side. Although, I have never seen her awake in my lifetime.”

Davey turned away without hesitation. “Okay, contact me with the communication crystal when she wakes up.”

“Yes. Travel safely, Gracious Savior.”

“Any inconveniences?”

“The dwarves really helped us out a lot. We’re beings who were so against each other, but.. Well, this isn’t all that bad, either.”