Chapter 1
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The back streets of Orario especially in the alleys were a hellhole of crime and desperation with the inhabitants that weren't worthy of joining a Familia congregated to be miserable and take said misery out on others.
"My fucking shoes... Really?" I asked flabbergasted as the damned midget/pallum held me at knife point. No, the dirty child-looking being held me at jagged glass point as the pallum had seemingly bound the jagged hunk of glass in some cloth to protect their hand from the large shard of glass.
When I landed in Danmachi I was so damned excited, I could meet some great waifus, I could join a Familia and become superhuman etc... But when I finally got to the guild from where I was randomly dropped in the middle of some small park and sleeping against a tree I was firmly reminded of how Orario was called the city of dreams.
And just like dreams, they were ephemeral things as the Guild said with the food shortage going on due to a Rakia invasion as well as the unrest from other events that all the Familia's within the Guild register were full of recruits and were no longer recruiting...
Sure some Familia's were eternally recruiting but I utterly refused to go anywhere near the meat grinder that was the entertainment district Familia's like Ishtar's.
So here I was being held up at knifepoint by a fucking dirty rip-off of a hobbit for my tennis shoes that it most certainly couldn't even wear.
"Look... I got denied at every turn by every Familia I tried talking to." I said and the child-like face sneered at my answer but then froze as I leaned closer and continued with a stone-cold face that I practiced from seeing Cartel and other psycho dudes on tv. "I am so very frustrated at this moment, so here is what is going to happen... You can and maybe will end up stabbing me with that hunk of dirty glass, but even if I bleed out like a stuck pig, I am going to grab your head by your greasy ass hair and then I am going to drown you in that rain barrel over there while your tiny legs kick in the air as your midget ass can't reach the ground... Do you still want to do this?" I asked bluntly, and the Pallum looked at the homemade knife and then slowly took a step back shaking their head.
"No, you aren't an easy mark... Not worth it." At their words, I blinked as it came out distinctively feminine but with the pallum's thick jacket and clothes, I previously couldn't tell what gender the pallum was though it made little difference to me.
"Then get out of here." I said tiredly as I leaned up against the wall of the alley and cupped my face as I tried to figure out what I was supposed to do.
"Are you new to Orario or something? This is Soma territory you should get out of here if you don't want to get shot by some junky with a bow so they can loot your corpse easily Hahaha." The Pallum said laughing at the thought as she slinked back deeper into the alley making me sigh and then after a moment of thought, I decided to just say fuck it.
'I was special enough to get Isekaied, I don't need to get my fucking hand held' I thought with mental fortitude and spite more than anything filling my heart and as I reached outwards I felt a heat within my chest and as my hand took up a wooden pole that probably belonged to a broom or rake making me realize what my cheat was.
"The sum of many is better than one combined to infinity," I muttered as I seemingly unlocked my cheat that did two things, being a small pocket space about three meters squared that allowed me to fuse the stuff within the pocket space with the objects being forcibly combined into something better than the sum of its parts.
Silently I pocketed a bunch of trash and debris in the alleyway and I mentally watched as almost like a gotcha game all the wood, and metal scrapes combined together into a spear that I tried to envision was about two meters long with a plain but sharp and thick spear blade atop the dense wooden handle.
But even as I held the spear I had some doubts... Like should I even share this secret to join a Familia and could those gods who bind my soul with their divine tramp stamp fuck with my cheat? At the thought of losing my cheat, the prospect of joining a Familia lost a lot of its draw.
The whole point of a cheat was to help someone reach their full potential and break the world over their knees and the simple possibility of one of the cruel gods fucking with it... Yeah, I rather not chance it for now I realized.
So with that decided to just make my own way until or even if I found a god or goddess trustworthy enough. Sure Hestia was a basic easy option but I didn't want to get dragged into Bell's shenanigans until I got my feet under me.
-
Another five minutes later I made my way across Orario to get back to the Tower of Babel and as I stared into the massive pit that led into the heart of the dungeon I took a deep breath with my spear at my side and I heard some guys chuckling at the sight of me who was obviously a rookie with how I was armed with such a basic spear and only a thick leather apron thing I tied around my chest and a collar to protect my neck.
"Dude, is it your first time or something?" A guy behind me wearing plate mail asked as I was walking down into the dungeon and between steps I said yes. "Huh, well in that case having a spear is a smart choice especially if you just stick to the first floor as the Goblins and Kobolds even if you just got your falna wont be an issue so long as you don't get ganged up on." The man said and then the rest of the walk was silent as although it was clear they were friendly people that obviously weren't going to babysit me or anything.
Coming into the first floor of the dungeon which consisted of rather thin tunnels that were like five meters wide and a bit taller with soft blue glowing lights dotting the walls I separated from the trail of adventures going deeper into the dungeon as I went into one of the side tunnels while marking on some paper the direction I was going so I didn't get lost.
"There's one." I muttered seeing the singular goblin literally bending over to look imperceptibly down a different hallway I took a deep breath as I approached the goblin that was looking down the tunnel and when my feet naturally alerted the goblin it whirled around and I saw how the goblin had three small like bladed horns on its head and its lower body was covered with a thick fur and being a dungeon monster obviously had glowing red eyes showing its connection to the dungeon.
The goblin screeched at me and then sprinted at me with its thin-fingered hands raised as it leaped at me, with its short four-foot-tall frame with its hands closing to obviously go for my neck. But the goblin was to put bluntly stupid as fuck as even as it brainlessly charged at me with only the intent of killing me I just had to angle the spear so it would ram into its own chest into the spear.
I grunted as the goblin's rib cage resisted the spear point for a second before breaking and my spearing pushed all the way through the goblin's chest and going out the back of it but even as my spear went through the goblin's lungs the monster only vomited blood freezing for a moment before its mind clouded by the dungeon just went right back to trying to kill me. So it literally slid down the length of my spear coating the wooden handle in its blood as it tried to get to me.
But a cracking noise rang out as I smashed the brick I had in my pocket space into the goblin's face and I both heard and felt its nose give way under the weight of the brick with my the force of my hand added to it and then as the goblin reared back with its eyes blinded by tears at its smashed nose I held the brick by the sides and slammed it into the goblin's throat and once again I felt bones and cartilage give way under the blunt force of the brick.
Finally, I managed to pull out my spear as the goblin held its neck as it couldn't breathe with its windpipe smashed, and then with a grunt I stabbed the goblin straight through the eye making it flail for a second before dropping still with the occasional shudder as its monstrous brain kept it active for but a couple of moments before stilling.
For a whole minute, I just got my breath back as I realized how that goblin even being only like some four feet tall was strong for its size... No wonder they said that dungeon goblins could kill an adult that was caught unaware. It was as strong as a good-sized human teenager but with it having zero care for its health and had all of its strength, unlike a human body that naturally limits it. A simple goblin was actually as dangerous as a rabid wolf or something.
Then as I stared at the corpse of the monster and took in its bare form and ignored its genitalia, I took a breath as I was momentarily lost on what to do. Should I cut open the goblin for a monster stone worth damn near nothing. Or...
Wordlessly I dumped the corpse of the goblin into my pocket space with my spear and then with a thought I combined them and the spear came out with the head of the spear becoming a tri-pointed blade similar to a goblin's head along with the handle of the spear becoming covered in the dense fur that covered the lower body of the goblin and I realized that the rough fur gave the spear an even better grip.
That wasn't all, as I held the spear, similar to my little pocket space window I could see in my mind I got a little prompt mentally that read.
[Goblin's Bane- A spear born and made of a lone goblin wanderer.- Does additional damage to goblins, sucking goblin's blood heavily and other monsters much less while the blade is with their body, and the spear can be directly upgraded via the corpse of an Orc being fused into a spear.- Hidden Upgrade-1 {They shall know fear}- Kill one thousand goblins with only using the spear to naturally grant the spear the ability to heal the user from the blood of monsters it has absorbed and grant a small portion of the slain monster's strength to the user.}
I blanked looking at the spear for a moment before I sighed and I facepalmed as I realized joining a Familia if word of my weapons got out was going to be fucking impossible if they couldn't protect me.
'But if my weapons could naturally strengthen my body and stuff from simply killing monsters do I even need to join a Familia and have to deal with the whims of a god or goddess?' I thought before sighing and shutting down those thoughts as I heard the scratching of feet padding across the rough stone floor of the dungeon.
And with a short glance, I saw from down the tunnel the goblin was previously looking down a goblin walking towards my turn, and as the goblin took the turn I held the spear close to the blade and then brought it down on the surprised goblin pushing it through its collar bone and into its chest making it gurgle on blood as the tri-pointed spear went directly into its heart before I wrenched out my spear and backpedaled.
As the goblin weakly swung its arm at me claw at me and once its arm passed I stepped forward and with a crunching noise, I rammed my spear through its chest again but lodged it into its spine making it go limp as it died.
Checking my spear after I fused that goblin corpse I realized the so-called 'hidden mission' was actually hidden so it showing itself was probably to just show me such upgrades were possible. But either way, the blade of the spear had barely thickened, with the fur covering the length of the spear feeling a bit more uniform like how a dog or animal had a grain to their coats that you were supposed to pet them according too otherwise it would force up their hair.
After a moment of thought, I realized that either I needed to actually save some monster stones for the local currency of Valis or I would need to fuse some shit weapons I could sell off at like a pawn store or something.
"Dammit, the life of always needing money never ends," I muttered as I backtracked through the dungeon. As I knew staying here without more preparation wasn't wise as I needed to make some armor and other stuff so I could actually stay within the dungeon for a long while to take advantage of my ability to fuse monsters in peace with how surprisingly quiet the first floor was.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 2
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
I think that I was already developing a bit of a habit... I raided a large trash can in the industrial district and I fused together all the thrown away slag they threw away into a bunch of leather so I got a thick hardy square duffel bag that hung on my side that I filled with garbage swords and daggers I made from more debris I got from the trash.
"Hmm, young man these blades metals, and craftwork are crude and rather unrefined... I can give you like five hundred Valis for the lot of them." The fucking gnome said trying to obviously cheat me out of money.
"Look you damned lawn ornament I literally saw the same makes of dagger and swords going for that damned price a piece for starter adventures. And this is fucking Orario if you cannot sell some decent swords to some fresh plucky would be adventurers then your shop wouldn't even exist." I retorted and the small spirit that was an archetype gnome with a long white beard, cone hat, and sweater with long pants, grinned.
"Aye that's true human, but you are selling in bulk, hence I get preferential prices." He said cheerfully and I pointed at the shitty swords at the side that he had marked for literally the same price as the bundle of my swords.
"Look just give me a fair deal, or I will just go sell these for scrap metal." I ended bluntly and he groaned before quoting me a fairer deal.
"Fine then." I said taking the money and as I went to take my bag off the counter, his hand grabbed the said bag with an iron grip that I couldn't shake despite being three times the gnome's size.
"Fifty Valis for the bag." He said grinning with pure white being shown and I just scowled at the damned greedy gnome.
"Nope, I am good. I need something to use as a pillow if I cannot find a place to sleep tonight." I said bluntly and he raised an eyebrow before sighing.
"Ahh... You just arrived in Orario and haven't found a Familia have you?" He asked letting go of the bag and I threw it over my shoulder.
"You could say that." I groused and the gnome snickered before humming in thought before smiling.
"Well, human I recommend going to the old temple district, back when Orario was founded a lot of the gods wanted to build temples so there is an entire sub-district of the city that's almost abandoned that you can squat in while you get your feet underneath you... Without some rat in knifing you between the ribs while you sleep in an alley." He advised me bluntly and I honestly after a moment of thought, nodded to his suggestion with myself turning around and leaving the shop.
Sleeping in some kind of alleyway or even spending most of my money on a hotel room or something while I was here made zero sense.
-
Arriving at the religious district and on both sides of the road were abandoned church's temples and other places of worship that obviously were used in the worship of the gods and goddesses when they descended to Gekai. But with how each and every one of them was clearly abanded I wouldn't be surprised if people just realized that the divines were assholes and didn't bother to worship them anymore.
"Rats, roachs, vermin, of my." I said dryly as I checked out the churches to find out a nicer one to squat in for a while and I realized that my fusing abilities were needed for the items to actually go into my internal space before I could fuse them... So while I could even fuse some furniture but a whole broken-down building?
Sitting on a fused bench I fixed up to sit on I looked around this nicer church I picked out and I realized I couldn't keep count of the rat wholes in the damned walls, and flooring. There were even birds hanging in the rafters of the church crying out loudly and I came to a realization.
"I am not going to fucking squat here." I said completely disgusted at the sight of all the filth around me and I realized that sure with my fusing abilities I could indeed make pretty potent weapons to sell and whatnot.
But in the end, I needed the resources to fuse into better weapons and I came from a first-world nation, in my previous life. I couldn't sleep with the thought of mice and other vermin crawling over my form as I slept.
"No choice really." I grunted as I stood up to my feet and I left the church going back towards the industrial district so I could put plan B into operation.
I was still scared that a god or goddess would see my cheat and fuck with it in order to mess with me. But in the end, I realized that trying to overturn Orario's whole structure in being a solo adventurer was a fool's dream as although yes my cheat was great. But it didn't make me some kind of powerhouse from the get-go.
A few minutes later after passing through the throngs of Orario's citizens I made my way across Orario and arrived at my plan B. Hephaestus's Familia mansion. A veritable castle to protect its many valuable weapons and of course keep would-be troublemakers out.
Seeing a stout dwarf standing in front of the gates of the Familia mansion I spoke to him. "Excuse me, is it possible that I could speak to Lady Hephaestus for some business I have for large quantities of ingots being brought in?" I asked taking out a small thin plate of steel that I made out of the coal, and iron I got out of the trash previously and the dwarf took the ingot and inspected it for a moment.
"Aye, the carbon content is fine enough and the steel isn't too hard or soft." He muttered as I saw the damned dwarf pinch the wrist-thick ingot in between his thick fingers and said ingot being compressed a good bit. "Not a bad bit of material for the newbies to work with and you said this a bulk order?" He confirmed and I nodded.
"Eh, you stay here while I send a runner." He said and opened the gate and shouted at some guy carrying a couple of boxes into the main building. "Oi, Becksie, take this civvie to Lady Hephaestus for some business." The dwarf ordered and the guy's shoulder slumped before signing with a grudging nod.
"Well come on then, I got to deliver paperwork to the secretaries of the Familia. So its not too far out of the way." The man apparently named Becksie grunted as he led me into the Familia.
"So how long you been part of the Hephaestus Familia?" I asked and snorted and gave me a side eye before seeing I was asking seriously.
"Shit, you are really new to Orario huh. Yeah, top Familia's like Hephaestus don't normally recruit off the streets unless it's some physical monster like Ottar... Normally it's children of people already in the Familia and of course, people that switch Familia's when they outgrow theirs." The man continued with a shrug. "And for Hephaestus, if you aren't a smith you can't join the Familia without going through some lengthy tests as Lady Hephaestus already has more than five hundred members and that's a lot of Falna's to update once every week or two." He said wryly and I realized the man wasn't actually part of Hephaestus's familia even while working here.
"Alright thank you for the advice." I said wryly as a seed of doubt filled me at my hope of getting into the Familia even with my cheat. Like seriously, how shitty would it be if Hephaestus was just like 'Nah, I already got enough people that need me to stab my finger every day.'
"One sec let me talk to Lady Hephaestus first." He said knocking on a door and I muffledly heard a female voice speak out as he ducked his head in and spoke. "Lady Hephaestus there is a merchant here with samples for steel ingots of decent quality he is asking to sell." He spoke.
"Alright send him in." I heard Hephaestus say with a bit of tiredness in her voice and then the man moved out of the way while opening the door for me and as I came into the room I saw the goddess herself along with the captain of the Hephaestus Familia Tsubaki.
Hephaestus even with the large eye patch that covered almost half her face was still a vision of beauty with her short messy red hair and single red eye that stared up at me from her desk. Not to mention how her clothes fit so tightly to her voluptuous frame with the top two buttons on her white dress shirt being unbuttoned and showing some of her cleavage.
Tsubaki Collbrande also had a more voluptuous frame, and combined with her aesthetic being half amazon and supposedly dwarf her darker skin contrasted with Hephaestus's pale skin with their eye patches being on opposite sides of their faces.
"Let me see the sample ingot." Hephaestus said holding out a hand and I handed over another same ingot this one not squeezed and deformed and for a moment Hephaestus's eyebrows raised before her face went cool.
"Alchemy?" She asked looking at me with a frown and I nodded with her snorting. "You need to realize that using alchemy on materials will ruin it for the Blacksmithing ability in someone's Falna... For whatever reason the hints of divinity whenever someone uses their alchemy development ability will clash with the divinity that enhances someone with blacksmithing." She explained with a tired sigh as she dropped the ingot onto her desk. "Sure if you yourself had blacksmithing already you could use those ingots for your own works but-"
I cut her off softly with a raised hand. "Uhm, I have a special magic that's like alchemy I guess... But I don't even have a Falna yet. The guild said the Familia's were already swamped with recruits so no one was recruiting." I said wryly and her eye twitched and she snatched up the ingot of steel that I made.
"Tsubaki bend this." She ordered after a moment of inspection and she tossed the thumb-sized ingot over to her captain who caught it and without hesitation squeezed it between her fingers like fucking playdough making my eye twitch at the sight and apparently the same to Hephaestus as she gapped at the sight of the ingot that got squeezed out Tsubaki's hand.
"It's supposed to break down into dust and slag coming into contact with Tsubaki..." She whispered before her eyes lit up with a manic light as she literally vaulted over her desk. "Wait! You said this is congenital magic that you already had without a Falna and that no one has already claimed you yet!" She said excitedly as she grabbed my hands in her gloved ones and I blankly nodded with her grinning like a loon as she broke into cackling laughter.
"Hahaha, alchemy just like back in Tenkai that doesn't fuck with the materials by leaving shitty magical remnants that make the materials collapse when worked with! I can finally craft some better stuff Haha!" Hephaestus cackled and before I could react my face was smothered in Tsubaki's tits as she pinned my arms to my sides and picked me up.
"Good job Tsubaki, now hold him still while I put my Falna on him Hehehe." Hephaestus giggled apparently utterly ecstatic and I could faintly hear Tsubaki sigh as she held me still.
"Really though... Using that signal to force someone in the Familia... The guild is going to throw a fit if he makes a complaint." She said wryly as I felt my jacket get pulled up and then the very distinct feeling of Hephaestus's divine ichor landed on my back and I realized something.
I was literally getting press-ganged into a divine cult with my face being smothered in some fantastic tits... All because my cheat was more special than I understood.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 3
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
I pouted at my pressganging into the Familia but even as Tsubaki clapped me on my back I just rolled my eyes. "Oh come on, you got your face squashed into some of the best tits in Orario and welcomed into the best Familia. If you still get a grudge after that I will kick your ass." She almost growled making me take a deep breath and shake my thoughts aside.
Sure getting all but abducted into a Familia without a Wargame or something was something... But in reality, Hephaestus's Familia was literally the best Familia for my growth, so their aggressive recruitment showed the value they put into me.
"Would you say that in front of the Loki and Freya Familia?" I said pointedly and Tsubaki scoffed.
"Hell yeah, I would! What can Freya going to do? 'mind fuck me' Yeah she will get blacklisted by all the smithing Familia's and then her psycho Familia will collapse within a year." Tsubaki all but sneered before shrugging.
"Anyway Lady Hephaestus, what's got you staring at his Falna paper like it stole your dinner?" Tsubaki called out shaking her goddess out of her reverie.
With a chuckle the forge goddess grabbed the thick paper and handed it over to me and I saw Tsubaki flex as though she considered taking it from me but instead, she got into my personal space with her large breasts pushing into my back so she could read over my shoulder.
Jake Barris
Level 1
Strength 0 I
Endurance 0 I
Dexterity 0 I
Agility 0 I
Magic 0 I
Skill-
Magic- Fusion Of All Things- Grants the user the control of a pocket space, the user may place things in the pocket space and when desires, he may activate the pocket space that will fuse all things within the space to make a single object that is better than all things that were in the pocket space prior put together. Pocket space will level up with more abilities with subsequent levels of Falna and accomplishing secret quests. Rank I
Reading through the Falna and more importantly the fusing skill I frowned a bit as I didn't know my actual pocket space could level up as well.
"So your alchemy isn't actually the process of alchemically turning one material into another but instead combining materials into one another and just getting the end result instantly?" Hephaestus spoke out while tapping her glove-clad fingers on her thick wooden desk.
"Could we try to fuse some coal, iron, and flux en-mass to make a bunch of steel?" I asked and she raised an eyebrow before nodding and standing up from her desk.
"Very well this could be a decent distraction from my paperwork, but have you thought about fusing magical materials directly into your weapons to make them better? Like drop items for example?" Hephaestus asked and as a result, I stepped away from the goddess.
"Yeah I made a spear with my fusion can I show you?" At the goddess's nod, I took my spear out of my pocket space and the goddess's face twitched as she saw the weird-as-hell-looking spear. "Instead of using a tiny Goblin fang or even a Kobold claw I instead just fused the entire corpse of the goblin without removing its monster stone into the spear," I explained and Hephaestus hummed in thought before she stuck out her hands.
"May I see it?" She asked and I handed over the spear without saying anything and for the next minute, she inspected the spear, running her hand down the fur lining the handle of the haft of the spear while also flicking the blade of the spear.
"Although a part of me decries your easy method of smithing in only mentally creating the weapon in the magical process of its creation but, I can still see the heart and intent of creation within the spear and other things you have made. So I cannot judge your actions as being impure or merely an end to meet... Anyway, although your idea of fusing the whole corpse of a goblin is, in fact, more efficient, fusing the goblins fang or a kobolds claw would do more for your weapon as those drops are basically the entire monster's combined essence and more inside the monster drop." Hephaestus explained and I nodded.
"But of course not all if actually even half the monsters you may kill will actually drop such drops so that's why your plan to fuse the whole monster corpse as well as the monster stone is likely better for the weapon in the short run typically," Hephaestus explained before Tsubaki grinned.
"But here in the Hephaestus Familia, we always have some monster drops, especially monster drops from the upper floors as the Guild barely gives people a pittance for them and that's why most adventures rather turn the monster drops to Familia's as quests due to the Guild acting as a middleman and only paying them a small cut." Tsubaki continued and Hephaestus nodded in agreement as we walked towards the smithing section of the Hephaestus Familia's mansion.
Once we got into the smithing section my face twitched at the obvious disuse of the place and Hephaestus explained how the smiths of her place typically had their own houses and setups with how they always made a large amount of money from selling their weapons and her low-level smiths were typically working as apprentices for those higher level smiths and even living with them so the smithing stations here at the Familia base didn't really see much use.
"Alright so just use this iron ore, coal, and the scrap steel we got left over to see what happens," Tsubaki said as she leaned against the door of the shop to keep it closed so I went about throwing a bunch of hunks of the materials she listed into my pocket space while keeping my spear out of it so the materials wouldn't fuse into it.
With a mental order to the pocket space it rumbled within my soul and in a couple moments, I saw all the ore, coal, and other stuff Tsubaki had me place into it had turned into a large ingot of metal.
"Uh, it turned into a large ingot of metal," I said and went over, and with a mental flex the large ingot that weighed a couple hundred pounds dropped with a clang onto an anvil and the girls began inspecting it.
