"Are you saying that my daughter is obligated to serve your church?" Shiro asked with a frown.
"Not quite. I'm saying that your daughter is obligated to do something with her role as an angel. Whether that be on the front lines or helping people in the backlines. Since she was chosen to be an angel, it is her duty." Richard shook his head.
"Hou~ If that's the case then what do you think she should do on the backlines then? She has hardly any healing as she took the offensive route. She can't go on the front lines either since her level is not quite there yet."
"That's why we're allowing her to level up without our interference right now. Once she's high enough level, we'll need her to go to the front lines." Richard replied while Shiro narrowed her eyes.
"Allowing? Pretty arrogant to say that you're allowing someone to level up huh?"
"Please don't make any rash decision as having an angel on our side can greatly boost morale. With her on the front lines, we'll have a better chance at pushing back the demons. Right now, the Assassin Hero had managed to acquire us new land but in the future, the demons would be ready for her attacks.
"That's why we need Miss Lisandra to be ready when that time comes. If she is helping out on the front lines, especially with the holy element that is strong against the demons, we can acquire more land for humans." Richard persuaded as Shiro only scoffed.
"Do we need more land? Are humans struggling for land right now? With the dungeons around, a bunch of us are losing our life before we can even level up high enough. If anything, sign a peace treaty or just focus on protecting our borders rather than expanding.
"It's not like we're going to run out of land any time soon in this world. Plus, even if we do acquire land, how are we going to protect it all? It'll only spread us out more and at that stage, the demons can just pick us off one by one. Why do you think we've managed to survive for this long?" Shiro retorted as the priest fell silent.
She was indeed correct, humans didn't need a lot of land at this moment since they had no way to keep a hold onto that land.
"What about in the future then? We'll still need Miss Lisandra to protect our borders as part of the next generation. Who knows if any of the hero's will die in the future so we need to make back up plans." Richard replied.
Little did he know, borders would be the least of their worries in the future due to the coming age of demons and gods. At that point, the entire world would be dangerous and not just the demon territory.
"Well you can think that all you want. Just know that my daughter wants nothing to do with the church. When she fights, she'll be fighting of her own volition and not because of an order from you." Shiro warned as she attempted to leave with the party.
However, before they could, Richard tapped his staff down and a barrier was formed around them.
"Do you want me to break this?" Nan Tian whispered over to Shiro.
"No, it's fine lil' Tian. I got this." Shiro smiled before turning towards the priest.
"What's the meaning of this, Priest Richard?" She asked.
"Don't take this the wrong way. I merely want you to take this seriously. You realise that with what you're doing, you could be hindering humanity for one person's freedom." Richard reminded.
"What about it? Lisandra is my daughter and as her mother, I say that she deserves all the freedom she can get. Her identity has nothing to do with this. Hell, even if she was a god rather than an angel, I'd still say that she has no obligations to help out humanity." Shiro grinned while swiping her hand at the barrier.
*PING!~
Shattering into pieces, the priest watched in shock as Shiro turned around once more.
"Please wait!" He called out once more.
"What? Do you want to hinder me once more?" Shiro frowned.
"No, since you're so adamant about her freedom, then I shall no longer bother you about it. However, I do want to ask why a demon is in your party." Richard asked while glancing over at Madison.
As a high level priest/saint, he could sense her demonic aura the moment she entered. While it was still weak and had some resemblances of the aura humans would have, it was still an anomaly.
"Mn? Oh she's not a demon. It's just her class that makes her seem like one." Shiro replied before leaving without a second word. Activating the illusion once more, their appearances changed to what it was before they entered.
Watching the party leave, Richard had a difficult expression on his face as classes that involve demons couldn't be acquired unless you were born a demon or had demon blood in your veins. However, the fact that Madison was still human like despite this, it meant that her parents or someone down her family tree was a demon that had a child with a human.
"What shall we do about this, head priest?" A person asked as he bowed towards Richard with respect.
"Try keep the news to ourselves and don't make things hard for their party. It's understandable for people to value the good of one person over their race. We don't know what they've been through nor what they have experienced, so we cannot force our ideals onto them. Just don't make things difficult for them as that would be quite petty and unbecoming of us. We are, after all, servants of god." Richard shook his head while walking back to the altar.
Hearing this, the priest nodded his head.
However, despite this, there were still a few priests that were very offended by Shiro's actions. Even with the order that Richard laid down, they still had their own thoughts about the matter.
Some of them branded the party as Heretics while others wanted to hinder their progress and make life hard for the party.
Unfortunately, neither Richard nor Shiro knew about this. If Shiro knew, she would have 'taken care' of the priests immediately to avoid future troubles.
Walking out of the church, the party made their way towards another dungeon while Lisandra had a difficult expression on her face.
"Are you sure we should have replied to him that way mum? I mean, we're probably going to go to the front lines anyways." Lisandra asked.
"It's fine. The fact that they think they could determine your future just because you're an angel is laughable. I'll never agree to it. Plus, they're arrogant enough to think that they're allowing us to level up. If they try to stop us, we can either knock them out or just go to another city." Shiro shrugged as Lisandra nodded her head.
"Anyways, let's go to a dungeon. Since me and Lisandra are sharing EXP, I'll split off to a separate dungeon so that I can get more experience. That way, it's more efficient in terms of levelling up." She suggested as the party nodded their heads.
"Mn, I think most of us can solo a dungeon slightly higher than our level now so that might be the most efficient way. Of course, Silvia might need someone with her but at this point, I'm pretty sure she'll exhaust the boss with how much healing she can do to herself." Madison laughed.
"True. If anything, Chen Yu's probably going to have a harder time since he's an assassin. With how many monsters there are in the dungeon, it'll be tough unless he has someone to take the aggro." Aarim reminded.
"In that case then should I go with him? I'm a bruiser tank that can provide DPS as well with my second form." Madison suggested since her class has two stages. The base stage is tank while the second stage is pure offence.
"Cool. With that sorted, everyone will be soloing dungeons apart from Madison and Chen Yu who will be clearing it together. We'll do this for a day and compare it to a party run that we'll have tomorrow and see which one is faster. If the solo one is faster, we'll stick with that for a while." Shiro said with a smile.
"Ah in that case then, can I join along with you Shiro?" Nan Tian asked with a smile.
"Hmm… I suppose I can't have you just waiting outside by yourself. Who knows which ballsy girl would take a fancy to you and try to kidnap you or something. I don't exactly want to leave the dungeon to see a fight going on." Shiro nodded her head as she partied up with Nan Tian.
Splitting up the party, they each went their separate ways while Shiro chose a level 150 dungeon.