Meanwhile, back in the city, Allen is getting frustrated because he can’t find a replacement for Lloyd. All the white mages who applied could barely cast two spells at a time, while Lloyd could easily use five. Rina tries to tell him Lloyd might have been a special case, but Allen refuses to believe it—his pride won’t allow him to admit he was wrong. Instead, he decides all the white mages in the city must be even more useless than Lloyd, so they just need to keep recruiting.
Just then, a member of the Imperial Guard arrives with bad news: monsters have been spotted outside the city—over 10,000 of them—and the king wants the Hero’s Party to help defend the city. Confident as ever, Allen accepts without hesitation. The guard breathes a sigh of relief, assuming Allen knows what he’s doing. Spoiler: he absolutely doesn’t.
After the guard leaves, Sheena warns Allen that 10,000 monsters is too much for them to handle alone, but he’s more interested in the glory of fulfilling a royal request. The others can already tell this won’t end well.
Meanwhile, in the forest, Lloyd and Claire locate the second wave of monsters. If they join the horde headed for Ishtar, the city won’t survive. Lloyd says they must act, but Claire asks if there’s a way to stop them without killing them—she feels responsible since her power was used to summon them. Seeing her concern, Lloyd promises to save the town while minimizing monster casualties, but he’ll need her help. He asks if she can send the monsters back to their natural habitats. Claire says it’s possible but doubts she can manage such a large group. Lloyd offers to boost her abilities with his support magic. She agrees to try, but before she can cast the spell, something interferes, forcing them to investigate.
Back at the guild, Allen calls a meeting with all remaining adventurers, only to insult them for being weak. Sheena points out that all A-rank and higher parties are away on missions, leaving only B-rank and below. Allen keeps treating them like disposable pawns, which angers them, but the guild branch manager intervenes, reminding everyone they’re here to fight monsters, not each other.
Allen outlines his plan: all mages will cast their strongest attack spells to kill 10 monsters each, then rest while the melee fighters hold the line, repeating until victory. In theory, fine—but the adventurers explain their strongest spells can only kill one monster at best. Allen calls them incompetent, until Miiya admits she couldn’t do it either. She explains her magic weakened suddenly, and Sheena, Lulu, and Rina say the same—it started the day after Lloyd left.
Allen accuses them of lying, but Rina fires back, saying the same thing should be happening to him and that he’s too distracted by glory to notice he’s weaker. She bluntly tells him he doesn’t deserve his title—in front of everyone. Humiliated, Allen tries to punch her with full force, but she stops him effortlessly. The whole guild sees it, destroying his reputation.
Embarrassed, Allen runs out, and the remaining adventurers are left wondering how someone like him ever became a hero. With him useless, they’re forced to figure out how to defend the city before the monsters arrive.
They were starting to consider abandoning the city, but Reena told everyone to calm down—she was still willing to stay and fight. The adventurers felt reassured having someone as competent as Reena on their side, though she couldn’t deny the situation was bad. Her first order of business was to ask if anyone had seen a man named Lloyd recently.
While Reena searched, Lloyd was deep in the forest with Clare, where they discovered a magic crystal identical to the ones he’d seen before. The dark energy radiating from it was likely interfering with Clare’s spell. Unless they destroyed it, she wouldn’t be able to regain control over the monsters. But with at least a dozen crystals scattered through the forest, finding them all would be difficult.
Lloyd asked if Clare could sense the crystals’ locations. She could—if she was close enough—but the forest was too vast for her to detect them all. Without hesitation, Lloyd cast sensory sharing and enhancement on her, letting him receive the crystals’ locations directly. He followed this with invisibility magic for them both, impressing Clare with how effortlessly he worked. They slipped past the monsters, and Clare began dispelling the dark magic.
Back in the city, adventurers gathered outside the walls, uneasy about the coming battle. Reena told them that Lloyd had been the real reason behind the hero party’s past successes. When asked why he was expelled, she admitted it was due to the party’s arrogance—they’d mistaken victories as their own doing, ignoring Lloyd’s support. She wanted to ask him for help, but the guild manager explained he was away with an S-Rank party on a monster subjugation mission. Reena guessed that with his magic, he might already be on the way back. With no better option, she declared they would bet everything on his return.
Her defense plan had archers striking first, shield-bearers blocking the trenches, and mages hitting hard from behind. It wouldn’t be easy, but they could hold out until Lloyd arrived. That night, Yui and the others approached Ishtar, still boosted by Lloyd’s magic. Meanwhile, Lloyd and Clare found the final magic stone. Once destroyed, the monsters reverted to normal—but the nearby high wolves and blood panthers immediately turned on each other.
In the chaos, a monster bumped into Clare, dispelling her invisibility. Surrounded and frozen in fear, she forgot she could control monsters. She was nearly attacked before Lloyd diverted their attention.
In the city, the defenders were exhausted, and the monsters were breaking through. Just as hope faded, a massive fireball from Yui’s group lit up the battlefield. Elsewhere, Lloyd continued dodging attacks, refusing to harm the monsters because he’d promised Clare to minimize casualties. Realizing this, Clare finally used her power, singing to calm the monsters and lead them back into the forest—something Lloyd wished she’d done sooner, though he was impressed nonetheless.
Clare remembers that Lloyd had promised to keep monster casualties to a minimum for her sake, which is likely why he refused to attack them. Not wanting him to suffer because of her, she begins using her powers and sings a song that calms the monsters, guiding them back into the forest. Lloyd wishes she had done that earlier, but he’s still impressed. When he asks what she did, Clare explains that she simply used her powers to politely ask the monsters to return, and they listened.
With the monsters in the area freed from mind control, Lloyd tells Clare they need to hurry back to Ishtar.
Meanwhile, in Ishtar, the battle is still raging. Even with the help of UI’s party, they’ve barely made a dent in the horde, and their weapons and mana are running dangerously low. It truly looks like the city is on the brink of collapse. Reena urges everyone not to give up, certain they’ll find a way to win, but the front lines have already been breached and people are falling one after another. By morning, all defenses have been destroyed, and the guild manager fears Ishtar’s end is near.
Just as the city is about to be overrun, a voice rings out from the cliff near the forest—Clare’s song, amplified by Lloyd’s magic. One by one, the monsters stop attacking and return to the forest. When the last of them disappears, Clare stops singing, nearly collapsing from exhaustion, but Lloyd catches her. Both are relieved that they saved the city…
However, the crisis is far from over. The demons had planned more than one attack—now, a massive horde of golems is marching toward Ishtar.