The two smiths began muttering as they tapped it with little hammers, flicking it with their nails or in Tsubaki's case weighing it in her hands.
"Whelp I can confirm that it is indeed a pretty standard bar of decent steel. Now let's test what happens when we add some drop items to it and Jake make sure it comes out as another huge ingot... I want to see if I can mass produce some carving knives for the Loki Familia supporters Hehe." Tsubaki cackled as she ran to a store room while Hephaestus sighed and looked at me with a wry smile.
"You have either made the greatest ally in Orario or you may have just gotten married without noticing... Good luck Jake Barris, I wish you the best of luck." Hephaestus said smiling as she patted me on my shoulder and then with another mutter about paperwork that doesn't wait for anyone she left the smith having satisfied her curiosity at the moment.
But damn... The memes about Hephaestus and her leather pants were underselling just how they clung to her heart-shaped behind that was seemingly sculpted by all her smithing, so it was a pleasure to see her go before I got shaken out of my thoughts as the door to the store room was kicked back open by Tsubaki who was walking in with a literal pile of large bone like things.
"Alright Jake, fuse these bones from some Spartoi into the ingot to see what happens." She said excitedly dumping the pile in front of me and I went ahead and did so and once again she began inspecting the ingot before cackling madly in wild cheer.
"Haha, Hephaestus was right! It kept the Spartoi's enhanced durability at its core and such Haha!" Tsubaki's single eye snapped to me with a mad glint as she obviously considered how she could 'ensnare' me into her service but I bluntly spoke.
"No Tsubaki... I need to kill monsters in the dungeon to get stronger." I said bluntly and she sagged before shrugging.
"Ehh that's fine if you fuse me a couple of things a day and thus save me hours of work that's perfect. But Hephaestus as a rule only will update a member's Falna if they complete a decent weapon or otherwise once every other week." At my look of denial, she said lightly. "Jake, this is one of the top Familia's of Orario, she has hundreds of other people to update, so until you show more than just potential and save us time in making some stuff you need to level up if you want to dictate terms and such," Tsubaki said lightly and I grunted in understanding and pushed down my indignation.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 4
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Tsubaki was a slave driver no doubt about that, as for the next half an hour she had me fuse all kinds of metals and materials into one another so she could literally skip the fusion process during her own forging in which she merged monster drops with the various mystical metals.
"So... For saving you dozens of work hours can I get some drops you don't need to make my own weapons and armor better?" I asked tiredly and Tsubaki blinked in surprise at my words.
"Uhhhh yeaahhh sure." She drawled out and then she bent over to drag a box out of a low shelf, showing how her voluminous pants could be tight and how her backside didn't lose out much to my goddess Hephaestus's sculpted ass.
Anyway, my eyes snapped upwards to her face as she stood up with the box and I coughed as she dropped the box onto the table making me cough as a plume of dust got shot out of the box with Tsubaki chuckling. "Yeah, you can have these." She said with a nostalgic light in her eyes before she continued. "These are lower-end drops that I was supposed to use for various orders... But the adventure's died before picking them up and their Familia never came to claim the drops back after more than five years, so you can have them." She said and I realized she was just giving me the crap that she wouldn't need to mark in the Famailia registry of materials.
Was I going to complain the materials weren't fresh? Hell no I wasn't, as I doubted it made any difference so long as the material magical essence was still within the drops and if Tsubaki was willing to keep it then I had no doubt that the drops had no issues.
"Alright, that will do... Lovely." I said deadpanning as I opened the large box about the size of a good-sized shipping box and I saw how fucking everything was a mess with no sense of organization. "You just don't want to sort this don't you," I said dully and Tsubaki just giggled at my fed-up expression.
Wordlessly I picked up a handful of War Shadow claws with one hand and in the other I reached into the box and grabbed a frog shooter tongue before shaking my head with a wry smile as I saw how all the materials were stuff from below like the tenth floor and I realized these materials were obviously from back when Tsubaki was a fresh new smith.
"Alright thanks, Tsubaki, I am going to try to upgrade some of my gear and make some armor so I don't get my throat torn out in the dungeon," I said with gratitude clear in my voice.
Tsubaki just clapped me on my back with a light chuckle before she spoke. "Eh just be careful newbie. The dungeon is alive in its own way and only wants to kill you... So don't try to stick your dick into one of the monsters unless you plan to tame it." Tsubaki said cheerfully and seeing me gawk at her words she burst into laughter.
"Hahaha, you should see your face Snrk... Yeah, there are a lot of female monsters in the dungeon and yes some dumbasses like to tame them to get some easy puss, even out of the dungeon." She said shamelessly but then she spoke more seriously. "But monsters regardless of the species are dangerous so don't do that stupid shit even if you come across a big titty goblin or something..." Tsubaki said with an eye twitching and I nervously chuckled as I could see there was a whole story about said big titty goblin she mentioned.
So after that dire warning to not fuck dungeon monsters unless I was willing to risk terrible injuries, I quickly got away from Tsubaki before she could go on a tangent about the perverts in the dungeon with the box of old drops she gave me in space pocket so once I got to my small private room I was able to lay everything on the bed and figure out what I wanted to do.
I hummed in thought as I took in the drops and the first thing I do was take some of the high-quality steel and some of the infant dragon leather to make some armor for myself with the steel being used to make a chain mail between the two layers of the dragon leather so I could still have good durability while also having the durability and fire resistance of the dragons leather on the outside and that's what I did for a simple roman style helmet, chest piece, and an armored skirt that hung down to my thighs while I made more complicated armor to cover my knees and feet in greaves so I could maintain easy mobility.
After putting on the armor that was just shy of being snug to my frame I hummed in thought as I hopped in place and I realized that just getting the Falna had boosted my natural strength by a good bit so I couldn't really guess the weight of the armor exactly. But I knew that its lighter weight wouldn't be too bad even after wearing it for several hours in the dungeon.
"Now what the hell do I do for a weapon," I muttered as I checked on that spear and I recalled the hidden mission within it and I wondered if there were hidden missions for making other weapons and using monster materials in said weapons and whether I could fuse the weapons with hidden missions done to other weapons to stack their effects. "Do I stick with a spear or do I get fancy and go for some fantasy shit," I muttered as I stared at the spear I already made that had those goblin missions.
But then I had a realization as I stared at the spear and I recalled how my fusion could take the shape of whatever I damn well pleased if there was enough materials... I could make my weapons into the shape of Dark Souls and Elden Ring weapons and seeing as I could fuse magical materials into them perhaps I could even truly bring those weapons to life again.
Wordlessly I took a pile of bloodsucking vines from the jungle floors, a hand full of the serrated finger claws of war shadows, and lastly a small pile of monster stones and then I fused the combination within my pocket space and as I held the katana in my hand I could already hear the salty cries of countless PVP'ers and PVE players bitching about the Rivers of Blood Katana from Eldin Ring as the weapons info filled my mind.
[Rivers of Blood] [Drink daily the blood of your enemies... The blade uses the user's mana to send slashes of crystalline blood beams outwards with the movements of the blade, user also will be healed slightly by burying the sword into an alive foe and allowing the sword to drink the blood of the living.] Hidden Mission [-]
I couldn't help but manically giggle at the sight of the weapon as I dropped the sword onto my bed with a soft thudding noise I leaned back to stare at the ceiling before sighing as I realized that using a katana is the most fucking weeb overused thing ever for someone being isekaied.
"Should I try to make Thor's hammer and make it a combination of my glove so it will return to that hand via some magic magnetic fuckery?" I pondered as I looked over my materials before I snapped my finger I changed my mind and went a step beyond Mjölnir I realized I could just make Stormbreaker as I honestly didn't have the super great magical materials I would need to make the better Dark Souls and Elden Ring weapons like the Sword of Night and Flame, or other boss quality weapons.
The problem with having the ability to make damn near any weapon I wanted with their special effects was that I literally didn't know what the hell to use. Of course other than not wanting to use a super complicated weapon I wasn't going to spend weeks if not months learning how to use a bladed whip or something.
"Fuck it, I will do this then," I said shrugging as I realized that my desire to make all these weapons meant that I was going to probably cycle through different weapons and not solely use one as different situations in the dungeon could call for different weapons with different abilities. So with that realization out of the way, I fused a wrist brace with a bunch of materials to make a good-sized battle axe that with a flex of mana would fly handle first back into my hand as I made the axe in the shape of the Levithan Axe from God of War but without the whole freezing effect as I had no such materials to grant the axe said abilities.
[Returning Axe] Axe that the user made to return to handle first to the user after being thrown.] Hidden Misson [X]
Looking at the axe I made I blinked as I realized that the X in the hidden mission area meant that there were no hidden missions for this weapon at all... So that means that weapons needed to be of a certain magical level or something to have them maybe? Either way, I shook my head and sighed as I put my leftover materials away and tucked myself into bed, and relaxed.
Because I was going back into the dungeon tomorrow after exploring Orario a bit.
Notes:
've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 5
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
You know... I think I was developing a true racial hatred for midgets.
And it was true racism at that. Hating someone of a different skin color was completely different from hating someone that is literally not at all human. And why was I embracing my inner ultra redneck from the deep south of America?
"Now empty thems pockets and drop your shoes you biggus!" A fucking mangy-looking Pallum ordered me as he and his group of three pallums and fucking short dwarves were trying to mug me in the first turn I took in the first floor of the dungeon... Once again I fucking hate midgets. I was reborn into this world with my first fantasy world experience being getting mugged for my shoes and now the first time I enter the dungeon I get mugged by midgets.
I raised up my Leviathan Axe and I spoke with a snarl. "That's a lotta shit you are talking down there at dick-sucking height... Maybe you should close your mouth."
At my words, the leading Pallum jabbed his literally fucking rust-covered spear at me but he wasn't an experienced Level one as his thrust was nowhere near as fast as my thrown Leviathan Axe that spun through the air and landed with a dull wet crunching noise in the middle of the pallums chest as he was rushing at me.
The leading Pallum was only wearing a thicker leather apron-like thing as armor so when the slightly magical axe collided with his chest... It went through that bit of leather like it was nothing and as his partners cried out in shock I raised up my hand and mentally recalled the axe back to my hand as I took a breath and held down any bile at the sight of the Pallum drowning on his own blood as his lungs were beyond fucked.
For a second I considered offering the other three pallums or dwarves an escape as I... Yeah, I wanted to process this killing of a person at child height. But instead one of them, a woman with her oddly fit clothes hanging on her frame raised up her arms with her surprisingly ample handful-sized breasts clad in a sports bra actually came into view with how she raised her arms up in the air. "I surrender! I don't wanna die by someone with a magical weapon!" She cried out and the other two Pallums eyed her with disgust at her begging for her life.
With another one stomping forward and mule kicking the woman in the stomach sending her flying back a whole couple meters and crying as she hugged her bare stomach that was bleeding from the rough treads that were on the pallums boots.
"Filthy biggin lover, I will deal with you afterward!" He spat before squaring up with me and I realized his spear wasn't a rusty kitchen knife tied to a stick and actually fitted spear tip on top of a polished and sanded bar of wood. "Ommpa, you stick em in the back with the sticker when you can!" He ordered his compatriot and I saw the other one had a jagged and almost jagged blade on top of his spear that was clearly for attacking adventures rather than monsters.
"Why are you idiots even attacking me? This is literally at the beginning of the first floor?" I demanded as I took a step to the side so the other midget couldn't get behind me.
But at my question, those two didn't answer at all and instead, the second short one tried to stab me in the side but there was a reason the races of the world looked down on Pallums. For not only were they small and had a childish frame but they didn't have any of the talents that other races like dwarves, elves, renards, or any other races had.
With my cheat of fusing stuff and having the resources of the Hephaestus Familia opened to me for the hours I put into fusing materials for them, my armor wasn't something a piddly jagged pig iron blade could do anything to as the blade just scratched across the ceramic-like conjoined plates I made with a couple of dozen Killer Ant exoskeleton pieces.
We fought for a couple of minutes, mostly us teasing one another with their spearing aiming for my exposed face and myself trying to break the tip off their spears so I could close in but finally, it seemed the stress of the fight got to the true leader as he yelled and threw his spear that collided with a dull thud against my side's armor as I managed to divert it downwards from my face.
But as I took the opportunity to rush forward trapping the spear point of the other pallums spear in my hand as I brought my axe down through his shoulder and into his chest for a killing blow I looked up and saw how the leader had decided to take the girl he kicked as a fucking hostage.
"Drop your fucking weapon or the biggin lover gets it!" He squeaked holding a knife he pulled from his side to her neck as he tried to pull her up to her feet while she held her clearly still hurting stomach area.
I literally couldn't help but blink... Was he fucking stupid?
"Yeah, I see you hesitating! Drop your weapon and run away and she will live to see another day!" He yelled getting more confident and his fucking arrogance of thinking I cared for the midget who was part of the party who attempted to mug me as well made me burst into laughter.
Even as I laughed I just pointed at him with my hand that wasn't holding my axe as I shook my head. "Dude... I am going to kill you no matter what... But I will make you a deal!" I said cheerfully as a sadistic thought came to mind as I spoke. "If you can run faster than my weapon deeper into the dungeon behind you I won't chase you as I have... Words for the morsel you are holding." I said and in response, the pallum didn't bother to slit the throat of his once companion and just rushed into the dungeon but I switched out my axe for something different I got out of the stores of Tsubaki's old projects...
A large heavy crossbow. And after a moment of aiming a loud clunking noise rang out followed by a dull thumping noise with the Pallum fell to the ground convulsing as the large bolt shot through his neck severing his spine with the bolt stabbing into the rock wall behind him A dozen meter in the distance.
"Was aiming for his chest... Fucking fantasy midgets." I snorted before I sent the crossbow back into my fusion space to take back out my axe as I walked over to the girl who froze as I stood over here with the axe in hand. "So..." I drawled as I eyed her. "What do I do with you?" I asked partly rhetorically but honestly truthfully as a part of me wanted to just take the two large bags she had on her side and call it her price for her freedom and life... But a dark part of me that resented the fucking audacity of being fucking mugged at the entrance of the dungeon wanted to go further.
The girl shuddered and then laid flat with her back on the dungeon as she closed her eyes. "I cannot escape you... If you wish to take something of me as the victor then here in the dungeon I cannot complain... As a member of the Soma Familia, it's not like I have any backing." She continued wryly and that cinched it.
Soma Familia. The Familia produced divine alcohol that was given to its Familia members and that Soma wine broke their minds and made them the worst of addicts. 'But she seemed clear-headed?' I thought before snorting as it made little difference.
"Stay there while I think," I ordered tiredly as I walked over and looted the three corpses and dealt with a goblin with my goblin-eating sword that came from deeper in the dungeon.
Notes:
've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 6
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
You know... Taking in her form I realized something. This girl looked to be homeless or something honestly, and if she was clean of Soma's wine influence then it made sense she didn't have much contact with her Familia.
"I decided," I said suddenly as finished looting the gear and money off the corpses of the other pallums and what maybe have been an undeveloped dwarf or maybe a pallum with particularly thick facial stubble.
The girl flinched at me looking at her but regardless I continued. "I am not going to kill you, after you surrendered but..." I drew off and seeing me draw off she inhaled in relief and nodded and before I could continue my warning that went along the lines of. 'If I see you again you won't walk away.'
But before I could continue she spoke. "I understand... Pallums and thus myself are well used to being at the bottom rung of society, I will obey, if you share a living expense with me if I act as your supporter and bedwarmer." She whispered with a flush coming to her cheeks.
I just stared at the blond like she was absolutely fucking crazy... 'Did I land in the hentai version of Danmachi?' I couldn't help but think before I froze as certain whispers among the people of Orario came to mind and then I remembered when I was talking to Tsubaki. She was so dismissive of Loki and Freya's Familia.
I heard people on the street mentioning the Hera and Zeus Familia in passing, but I never paid attention because I thought they were irrelevant with them having been disbanded for years. But now it seems that wasn't the case, and her offering made more sense as before Finne Dieme and the quintuple Pallum brothers of Freya's Familia became powerful famous heroes. Pallums were thought of as less than trash with how they had zero racial bonus's like the other races did.
Literally, the Pallums were the red-headed stepchild of the mortal races as no gods claimed them, nor blessed them over the countless millennia before the gods came down. There was a reason Finn was called the 'Light of the Pallum race'
So... Do I accept the downtrodden Pallum supporter who may get used like a cock sock?
Wordlessly I handed over a healing potion I had previously fused to her. "Drink," I said with a sigh. "If you are going to carry my burden... Actually, if you are going to be plucking the monster stones for me, you are going to need to be able to move and my name is Jake Barris of the Hephaestus Familia." I said dully as I realized I actually didn't need her much at all when I had my fusion inventory.
'I can't even make her into a Lydia pack mule... But an auto looter will be nice.' I thought sardonically as she took the glowing healing potion with her eyes widening as she was well aware the potion was a higher tier one than little level one adventurers should have. "Drink," I stated sternly and she shivered and within a moment she drank the vial of red glowing potion while I patted her head while we both stiffened. Her for me being affectionate at all... And me because her fair was dirty from probably living on the streets.
"So what's your name anyway," I asked as her stomach bruises healed up, with the boot print visibly fading away.
Her admittedly nice green eyes stared up at me she responded unsurely. "Uhh, my name is Tina... No last name due to being an orphan." She said simply and my lips twitched at that tidbit before I pushed the thought down as I spoke again.
"I see... Well, in any case, you can have this spear, goblins, and kobolds unless they are in a large group won't be too much of an issue." I said with some confidence, as I was honestly right. Goblins weren't even five feet tall, with rail-thin arms and Kobolds were only a bit taller and faster but they had wolf heads that could bite pretty hard.
But still, the only two types of monsters on the first level were rather easily dealt with so long as you were prepared and most importantly didn't let them control your movements or land a lucky blow to your neck or head. Thankfully with the plated chainmail I was wearing, I had a good defense against such things.
Not even a minute as the two of us walked deeper into the first floor, we came across a small trio of goblins that were eating and tearing apart the corpse of a small body and I heard Tiny behind me sigh at the sight while I silently took out the oversized heavy crossbow I reloaded earlier and with a loud thunking noise the bolt got shot outwards and the bolt made a sudden wet crunching noise as I heard it ram into spine of the goblin I aimed at.
Then as the other two goblins whirled around and rushed at us I took out my Leviathan Axe and threw it into another goblin and then used the Goblin Slayer spear and rammed its wide pointed spear end through the last goblin's chest audibly crushing its ribs as the spear's blade broke them as it tore through the goblins lungs and heart before that goblin poofed into smoke as I had broken the goblins finger tailed sized monster stone making me internally curse as nothing was left behind.
"Well, that's annoying," I muttered as I absent-mindedly stabbed the anti-goblin spear through the still-breathing form of the goblin, and using the spear I pinned the struggling and screaming goblin into the ground to let the spear drink the goblin's blood.
Seeing the goblin visibly sink in on itself and become an emaciated corpse I could feel my body absorbing the vitality the spear shared with me and although it was a disgusting and scary sight I heard Tina approach me as she held up the single monster stone she got from the other goblin I killed with the Leviathan Axe. "Is that a cursed weapon or a skill of yours?" She questioned before freezing and looking at me in fear as she realized she overstepped.
For a moment I considered telling her to mind her own business or getting mean or even explaining but I just shrugged and said flatly. "Something like that..." And she hurriedly nodded obviously relieved hearing me not give her any trouble for her overextension, and as I held the spear by its rougher fur-like handle I could feel it vibrate as though to tell me it was drinking and it truly was.
As when Tiny cut open the corpse of the goblin, there wasn't a single drop of blood that seeped from the wound cut into its stomach for her to reach into its chest cavity to pull out the monster stone. If anything Tina looked happy she didn't have to wipe any blood or remains off her leather gloves so I took that as a plus.
After killing a dozen more goblins and a couple of kobolds I decided to ask Tina some questions. As who better than a street rat would know of Orario? "So, beyond your racism for the people that don't call the cupboard under the stairs a mansion, how is Orario, and where do you live," I asked jokingly and I honestly thought she would get mad a bit but instead she tilted her head to the side as she spoke in confusion.
"Uhh, I live in an apartment in the alleys of the Daedalus... Actually, the apartment was the house part of an outhouse that was stolen and moved there so thankfully my apartment has good ventilation." She said with a smile and I just looked at her in dumbfounded silence.
I raised a finger to say something along the lines of an outhouse was no house at all... But actually, I had seen some actual outhouses that were the size of a decent bathroom and this was Danmachi or a fantasy land where modern conveniences like powered stuff were for the middle class and up. So with a decent haul of a dozen corpses stuffed into my fusion space along with some other materials, I decided it was time to head on back home.
"So..." I drawled getting Tina's attention as I led her back to the steps that led back up to Orario. "Yeah, I am taking you home, and getting you cleaned up before I do... Any of what you offered." I said with a wry smile and she flushed at the realization that I was going to take her up on her previous offer.
Notes:
've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 7
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
I honestly didn't think Hephaestus was keeping that close of an eye on me... But it didn't take long after I arrived back at my apartment in the Hephaestus Familia's quarters with Tina using the magic stone-powered shower to get cleaned up that I got a series of rough knocks on my door.
Walking over to the door and opening it I had to slightly look down as a dwarf with an evil smile was looking up to me. "Uhh can I help you?" I asked awkwardly as I didn't recognize him at all. But it seemed that it didn't matter as he chuckled and responded dryly.
"Yes, I am actually here to help you in fact." He said with a teasing glint in his eye as he handed me two vials filled with purple liquid that made me raise an eyebrow as I recognized it as an antidote potion.
I held the potion and behind the door I took out of his sight I held a weapon in my off hand as I spoke coldly. "And what is the meaning of giving me an antidote?" I asked with finality and the dwarf rolled his eyes as he retorted.
"Dumbass, you brought some pallum off the fucking street... Hephaestus knows adventurers and smiths need to burn off steam lest they go mad or get sloppy either in their craft or in the dungeon, which in either case is a death sentence for themselves or someone else in the dungeon." The dwarf said flatly and I couldn't help but flush as he pointed at the antidotes in hand.
"The gods and goddesses in all their glory when they came down this lesser world did two things... First, they made magical sewers powered by hints of divinity and magic stones so their city wouldn't smell like shit and the gods made mass-producible antidotes for all sexual diseases and infections so the gods could enjoy using their mortal forms to fuck whores..." He pointed at me now with his face filled with irritation.
"You got an extra one in case you decided to sample the merchandise beforehand but these are kinda expensive so if you decided to pick up more fuck holes you have to buy these yourself!" The dwarf explained with zero patience seeing my flat unbelieving face and before I could react with speed beyond anything a Level 1 could have he slammed the door in our faces leaving me standing there with the two vials in hand like a dumbass.
After a moment of staring at the antidots and without a thought I put them in my fusion space and took a look at them with my combination ability and yeah... The god's depravity made this with no doubt.
[Skinboat to Tuna Town] - The clap trap is a rusty jagged painful mistress... But with this wonderful concoction, you can stick your dick in anything or have anything like a dick shoved inside of you! Warning just because you won't get sick by sticking your dick into a mermaid, doesn't mean you will be able to tame the mermaid with your dick. She will still likely rip your throat out or worse.-
I literally just stared at the description of the item dumbfoundedly as no other item I had, had such a... Such a colorful depiction. Thus I knew this was a creation of the gods as no other item was just so damned wacky.
'Well, I guess, I don't need to worry about STD's or whatever.' I thought snickering as I drank one of the vials to get it out of the way in case Hephaestus asked me if I did so. But as I chugged the vial I shook my head at the taste and as I was shaking my head at the fucking weird taste of the potion which tasted exactly like a tuna melt sub on five cheese bread exactly.
I heard the door to my bathroom open with Tina coming out wrapped up in the comically oversized for her spare towel I had. Like the towel for me at six feet tall went around my waist and down past my knees a good bit... But for Tina who was a Pallum at a grand height of fucking 3 and almost half feet, the towel was a literal toga for her that went from her shoulders down past her knees.
But after I saw her cleaned up. I actually blinked in appreciation for her form, as she had for her height ample sized breasts that pushed out the towel, and her blond hair was actually clean and nice looking with a healthy glow to it while her previously downtrodden green eyes had a stronger vibrancy with her little makeover in not being caked in dust and debris.
"Thank you very much for allowing me to use your shower Jake, I needed to wash my hair a couple of times so I hope the soap I used wasn't an issue?" Tina spoke with a truly grateful smile and that heartfelt smile made my conscious hurt. But either way I held out the antidote to her and she eyed it's green color with confusion as she asked what it was obviously. "Uhh Jake, my stomach doesn't hurt anymore and we didn't come across anything poisonous or toxic?" She asked in confusion and I closed my eyes as I counted down in my head.
Like how do I say? 'Here, cock-sock drink the STD Vick's Vapor Rub as I think you are a walking medical textbook of diseases in how you lived on the streets.' Yeah no, even for me saying it to whatever she was to me, or even saying that online in my past life was too damned much.
I sighed popping open the lid to the vial, and held it out to her again as I said with a wry smile. "Look, just drink it. It's to help you clear up any sickness you might have caught while living on the streets." I said and she blinked in confusion before she shrugged carefully taking the vial from my hand and drinking it while also making a slight face at its taste.
"Good girl." I said with a tired smile as I patted Tina's head and she flushed looking up at me past her blond hair and I realized my insult to that other Pallum was horribly right as with her right at that height and with her being only in a towel that I could see into, I was popping a bit of a stiffy and with her height...
She was literally at the perfect height with the bulge right next to her mouth.
Tina bit her lips as I froze at the realization and then before I could react her small soft hand gently grabbed the bulge and her words abandon any idea of just chivalrously providing for my auto looter. "Sir, is this to be my first meal before I make dinner for you?" She whispered as her hand squeezed the head of the bulge.
Notes:
've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 8
Chapter Text
So with us having taken our STD be-gone potion... And gods was the thought of fantasy aids terrible! Tina and I just kinda chilled out in my apartment as we came to get to one another better.
I learned that Tina could be summed up in the words 'downtrodden submissive street rat who yearned to have a decent life,' And she learned that I was an up-and-coming 'smith' in the Hephaestus Familia having been allowed to join as a fresh-level one. Even with this being in the Great Quest Era of Orario with much more active Familia's and much higher leveled adventurers than in canon with the Zeus and Hera Familia leading Orario, the smithing Familia's were still in the lead in terms of soft political power.
It didn't matter how pissed off the peak level eight Maxim Captain of the Zeus Familia was at you for refusing to lower your prices, if he wanted a weapon he would need to pay for them just like everyone else. So the smiths and other people essential for adventures still had respect even if the climate around Orario right now was very much so on the spectrum of 'Might. Makes Right.'
"So whens your birthday, got a favorite color, got any other friends?" I asked trying to get more of a hint at Tina's personality and her words made my face go green as I heard just how pitiful she was.
Tina put a finger to her chin as she thought over my questions before she shrugged and began speaking. "Uhm, I don't know when my birthday is... But I know I am eighteen due to the orphanage kicking me out six years ago when I got my first period!" She said as though proud of knowing her supposed age. Then she continued and I realized she was in a worse head space than I could imagine. "But uhh, I love and hate the color green honestly! She said brightly as she pulled at the newly washed ragged green dress she was previously wearing before.
"Green means fresh vegetables to eat... But it also means the food is going bad when it gets that fuzzy mold stuff on it that I need to pick off." She said making me silently cover my eyes with my hands.
And likewise, my last question didn't lead to any lovely power of friendship. Nope, just street rats being street rats as Tina showed me her left side where there was a raised scar and she sheepishly explained. "When I tried to join one of the other Familia's they got really mean and the person who pushed me out of the building was wearing bladed gauntlets so I got a little messed up." She finished with a sad smile.
I just pulled Tina into my arms with a small "Eep" Escaping her mouth as I pulled up my knees to squish the girl into my embrace.
"Shh..." I shushed her. "You are literally the synopsis of a hurt/comfort novel... Or when someone snaps and tries to burn down the world for all the suffering they lived." I finished dryly and Tina's bright green eyes blinked in confusion as she tilted her head slightly.
"But a Pallum cannot burn the world to the ground? The God Apollo said that Pallums are too short to reach the thermostat controller whatever that means?" Tina said in confusion making me close my eyes as I counted to five to avoid bursting into laughter.
I literally just silently and firmly placed Tina to the side on my large couch as I rolled over to bury my face into the pillows to hide my facial expression until Tina poked me in the side. "Uhh Jake, this is kinda the norm," Tina said deadpanning. "Orario is based on the strong taking what they desire and then protecting what they own as their livelihood... I mean Maxim the strongest adventurer and captain of the Zeus Familia has a harem of more than fifty women that he has taken, and that's become the norm unless you have another strong Familia backing you up." She said wryly and I looked off the pillow and saw her smiling at me as though taking joy in my confusion.
"Jake, I don't know where you came from, but Orario isn't the city of adventurers and becoming a hero, it's about being the strongest Lion with the proudest roar and the strongest bite as you climb the divine steps to reach the peak of the Falna like the Empress of Hera's Familia who has reached level nine," Tina said stoically and placed her hand on her chest as she smiled wryly shaking her head. "And Pallums no matter their strength will never have the strongest bite or roar." She said melancholically.
I patted her on her head and then with a flash of light the large crossbow appeared in my hand making her flinch at the weapon appearing but I spoke without paying her flinch any mind. "And what would you do if you had the bite of magical might, sure even if you reach level nine or whatever I don't see you punching out monsters like a Boaz or Dwarve could, but there's nothing saying you cannot use long range weapons and magic?" I asked as I saw the path to securing the loyalty from the broken-down little midget.
I wasn't going to explain my cheat to her, or give it away for free, and as I explained my thoughts a smile, a broken smile of a dream coming true formed within her bright green eyes. "So, you do right by me, and be my supporter and I will arm you with magical tools that will make up for your Pallum weakness... Deal?" I offered as I held out a wristband that I had fused a couple of pelts from Silverbacks into that would increase the wielder's strength and endurance by a flat ten percent.
Tina taking the wristband from me, gasped as she slid it onto her arm as she could easily feel her Falna granted strength growing by a letter grade instantly as she wore the wristband. And in that moment that she wore the enchanted tool, I saw the spark of desire for more within her mind take hold as she looked at me and nodded.
I had my own extremely dependent busty auto looter just like Bell... Yay.
But unlike Bell, I wasn't a cowardly harem protagonist so while Tina looked up at me in almost worship I pushed a hand up her ragged green dress and cupped her handful even for me-sized breasts, and pulled her down so while I was laying down on the couch I could kiss her.
She freely offered her all previously and I wasn't going to say no to that.
Chapter 9
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
For all that Tina was a pallum, and being literally barely over three feet tall, there was nothing remotely childish about her. Honestly, if she was any curvier I would be worried that she was some kind of hentai goblin in disguise as although she was clearly still malnourished that didn't stop her body from developing healthy large breasts and hips that defied the appearance of her ribs being kinda more visible than I liked.
And by the gods, the sight of my prick pushing through her thick thighs as she sat on my lap allowing my length to rest past her fucking belly button lit up a primal part of my monkey brain. Tina bit her lip softly as she eyed the fuck stick that was clearly going to stir her up and she visibly took a breath that made her handful-sized breast jiggle as she giggled at the task at hand. "At least my people's orifices are stretchy." She whispered and I raised an eyebrow at how she didn't mention just her pussy being stretchy...
Either way, after a good five minutes of making out and doing foreplay she was well prepped with her delicate womanhood having been slathering my length in her fluids as we made out and I played with her soft breasts.
The sensation of my dick sliding into Tina was not the typical experience of sex as she was literally half my size and I wasn't a small dude down there anyway, so as the head of my manhood kissed the opening of her opening it was less of her womanhood acting as a keyhole and accepting my cock and more of my flesh almost disappearing as my cock was welcomed into the crushing depths of her womanhood.
"What the hell..." I whispered in fucking wonder as I looked down at Tina who was breathily heavily while shaking and sweating with one of her hands gently holding the bulge that had appeared on her thin stomach. See, Tina was literally below three and a half feet, and that not only led to her having a shallow pussy, but her stomach with her prior malnutrition was thin, to begin with.
Hence I was welcomed to the sight of the head of my cock visibly pushing the skin of her stomach upwards with how she was sitting in my lap and leaning backward to breathe. "Ohhh..." She moaned as her hand caressed and squeezed the head of my cock that was bulging her stomach. "No wonder, pallum men hate humans and the other races!" She moaned and I couldn't help my cock twitch as Tina got into some true interracial fetish.
In response to her words, I pulled my new fleshlight a bit deeper and she moaned this arousing guttural deep moan that I could feel on my dick as my manhood pressed against her womb. So I realized right then and now that Pallums were without a doubt a fucking hentai goblin in disguise, as I saw Tina's bright green eyes roll back up into her head at feeling my cock pushing up greedily against the wall of her cervix.
And then it happened. Proof of how fucking depraved and perverted Pallum's were, and undoubtedly why the other races looked down upon them. My cock pressed up against her orgasm button known as the cervix, the neck, and the tiny opening that was supposed to be impenetrable or just really hurt the woman if smashed into, opened like the thick pursed lips of a woman taking my cock into her mouth.
In that moment of mental clarity as my cock sank an additional two inches into her body and an even thick bulge formed on her stomach past her belly button as my cock was well within her womb, her eyes snapped back to life with disturbing intensity as her eyes turned blood red and her hand that was holding mine became a crushing grip,
"Fuck me hard you bastard!" She cried with bloody tears coming to her eyes and without me actually doing anything she started bouncing in my lap and she was right previously. Pallums were in fact face stretched as her womb acted like a tight fist that captured and massage the head of my cock while the rest of her pussy was massaged and crushed my dick with her newfound strength that I knew of its source...
I did what she asked, what she cried out for, Tina, was literally only seventy-something pounds at best, so with my falna granted strength, it was no challenge for me to hold her by the waist and practically use the Pallum fuckhole with the same intensity you would use a shake weight.
Up and down, up and down, repeatedly my cock would slam into her depths and even as she came apart mentally. there was no escaping those blood-red eyes that were locked onto mine as I fucked Tina.
Tina's orgasms in the ten minutes I just masturbated with her body in my lap could be described as taking form as sort of wave-like patterns as her pleasure would visibly ramp up when I slammed into her depths and as I slowed down a bit I could see the broken little mind of Tina in her eyes as she held onto me as I pumped into her.
And the tight gripping pussy of Tina quickly made me reach my peak and Tina could tell as her legs locked around my back from where they were practically up in the air when I bent down to fuck her into my bed and right into my ear she hissed as her breasts pushed into my chest. "Do it, Jake! Spray your human seed into my womb and drown it!" She howled at the end as I bit the soft flesh of my shoulder as the bed shook and rumbled as I aggressively slammed into her in sharp thrusts when my orgasm started.
Each thrust into her depths equaled my cock spurting a stream of cum and each expulsion made Tina whimper with her arms and legs tightening ever tighter around me as her womb was forced to expand ever so slightly when the pocket was completely filled by her greedy cunt making sure to drain my balls.
And as I finished, as my cock softened and her crushing cervix allowed the head of my cock to escape her greedy womb, I saw Tina's blood-red eyes flash green before she went completely pliant as she fell asleep from unlocking a skill and the stress of the fucking.
Notes:
've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 10
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
There was more reincarnation in Danmachi than there was in Xianxia protags who reincarnated, transmigrated, or whatever form of rebirth was used... Literally every character of note was a hero, villain, or monster in their past lives and their deeds and strength would affect their lives now in their Falna that touched their very souls.
For all the gods raved and promised that once we died and reincarnated our karma would be wiped clean, that was very much a lie. As the old Argonaut tale which featured the past selves of Ryuu, Ais, Bell, Lefiya, and more were in that tale and they have reincarnated literally thousands of years later all within a few years of one another... Coincidence I think not!
I beheld Tina and as she slumbered next to me I pondered over what the fuck I should do with her... As she had awakened the Blood Fury Spear of her ancestor Fianna. Literally midget Hulk rage that infinitely scaled the user's strength, durability, and all other aspects of the body including magic on how much the user hated the world.
Back in the old days when Fianna was running around and she had a harem of other midget pallum knights simping for her, with the Blood Fury Spear skill she was equal to a peak level of seven or eight and her feats were so great that for millennia Pallums literally worshiped her as a goddess and the actual gods were afraid she would break the lower world of Genkai.
'So... My midget waifu is carrying the essence of Fianna and has obviously inherited some form of that skill.' I thought ruefully as I threaded my hand softly through her dirty blond hair that was in disarray from our frantic fucking. I gently sighed and shook my head as I shrugged.
"Welp, I got you, so now I got to take responsibility," I whispered and in response, the sleeping form of Tina tightened her grasp around my stomach that she was laying upon.
Having someone with the potential to have the strength of a level seven being so subservient to me could only help me grow... That's if her skill doesn't end up driving her mad anyway. So while Tina slumbered in my lap I smiled wryly as I realized something.
Hephaestus was going to certainly have an interesting reaction to this!
-
Across Orario was a large garden that was filled with fantastical flowers that were gently pushed into the air with the gentle winds that entered Orario over their walls. The beautiful garden was filled with a series of soul-stirring feminine laughter. Two goddesses for none could look upon their perfect forms and feel their auras could say otherwise, were sitting across from one another and discussing their latest life events.
Both were beauties with silver hair and pale flawless skin, both were full-figured voluptuous forms clad only in thin silks but with one wearing more risque attire than the other. But they differed in many ways.
One had blueish-green tattoos gently crossing her exposed flesh and green eyes with a diamond-shaped set of pupils, while the opposite goddess positively radiated a pure charm with each of her movements even as her bright amethyst eyes looked upon her friend with interest.
"So you have found an interesting would-be Familia member my old friend?" The goddess Freya spoke softly as she elegantly took a drink from her teacup and her long-time friend nodded as she laid her chin on her threaded-together hands which Freya knew was a sign that her friend was in deep thought.
The other goddess, who went by several names but was now known commonly down here in the Mortal Plane as Kusanali, nodded slowly as her star-shaped eyes met Freya's. "Yes, Freya... I was able to speak with Hepheatues little star smith in the making in Tsubaki, within my favorite coffee shop, and found out how Hephatues picked up a treasure... In my eyes at least." At Kusanali's depiction of these so-called treasures Freya had a smile of amusement curled the corner of her full lips while an eyebrow rose, before waving her hand in a 'get on with it motion;
But Kusanali snorted and looked at her friend with scorn as she loudly sipped at her tea making Freya pout so beautifully that her charm was unveiled but Kusanali was unphased at the soul-capturing sight as her eyes dulled in memory of what she had captured and plucked from Tsubaki's very mind without her knowledge.
Seeing her friend not react to her charm Freya could only pout harder before she rolled her eyes and folded her leg over the other as she tapped the marble table that separated the two goddesses as she spoke sarcastically. "Kusanali, I am hurt..." Freya said sarcastically as she held a hand to her voluptuous breast. "Why would you even tease me about such an interesting thing if you aren't going to say anything!?" Freya said dramatically and Kusanali paused before nodding.
Kusanali giggled at the sight of her friend before speaking and thus explaining what she had seen. "Hehehe. Freya, it was a beautiful sight to me... Creation, knowledge born of imagination that was brought to reality." She began painting the picture in awe of the memories she saw in Tsubaki's mind clearly resonating in her innocently seductive voice. "He broke magic and the laws of reality in perfectly fusing two objects together with not only zero loss between the objects but Freya!" Kusanali's diamond eyes were spinning with mad glee and the single-minded desire for knowledge that made her a powerful goddess back in Tenkai.
Freya with an iron will didn't react as her friend grabbed her hands with too much enthusiasm as a warm feeling filled her chest at seeing her friend get it... She got that, same obsession she had for mortals that burned brightly like fireworks in their ever-so-short lives.
"Freya, he broke the laws of reality in not only his skill not taking mana, mind or even divinity from some source. But the resulting object made from the two prior combined materials were more, denser, stronger, and more magically potent than the prior items should have allowed!" Kusanali said emotionally with almost tears coming to her eyes at the sheer impossibility that was dangling in front of her eyes.
And oh how clear it was to Freya that Kusanali wanted this star she had found... Freya smiled gently as she softly extracted her hands from her friend who pouted at the removal of their hands but Freya was a war goddess and Kusanali was a goddess of life and knowledge, even with their divinities sealed Freya was fully capable of feats of strength that Kusanali couldn't dream of in her mortal body.
Either way, Freya spoke with humor clear in her voice as her gentle smile turned slightly vicious in a way only a woman of her level could hold. "So my dear friend... I imagine you came to me to see if I could help you steal this poor star away from Hephaestus?" Freya questioned with her smile turning wry and Kusanali's pout become dull as she eyed her friend coldly before slowly shaking her head.
There was a heavy silence between the goddesses for a moment before Kusanli spoke softly. "No... Even should I have made a perfect plan to do so. It wouldn't matter with how his Falna isn't even a week old." She said with irritation in her voice as she closed her eyes and took a breath before opening her eyes and speaking again. "What I wish of you is thus, Hera and Zeus are playing their be dammed games again to suppress the other Familia's, and this time they are planning on bullying the crafting Familia's to get them to lower their prices to rock bottom levels."
Freya froze and at hearing the name Hera her hand that had picked up her teacup flexed and the poor teacup loudly shattered with the tea running down Freya's hand and arm beautifully like an art piece. "What do you want of me Kusanali?" Freya asked dangerously as Hera was her berserk button... The raging neurotic bitch of a goddess had purposefully gone out of her way to suppress her for years and it wasn't uncommon for a level five or even seven adventurers of Hera's Familia to randomly just kill one of her own Familia members in the dungeon regardless of level difference.
So to say the least, Freya hated Hera with a burning passion.
Kusanali eyed her friend with serious eyes before she sighed as she spoke. "Zeus's mad dogs unchained of their god's already negligent eyes are going to make an example out of the crafting families... I don't want my star Jake Bariss to be that example." She finished and then Freya twitched as Kusanali's foreign divine mind touched hers and then Freya shuddered at the sight of Jake as she saw what Kusanali couldn't.
Even in just a foreign memory, Freya's ability to see souls was unmatched by even the mad gods of death that walked the streets of Orario and the mortal plane. So Freya smiled with her pink tongue slightly peaking out of her mouth as she swallowed her first reaction of moaning at the sight of primordial creation within the boy's soul as she met her friend with an all to innocent smile as she spoke genially.
"I see... Well, I can divert some of my children to make sure he doesn't get picked out but I will need a favor in return." Freya said not letting this opportunity to use her friend's powers go to waste even if she would have done it for nothing anyway and if anything hearing there was a cost Kusanali smiled in relief as that dangerous light in her eyes faded.
Freya then asked her favor and Kusanali only raised an eyebrow before shrugging. "I desire to know 'The Empresses' secrets and weaknesses," Ferya stated clearly targeting the only level nine adventurer in the world who was the captain of the Hera Familia.
Notes:
've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 11
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
"So... You pick up a street rat, fucked her, and felt pity. So now I need to bring her into the Familia?" Hephaestus asked bluntly while taking a breath and Tsubaki was silently giggling like a loon as Tina stood beside me clearly shy.
After a moment of thought I slowly shook my head with Tsubaki's mad giggles of seeing their sibling trying to explain their fuck up to their parent and only deepening their hole being her life at the moment. And as I explained what Tina actually was Tsubaki literally covered her face with a pillow to hide her noises.
"Tina is not a street rat... She had a refrigerator box to live in basically." I said trying to stay away from mentioning how she previously lived in the stolen outhouse of all things. Thankfully my words didn't count as a lie as using the words basically alluded to them being the same thing. "But Tina has actually awoken a skill and seeing as Soma is a drug of addicts she wouldn't be safe at, I would hope you could slap your own falna on her." I finished and Hephaestus pinched her nose at the stress I was bringing her.
"Jake... You do realize that just picking up a girl and overwriting their Falna isn't looked up favorably by any gods right?" Hephaestus stated bluntly with her single eye pinning me with her irritated glare but I just shrugged as I retorted.
"Yeah and I don't care, she wants to join the Familia, she has a powerful skill that boosts her physical strength so she is valuable as a person, and lastly she is my supporter for the dungeon," I said with finality making Hephaestus close her eye as Tsubaki threw her pillow at me from across the room and making me dodge the spinning square pillow of doom that zipped over my head and audibly slammed into Hephaestus's desk and making the goddess glare at her shameless Captain who just grinned.
Finally, Hephaestus rolled her eyes and grumbled. "Damned problem children... It's always my smiths whoring and causing drunken disturbances... Why can't they just kill someone like my friend's problem children." Hephaestus almost whined weakly making me snort but I smiled as she stood up with a grunt of effort as she looked down at Tina who was just above my waist. "Alright girly, turn around so I can unbutton the top of your dress so I can give you my Falna," Hephaestus said with a small smile at Tina quickly turning around so Hephaestus could unsnap the green buttons that held the back of Tina's dress closed.
Due to Orario's many scum bag asshole gods and goddesses, many female adventures needed clothes with easily accessible backs while they could cover their chest from any groping hands. So most female adventurer clothes and styles had ways to allow someone to access their back to update their Falna easily.
But once Tina's back glowed with the divine light of Hephaestus's barely used Arcanuem that marked her with her divine ichor, Hephaestus froze and woodenly looked up at me from the couch she and Tina were using to do the ritual with her mouth slightly ajar. "The fucking Blood Fury Spear?" She said dully and I nodded gleefully as Hephaestus literally convulsed in disgust at my shit-eating grin that promised so many futures "I told you so's."
Though Hephaestus couldn't keep up her sore loser face as she visibly took a deep breath and shook her head as she looked between us three. "You guys don't say a word!" Hephaestus ordered strongly as she continued with a wry smile. "The Blood Fury Spear is the divine ability the Pallum Fianna awoke when she was alive and if Hera finds out about her having it, she will likely snatch her up in a Wargame that I will have no choice to surrender," Hephaestus warned us.
And I understood what she meant. As Hera had two dozen of level sevens, eight-level eights, and the world's single-level nine... If Hephaestus's Familia just had Tsubaki who was only at level four and the previous captain who was retired at level five were to fight Hera...
There was zero chance of victory so I didn't blame her when she said she would throw Tina to Hera to save her Familia. "So while you are there and your finger is bleeding want to update my Falna as well?" I asked and Hephaestus rolled her eye but nodded while spanking Tina on the backside making her squeal as she moved aside and zip behind me in fear of the impatient forge goddess.
-
So after a quick update to my Falna that made me get a couple of dozen points added across all my stats from my brief jaunt in the dungeon the previous day where I picked up Tina. And with the day being fresh I decided that Tina and I could go into the dungeon to see how her skill worked.
And with her Blood Fury Spear skill, I wanted to see how she would handle my anti-goblin growth spear and my plan was to literally slaughter all the goblins and kobolds for the spears I had for both species that would make us grow stronger by killing those monsters. As both spears had the same quests but with the name of the monster it targeted only being different.
But to have a weapon that would permanently increase excellia gain with the said weapon that I could fuse into something else? That was a fucking game changer as I imagined I could keep combining these Excellia weapons together at least especially if they were focused and grew off different monsters.
"So Tina, do you have some kind of chant or something to use your skill?" I asked quietly as we entered one of the side passageways of the first floor that looked empty of adventures as most were going deeper than the first floor.
But Tina in response to my question had her eyes flicker a bloody glowing red of the Blood Fury Spear with her own body glowing a bit along with the fur-covered spear that had red glowing Celtic style tattoos grown on the handle of the spear and I then noticed a copy of appearing just under her eyes that took the form three swirls and I realized something... This skill was some kind of fucking rip-off of Cu Chulainn's Ríastrad or warp spasm!
Notes:
've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 12
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Tina's berserker mode was, to put it bluntly, scary as hell. She gained not only the physical strength and durability increase such a berserker rage would put into her normally. But her reflexes and bodily control were elevated beyond even the strength and durability which made her spear play even more dangerous. The Blood Fury Spear was truly a skill that made the gods jealous and was worth its hype as I had no doubt that she was at the same danger level as a peak level two right now.
And this was her running the skill on its low power setting as it drained her stamina quickly... Normally that stamina issues would cripple the skill's value but there was one issue in which I changed how the skill basically operated.
Tina was using life-steal weapons which also restored stamina... So she was able to keep the Blood Fury Spear skill on at all times while in the dungeon as we tore through goblins and kobolds on the first floor.
This wasn't us pushing ourselves to a higher level to get more money or even excellia, this was weak ass level ones with overpowered gear with my own scale mail armor making me immune to anything the goblins and kobolds could do, and Tina with her Blood Fury Spear switching between the goblin and kobold spears when necessary depending on which race of monster we rant into bullying the dungeon.
We were doing this as a challenge to ourselves and to stress test Tina's skill in the frankly almost uninhabited first floor as people typically just skipped the first floor and went up down to the second to get the slightly bigger monster stones and more of them. Also, our rampant slaughtering of the monsters was quickly evolving the quests for the kobold and goblin slaying spears which we were both wielding.
With my armor, I was able to tank the claws and fangs of the goblins and kobolds and I would wield my spear close to its head almost like a knife with the spearhead's long jagged blade being more manageable at such close range for me to kill the monsters that tried to grapple me.
Most importantly of all... Even with Tina getting a new skill and getting a new home in the Hephaestus Familia, she remained the same. She didn't get cocky even with her being physically stronger than me with her new skill. If anything she seemed to think her skill, her new weapons, her clothes, and down to the very tramp stamp of Hephaestus upon her soul was just further proof of my hold and her own surprisingly willing subservience over her.
Which was just further proof of the convenient madness her Blood Fury Spear skill forced upon her in use.
"Tina, stop for a sec," I said pausing as I thought I heard something in the distance around the corner. At my order, she paused from where she was plucking the monster stone from the dried-out corpse of the kobold she had killed.
There was a series of dull crashing noises along with the sounds of the rock walls of the dungeon being shattered and we both paused as we shared a look and we silently decided if we should leave whatever happening to happen naturally and finally I shrugged with Tina smiling weakly as she followed me as we went to investigate around the corner inside one of the deepest parts of the first floor of the dungeon.
Around the corner were two men fighting barehanded, each a whirlwind of speed, strength, and ferocity. And at seeing them Tina poked my side and pulled me around the corner as she hissed. "Jake, we need to go. Those are Zeus's adventures. I will explain but we need to move." She said quickly pulling me away and I blinked but I didn't argue and we took off at a sprint with Tina tapping into her skill to get the speed to keep up with my obviously far larger strides as we ran.
A couple of minutes later as we literally ran to the other side of the first floor Tina stopped us and we killed the goblins and kobolds that chased us down from where we were running from. "So why the hell did we need to run?" I asked winded from all the running and wanting some answers.
Tina groaned as she leaned against the wall of the dungeon and took a breath as well with her red eyes dulling back to her normal green eyes as she began to explain somewhat tiredly. "The Zeus Familia is the Familia of 'Heroes'... And in order to earn the right to have your Falna updated you for one have to be on a long wait list as Zeus is picky about how often he updates his member's Falna." She began to explain and I raised an eyebrow before having to facepalm as she continued.
"In the Zeus Familia, it's common for members to fight and grievously injure others in order to get the other's spots in the schedule for a Falna update. And they obviously have to have their fights in the dungeon due to such fights would destroy any arena they made up on the surface... And they are all sore losers when they lose." She finished and I realized why we had to fucking run.
Basically out of fear of the loser getting up and killing us for seeing his loss or just to vent their frustrations.
"And the Guild is useless I guess?" I said wryly and Tina only looked at me with a deadpan look.
"Jake... Literally every member of Zeus and Hera's Familia's of three hundred plus adventures in each Familia are level five or higher as they only recruit from Familia's that cannot support such a high-level adventurer while also sending those previous Familia's a very hefty payment for basically raising that adventurer to that level as severance pay... The Guild cannot do squat." She said flatly with no argument possible.
'This golden time here in Orario was truly different from canon.' I mused as I disregarded the whole might makes right aspects that were far more in the swing than in canon but the sheer knowledge that instead of the couple dozen at most level fives in canon... There are hundreds maybe even a thousand of them across the world with much more competitive the world was. Was truly staggering.
So after taking a break to catch our breath for a bit. I held out a hand to Tina as I spoke. "Let me check our spears for wear and tear along with their magical details," I said and then handed over a short sword to Tina so she could defend herself if a monster came or something, while I began inspecting the four spears as I made a spear for both goblins and kobolds for both of us.
[Goblin Slayer] [ Evolution Quest 100% Complete]
[Weapon absorbs the life force and transfers some to the user while using the rest to passively strengthen the weapon.-- New!] The user has completed the evolution quest so now killing all Goblins with this weapon increases Excellia gained.] Now for goblins down here on the first floor, this was kinda shit, to be honest.
But ten-something floors down in the foggy floors when we were still fighting armed goblins with stone weapons that were much stronger this would be a lot more valuable. After a quick check, I saw the other three spears were also evolved as well so I smiled and fused the sets of goblin and kobold spears together. And then looked at the result.
[Beast Slayer] [The combination of two weapons that focused on different monsters has left this spear less focused upon the two monsters but the Excellia gain remains... And with more monster-slaying evolution weapons added to this weapon, the more focused and stronger the monster-slaying aspects will be till the mere sight of the weapon makes monsters kneel in supplication or merely die out of sheer fright.]
[Quest Available] [Zenith Evolutionary Hunter.]
I handed back the other spear to Tina and after explaining what the spear did... And how it would literally increase the growth of her Falna. She looked ready to jump me right there on the dungeon floor!
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 13
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
After a good haul in the dungeon and turning in the loot I was willing to turn in for cash, Tina brought me to the more middle-class area of Orario as I wanted to get some actual well-cooked food instead of the cheap stall or ration-like food I had been living on since I came here to the world of Danmachi.
"So what's your favorite type of food," I asked Tina softly as we came into a nice cafe-style restaurant and I was wearing a small smile at the restaurant's theme... Being cute animal girls in maid outfits. And the best part, with how Danmachi was a fantasy world, all those cat ears were true! Those dog ears, and massive breasts the cowgirls all had were real!
Tina hummed in thought to my question before she softly responded as we both took in the bright interior of the cafe. "I like kinda spicy food. Not too spicy as to cause pain, but just a reminder of its presence and something to keep me warm." She said with some nostalgia.
Before I could continue about what kind of drinks she liked a rabbit beastkin all but bounced over as she surprisingly wore a fairly natural and real smile as she spoke cheerfully. "Ello, Master, and Mistress, my name is Syra." The brown-haired bunny girl then laid down a couple of menu's in front of us and continued in her previous chipper voice. "Here are the menu, and do you both already know what you want to drink already?"
I looked at Tina who shook her head not knowing what she wanted, and I was the same honestly. So I shrugged helplessly before answering. "Eh, we will take the house special drink, I guess." I finished and the waitress wrote down that and told us she would be back in a couple of minutes to get our orders leaving us to peruse the menus.
After a couple of minutes of looking through the small menu and its options, I looked up to Tina who looked at the menu like it was her mortal enemy so I cautiously asked. "Tinaaa..." I drawled out to start before continuing gently. "If you say you are getting the children's serving of mac and cheese I am going to be disappointed, we are adventurers and are making some decent money so don't worry about it... As remember our gear and expenses are also secure and well taken care of." I said cryptically and she exhaled in relief nodding in understanding.
Being a part of Hephaestus's Familia came with a large number of bonuses like food being delivered if we lived in the apartments like I did, along with there being a canteen open to the Familia in the Familia mansion at all hours. Also to say nothing of the large discounts all adventurer gear gets for in-house Familia members. Though obviously that was less taken advantage of due to most members of the Hephaestus Familia meant you were a smith and thus made your own weapons and gear.
So Tina ordered a bowl of hefty spaghetti and I ended up getting myself the same when I didn't see anything else that popped up in my interest. Between eating our food I asked Tina quietly. "So does that stuff happen in the dungeon pretty often?" I asked alluding to those Zeus members fight and she grimaced and looked around as though afraid a Zeus Familia member was going to stomp in and use our heads as bowling balls.
But with no monster rushing in, she gathered a bit of courage and nodded, and like me she didn't directly mention them as we had no doubt that a level three or even a level two could hear our words spoken in this cafe with a little issue with how the sense of higher leveled adventures increased. "As I said, they have to fight for their Falna updates so yeah it's a common thing... With us moving up a floor it will be less common but they mostly stick to the first, fifth, and tenth floors to do their fighting." Tina said hushedly looking around for anyone that seemed they were paying far too much attention to us.
But everyone was just minding their business eating their food and drinking their drinks... And also obviously for the men, trying to hit on the beastkin maids.
Eventually, we finished our food, paid, and were going to leave. But as we were leaving, the doors to the cafe exploded into shrapnel as a superhuman foot moving faster than a blur that I could track had kicked the segmented sliding door into the cafe causing some of the ladies within to scream in surprise but their cries were strangled shut and silent as the sounds of heavy boots fell into the cafe as two men walked in.
One man was a giant of a man, clad in dark full plate armor with a vicious massive battle axe being held in his hand. While the other man was thinner but wore a monster leather cloak that covered most of his body but still allowed the sight and movement of his dual swords that were at his sides.
The thinner man spoke softly but crystal clear with his voice being a poisonous hiss of malignant intent that spoke directly to our fears. "Gentlemen, ladies." He started and smiled a dangerous thing as he palmed his swords." The Zeus Familia is merely taking the protection dues for this city street... I hope you all relax and sit still while we acquire the taxes this establishment owes and nothing else will happen."
A large man came out of the back kitchen and I saw he was a giant of a man and absently noticed that he was a Boaz or boar beastkin in particular. It turns out the man was actually the owner and tried to talk sense into the two Zeus Familia members but... "Gentlemen, I already paid my dues to the Guild with those fees as you well know going into your pockets." He said with the unsaid, 'I already paid so why are you causing trouble?' Being painfully obvious.
The larger man in plate armor sighed looking up at the ceiling and shook his head as the thin man's eyes glowed a sickly green before anyone could react the thin man spoke very quickly. "Sickly Ichor's Final Sleep." And then with a blur of movement, he stabbed his glowing hand forward and into the guts of the owner of the shop making the waitresses scream in horror as the thin man then purposefully ripped the owner's guts and intestines out with his hand that glowing a sickly green that matched his cold serpent-like eyes.
"Basilisk Hands what in the world are you doing!" A feminine voice snarled and from one of the tables a woman slammed her chair back so hard it exploded against the wall behind her and both men cursed seeing her standing up from the back area of the cafe. "Well, you simpletons what in the world are you doing?!" She demanded and I saw she was armed with a beautiful adamantine sword that glittered with an enchantment woven into its being while having a weird justice-like scale worked into the crossguard of the sword.
The woman had long blond hair that went past her backside and was wearing a somewhat loose shift that was of pure white with blue trim that highlighted her amazing assets. But most notable was how she was wearing a blindfold that clearly obscured her expression as she was using her sword as a walking stick as she approached the duo while the other woman she was previously sitting with back at her table looked worried.
"Sword Maiden." The thin man spat while looking at the woman not fearfully but clearly weighing his options while his bulky counterpart hefted his massive battle axe into both his hands clearly ready for battle. "Go back to your damned seat and mind your own business... Wouldn't wants to cause any drama between our Familias now would you?" He said with a poisonous smile but the now-named woman with the title Sword Maiden merely tilted her head to the side and looked down at the owner who was whimpering as he held his clearly rotting guts that glowed a poisonous green through the wound.
The Sword Maiden looked back up and towards the thin man and she spoke clearly. "Leave or I will show you the difference between a couple of fresh level fives and an experienced level six." She said bluntly with her sword glowing white in anticipation of battle.
The thin man had a bead of sweat come to his brow before he twitched and then snarled as he visibly didn't like his chances and then he shattered the wood beneath his feet as he spun on his heel and walked out of the cafe through the opening where the door should have been. A moment of silence was shared between all the cafe owners and before silent soft conversation continued while I watched that Sword Maiden get down to her knees to check the man who was still bleeding out... And having his guts rotted away by the magic wound that thin man was clearly still powering out of fucking spite.
"This cafe is probably gonna close," Tina said with a sigh as she muttered about coming between the drama between the Zeus and Hera Familia with the Zeus Familia member's ego was a death sentence nowadays.
But before we could leave, or mind our business. The Sword Maiden spoke up as her table mate joined her and I actually was able to see her beyond the just corner of my eye. Even as the Sword Maiden spoke I took in the person she shared her lunch with and saw that she was wearing a black dress that clung to her fair curves and went down past her knees. She also wore a set of emerald-embedded earrings and a necklace that matched her own green eyes and had silvery white hair quite nicely while her pale skin gave her a very delicate appearance.
"Ladies, and Gentlemen do you have any skills that can dispel hostile magic in order to save this man's life?" She questioned but everyone including Tina looked down unwilling to answer or look at her and she sighed while speaking again. "I am willing to swear on the name of Hera to make sure no retribution comes towards you for any assistance you render!" She said strongly but no one looked up from their table.
They were scared someone was going to rat and those Zeus members with their bruised egos were going to hunt them down and no one wanted to lay bleeding out slowly poisoned by some sadistic bastard.
But with everyone looking down and refusing to answer I waved slightly to get the other woman's attention who clearly wasn't blind/blindfolded. And once I got her attention I flicked my hand and a glass vial filled with a golden elixir I fused several potions and the corpse of a salamander and a starfish into that gave insane regeneration along with the properties of natural elixirs and potions that would mass produce blood and soft tissues for the body to survive the wounds adventures would so commonly get in the dungeon.
For whatever reason, potions and elixirs couldn't heal, regrow, or replace bones and ligaments at fucking all... Literally, you could be stabbed thirty-seven times in the chest with your heart pierced and all. And if you drink a powerful elixir you would be utterly fine in the course of minutes. But if you lose the tip of a finger with its joint, it didn't matter what potion or elixer you drank you were fucked.
But my Elixers weren't like that as I fused salamander and starfish into the potions giving it the ability to regrow entire limbs if they had enough elixirs and... The fat and muscles are for the elixirs to use as fuel and break down to rebuild the body beyond the magical energy used.
The woman with green eyes silently nodded understanding after she caught the elixer as she was well aware I was trying to stay anonymous while Tina sighed at my meddling. So with that little episode out of the way, the Sword Maiden sent everyone out of the cafe after that other woman whispered into her ears. Which allowed me and Tina to head home... Away from all the bullshit of Orario.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 14
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Tsubaki frowned as she held up a plate of killer ant chitin to the light to inspect it. "Hmm, the fusion of multiple of the same monster drops make it not only bigger. but it actually, increases the magical concentration." Tsubaki muttered as I sat down across from her.
But even as I was fusing a massive amount of materials for her and getting paid in more materials to do with whatever I wanted to due to my fusion abilities saving Tsubaki hours of effort in purifying materials. But I was still thinking of the previous day and the bullshit that had all happened.
Eventually I broke the soft sounds of Tsubaki's muttering inspection of the materials as I asked about what had happened. "So Tsubaki, are the Zeus and Hera Familia's really that bad?" I asked and then when she looked up I went into what had happened the previous day in the dungeon and that cafe,
And after my explanation, she sighed and nodded with a weak smile. "Yeah... The Zeus Familia is made up of meathead 'hero's' who threw themselves onto insane quests their entire life as adventures and managed to survive and level up quickly and strongly... They aren't like lesser Familia's who merely have a couple of high-level adventurers but with them having shit or weak skills." Tsubaki said frowning as she continued after putting down the killer ant chitin plate.
"The Falna not only works off of the person's adventures and trials in getting stronger, but the Zeus and Hera Familia have cracked the code in their gods giving out insane deadly quests for their adventurers to fulfill and then with their own divine ichor once they update that survivor's Falna they are almost assured to have gotten a skill that aligns to what they did on the quest and how they handled it... And remember Jake. The Falna is the story of an adventurer's journey if you are sitting on your ass reading a book that's boring in the god's eyes."
Tsubaki explained and then wore a wry smile as brought up another example. "Like that Sword Maiden, you mentioned. She joined the Hera Familia at level four and was given a quest of her own as an initiation." Tsubaki spoke with her eyes far away at the thought.
"And during which, she lost her eyes, as during that quest she was fighting dragons that could breathe acid and seeing as she was fighting in a cave that acid got concentrated enough to ruin her sight even with the abnormal resistance skill... But she is famous now for being able to sense the magic within all living beings and even force all mages into internally detonating with an Ignis Faustus with the skill she got from the quest."
Tsubaki finished her tale and then took a drink before sighing and shaking her head. "Those quests are all fucking insane really. There is a reason Hera and Zeus recruit and welcome new members from other Familia's... They have an insane turnover rate with many members being crippled or killed during their quests but no one, and I do mean no other Familia comes close to them in terms of quantity and quality of adventurers." She finished.
Could I do my own quest beyond the quests my items had something if they were magical items. "Do you have a Jack Bird, Golden Egg?" I asked mentioning the golden egg that the Jack Bird would one hundred percent drop should they be killed. They were very valuable materials due to them being bar none the best binder for enchantments for armor and could be used for powerful elixer's so, to say the least they were extremely valuable.
At my question, Tsubaki raised an eyebrow before nodding as she spoke slowly. "And what would you do with that?" She asked and I took a breath as I ordered my thoughts and explained.
"Alright, so you know how I mentioned how my items had their own quests to upgrade them sometimes?" Her lips pursed but she nodded despite her jealousy of my weapons that could evolve, which was funny as hell to me honestly. But either way, I continued. "I want a Jack Bird egg so I can fuse it into the Almaraj bunny feet and fur to see if I can make something that increases luck or something," I explained and she blinked in incomprehension before she snorted and paused as she realized my other enchanted items could do weird shit as well.
"Jake... I like you a good bit, but I am not going to give you my one Golden Egg I had to pay two million valis for. Sorry dude, even if it worked I would want the item and I know you won't want to give it to me either." She enlightened me and I grimaced as she was all too right.
It was fine for her to give me higher-level materials when I was fusing better stuff for her to work with. But some materials were damn near priceless or exorbitantly expensive to the point that only matching materials would be a fair trade.
And even my fused weapons that could increase Excellia gain wouldn't be a good trade as Tsubaki sure as hell wasn't going to be grinding goblins and other lower-level monsters in the dungeon. And she got most if not all her Excellia gain from smithing.
It hit me! She got her Excellia gain from smithing!
I slapped the table between us with a victorious smile being worn. "And what I offered an enchanted hammer that gave you more Excellia for forging?" I demanded and the metal flask Tsubaki was holding to drink from crumpled as her hand flexed at that realization of what I could offer.
No, what I could offer the entire Hephaestus Familia, as the smithing goddess herself would be the crux of the issue as I was sure a few drops of her blood like updating or giving a falna would increase the excellia gained in smithing!
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 15
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Hephaestus looked at me like I was crazy.
Which, to be fair in her divine eye, maybe I truly was. As I supposedly had an idea, of how to mass-produce growth cheats. These were the rarest of skills, held only by the legends who had reached level eight or the Empress, who was the sole level nine of the world.
"Look, I apply a material and its concepts and what makes it... Itself will be added to the other item." I said before pointing at my goddess. "If you the forging goddess and our own goddess who fills our Falna with strength cannot give blacksmiths better Excellia growth then there shouldn't be any growth skills at all!" I said strongly making Hephaestus's mouth twitch before she smiled wryly.
"Jake, it's not just that you may be wrong that has earned me calling you a fool." She leaned closer and spoke softly. "What if you were right, and I allowed you to mass produce such hammers to enhance the Hephaestus Familia smiths... What happens when my smiths drunk on their level-up party spill their guts about how all the smiths began leveling up every year around the same damned time?" She questioned frowning.
I almost wanted to interject by saying something along the lines of just not telling them about the hammer's excellia growth but there was the fact that all the smiths in the Familia typically made their own tools for the most part so they would be comfortable in their own hands. And in the same vein as Hephaestus's previous words, expecting a dwarf to not get drunk was a damned pipe dream.
"Then can we try just for Tsubaki to have one at least?!" I said holding my hands up in prayer having given up all pride... I wanted my damned Golden Egg!
Hephaestus and Tsubaki shared a look, a long judging look as Tsubaki looked away shiftily and Hephaestus snorted as she looked back with a weak smile. "Sorry Jake, Tsubaki is also a weak-minded drunk... Also, a perverted one who gropes people as well." She finished dryly and my head clunked onto the wooden surface of Hephaestus's office desk making the forge goddess snort at my action.
"You aren't even a smith, why are you wanting to make items that increase Excellia gain via that anyway?" Hephaestus questioned and I went on to explain how I was wanting to trade the Golden Egg Tsubaki had in storage for such a hammer. And then the conversation spiraled to how I could make such hammers for the whole Familia via a couple of drops of Hephaestus's blood or something.
In the end, Hephaestus covered the bottom of her face with her enclosed head with her eyes closed as she was clearly in thought, in the classical Gendo pose... And after a moment of consideration, she seemingly made a decision as her hands unfolded and she used one hand to unbutton the top two buttons of her top to pull out a large ornate, and extremely complicated key.
"Very well. Jake, just as the divines and adventurers take far greater monetary risk in buying a grimoire I don't mind taking a little risk for you now." She said with a small smile as she winked at me at how I tried and was failing at looking away at her large pale cleavage that was proudly pushing itself free from her dress shirt prison.
So as Hephaestus and Tsubaki went into the vault and I obviously as a green level one was left in the waiting room. I was ruefully smiling at Hephaestus's previous words... A Golden Egg from a Jack Bird depending on its demand was worth a base of one million Valis and went up to five if a lot of people were demanding it for their projects. But a Grimoire that could inscribe magic upon our very soul and Falna was in a completely different game.
Depending on the level of the Grimoire, they started at a base rate of three hundred million and went all the fucking way up to five billion if the Grimoire was made by a magic god or goddess themselves. A single Golden Egg was truly a massive amount of difference in funds.
And as for why people would buy such an extremely expensive grimoire... Well, it was a matter of investment as Valis was similar to the Japanese Yen back in my old world so that five billion price tag could be equaled out to about 35 million US Dollars which yes was a huge amount of money but let's say you were buying a grimoire for an already higher level adventurer and more specifically an elf at that.
As a level five and above elves would have a life span literally equal to a thousand years and if they reached a higher level their life span would further increase so for them especially it was a great deal as the Empress being level nine and more than two hundred years old still only looked like a woman in her mid to late twenties supposedly from the rumors I heard.
My ruminations about the insane cost of Grimoires were cut short as Tsubaki and Hephaestus came around the corner from the vault entrance that was supposedly very fucking lethally trapped to all heaven to stop thieves and only keyed to Hephaestus and Tsubaki being allowed into the hallway that led into the vault.
Hephaestus gently handed over a football-sized and kind of shaped felt bag and as I pulled open the bag I saw the gleaming almost metallic golden gleam of the Jack Bird Egg. "Go ahead and fuse it into whatever you want. I am curious to see what comes of it." She said taking a seat and sending Tsubaki a look which had her captain walk across the room to bar the entrance as I took the egg into my fusion space along with Almiraj pelts which were rabbit monsters. And finally, I grimaced as I used the scrap adamantine dust I had accumulated that Tsubaki let me have so she could skip having to deal with that debris.
My fusion space became a blur of light momentarily for a few seconds making me feel mounting stress... But finally, I got the result and as I took it out of my fusion space I checked it out.
The necklace was plated in the metallic egg shine of the golden egg and likewise so was the rabbit's foot that hung from the end of the necklace that I could put under my armor. So with the pure visual inspection done, I looked into what it actually did. [Lucky Lifeforce Necklace.] [Increase's user's natural luck, which includes bringing them into 'lucky' situations. The user has increased regeneration and while the body is not harmed by ailment or have any wounds, the user will experience small increased Excellia growth so long as they remain unharmed.]
I quickly put it on my neck with a smile as all 'small' increases to Excellia growth would stack up... Because there was nothing to say I couldn't use my golden eggs to make that growth better, use weapons with monster-killing growth. Or hell I could literally just make rings or bracelets with more enchantments as well!
"Well? How is it?" Hephaestus asked anxiously and I smiled smugly as I explained the effect of the item with Hephaestus visibly closing her eyes and taking a breath before she spoke dryly. "You are bullshit, Jake... If it wasn't for how Zeus's adventurers would abduct you, I would have you make more things for the Familia." She said wryly.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 16
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Across Orario was a massive estate, with the estate was a large castle made out of the purest of white and black marble, only scored with golden veins of gold that were naturally present within the marble when it was first extracted. Within the beautiful castle were treasures considered ever more beautiful than the very castle and well-cared-for estate.
The ladies of the Hera Familia, which consisted of only women to begin with.
And within Hera Familia's castle, there was a meeting between five ladies. One of which was the Sword Saintess with her elegantly sitting at the marble table that was for the leaders of the Familia to come and discuss things in large meetings that would typically decide the future of the Familia in the short future.
They were discussing something very important. The Familia's mascot Materia had been slightly healed of her terrible magical sickness. So instead of collapsing within a dozen steps. She now was collapsing after whole minutes of walking around and talking to the overjoyed members of the Hera Familia.
The Sword Saintess, Eris explained softly. "We didn't really pay attention to the man who tossed the elixer to Materia." But Hera, for all that she was beautiful, was impetuous and the patient wasn't something she could be described as.
Hera was an ethereal powerful goddess, who assumed the guise of an enchanting woman in the prime of her life, her chosen forms age gracefully nestled between the late twenties and early thirties. She had cascading waves of vibrant chestnut hair that framed her face, the liveliness and shine in her hair mirroring the sparkles within her soul-catching nut-brown eyes. Adorned in a delicate, gown, her attire gently veiled her alluring figure, teasing the beholder's imagination with subtle hints of her voluptuous allure.
Hera slapped her table with her bare palm making a loud snapping noise as she dramatically pointed at the blind swordswoman before pausing. "Wait... Why the hell am I asking you to identify someone when you are fucking blind!" Hera scolded herself as she face-palmed, while Eris merely rose an eyebrow as she retorted blandly.
"Probably because you are a hopeless goddess who needs a blind woman to help find her keys to the castle doors when she loses them after five minutes."
Eris's calm and almost gentle retort visibly made Hera cringe while the other three ladies also snorted.
But before the playing around could continue another woman, one with long silver hair and heterochromia eyes one being green and the other silver, cut through the hubbub. "Eris is blind yet see's better then the rest of us... We all know, so let's move on." She said cooly before she looked at her sister Materia who flinched under her older sister's stern gaze. "What do you remember of the man who gave you the elixer or even who he was with?" She asked.
Materia, was almost a carbon match for her older sister Alfia, besides the one detail of her having only green eyes. But even with her frail countenance she still somehow had a visibly healthy body with her matching her sister's large bust and beautiful curves. Now she was visibly looking uncomfortable as she tried to recall the image of the young man who gave her that elixer.
The very elixir that once she gave the majority to that man who was cursed and poisoned by that Zeus Familia member she truly hated for being a big bully! She kinda... Got a couple of drops of the elixir onto her hand. And the elixirs she got to treat her sickness always had the stuff added to make them taste yummy...
So she kinda licked the drops of the elixir wanting to have a taste!
At Alfia coughing impatiently to get her sister's attention Materia flinched as she was knocked out of her daydreams and she hurriedly began speaking about what she remembered. "Uhm, he had blond hair!" She started and then continued with a bit more confidence. "He was probably an adventurer as he wore an armored chest plate that I think was scale mail out of...Uhh Killer Ant I think?" She continued looking a bit unsure as she herself wasn't really an adventurer so she didn't know all the materials that came from monsters.
After Alfia pointed out what Killer Ant's scale's looked like when made from the exoskeleton she hurriedly nodded as she continued. "Yes, and he had uhm... Blue eye's." She finished as that's all she could remember but then she snapped her fingers as she recalled something else.
"Oh! He was also with a Pallum, she also had blond hair and green eyes and wore a green dress with brown leggings while she was actually armed with a weird spear that had fur or something on it while the head of the spear looked like a big fang or something." She continued and the ladies nodded with some actually valuable information.
Finally, the last woman the one sitting beside Hera, a woman that looked to be in her late twenties despite being more than three hundred years old was the level nine Empress. Her name was Albion, and she had long blond hair alike Eris, but instead of being human, she was an elf with her body having matured like wine into the perfect matronly beauty that despite looking different from Hera in all manner with Hera having taken on a human form.
People still called her a clone of Hera for she had that same grace that the 'Queen of the Divines' had, not to mention her great strength that made her almost godlike in nature to the common man and woman. When people looked up to the great heroes of Orario, they looked at the level eights and seven and strode to become mirrors or something better then than those idols... No one even dared to idolize and follow the path of the Empress as she was clearly the greatest Adventurer and none except for Alfia currently alive seemed to have the talent to reach her level.
Albion's voice was like sweet honey, or the strums of a masterly tuned harp to the ear's as she softly spoke. "We do not know this young man, nor his Familia and his history... Nor can we openly look for him due to the Zeus's annoying rats could very well make an attempt on his life to suppress him as they do to other male adventurers who don't follow in their footsteps in their foolish nonsense."
Eris tapped the nail of her finger against the marble table top getting the room's attention as she spoke. "I believe I can recall his magical signature as it was rather odd how weak his magic was, for how powerful that elixer was. I will attempt to look for him either outside the dungeon or within the first floors of the dungeon as I believe him to be a lower-level adventurer... Either way, I suggest we also send ladies to the other pharmacy and healer Familia's to see if they have anyone that fit that depiction though that may put them at risk, we are also known for constantly seeking medical care for dear Materia and Alfia here." She finished with a small smile.
Hera nodded after a moment of thought and then she clapped her hands. "Alright, this meeting is adjourned, all you girls tell the others to look for this mystery man, to learn of the source of this elixir to help Materia and Alfia with their sickness."
Hera spoke before she stood up and then swiftly left the room via door behind her throne that led to one of her many bedrooms scattered across the castle.
That left the mortal Familia members within the room and the Empress Albion the captain of the Familia gently smiled as she also elegantly stood up and she walked over to give Materia a motherly loving hug with the silver-haired girl being forcibly smothered into her large breasts as Albion carefully patted her back as she spoke consolingly.
"Do not worry little Materia, we will not give up, for you are the heart of our Familia with how adorable you are." She said dotingly.
But Eris dryly cut in. "You are smothering her to death again Albion."
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 17
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
For all that I could use my Fusion Skill to remake a lot of fantasy weapons, at least in their shape if not their abilities due to a lack of materials that would give the weapons their special effects. But I realized something as I used a stupid amount of scrap metal Tsubaki couldn't be arsed to clean up to make Guts, Buster Sword.
That was, for one. The complicated weapons I made like trick weapons from Bloodborne were very finicky and obviously would take a lot of training to master them... Secondly and most importantly, I only had two hands and more realistically I could only really use one weapon at a time as I preferred to use two-handed weapons for their longer reach.
So, I was thinking... What two-handed fantasy or otherwise weapon did I really like back in my old life. As I wasn't picky, sword, axe, halberd, spear... I just wanted a bigger weapon to keep monsters and people at a distance.
Then I came across an interesting weapon choice I could try to specialize in for more general monster killing. The Farron Greatsword, a great sword built for wild wide swings with one hand, while in my other hand, I would have dueling dagger for people or things that got too close... And I still had a couple of drops of Hephaestus's blood!
In the relative safety and privacy of my apartment I fused together some left-over high-level alloy metal scrap to form the base of the Farron Greatsword itself and then I began using the left-over drops of Hephaestus's blood and its effects upon the sword was... Just beautiful honestly.
The sword's edge had almost molten-looking spotty edges that looked like they were coals or something on the blade with their random locations, at least that's what I thought as I realized the spots of fiery glow were slightly moving back and forth across the blade, but the spots and edges of flames never collided with each other. So it was like I had used an Ember or something in Dark Souls Three.
After a moment of thought, I thought about what to do with the brutal dueling dagger thing that went with the Farron Greatsword and then I shrugged and just used some highly magnetic metals to fuse into the dagger that was only a couple degrees off with its blades angle in becoming an ice climbing axe.
"Another new weapon?" Tina asked raising an eyebrow at the weapon I had fused, and I nodded slowly.
"Yeah... I think I will keep this as my more specialized weapon, obviously when I can and need to, I will be using the growth weapons to evolve them but I need a powerful base weapon." I explained as I used my weird inspection ability to get an idea of what the sword could do.
[Farron's Greatsword] [Blessed by the divine fire of Hephaestus, this sword is capable of sending out swathes of powerful flames. The user is also protected from heightened temperatures. Warning, the sword does not protect the user from air deprivation caused by the flames.]
[Two Quests] [Lord of Cinder's Assembly.] [Oath of Brotherhood]
"Huh, this thing actually has two quests or upgrade methods," I muttered making Tina raise an eyebrow but then I realized that the second quest actually had a mental toggle to it like my first spear did so I could see what it wanted me to do, in order to fulfill the quest's requirement.
[Oath of Brotherhood] [ Pledge thyself to the Watchdog's of Farron, slay monsters of pure darkness to enhance weapon.] [Once the User dares, they may challenge the Abyss Watcher's within the User's mental space. Should the User get killed, his soul will be damaged, and be unable to have Falna updated nor challenge the Abyss Watchers for upwards of a week.] [Rewards- User may summon clones of himself that will lock onto the target of interest with the vestiges of the Abyss Watcher's martial skill piloting the clones.]
"Well, this is... Scary, note to self. Be careful using the blood of a divine in making a weapon as it doesn't fuck around." I muttered as I realized this weapon may honestly be a bit above my pay grade.
"Jake..." Tina said in a drawl making me look up at her amusedly as she looked at me with amusement. "Congratulations one having your first child with Lady Hephaestus." She said cheekily and I couldn't help but snort at her words before I froze.
She may very well become... Weird around the sword, and I didn't want to just give up my new sword! I looked to Tina and put a finger to my lips and said flatly. "Shhh..."
Tina just rolled her eyes and then went over and sat beside me on the couch and laid her head on my shoulder's as she muttered. "Whatever, just wait till she finds out about it anyway... Let's get some sleep before we go back to the dungeon tomorrow anyway, as we are going to deeper floors to make new monster growth weapons."
I nodded and put away my new weapons. Then I wrapped my arm around Tina and pulled her tight against me as I used the other arm to grab the blanket hanging over the back of the couch to pull it over us.
Honestly, the best part about snuggling with Pallum women was that despite them being smaller, they still had the softness of a woman... They were literally an entire race of small stacks and thus the perfect hug pillows.
No wonder, none of the other races could take them seriously.
-
The following day's start was fairly normal honestly, Tina made us breakfast while I made lunch for us, so that later on we could eat a hot meal comfortably in the dungeon with how everything in my fusion space was seemingly time-locked. After we did our morning stuff we then made our way across Orario down the northern main street that led us south to the middle of the city in which the Tower of Babel was, with the dungeon beneath the massive tower.
"We should head down to the seventh floor, there will still be goblins and kobolds. But there will also be Frog Shooters, Dungeon Lizards, War Shadows, Killer Ants, Purple Moths, and Needle Rabbits. and the Blue Papilio which as you know is used in making the base of almost all the common potions of the world." I said as I recited the information my fellow Hephaestus members drilled into my head when they taught me about the dungeon and its dangers.
They made it clear that the pretty guild lady secretaries were nice to learn from if you like getting your throat torn out... As their maps weren't worth shit compared to the private Familia maps that had recorded dungeon monsters' typical migrations and where monsters loved to hide within. And how could those girls who never even killed a goblin or monster in their lives actually advise an adventurer anyway?
I couldn't argue with the angry dwarf dude so I just listened to his quick brutal lessons on the dungeon monster's before he sent me running off as he got into his drink, and started muttering about his old buddies that got killed while they fucked a mermaid and then other monsters jumped them.
Tina nodded in understanding as we had long outgrown the first couple floors with only goblins and kobolds and with our armor and weapons, we were capable of dealing with the monsters of the seventh floor without too many issues besides the War Shadow's speed and the Killer Ant's calling a horde when they scream.
Going down to the Seventh Floor of the dungeon wasn't anything difficult as the dungeon itself rarely spawned monsters on the direct path towards the deeper floor's. Which made sense as it was saving its energy from spawning trash mobs against the level two or three's going down to the double-digit floors and monsters from the floor's above would be nothing against them.
Once we got to the seventh floor and killed a dungeon lizard I made a new weapon for Tina that was then fuzed into her previous combination growth spear that was made from the goblin and kobold spears we finished before. "Alright... Time to make a fuck load of spears to load these growth things onto so we can start killing the monster's with the spears." I muttered as I felt a stab of annoyance at the realization that we would need to literally kill five hundred of each race's monster to get that damned Excellia boost from the quest.
Some monsters like Killer Ants were going to be beyond easy with the hoard mechanics that would summon dozens of them at a time... But the somewhat rare Blue Papilio? The thought of hunting down a fucking thousand of the damned things to fill out both of our quests made me feel exhausted honestly.
"At least we won't need to worry about coming across any Zeus members fighting," Tina muttered as she beheld her new spear that had scales appearing within the fur grip of the long haft of her spear. And to her words, I couldn't agree more.
"Alright, let's go kill some monsters," I said quietly as I pulled out my own growth spear combination and hefted it into my hands as we crossed past an intersection and I threw my head backward with my vision blurring slightly with the motion as a pitch black clawed hand made out of shadows sliced at my face and particularly my eyes. 'Fucking camping Warshadow!' I mentally snarled as I spun around to bleed off the momentum of my backpedal. As I did so, Tina with her eyes glowing with a crimson light stepped past me and rammed her spear into the upper chest of the War Shadow that seemingly didn't expect Tina to be a midget Pallum as its next swing with its clawed hands just sailed over her head harmlessly.
Then as though waiting for its brethren to die, another War Shadow zipped out from behind the other side of the intersection rushing toward Tina who was pulling her spear out of the struggling War Shadow she impaled but even with her Blood Fury Spear skill, that enhanced her physical abilities greatly, she still had to take a whole couple seconds to rip her spear out of the War Shadow's chest but I was here so while she was disengaging from the first War Shadow I stepped forth and I took out my new Farron Blade to try it out.
The sword burned with a fierce bloody light as though sensing the War Shadow's nature of a being of darkness and the War Shadow itself literally froze and violently shivered with its body of corporeal shadow rippling like thick muddy water that had a rock thrown into it. And that fear response the monster had to the Farron Greatsword, was more than enough time for me to chop the greatsword through its head that only had the feature of a single gem-like eye.
We had reached a new milestone in the dungeon. Now we just needed to grind it out.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 18
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
I paused and tilted my head to the side as I held my new combination spear made from the floor's new monsters. I could hear people loudly talking down another hallway and looking down at Tina I raised an eyebrow in a silent question as to whether we should go check it out.
And in response, she shrugged giving a silent of answer, that she didn't care. So I brought her down the hallways with echoing loud voices. Now normally people minded their own business within the dungeon and especially on these floors people minded their own business.
These floors had the Loud Bats that would impersonate people's voices to make cries of terror, or even finding loot like special dungeon ore veins or the like that would draw other Adventurer's into a trap as the Seventh Floor was the first floor that had its own Pantry. A Pantry is a large wide open cave room with a large pool of sap-like stuff that the dungeon monsters would for whatever reason eat even though they had no need for sustenance. With them having a monster stone that allowed them to be fueled by the dungeon.
The Seventh Floor and deeper were floor's in which the dungeons difficulty and danger heavily spiked as no longer was it just monsters directly attacking as they had a lot more avenues of attack and things like poison and large-scale horde tactics as the dungeon used its greatest weapons against the mortals in just wearing people down with overwhelming numbers and debilitating effects.
"It's not a Loud Bat making the noise." I whispered to Tina who nodded in agreement as the Loud Bat's voice impersonation for whatever reason fell apart at a distance and would expose its inhuman nature. So we walked over and I blinked in a bit of surprise as I saw a small encampment of adventure's holding up at one of the ends of the dungeons tunnels on this floor their scout saw us as well as we came down the way with them whistling to get their attention.
"Thats far enough stranger, what do you want?" The scout said holding a bow knocked with an arrow at the ready but not aimed at me so I just held up my hands in surrender.
"Sorry, just your voices were echoing down several hallways and it sounded like a monster party or something." I said evenly and the scout looked to their party leader and I realized they must have been from a 'Far East' or Asian god Familia as they wore Asian-style armor and clothes with very obviously Japanese weapons like the leader wielding an outlandishly long and thicker katana that I doubted her could swing properly in the hallways of the dungeon on these floors. "Excuse us then," I said nodding my head as I realized there was nothing good that could come from forcing our presence here any longer and even as the scout called out something.
Tina and I just jogged down to the end of the hallway ignoring them as we turned down one of the hallways that would lead deeper into the floor's labyrinthian structure. Finally, after a couple of minutes of putting distance between us and that team, we had disturbed, we had to stop our joging as the monster's stopped our free roaming.
I was getting much better with a spear even without a dedicated teacher, as the saying went. You can spend six months to be passable with a sword and a decade mastering it, but you can become passable with a spear within a week and spend a lifetime mastering it. And that adage was very correct.
I wasn't Scathach or Cu who could spin their spears around like a toy or kick their spear to impale someone, or do any of their other fancy tricks really. But knowing how to use the handle of the spear to block and knowing how to angle the spear to shove the nice and pointy blade on the end into enemies weak point wasn't difficult, despite how much more effective it was than trying to dance around while using a sword.
Tina especially was proof of the power of a spear as her skill made her eyes glow with a baleful red light she was a small whirlwind of violent slashes of her spear that had a large blade on the end that would slash at her foes from a good distance to make up for her short height and normally weak reach as a Pallum.
But when things like Purple Moth's or Blue Paplilio became an issue, I would switch from my spear and use a crossbow to shoot down the annoying ass insects that would try to poison us or heal the monsters.
"Jake, how about you try to tame a Blue Paplilo, having on-demand weak healing in the dungeon without needing to use a potion would be good... Plus we can accumulate its healing dust and either sell it or you could fuse it, into something better?" Tina advised and honestly... I was thinking about taming a purple moth and seeing it I could I could fuse it with something else as I knew monsters would form a connection with their tamer which was how people could get the taming ability in their Falna that would boost their tamed monsters and make them more powerful.
Despite how in canon Danmachi had sidelined beast tamers with only Ganesha's Familia being vaguely mentioned as being allowed or even having tamed monsters. At least here at this point of Orario, it was much more common. As having a well-tamed Silverback was an amazing menial worker with raw strength equal to a level three adventurer despite only being as dangerous as a peak level one at best with how slow and large they were.
Not to mention having a tamed Blue Papilio, could act as a bit of a scout with how the tamed monster could share their senses a bit with their master. And a flying monster would be the best scout obviously.
"Alright lets go to the Pantry and go capture as many Blue Papililo for me to try to tame." I said after a moment of consideration. It seemed worth it, and I was curious with how monsters weren't technically living sentient being I wanted to try to see if I could fuse them into one another to see if that would auto-tame them or even make them stronger.
Like imagine if I fused the more humanoid monster's with their more powerful bestial monster brethren. Like fusing the female dragon monster humanoid Vouivre with an actual Wyrvren or Infant Dragon to give it more draconic abilities... Or fusing a Sword Stag with something to make it a bigger and better mount.
The possibilities were endless so Tina and I quickly made our way to the Pantry... And I realized this was going to be a pain in the ass as even as the many hallways converged towards the large open cave that was the Pantry, it was clear that it was both feeding time for the monsters in a large horde were eating the sap within the larger pool in the center of the massive room. But also there were other Adventurer parties carefully peeling off small groups of monsters and pulling them into the tight hallways they came from to deal with them.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 19
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Taming monsters here in Danmachi was fucking weird and no other way could describe it. As the process in which an adventurer tamed a monster was the process in which you first started by cuckolding the dungeon of control of said monster via 'dominating' the monster to fill it with your 'intent' to the point that its empty instinct-driven mind was filled with your own will instead of the dungeons will to kill all sentient life on Genkai.
So profound was the process in which a monster was tamed, that there was a literal stupidly clear proof of the monster being tamed which was the usual dungeon monster's glowing red eyes turning glowing blue. All monsters had glowing red eyes. All of them, with only tamed monsters or Xeno's not having the glowing red eyes so it was very easy to tell the difference.
Most adventurers who bothered to tame a monster went about it in several ways. The most common and simple one... Simply tie up the monster, take a stick, and beat it half to death while taking breaks to force its head into the ground to submit to you while pressing your mind at it. That method obviously works... Surprisingly well, but only on the more hardy monsters that can take the torture, but for weak fragile monsters like the Blue Papillio that I wanted to snag, I had to use another approach.
But before we could capture any amount of Blue Papillio that were flying around the pantry healing monsters that came in to eat of the pantry's monster sap. We needed to get past the horde of monsters within the pantry, to say nothing of the squads of adventurers that were holding tunnels with shield walls to slowly grind away at the monster horde within the pantry.
"How do we catch the oversized fragile flying butterfly?" I muttered as I realized that roughly catching them could actually cripple the monster as I knew insect wings were rather fragile.
So after a moment of thought Tina whispered. "Why don't we fight through the monsters and collect some of the sap? Maybe you can fuse it with some monster bait to make some super monster bait... And then we can mount it in like a box off the ground so only Blue Papillo and other flying monsters can get it." Tina spoke and I blinked at the thought.
Doing the mental gymnastics... I realized she was right and it was a pretty good idea, monster bait wasn't even illegal nowadays as the Zeus and other high-level Familia's would often do Endurance training missions where they would have lower-level adventurers train their endurance by fighting hordes of lower-level monsters with only their bare hands.
I patted Tina on her shoulder as I said seriously. "That's a good idea, Tina," I said giving her props for a good idea as I took a deep breath and then exhaled before smiling wryly. "Alright then, let's get in the shit then," I said feeling my adrenalin kicking in as my body instinctively knew I was going to do something... Fucking stupid in all reality.
In all reality, floor seven monsters weren't too large, nor difficult to kill with thick armor or whatnot. With only the Killer Ants being kinda an exception in having some an exoskeleton as ants were want to do.
So what did I use to wade out onto the battlefield of trash mobs that I looked down upon for being a superior human? I embraced mass slaughter and took out the cursed weapon I swore would never fill my hands. I swore an internal oath that this world was not ready for this terrible tool of suffering.
Tina dragged two trashcans with wheels on them behind me, fully ready to grab as much sap as she could via a snow shovel she had in one of the trashcans as I went to work clearing the monsters with ease.
As I held the most terrible weapon devised in video game history. I swung the Rivers of Blood, Odachi in wide sweeping slashes that sent razor-sharp lines of solid blood that bisected monsters in the way of the wide-spread slashes. Unlike in Eldin Ring... These bastards couldn't roll between dimensions to become immune to damage or avoid attacks, so each swipe of the oversized katana killed a dozen monsters in the heavily overcrowded Pantry.
Even the other adventurers noticed our actions and weren't at all happy as one dude yelled out. "Hey! Go kill monsters on a higher floor asshole!" He yelled seeing how I was clearly using some magical fuckery to mass slaughter the monsters but I just ignored him as I realized the River's of Blood sword was actually getting stronger with the blade's blood projections getting larger and reaching farther as more and more blood from the dead and dying monsters filled the surroundings.
I tried to directly get the Blue Papilios to try taming them, but my theory about their absurd fragility was correct as even when I tried to just cut off a wing to bring them down to the ground via the blood projections, they would literally fucking die just by colliding with the ground from a five-meter or so fall with their seemingly boneless forms not taking the impact on the ground with any amount of control.
So Tina's capture idea seemed like the best idea even further. Though such proof of their fragility was a good reminder of why no one bothered to tame the monster despite the great cost of potions and such.
But who knows... Maybe one day I could fuse and make my own Mothra.
Either way, we continued cutting through the monster's with Tina occasionally stopping and using her spear to cut down the monsters that came behind us as we slowly closed the couple hundred-odd meters gap that led to the pool of sap in the middle of the pantry.
But as Tina got the sap into the trashcans and I threw the sap-filled trashcans in my inventory/fusion space, I frowned as I felt a throbbing headache come to me as I realized I was running dangerously low on 'Mind' or magical energy here in Danmachi. "Come on Tina, let's get out of here!" I said as I took in the monster's filling back into the Pantry and then it happened.
That dude who yelled at me previously yelled again with his team's shield wall parting so he could move past. "You asshole! You ruined our system for the day, hope you like a fucking monster feast!" He roared and then he threw a large glass vial thing at us that broke a few feet from us that exploded into a mist of pink fumes and mist that spread several meters quickly as it seemed whatever was within the flask was heavily pressurized.
"Jake, we gotta run, that's condensed Killer Ant pheromones!" Tina hissed and as all the Killer Ants in the vicinity stopped literally from trying to force their way past shields to get at another adventurer the first thing I did... Was fucking memorize that asshole's face. I was going to get him for this.
Tina and I may have slowed down their farming, but we didnt harm anyone or make it more difficult. But trying to summon a horde of further order summoning monsters on us... That was beyond malicious and being a dick. He clearly wanted us dead. And I wasn't going to let that slide.
So even as Tina and I began to desperately fight our way through the coming horde of ants with Tina fully diving into her Blood Rage, I made sure to get even, as I threw a general monster bait at them while we continued fightning.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 20
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
That moment when a car flips on the highway in front of you, that moment you as a human see a catastrophe in front of you and you remain spellbound to the sight. That was the reality to the adventurer's that were watching me and Tina and that other group interact.
Sure they themselves weren't all to happy I was interfering with their own farming of monsters, but it was clear I wanted the sap and that's it. I was literally leaving so they weren't going to look for trouble...
But when that other group threw Killer Ant pheromones and I in turn threw several enhanced monster baits... For calling a horde onto us of course.
Those other groups were forced into the situation as the dungeon itself seemingly groaned with the walls in unison cracking and seemingly molted as the dungeon began literally flooding its tunnels with the monsters of these floors.
"Get fucked assholes!" I called out as I threw Tina onto my shoulders and almost as though we had practiced this at some point. Tina stuck her feet around my side to give herself leverage as she began using her spear to do short jabs on monsters while sitting on my shoulders.
Meanwhile, I switched from River's of Blood due to running out of Mind, and took out the general growth spear we had made from the monsters of the seventh floor. Whereas Tina liked her spears extra long with a strong point to stab the monsters to death.
I liked my own spears closer to a halberd with a sort of axe head or just the spearhead having a good blade on it.
And that large crescent axe head on the end of my spear did amazing with sweeping blows as I used my enhanced strength to carve through two maybe even monsters at once before I would need to wind up another wide sweeping blow. The monsters that got past my blow and either ducked under the swing or just dodged it, would then be jabbed with Tina's lance of a spear that would go through the killer ant's carapace that was focusing us.
'A few more meters' I thought as I batted aside an errant sticky tongue from a frog shooter that sought to take me down. 'Almost there!' I thought with excitement coming to me as we got closer to the hallway that would be so much easier to hold from these monsters.
But as though in answer to my prayers. The gods made a mockery of my desire for safety. From the hallway we came in through originally, now there was a group of five war shadows clearly here to eat the dungeon sap from the Pantry pool. But seeing us, sentient surface dwelling life, they abandoned their desire for the Sap and even as a horde of Killer Ant's nipped at our heels. We now had literally five War Shadows standing in front of us cutting off the exit to the Pantry.
So once again I switched weapons with merely a thought, my spear disappearing from my hands, and now within my hands were the Farron Greatsword and its parrying dagger. The Greatsword glowed with a dark fiery glow as it came to life at seemingly sensing the nearby pure darkness attributed monsters of the War Shadows.
And like before, the War Shadows hissed in anger or maybe fear at the sight of the Greatsword that was anathema to their being. But I didn't waste time for introspection, even as the War Shadows reeled back I dashed forward with my form cindering with sparks, and as I swung the one-handed great sword to cut through two of the War Shadows. I grimaced feeling the mana drain as the sword left an afterimage of flames that exploded hatefully with black-tinged flames roiling across the War Shadows.
Thankfully with the Farron Greatsword, I was able to cut through those two War Shadows, and even better I realized the flames did nothing to harm me and judging from how Tina didn't curse or anything as she rode on my shoulders. The clearly cursed flames didn't touch her either or didn't harm her with how she was literally riding on my shoulders... So maybe the sword considered her a part of myself like my clothes?
Either way, I felt another War Shadow clawing at my side as we ran past, but due to my Hard Armored, scale armor, the claw didn't find purchase within my flesh. But we were home free! And doing far better than those other assholes apparently due to their screams.
"Keep going Jake, the ants won't stop coming until we leave the floors they spawn!" Tina said and then rolled off my shoulders so she could land and allow me to run better.
I mentally grumbled but thankfully the path from the Pantry to the upper floors was simple enough as the Pantry was basically just a straight right from the entrance to the sixth-floor staircase tunnel... Well a good couple miles away with the dungeons tunnels being weird and sorta maze-like.
And Tina's warning proved true. The damned Killer Ant's just literally wouldn't stop spawning due to the pheromones that were on us. War Shadows were called rookie killers due to their nature in liking to hide in the shadows to get the drop on people with their ultra-sharp claws.
But Killer Ants were known as the hidden party killers. As they were an endless plague that if engaged would only summon more and more of them if you hurt them and made them scream. And the pheromones literally made the Killer Ant's scream at the sight of us which would summon more ants which would then scream at the sight of us.
Such a tactic if you had the strength and a good hammer to farm the monsters made for a stupendous method of filling your Familia coffers as Killer Ant's chitin were good items for low-level adventurers and even middle-tier ones to be used in imbuing into knives or more disposable things like arrows.
So once we got to the sixth floor... Tina and I both just collapsed to the edge of the staircase that was free of monsters as no monsters would ever spawn on the staircase between floors.
"Jake... The ant's are coming up the stairs." Tina said wryly and I looked down past the dimly lit staircase and deadpanned seeing the dozens if not a couple hundred killer ants screeching as they uncomfortably made their way up to the next floor.
I took a breath and muttered. "They cannot spawn anymore on this floor... Lets try to just grind them out for our spear." This was complete bullshit, but at least we could do with the Killer Ant part of our growth spears.
Had to find the silver linings in life. "Oh yeah can we even eat the dungeon Sap?" I asked wondering if it was used like Maple Syrup or something.
Tina just side-eyed me and said dully. "No Jake... Eating it, is like eating literal monster stones. It's extremely toxic for surface dwellers for some reason." Well, there goes my idea of making Dungeon Maple Syrup I guess.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 21
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Not long after into our clearing of the horde of Killer Ant's in which we got the Excellia to upgrade within our spears for that upgrade, a party of higher leveled adventures came through and dealt with the horde as they made their way down towards Rivira apparently. "Some guys got you with Ant pheromones right?" One of them asked and I nodded wryly and the guy shrugged in a 'what could you do' manner as he bluntly said. "Well you got to the next floor so you are safe, and seeing as you still have your limbs, you obviously got off easy." He said frankly.
And he was right, so while that higher leveled party slaughtered the ants that were trying to get up the staircase and get the drops for their 'hard' work. Tina and I moved out, moving deeper into the sixth floor which didn't have the fucking cancer that was Killer Ants.
"So like, a bird's house but with padded heavily on the inside," I muttered to myself as I fused several small planks of wood and some thick blankets together with a strong mental image of what I wanted and I thankfully got what I wanted as the resulting bird house with a hook on top was thickly padded within and came with a weighted trap door that would activate once something flew into the house.
So with the trap done, I took out the large trash can filled with the heavy sticky golden dungeon sap. "Alright, so should I fuse it into the trapped birdhouse? Or just compress the dungeon sap into something else?" I mused partly to myself as I then took out the birdhouse that was more along the size of a good-sized dog house that came up to my hip.
At my thought though, Tina threw in her own opinion. "Well if you plan on capturing anything bigger, you are going to need a bigger trap house, uhm... Maybe you can make the trap house super light and able to shrink so after we capture a monster we can take it back home and tame it over time and not in the dungeon?" She continued and that gave me a pretty good idea.
As I already tried and found I couldn't stick a still-living monster or person within my fusion space, but what I did a Harry Potter expanded trunk or somewhat that could shrink?
I blinked as I took out some more wood, a bunch of the killer ant monster stones we got... And a good helping of nothing at all. 'What the hell can give a spatial attribute to an item here in Danmachi?' I mentally mused before shrugging as nothing came to mind, as hyper esoteric things like space and time weren't something I could so easily get my hands on if it at all.
So I relied on the pure magical energy within the magic stones to force the concept of spatial folding... So I could get a collapsible house that would fold down from its full size into something close in size to a box of cards.
With a heavy thump, I looked at the weirdly crumpled-looking wooden box and read its description. [Spatial Box] [Box may be compressed and forced into smaller size due to spatial expansion properties within objection, with objects within not being crushed due to the space within the box remaining the same size.]
"This can work," I muttered and then I fused one of the two sap-filled trashcans we got into the trap house, and when it came out of my fusion space, it lost its wooden veneer and was clearly leaking dungeon sap from within the box and I blinked as I realized the interior of the box basically was a miniature Pantry. It almost perfectly mirrored the hoard room, in how the center of the box had a dip in it with a glowing crystal at the top of the trap house slowly leaking sap in thick drops that would drop into the sweet-smelling sap pool.
With the trap done I bit my lip before I looked over to Tina with a wry smile. "Come on Tina. We need to head back home and get cleaned up and wash our clothes so we can get rid of the pheromones." I said realizing going back down to the seventh floor with all the new dungeon monsters would only lead to us being chased fucking endlessly by the damned killer ants that endlessly would call more hordes onto us.
Which made acquiring the Blue Papilo monster I wanted for an on-demand healer impossible with our forms covered in literal horde bait.
"Alright Jake, you are probably right," Tina said with a sigh so then we made out way up through the dungeon floors dealing with all the weaker War Shadows, Frog Shooters, and Dungeon Lizards on these higher floors to fill up our growth weapon's quests.
But as we reached the first floor I got an idea... A terrible and great idea.
See the most valuable single dungeon drop until you got past the twentieth floor and met things like Vouivre, Unicorns, and Mermaids and got their drops was the Jack Bird and its Golden Egg. I paused as we were on the first floor and I realized that with our growth, I at best had a good couple weeks maybe a month till I leveled up and thus the Jack Bird would avoid us like the fucking plague somehow merging into the walls of the dungeon to avoid higher leveled adventurers who wanted to kill the monster for stupidly easy money.
"Tina... Let's break Orario's economy." I said with an evil smile.
My fun-sized diet lover didn't have any idea what I meant but regardless she followed me along as I set up the trap house and then used some fused wood to make a literal wood wall with a small hole on the side to allow the Jack Bird through and to keep out the goblins and kobolds that inevitably got attracted to the strongly smelling sweet sap.
And so we waited... I used some rubbed-off dirt and stone dust from the wall of the dungeon to make a thick net that looked like the walls of the dungeon that I mounted against the wall of our dead end so we could hide behind the curtain and sit in relative comfort within some nice armchairs.
The goblins and kobolds as we assumed, quickly used their enhanced senses to track down the scent of the dungeon sap filling the dungeon's first floor, and the wall of solid fused wood held fine due to its solid mass that could easily resist the barehanded scratching of goblins and kobolds. But using the patience I got from sitting in an uncomfortable as-hell tree stands for literal hours in ice cold fucking temperatures while hunting deer in my previous life, I waited silently.
That patience eventually paid off as a light screech rang out as a Jack Bird forced its way through the small hole that the goblins and kobolds couldn't fit into. And once it got past the wooden wall it warily look around but seeing nothing around it, due to the patterned net that obscured its view of us. The Jack Bird cockily as fuck, all but pranced forward to the sweet-smelling sap and I watched with twitching lips as it sniffed heavily at the sickly sweet sap that's scent wafted from the box like a snobby wine drinker taking in the aroma.
And then like a proud cock entering the henhouse to see to its harem it bounded in and then with a loud snapping noise the wooden plank that formed the door snapped shut smacking the proud bird in the backside and throwing its bitch ass into the pool of sap while the door sealed itself shut with a clicking noise.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 22
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
A series of loud thumping noises rang out as the Jack Bird tried to ram its way out of its containment but at the sight, I just chuckled as although the Jack Bird was stupidly fast, it was weak and fragile when it couldn't just merge back into the dungeon's walls to avoid higher leveled adventure's.
"Got your overly valuable chicken ass," I said in a singsong voice as I experimentally picked up the trap house, and realizing it was still around the same weight I put it back down. And then pushed down on the top to compress it down to a smaller size so that eventually it would fit into my jacket pocket.
Tina then spoke wryly. "Well, that's something. Do you plan on sharing this event with Lady Hephaestus?" She questioned and I blinked at the thought and then shrugged.
"Maybe after I tame the Jack Bird, and get some eggs stored up I can leave the responsibility to her," I said as I thought about the issue in more detail. Basically, the dungeon would only spawn a single Jack Bird a day and if no one killed the Jack Bird the previous day, that would still mean no new Jack Bird spawn so there could only be a single Jack Bird on the floor at most.
So at best, I could only get one every single day if the dungeon itself didn't fuck us over, and there was also the fact that the first floor was worthless to us beyond the Jack Bird itself so I couldn't really justify standing around here all the time.
I shook my head to clear my thoughts as I looked over to Tina and said wryly. "Anyway, let's get going." But as I said so, the loud thunking noises of the tide of goblins and kobolds trying to still beat through the thick wooden barrier rang out kinda drowning out my words and making me frown before I smiled.
"Hey, Tina wanna see a war crime?" I asked with an evil smile as she looked at me in confusion I took out some more scrap wood and rubber to make a small pump and then at the end of the pump I made a wire hanger that held an alcohol-soaked bit of rope, and within the pump, at the end of a small reservoir, I made by fusing some sand, sawdust, and oil for lantern's to make a thin napalm gel to go into the pump.
"Alright Tina, you hold this and I will pump it for you," I said encouragingly as I stood behind Tina as I helped move the tank filled with napalm onto her back while she held the long pole/tube that had a lit flame on the end.
My fusion skill wasn't that great with technology honestly. But a high-powered water gun wasn't anything special technology-wise. So while Tina stuck the hose through the hole in the wall that the Jack Bird climbed into our dead-end through. I began pumping and building up pressure within the tank so as Tina pulled the lever to release the pressure. A hiss of spraying thick sticky mist was violently shot out of the tube and when it collided with the open flame.
Screams of goblins and kobolds rang out as dozens of them were burnt by the flames that covered their flesh due to how the napalm was a sticky gel instead of a simple liquid that would quickly burn off and evaporate.
Ah... Using a homemade flamethrower to burn goblins and kobolds to death, the Anarchist's cookbook didn't fail me even though I got put on a watch list for downloading it. "Jake, do you wish to capture a goblin or kobold to practice taming?" Tina suggested and I nodded.
So after the goblins and kobolds moved away or were burned alive by our improvised napalm implement, I switched back to my Leviathan Axe as the axe was perfect for chopping through monsters like goblins and kobolds without issue. My only gripe about the axe was how there were no ice monsters or materials I could get my hands on to make it match the original in the new God of War games.
I moved the slightly burnt wooden wall back into my fusion inventory and then I beheld our actions as the smell of burning flesh hit my nose... And it was fine, I cooked pigs over a fire so I didn't give a damn, about these monsters we just stepped over the corpses, Tina would stab the squirmers with her spear. And when we got to the less burnt ones that could fight back I just chopped them in half with my large axe.
If a base human could with training and a proper blade could cut all the way through a pig and its spine, organs, and other bones. I an adventurer more than halfway through level 1 could even more easily do the same. The ease with which Tina and I could slaughter even a dozen goblins and kobolds was just further proof that our time was better spent in the deep floors as I knew even with our Excellia enhancing spears, killing these trash mobs wasn't going to help us grow nor even be worth much of anything monetary wise at this point.
We quickly made our way through the first floor of the dungeon and once we got to the surface we agreed going straight home was the best choice. But as we left the dungeon and exited the tower of Babel that was built over the dungeon as its seal, I realized there were a lot of ladies standing guard outside the dungeon weirdly.
Not that ladies guardian the Dungeon was weird. But typically Zeus and Ganesha shared the responsibility of making sure no monsters got out of the dungeon or people didn't sneak mega-sized bombs into the dungeon to try their luck at fighting the juggernaut. Most importantly stopping gods and goddesses from running into the dungeon after they feel their members being slaughtered within the meat grinder that was the dungeon without cheats.
Either way, Zeus had zero female members. And Ganesha's ladies were almost all Amazon's but most of these ladies weren't Amazon's at all, nor were they in any way weak or poor with the way they held themselves, and their gear was beautifully crafted which was unlike Ganesha Familia member's gear... Due to the god constantly bankrupting his Familia to host grand events and do charities or improvements to Orario itself.
"Those are Hera Familia members?" Tina said in confusion as she herself noticed the odd sight and she continued. "Why are they here? They normally are in charge of guarding the ladies' bathhouse and the divine bathhouse for goddesses?" Tina shuddered as she whispered.
"Jake, what if Zeus members somehow became in charge of watching the bathhouses!?" She whispered loudly in fear and I couldn't help a small giggle escaping me as I saw a couple of Hera Familia members that were higher level or had beastkin ears twitching and going pale as they picked up Tina's words.
But then those same members looked at us and as their eyes landed on us I froze as a wolf beastkin shouted. "Hold on, I got a couple of questions for you two!" She called out and I blinked as the wolf strode over towards me confidently.
"May I help you?" I asked genially as I didn't really have anything against Hera Familia members with the only bad thing I heard about them being how they would explode men's balls when they caught them peeping on them in the baths... Beyond that, only the ravings of jealous women who hated on them for being strong, beautiful, highly independent, and proud of being in the Hera Familia itself.
The wolf beastkin was fucking tall, I realized. Clad in something only slightly more conservative than the normal Amazon outfit in a brown leather-like bikini with beads and teeth within it for decoration she had a kilt that went down to her right knee while on the other side, it was hitched up to only her thigh. She had the same size and proportions as fucking Barghest from FGO and looked quite similar with golden hair and two blue sapphire eyes that looked down towards me from her height advantage of being literally more than seven feet tall...
Before I could react, I was picked up. My face smushed into overly-sized boobs and then I heard Tina yell out. "Let me go! Only Jake can carry me like a sack of groceries!"
'Oh oh, I am being press-ganged again.' I thought blankly as I heard the seemingly overjoyed wolf beastkin call out. "Hey Eris, I got the blond human male with a pallum supporter! It's totally him right?!" She called out excitedly and I could hear her thick fluffy tail from behind her cutting through the air like a high-powered fan as she seemingly sought her friend's validation like a dog bringing home a rabbit she hunted down.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 23
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
"Oh, the little one has a good poking spear Haha!" The massive wolf beastkin howled with laughter at how Tina tried to stab the shit out of the overly tall figure that had grabbed her.
And in response, Tina snarled as her eyes glowed a glowing red with her Blood Rage Spear skill activating and she stabbed her Excellia boosting spear into this woman's thigh with a speed and strength that wouldn't be out of place on an average level three.
But the only response she got was a chuckle and a massive hand grabbing Tina by the back of her hoodie and lifting her into the air as the woman boasted. "Bwuaha, I am Gawain, The Impenetrable Wall! Only strength-based adventures past level five can peirce my flesh with good weapons but good try little one!" She said with zero anger at being stabbed. Like at all.
Which was fucking weird.
Then I heard a hum and in the corner of my eye as my face was buried into tits I saw the other girl named Eris, apparently a young woman with wine-red hair and blood-red eyes wearing actually functional adventurer clothes in tight-fitting monster leather shorts and a fur-lined jacket covering her voluptuous upper curves.
"Hmm... Blond, wearing scale mail armor, a pallum supporter, no weapon on him but it's worth looking into." 'Apparently' Eris said before smiling wryly. "Now, you going to walk with us nice and easy? Or will Gawain need to carry you, or even put you to sleep?" She said and I felt Gawain's impossibly strong arm's tighten and my face was forced into marshmallow hell and I realized the leather top she was wearing was basically just a body glove or something as it didn't leave me any room to breathe.
I just glared at her and she smiled wryly and she shrugged. "Alright Gawain put the newbie down, he ain't gonna be trouble." She said confident obviously in not only her own strength but also her partner's.
The moment I was released from Gawain's massive milkers I first held Tina with an arm as I asked quickly. "What do you even want?" I demanded and Eris blinked and looked at Gawain.
"Ah shoot... We never even said why we were kidnapping you." She said with a wry smile at realizing her fuck up and even though I was thinking about how muscle-headed these girls were Eris continued. "But yeah, we got a little job or commission for you so come on so we aren't being listened in on anymore." She finished and I felt her glare at the people who were staring at the scene of Hera's girls all but marching me and Tina away towards the more rich and affluent area of Orario.
A minute later as we were escorted away from the scene of the crime by our would be abductors, Gawain started speaking excitedly. "So, you are a healer or alchemist?" She asked me quickly and I had to parse the words as I didn't understand what this was about so I kinda just shrugged.
I certainly had made 'potions and better elixirs with my fusion ability. But I hadn't gone out of my way to make such things from scratch. Hell, the whole reason I was going to get a Blue Papilio was just so we could have on-demand quick healing. Or maybe we could collect and fuse the dust that came off the wings to make a drink mix or something to make a healing potion.
But instead of taking my weak answer as a sign of being a denial, Gawain nodded looking around furtively as she leaned down to whisper. "It's ok... I get you are a wet noodle alchemist, and you don't wanna get snatched up and your god or goddess becoming, NTR'd, whatever that means..." She muttered with a weird expression coming across her face but she shook her heard with her long blond hair getting sent around before she continued. "But we just wanna get your help in healing one of our members." She finished.
I was honestly thinking more about the whole... NTR bit to be fair. But either way, I sighed and said flatly. "I wouldn't mind selling a potion or something but this hamfisted escort is a bit rude don't you think?" I griped and her head tilted to the side in confusion with her yellow wolf ears tilting backward as she clearly thought she did something wrong.
"Uhm... Would it have been better manners to carry him there so he didn't have to walk Eris?" She questioned Eris who face palmed while my face twitched as I realized Gawain was of the simple brute type.
Which with her being seven-plus feet tall and looking as fucking lovable as a derpy golden retriever maybe I should just lump her in with the strong, lovable, but kinda stupid category of people.
Eris sighed and then spoke flatly to me. "You got made out with that elixer you gave our Sword Saintess. Hera wants to buy more of it, or a better version of it to help some sick members of our Familia." She explained and I blinked as I realized what she meant.
She wanted my stuff to help Materia, who in canon was Bell's mother. And of course the 'Demon of Talent' in Alfia.
And... I had zero problems joining the crowd in Orario in selling my potions and elixirs at mind-boggling fucking prices!
Tina however grumbled. "Then why didn't you just ask for Jake to come meet at the Hera Familia mansions grounds." And at that question, Eris and Gawain shared a look and said in unison.
"Nope to slow!" They said together and then both shared a chuckle at how Tina and I shared a look of incredulity.
So after that I coughed and realized if I was going to play Alchemist and get my pay's due, I needed to play the part. "So can you please explain the symptoms and other details of the afflicted I need to look into?"
And so Gawain for the first time looked somber as her ears drooped forward weakly as she spoke softly. "Little Materia is really sick... She cannot breathe well after walking for long and she has issues even taking a bath and multiple girls join her baths to keep her happy and make sure she gets cleaned properly." She explained but I realized Eris's face was twitching so something was afoot!
"So is it a lung, heart, or some other issue?" I asked getting into more detail and Gawain froze and shrugged.
"I dunno, I just know if someone makes Materia cry I smash them with my fists or my mace!" She said fiercely with her eyes tightening to a slit at the thought.
While Eris coughed and said more naturally. "The medicine gods and other healers said it was both a lung and heart issue along with her very blood being weak or something to that effect." Eris explained while we continued along the richer and more affluent sections of Orario that had massive mansions and the properties being walled in marking off the land and keeping non-adventurers out.
After a couple more minutes of walking and asking questions, we arrived at the Hera Familia estate and it was huge. Done in Greek style architecture it was both a temple devoted to the goddess and a fortress castle that could hold and allow its defenders to hold the area even should they be greatly outnumbered. "Welcome to the Temple of Hera... Or just the Hera Familia headquarters," Eris said with a smile as I kinda squirmed at the feeling of not belonging here as multiple ladies across the large property looked over from park's the castle itself or other places and began muttering at seeing outsiders like us and more particularly myself entering the Familia grounds.
The Hera Familia was a Familia of strict women... And I most certainly was a man so it felt like I had walked into a woman's undergarment store with how I clearly didn't belong.
But either way, I coughed as Gawain patted my back with an encouraging smile as she said cheerfully. "Whelp come on little alchemist I will take you to Lady Hera so she can ask you some questions so all this can be sorted out!"
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 24
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
We didn't get much of a chance to look around the Hera Familia mansion as not even two minutes after Gawain bounced over to tell Hera they snagged us she returned with that very goddess. Hera like all gods and goddesses I came across was a specimen in a form of beauty and Hera undoubtedly was beautiful with her soft voluptuous frame and light brown hair and eyes that held a hidden softness in them.
But that softness wasn't aimed us. Right now she was looking at us with regal eyes that were assessing us for our worth.
We had been led into this waiting room and as Hera stalked in, I realized how... Petty she was, when she took a seat at the end of the long table we were sat at that actually with a slight whirling noise raised up her chair so she could look down on us imperiously...
But honestly, I didn't mind the action as it was just funny to me as she slowly raised herself into the air until finally with a clicking noise she twitched as the chair came to a jarring stop and her whole body including her large motherly breasts that probably matched Demeter's legendary ones jiggled with her fully body shake at the sudden stop.
"So... As a new member of Hepheastus's Familia, why do you need me to make you a weapon." I started off and her face went still and her eye twitched before her head snapped to the side to glare at Gawain who boggled at Hera before looking at me like it was totally my fault she was in trouble now and I needed to help her.
"But uh, he was the alchemist!" Gawain defended herself and Hera's head snapped back to look at me and I wore a mischevious smile as I nodded.
"Indeed, I made the elixer you previously used, but I am a blacksmith who has dozens of weapons and other things since touching upon Alchemy due to it being boring and too easy." I said with my words ringing all too truthful to Hera's ear making her face twitch.
Finally Hera bit her lower lip as a thought seeming came to her and she spoke with her voice being a soft whisper that carried into my ears. "How could alchemy be boring? No... Why have you focused on Blacksmithing instead? Do you desire a challenge?" She questioned and I realized her angle.
She knew I could make powerful elixer's but with the way her adventurers manhandled me into coming her, she knew I was still low level. But I was also a VIP in being a member of Hepheastus's Familia so she couldn't pull anything lest she wanted Hephy to fuck her over and not sell weapons or have weapons with issues that will break deep in the dungeon.
So what she was planning, was to use my supposed talent against myself in making me invested in treating Alfia and Materia out of my own pride. And I had no issue letting Hera grasp a supposed weakness of mine. Better to let the famously arrogant, despotic, and neurotic goddess queen, of killers, have a low-hanging fruit to drive me to her goals while also fulfilling my own.
All without getting trapped in her own web of neurosis.
I took in her words before I finally answered her prior questions. "Alchemy got boring... Because there was no art to it, I added one ingredient, mixed in water, heat, stirred at the right times, and other things to make the potion or elixir in far more steps... It's not art, it's a to-do list of chores to simply follow a list of steps." I said as I knew a good bit of alchemy in making potions and elixer's to sell the knowledge of my stuff being the real thing.
"But blacksmithing?" I said in wonder and Hera rolled her eyes as I continued with a knowing smile. "Blacksmithing is an art that allows me to do what I desire in making works of art that will add to a person's legend... As for a challenge?" I shrugged before I spoke wistfully. "Yes indeed, I would indeed also like to try to set grand tests for myself to have my Falna grow, but Lady Hephaestus doesn't like the meat grinder that is your Familia." I finished wryly.
Hera actually snorted before speaking lightly. "Indeed, her Familia is one for the masses instead of the legends within my own Familia... And of course Zeus's Familia of savages." She said with some distaste before coughed elegantly into her hand and she continued with a lighter tone. "In any case, I desire to purchase more of the elixer you provided, to two of my members previously in Eris, the Sword Saintess, and her companion."
After a moment of thought I folded my hands together and I looked at Hera frankly and said plainly. "You wish to have a cure for the Silence and her sister's health issues correct?" I asked and she grimaced but nodded. Alfia's health issues weren't a secret when she would regularly need to pace herself in fights and likewise always rode into the dungeon in a cart to conserve her energy.
To say nothing of all the medicine and magic gods and goddesses trying to heal the two and failing which was well known across the city. As none of the gods and goddesses could heal the two without using their divine arcanum and they weren't going to do so. Nor could Hera force them to either.
I shrugged and gave a wry smile as I responded quickly. "I can certainly do so... Though I am curious what happens when I do manage to cure them? What if I do that which the gods cannot?" I spoke with some dark humor entering my voice as I continued. "The tale of the philosopher stone is a good reminder that gods don't like humanity solving their own mortality issues."
Hera's face froze into a snarl before freezing as she realized just how true those words were... Especially when the god who did that to the legendary alchemist was in her Pantheon. A dude solves death and becomes immortal... And the god just laughed as he smashed the philosopher stone the alchemist spent his entire life creating into just tiny shards.
Gawain and Eri, both tensed as I asked flatly. "What do I get for this. And don't bother trying to threaten me. I am favored by Hephy and she knows I am here as the whole of Orario saw those two visibly and literally drag me off calling me a great alchemist in front of the dungeon."
Hera didn't get mad, she simply smiled before a giggle escaped her as she elegantly twirled her finger across the rim of a wine glass that Eri placed in front of her. "Indeed... What do you want is the better question?" She asked in turn and I blinked at the reversal before I paused and shrugged.
What was worth the life of Alfia the Demon of Talent, and her beloved sister was the question she gave me... And of course what could I give in turn.
In the end, I had a decent supply of materials and I was getting more in the Dungeon itself. What I needed, was something... Special you could say. Something to set me apart from the rest and help my growth.
A moment of thought of such things was parsed before I landed on one massive thing. And I spoke finally. "I will cure either Alfia or Materia, and you will in turn get me, a tier five Grimoire created by a magic god or goddess. Then I will cure the other." I said and Eri hissed at my price while Hera's eyes sharpened on mine.
Grimoire's that could teach a spell to someone via touching upon their very soul to add the spell to the Falna was a tricky and very time-consuming thing to make. And so they obviously came in tiers. Obviously, the top tier was tier five and was exclusively made by magic deities who had to somewhat cheat using tinges of their divinity like how Hephy could make enchanted weapons and such that no mortal smith could.
But in the end, Hera had been willing to pay a great deal to cure Alfia, and Materia before and that included owing great favors to said healing gods. Me having a solid price laid out for my service was easier for her to swallow in the end.
So she nodded but then spoke. "Very well, but if you fail then you will need to provide three dozen high-quality potions each month to myself." She finished with some spite.
And there was the queen bitch of Olympus... But I kept quiet, I didn't need to be more confrontational. In the end, I simply said. "Very well, then allow me to at least inspect both Materia and Alfia to see what the issue is." I finished and she looked to Eri who nodded and left while then she looked to Gawain.
"Gawain you entertain our guests and keep them here and not wandering around." She said and then looked to me and gave me and Tina an incline of her head as she sunk down in her chair before she stepped off and left the room without another word.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 25
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Alfia and Materia were both beautiful without a doubt. Despite Materia being slightly thin and waifish with her delicate beauty. There was no comparison the two of them were by all accounts hot as all hell. Though Alfia's slight glare at my appraising eyes didn't go unnoticed.
So thankfully I knew what issues they had, in basically magical lung and heart cancer, so I could play to diagnosing their issues.
"Hello, it's good to see you again Materia, and you are her sister Alfia. My name is Jake Barris" I greeted them.
Materia smiled and spoke gently. "Hello Jake, I am sorry for bringing you trouble, and I appreciate any help you can give the both of us."
I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow as I realized how pure her voice was in her heartfelt apology for bringing me and Tina into the Hera Familia so gracelessly so I inclined my head to her in acceptance of an apology.
Then Alfia spoke and her voice although smooth and clear, was devoid of emotions and I could tell she was just going through the motions. She had already given up hope for curing her issues along with her sisters. "Do what you must so we can get our lives on."
I didn't snark at Alfia, as I knew her life had been painful and with that being an understatement as with each breath she and her sister taking being painful. She also had that belief that she stole all her sister's talent in the womb so she felt guilty about that as well, she was just kinda fucked in the head, and living in this might make right times of Orario probably didn't help either.
Either way I cleared my throat and then explained what I was going to do. "Alright, I am going to listen to your breath's Alfia, Materia, from your's backs along with counting your heartbeats with my hand on your backs." I said soothingly and Alfia raised an eyebrow and snarked.
"You aren't going to try to count our heartbeats from the front?"
I couldn't help a snort and I said flatly. "No Alfia... Your massive tits are in the way. And I like my head screwed on where it is."
Materia giggled and flushed at my crass words as Tina's face palmed while sitting on a bench across the room, and Alfia? Her eye's tightened on my form and for a moment I felt magical energy fill the room before Materia turned to her sister and made a throat-clearing noise and Alfia just settled on glaring on me.
But as I turned to speak to Materia and have the back of her button-up dress opened, I saw out of the corner of my eye. Alfia hefted up her breasts as though sizing them up and making sure they weren't in fact overly sized.
"Alright Materia, I am going to rest my ear on your back and I am going to listen to your breaths and count your heartbeats." I said soothingly and she nodded with a small flush coming to her face as I placed my ear on her smooth back and as I pressed my ear to her back I placed a hand over my other ear I calmed my mind so I could use my adventurer boosted senses to listen to her breathes and heartbeat.
And within moments I could tell. I whispered softly. "Materia, take a couple deeper breaths for me." And as she did so, I could hear her lungs expand and weight within and spilling outside the lungs moving and clapping against the membrane within the lungs and even as Materia coughed at the cancerous growth within her lungs hitting the lungs and obviously causing some pain, I listened to her heartbeat also rise in speed and have a sort of rhythmic smacking against it.
I got it. I could imagine her body from the inside and atop the lung and between it, and the heart was a growth or tumor that had grown into the lungs and was hurting her heart as well.
"Alright, Materia thank you for that," I said softly as I pulled back slightly and she nodded with a small blush still on her cheeks at my close contact with her... Honestly, with how protective the Hera Familia was over her, I wouldn't be surprised if this is some of the closest contact she has had with a man.
Either way, I looked over to Alfia and I realized her dress was already completely backless so as I wrote down the number of heartbeats I counted from Materia just as proof of my taking of notes, I spoke aloud. "Gawain could you get one of those sterile vials used for potions and fill the bottom with Materia's blood." As the girls glared at me I continued consolingly.
"Her blood is weak, I need to have it for tests to see the strength of medicine her body can carry, along with testing for reactions and making the medicine itself tie into her body all the more effective as it will be completely attuned to her," I explained and Alfia grimaced before looking to Gawain and saying with a scowl.
"He is right... He is talking akin to the black magic that the southern swamp dwellers use that has connecting things pull magic together and target things more precisely than other magic styles tend to do." Alfia said grudgingly and then helped Materia prick a vein and draw out a good bit of blood that filled up the vial before capping it and slathering some giving a potion to Materia to drink along with pouring some on the little bleeding hole she poked into her arm.
"Alright Alfia, now its your turn." I said and she nodded and as I sat behind across from her so I could lay my head against her back to kind of mentally map out her body's internal structure with my advanced senses.
I could hear Alfia mutter with a wry sigh. "It's a pleasant change from some perverted hack who 'needed' us to strip to take our body temperature from our 'core'."
And how come I could see Apollo pulling that kind of bullshit? Maybe that incident was why he wasn't relevant until after Hera and Zeus fell. He was actually literally in hiding... Now that would be funny.
Either way, I did the same asking her to take a deep breath, and then as she did so I got a sense of how her body was working, sure this little method wouldn't work if her liver wasn't working but when a big flesh sack that didn't fit in the body was slapping around inside the body in complete difference to the bodies natural functions it made it easy to pick out. Alfia's cancer/tumor however seemed to be more focused around her heart instead of her lungs unlike Materia and was in fact a good deal smaller and less intrusive.
With that done. I popped off with a smile and I knew what I had to do. See although magical cancer was in fact terrible and cancer itself was terrible but there were workarounds even if I couldn't just hack her open and then surgically remove the cancer and just use a fuck load of elixer's and such to regrow the lost sections of the body.
But there were workarounds to dealing with cancer then stupidly dangerous chemicals that would rot the body from the inside to kill the cancer. And with my fusion ability, I was sure I could come up with something, especially with literal blood vials from them to target their particular forms of cancer.
So once I finished filling out my little note pad I spoke up. "Alright seeing as Materia is the cutest, I will be working on her cure first especially as her issues are a lot more apparent and more time-sensitive." I spoke as I moved over to Tina and helped her off the tall chair while she re-took her spear that was comically too small in Gawain's hands. "Gawain, will you please escort us out of the compound as I can already feel Alfia is uncomfortable with me touching her like that and is considering where to hide my body," I said with some humor and the aforementioned Silence rolled her eyes.
But there was no missing the slight mischief in her eyes as she drawled. "No... I believe I will wait to see if your claims of curing my sister will hold value. So you get to live another day Jake Barriss."
I just flatly retorted as I pulled Tina out of the room. "Yeah well I would rather marry your sister." Then slammed the door shut as I picked up Tina and then Gawain picked us both up as she heroically charged and literally lept out of a window leading us to fall down from the second-floor window we were in.
Then a whisper hit our ears. "Lugio." And the entire back wall of the Hera castle exploded toward us but thankfully Gawain had put the pedal to the metal and was spitting curses at me and laughing all the same as she charged out of the Hera Familia with us in tow.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 26
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Gawain was all but panting as she tried to catch her breath from her excessive laughter while Tina just eyed me with forlorn eyes as she said with some regret in her voice. "Jake, I will mourn your loss... Alfia is going to kill you."
And Gawain coughed as she failed to inhale more air as Tina's statement made her laugh more than her body could support with the lack of air she already had.
"Alright alright. I get it." I grumbled wryly before shaking my head before a smile came to my face as I looked up at Gawain and wagged my eyebrows. "Thanks for the save Gawain. But I think we will be going now, while you head home and probably get blasted out of Orario for saving us."
My words killed Gawain's laughter making her pause and then she snorted and said confidently. "It's all good, Alfia knows she can't hurt Gawain the Wall! I have a Magic Resistance development ability as well as both my general durability and another skill that increases my magical defenses even more!"
'Dear gods... No wonder everyone said Hera and Zeus's Familia were fucking cheaters. And how the fuck could you hurt Gawain then?' I thought with my lips twitching as I doubted she was lying. So after a few more pleasantries were exchanged, we wished Gawain the best of things while Tina and I quickly made our way back to the Hephaestus Familia compound.
Once we were safe and inside my apartment, Tina waited for me to face plant on the pullout futon before snuggling up to me as we both in unison screamed into our pillows about how crazy the day had been.
Dealing with a monster party, capturing a Jack Bird, getting captured in turn by the Hera Familia, and making a deal with the current queen bitch of Orario... Today had simply been too damned much.
But after we both screamed our mental strain into our pillows and maybe I got some mental strength back by honking Tina's boobs, I rolled out of bed and took out the shrunken-down minature house that held the sealed-away Jack Bird. "Alright... Now to try to tame the stupidly valuable Jack Bird." I muttered as I unshrunk the building so it took up the same size as a small closet in my living room.
"Tina you stand to my right and make sure it doesn't run through my legs or something." I ordered her and she nodded and got down in a half crouch like she was a goalie or something and that thought was almost proven correct as the moment I opened up the gate, a fluffy terror screech as it tried to go under the partially opened bottom to escape but that act of trying to go out of the partial opening only made it an easy target for me to grab the oversized chicken directly by the head.
"So... You tame a monster by establishing dominance over it. Either beating it half to death, healing it and repeating the process until it mentally knows down to its smidgen of a soul that you are above it. Or in the case of larger monsters you force the nasty on it. Fucking weirdo Zeus members, you don't fuck the tree monsters, the fucking dungeon literally gives us monster girls for heaven's sake." I cursed to myself as I read the little pamphlet the Hepheautus Familia had for taming monsters for either mounts or labor workers in monsters like Orc's Silverbacks, and other monsters.
Then I had an idea. The Jack Bird along with the Blue Papilow butterfly were both extremely fragile monsters so they couldn't really be tamed by either method but I just had to dominate the monster so with Tina's help we strapped the screeching bird into a chair and then I minced up some stupidly hot peppers that amazons and dwarves apparently found palatable and then I also minced up some non-spicy peppers.
"Know that this hurts me, more than it hurts you," I said solemnly, and then the screeches were cut short as I shoved the stupidly hot peppers into the bird's mouth making it choke, and even as its bugged-out eyes met mine I solemnly ate a spoonful of the non-spicy peppers and didn't react at all. "Until you submit, every day, every hour, I am going to share this pain with you Jackie," I said solemnly, and the bird's eyes widened and foam came out of its mouth as the whole body of the bird convulsed sending feathers everywhere at the thought.
I didn't beat the semi-intelligent monster into submission, I showed I was better and stronger than it in every way as I shoved spoonfuls of terribly spicy and then sour food into its mouth before then nonchalantly eating the 'non-toxic' version of whatever I shoved down into it's mouth.
Until finally, it happened, not even five minutes into my abusive treatment of the Jack Bird, its red eye dimmed into black pits before coming back as luminescent blue eyes which were the clear representation of a monster of the dungeon being tamed. Or more specifically the monster being cucked from the dungeon's control as the dungeon still fueled the monster with its internal monster stone and could also get stronger by eating more monster stones.
Though feeding a tamed monster would indeed make it stronger, it would also make it mentally unstable for a while and often would attack their tamer and the binding could actually be broken altogether allowing the dungeon to take back control of the monster.
Then as Tina cheered seeing the blue eyes of the Jack Bird, I heard a thrumming noise in my very soul and I staggered as the Fusion Space I fused stuff together and the inventory space I had to store for stuff shuddered, and from the two spaces came a sort of energy that formed a third space. Whereas the first two spaces were simple squares with mirror-smooth stone floors, this next space had a thick mossy platform and the platform itself was seemingly round.
I reflexively brought the tamed Jack Bird into the new space and I could feel the connection the Jack Bird had to that space and my lips turned upwards as I realized it was a sort of fusion farm that I could combine natural treasures and magical things with tamed monsters. Along with just fusing tamed monsters with either monster corpses or for much stronger effects and abilities being transferred, I could fuse tamed beats together altogether.
However, that would obviously mean any resources I put into the other tamed monster would be lost/transferred to the new monster.
And just like before with my other fused objects, I could get an info plaque for the tamed monster or being with the Jack Bird being no exception. [Jack Bird, Default Monster in Default female gender.] [Abilities- Run bitch run! Jack Bird has the ability to run ever so slightly faster than whatever chases it.- Egg Laying. Jack Bird is capable of laying a single golden egg a month.]
Now... I needed two things to maximize the production of this Jack Bird and make her an egg-laying monster. "Tina, while I work on making a potion for Materia, you go out with some money here," I said giving her a small bag filled with Valis before continuing. "Now, the Jack Bird here needs two things to make it better, get me a lot of dead whole chickens which will increase egg production by lowering the days it takes to lay eggs... And then get me some Ostrich or Brush Turkey corpses as Ostritch's can lay up to fifty eggs in a single nest."
A comical thumping noise rang out and I looked over at the Jack Bird which seemed to have fainted at hearing I was expecting it to lay fifty eggs. But I shrugged and after a moment of hesitation, I gave Tina another larger sack of coins and said flatly. "And go to the Red Light District and get one of those weird Amazon childbirth potions that makes childbirth painless and somehow orgasmic," I ordered with a shudder at the thought, and Tina just stared at me.
Just fucking stared into my soul before saying flatly. "Jake, you are fucking weird..."
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 27
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
So while Tina had the lovely task of getting a cart filled with ostrich and chicken corpses along with aphrodisiacs of all things. I had the far more socially acceptable task of curing Materia's magical cancer. Which was I was going to do as naturally as possible.
I went around Orario and bought some bees to get the venom from their stingers, I got a bag of walnuts, and anything else with natural phytochemicals that would restrict cancer growth and if anything attack it.
Then with Materia's own blood as the base, I fused all those ingredients along with several of my improved potions and elixirs for both healing and detoxification I had in my inventory.
[Materia's Draught of Cleansing.] [Draught of Cleansing, was purposefully made with Materia's bodily signature improving its many healing effects fivefold towards the target Materia. Warning, due to the blood signature used in the potion, it will only provide fifteen percent of its typical effects it would provide without a blood signature to any target that is not Materia.]
'Huh, maybe I should blood-locked potions for myself and Tina?' I pondered before shrugging as I went back over the effects and I was rather confident it could help Materia a good bit due to how my previous detoxification elixir helped her before with such a small sample.
With that already taken care of, I then expanded the capture box and reinforced it with some scrap metal and dust I got from Tsubaki's shop. "Now... Let's see if I can make some enchanted accessories." I muttered as I idly watched my tamed Jack Bird strutting around the one-bedroom apartment checking it out.
After a moment of thought I took out a kobold fang along with some string and just fused them together to check and see what would happen. [Kobold Neclace] [A Kobold Fang tied together in the form of a necklace] My face twitched at the lack of any result and then I blinked and smacked my forehead as I realized the Kobold Fang wasn't fusing itself into the string to enhance it. It just literally tied the string around the fang to make a necklace.
So with that in mind, I then took out a monster stone and then fused it with the necklace so that together with the monster stone it would be fully enchanted. Once the fusion was complete I took a look at the results and saw how the fang had blue glowing veins streaking through the black fang. [Enchanted Kobold Fang Necklace.] [Kobold Fang Necklace provides the user with a five percent increase to Endurance, as well as the Kobold Fang effect of allowing the user to pierce through flesh, bone, and armor easier.]
"Well, this has potential," I muttered nodding at the sight and realizing although the five percent endurance buff was pretty good, the real shiner was how it would allow me to deal with the many dungeon monsters that had an armored carapace like Killer ants and other things.
After a moment of thought... I said with a small smile. "Fuck it. Let's see how crazy this necklace can get." I said and then I flipped the board as I dumped all the monster corpses, monster stones, monster drops, a dozen potions and elixirs. And then finally the remains of the Adamantine dust I kept from Tsubaki's workshop after working my ass off in fusing all her metal ingots and drops to save her dozens of hours of work.
There was nothing special that happened during the fusion, it went completely normal surprisingly, but as the bracelet landed in my hands to inspect it, I realized it completely lost its previous appearance as a glowing Kobold Fang wrapped around some string. Now its previous dog tooth shape had completely changed to something more akin to a serrated bear's tooth along with the string being replaced with a red chain that matched the stupidly expensive Adamantine that you could only get from floor fifty-eight in the dungeon in the Dragon Vase level.
[Fang Of Greater Beasts] [Provides user Skill 'Honeybadger's Disdain'. Provides potent physical and magical regeneration after killing enemies labeled beasts. Raises User's natural Endurance stat by two letter grade equivalents while worn, Raises User's natural Strength stat by one letter grade.]
[Honeybadger's Disdain.] [User's skin becomes thicker both physically in becoming denser and far more durable with even some elasticity to prevent tearing. While also protecting the user from magical taunts and poisons that would affect the user.]
"Well, this... Is pretty damned good honestly." I said with an intrigued smile, but then my smile died. As I realized I just about emptied my entire inventory except for some potions and my weapons into the enchanted bracelet.
So there was no damned way for me to do this again with a dozen rings or something to make myself as blinged out as possible. "Maybe, I should go fuse the Orario garbage area or something?" I muttered to myself as I wondered how I could get large amounts of materials to fuse without running off to Hephaestus as I did not want to owe her anything more than the large allowance she was already giving me.
After a moment of thought it hit me. "The monster stone pit!" I hissed as I recalled the utterly massive open mine pit that Orario had for mining common materials years ago that got repurposed for a dumping ground for all the magitech items that used up the fuel in Monster Stones and people would throw away the almost worthless dead and dull monster stones.
I wondered if I could make a super magic stone that could hold stupid amounts of magical energy and then I could fuse that stupidly powerful magic stone into something to give it an insanely powerful enchantment... It was a good idea, though as I considered literally leaving right now to go try the door to my apartment swung open with a clatter as Tsubaki stalked in with Tina thrown over her shoulder like a fucking bag of potatoes with her butt facing me.
"Jake Barriss!" Tsubaki said in a mischievous sing-song voice and I blinked and sighed as I realized something... Went wrong obviously. "This little missy got caught bringing in a large cart filled with one hundred and fifty dead chickens, fifteen dead ostriches, five illegal magical aphrodisiacs, and a fucking outhouse that was apparently converted into a pallium-sized apartment."
There was a moment of silence as Tina looked at me upside down from Tsubaki's side and at her deadpan face and Tsubaki's shit-eating grin. I answered flatly. "Never seen her before in my life, take her away officer."
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 28
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
"You are fucking doing what, to the Jack Bird?" Tsubaki said with dull eyes seeing the stack of aphrodisiacs placed beside the struggling bird that knew a terrible lewd fate was before it somehow.
I responded plainly and with zero change of expression. "The Jack Bird is extremely valuable so I tamed one. And with my abilities, I am going to fuse more materials into it, to make it better and because I want to make its life easier I am going to fuse the pallum aphrodisiacs that are used to allow their kind to get fucked by orcs, horses and anything else without dying or fainting from the pain."
Tina even helpfully threw in. "I can vouch for the aphrodisiacs, I once saw a pallum supporter be spit roasted by a couple of tamed minotaur manual labor workers for their Christmas reward for working so hard through the year."
"I wasn't fucking questioning the quality of the aphrodisiacs!" Tsubaki screamed.
And in turn, I shrugged as I said with a wry smile. "Sooo... You wanna see a chicken orgasm laying eggs or you wanna leave before it gets freaky?"
For a split second, I thought Tsubaki was going to be spiteful and say indeed, she wanted to see a chicken mind break itself laying eggs. But her sanity proved its strength as she shoved down the curiosity and without another word pivoted on her feet and strode out of the apartment slamming the door behind her.
There was a moment of silence as I looked at Tina who shrugged and then my door violently opened up again and I heard Tsubaki yell into the apartment. "Now come get rid of these fucking chickens, roosters, and the damned outhouse!"
-
I fused Tina's old outhouse of an apartment into the same foldable system that I used with the monster trap house, so we could collapse it downwards. So it could be easily carried around... Thankfully with me fusing it, it had lost any remaining smell but just to be sure, I literally fused several bars of soap and chemicals into the building and saw in the item description that now there would always be a pleasant scent and the building was currently completely sterile of bacterial.
Once that was done, I then got into the key point of all this business and after throwing the Jack Bird into the fusion space for tamed beasts, I then used all the chicken and ostrich corpses fusing them into the Jack Bird, along with the aforementioned kinda illegal Pallum aphrodisiacs to fuse together into a new Jack Bird.
[Jack Bird. Enhanced monster in Default female gender.] [Abilities- Run bitch run! Jack Bird has the ability to run ever so slightly faster than whatever chases it.- Egg Laying. Jack Bird is capable of laying up to four golden eggs a day. -Pain Embracement, Jack Bird has been chemically altered so that any birthing pains will be converted to pleasure.]
Ok yup kinda fucking weird, but as the Jack Bird moaned out as it could obviously feel an egg coming my I wore a stiff face as I carefully put the Jack Bird into its noise-canceling cage so it could lay its eggs without filling the apartment with its noises.
After that was dealt with I looked to Tina who weakly smiled but I couldn't help but ask with some disturbed curiosity. "So... Why the illegal Pallum aphrodisiacs and not the perfectly legal Amazon ones?" I asked
"Because the Pallum ones are stronger." Tina without hesitation answered and seeing my face twitch she continued on without much care in her voice as she didn't see anything to weird about the topic with her actually living in this world. "Amazon's whole race and culture is blatantly finding the strongest, breeding with them, and making a new even stronger generation... With that mindset over the millennia and just at them at their base, Amazons are very durable women and even childbirth isn't that difficult to the woman race."
Even as I wondered how long it would take for me to get my own amazon chasing for my babies I heard Tina muse aloud. "Maybe the whole easy childbirth thing is why female elves hate amazons as well... As elves like to dress just as lewdly a lot of the times though."
"Hmm." I couldn't help the chuckle as I recalled how shy and proper Ryu was... But she would literally run around in bloomers and a tight shirt that was all but painted onto her form.
So elves were lewd but tried to hide it, and amazons were weaponized lewd who wanted strong babies... My thoughts were cut off as Tina coughed and I looked over at my supporter/lover.
"So how is making the cure for Materia or Alfia?" She asked and I smiled as that was a much more easy topic to discuss.
"It went well. I made Materia's cure without any issues, though for Alfia I need to restock on my potions... Hell, I need to restock on all my materials in general, so I was honestly thinking about raiding the Orario dump and the dead magic stone pit to refill on materials to fuse shit together." I explained my thought process and Tina hummed in thought as she moved from her side of the couch and wordlessly we snuggled up together on the couch with Tina's form molding across my own.
After a minute of silence, Tina spoke softly. "Then we best go soon. Best for you to fuse all the garbage into piles of materials before you are more well known as you will obviously be becoming a Record Breaker."
I snorted and then palmed Tina's ass making her emerald green eyes flash as I drawled. "Never know Tina... A certain little spear-wielding menace might break my next record over her knee though." I said with some humor.
Tina's Blood Fury Spear skill was literally basically a divine authority in of itself with infinite growth and was obviously pushing her own growth as well. To say nothing of the growth items I shared with her. Just because I became theRecord Breaker for Level 1 didn't mean this cheater wouldn't break every other level record with her own brand of bullshit.
"Then I will just have to make sure the glory belongs to the man who gave a pallum a light in her life to live on for. And of course, make him the happiest man to walk Gekai" Tina whispered into my neck and her hand sunk down low into my pants and soon the apartment was filled with the noise of spring.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 29
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
With an utterly flat face, I used a pair of salad tongs to gently pick up the limp form of the Jack Bird and then take its laid golden eggs away before fusing the fresh... And nasty eggs into the necklace I made with the Jack Egg I got from Hephaestus that would increase my growth and my natural healing after washing the eggs of course.
Anyway, even with the potion for Materia's healing out of the way. I wasn't entirely in a rush to run over there to the Hera Familia's mansion. Best to let them cook for a couple days before I go over there with the potion.
Regardless though I wasn't going to just waste the rest of this new day after spending the afternoon and going into the night being given all the affection Tina could give me. "Tina, let's head out. I think we can make another attempt at messing around in the... Let's try to do an endurance run in the seventh-level Pantry to try to get a Killer Ant to tame." I said after a minute of thought.
While thinking, I realized that for a mount there were few if any really good mounts until the dense forest floor of Riveria and past that floor. But if I could fuse stuff into killer ants to make them bigger and strong enough to easily carry our weight... Having a mount that could run up walls could be a great boon in the dungeon, to say the least.
So with Tina's acknowledgment of my idea... Though not exactly enthused she agreed that having a mount to cut down the long time it took to get deeper into the dungeon would be smart. But as we talked about the logistics about the long length it took for adventurers to reach the deeper floors.
I obviously thought about a work around to that. Like could I set up a portal or teleportation system? And the real question would be how in the world could I do that as the materials I used needed to be somewhat attached to the abilities they gave whatever item they were fused into.
So where could I get 'spatial' materials?
But my thoughts were cut off as my face twitched as when we reached the Tower of Babel to go into the dungeon, I saw a crowd of midgets. I mean Pallums standing near one of the massive pillars holding up the lower side of the tower.
"Ah... They are making marks on people." Tina whispered and my face twitched as my instinctive racist irritation at the midgets had resurfaced after it had been fucked out of me by Tina.
"Not our problem," I grunted out rolling my eyes as I met the eyes of a couple of the pallums of which I couldn't even really tell their gender as they were fully covered up with scarves covering up their heads and lower faces to hide their faces after probably mugging other people and not wanting to get pinpointed for doing it.
Tina hummed in thought, but once we got into the elevator in which we paid a little fee to be dropped onto the first floor without needing to use the long staircase. Tina spoke up. "Making eye contact with them, was a bad move Jake. It makes them remember you, and that's how we made you out to be a newbie." She advised me and I raised an eyebrow looking down at her and said flatly.
"And how did that go for you guys?" I asked rhetorically.
She nodded and without shame said easily. "Yes, the coyotes met a lion and as is right in this world I submitted... But regardless enough coyotes with poisoned fangs and claws can bring down a lion." She reminded me and there was nothing wrong with her words so I grunted in reply.
This world of Danmachi sucked... I wanted my low-end one where only Freya was the danger instead of a dozen Familia's with their own level sixes and sevens!
-
Going deeper into the dungeon, we followed the line of adventurers going into the dungeon and without much issue, we made it to the deeper floors. But as we reached the deeper floors Tina spoke up. "Jake, I was thinking about what you said about having a Killer Ant mount. Wouldn't a Hard Armored or even an Infant Dragon be better with their better potential with your fusion ability?" She asked quietly.
For a moment I just twiddled with a War Shadow claw before nodding with as her words rather correctly. As at best the Killer Ant could maybe summon more ants with its death cry ability or maybe even buff other tamed Killer Ants. But a Hard Armored was already a war-horse-sized armadillo creature with large hard spikes covering its back like a Sandslash from Pokemon. To say nothing of the flightless dragon in the Infant Dragon that could naturally breathe flames and had the bulk of 'fuck you I am a dragon.'
But in the end, I said wryly. "Taming a Hard Armored or Infant Dragon is very dangerous Tina... To say nothing of how the monsters are on floors we haven't even been on yet, but I physically don't have the strength to manhandle those monsters and they aren't as cowardly nor are bully bait like the Jack Bird, so I cannot tame them by feeding it spicy shit." I explained while idly wondering if a dragon of all things even registered things like spicy things.
But my errant thought was cut off as Tina laid a hand on my leg and she spoke with some weight in her voice. "Jake, our stats are already at minimum B tier, we need to get high-tier Excellia to level up. Either taming or killing an Infant Dragon would be perfect for our level-up unless we want to pay some higher-leveled Hephaestus members to take us deeper into the dungeon so we can fight a couple of Minotaurs for high-tier Excellia to level up."
At her words, I had to think for a second before with a sigh I could only reply in a weak nod. "Alright, Tina... Its a good idea, though it's going to be dangerous." I muttered and Tina replied easily.
"The danger and suspense in a story is what makes it worth its read... And thus as adventurers, we grow with our Falna reaching its next chapter." She seemingly recited from the Hera and Zeus method of throwing their adventurers into crazy quests to level up quickly and get a lot of stat points.
And thus we headed deeper. To find our fortunes in poking a dragon in the eye.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 30
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
We followed the stream of adventurers heading into the dungeon so there weren't many issues getting down to the eleventh floor in which the floors greatly opened up into cavernous massive rooms filled with deep fog. The fog acted to make it so the larger but slower monsters could make their way over to people without being shot by either bows or magic from across the massive rooms that were conjoined by the typical dungeon stone hallways.
"Remember, Hard Armored's weak points are their eyes and neck," I spoke softly with a small frown at seeing a hard armored sluggishly walking through the thick fog that filled this floor.
Tina sightly nodded and with a scratching noise, she took off with her boots sending a spray of rocks behind her as she tapped into her Blood Fury Spear skill and using the spear I fused for her, that was just for straight combat with durability and piercing bonuses she attempted to go straight for the monsters turtle-like neck.
But a loud clanking noise rang out as the armadillo-like monster ducked its head under its chest with her spear cutting through of the metallic spines that covered the back of the Hard Armored and then she danced to the side to try to get to the monsters exposed side but the hard armored just turned to keep its spiky top and front pointing at my swift supporter.
Tina was playing the stronger distraction and while the Hard Armored was hard focused on the quick and painful Pallum stabbing the shit out of him with the spear that could break his spines I took the time while Tina had the monster busy to slash back and forth with the Rivers of Blood Katana sending streaks of crystalized blood through the air and into the monster which violently dragged the monsters own blood out of its body and making it hiss in agony at the feeling.
When the hard armored then looked to me, after I clearly did more damage to it than Tina with my magical weapon I heard Tina snort. "Dumbass." A loud crunch followed by the noise of a spear shoving through flesh and ramming through bone rang out before the monster truly screamed and whirled around allowing me to see how Tina had shoved her spear through the leg and shattered the bone within the leg as she did so.
The way Tina and I were able to bully the Hard Armored was a major point of how humans and the other sentient races were able to keep monsters on the surface and even down here in the dungeon in control. Despite the monsters being many times physically more powerful than us.
I mean a single adventurer could easily kill a line of slow-moving Killer Ants with a hammer/pickaxe or any other specialized weapon. But if a single Killer Ant got their pincers around your leg? Say good fucking by to that leg if your armor isn't good enough to withstand the pressure of the killer ants stupidly powerful pincers.
The same went for this hard armored. It was literally the size of a buffalo from my old world and covered in three-inch long and fist-thick spikes that could allow a tree to fall on it without any real damage being done to the monster. But with specialized spears and weapons that bypassed its strength along with Tina and I dancing around the monster?
I reached into my inventory and I pulled out my leviathan axe and as the desperate hard armored attempted to jump onto me and tear me apart I stepped backward quickly. But while I backsetpped I still brought the axe down powerfully into the monster's head making it stiffen for a moment before going limp as the axe shattered its skull and split its brains open.
"Do we just fuse the corpse into our armor for an upgrade? Or try to get the condensed monster drop and monster stone?" I asked wondering about the efficiency before Tina spoke her own opinion.
"We should add it to our spears to make sure we still keep up our growth and allow the spears to hunt these monsters easier." She said with a small groan as she flexed her hand to get rid of the vibration strain of constantly piercing through the monster's armor.
I nodded and so I fused the corpse of the hard armored into Tina's own spear as she was the one with the OP skill that allowed her to actually peirce the armor of the monster. "Well lets going." I said as Tina spun her spear around to make sure it was about the same weight as she was used to.
We crested over a small hill and as we went deeper into this fog-filled room we came across a couple orcs but they were easily dealt with even with their taller size, they were still slow and with my own spear, I could easily stab them in the throat and eyes while Tina would go and stab hers in the back of the knee and base of the spine to bring the humanoid monsters down to the ground.
But as we killed the imps and orcs I noticed something. "Why does the dungeon even give orcs genitals? No one is going to really capture one with the intent to fuck one right?" I said with my lips twitching as Tina giggled at my innocence.
"Oh Jake... You have no idea the depravity that lies within the Red Light district, there is a popular tale and one of the highlights of the Zeus Familia is how they in the course of a week captured a Vouivre for every single active member of the Familia and they made a competition out of who could mind break and tame the humanoid monster woman." She said dryly and I looked at her with my dead eyes as she continued with zero emotion in her voice.
"A few succeeded, most ended up just killing the Vouivre in the frantic fucking... And a couple got their dicks bit off when they tried to get a blowjob. Apparently, Zeus was one of the ones who managed to tame a Vouivre who now protects the god and acts as a sort of maid when Hera isn't around." She spoke with a wry smile.
To which, to her tale, I could only think. 'The Zeus Familia is just the overpowered fantasy college Fraternity with dude bro's beating each other half to death all the time and then going out to slay any puss they could find... I don't know if I feel disgusted or intrigued?' I thought before shaking my head and clapping my hands.
"Alright, that's enough about that. Let's get going, the Infant Dragons are typically in the back of the caverns so let's keep hunting for one." I said quickly trying to get our heads back in the game.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 31
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
There was a good saying in my old life. 'Fucking around, and finding out.' But there was another step, a higher level of dumbassery to achieve as a living sentient being who purposefully courted death.
And there was little else to call our actions in trying to tame an Infant Dragon with our level one asses, other than courting death. Or at the very least, a very hearty mauling was in our future.
'Actually... What the hell am I doing? Typically Tina is the one telling me this kinda shit is a stupid idea, which is going to get us killed?' I thought wryly as I peeked down at the short blond figure next to me who was carefully walking over the thick branches and roots that covered the ground that came from the dead trees that filled the heavily fog-filled floors we were on.
But we kept going, deeper into the large caverns of the 11th floor carefully killing the monsters we came across and making sure we didn't end up getting crushed by Orcs, Hard Armored, or the massive Silverbacks which were besides the Infant Dragon, the strongest monsters on the floors ten to twelve.
Eventually though, our actions in seeking death paid off... As the prey we sought, was found. A loud hiss rang out as the horse-sized 'baby' dragon angrily turned towards the sounds of our footsteps coming towards it.
It's crimson glowing eyes, being a clear sign of it being controlled by the dungeon's will, tightened into a tighter slit as it took in our appearance and... Literally looked behind and around the clearing we found it in. Clearly looking for more adventurers.
"I feel insulted." I muttered but regardless I took a breath and took out my 'taming weapon' a Kanabo. Which was basically a wooden club studded with metal spikes and studs in order to beat people to death via the powerful weight-shattering bones under any armor the person or thing had.
This made the Kanabo the perfect weapon for taming monsters as I didn't have time to carefully beat down a monster into obedience with how small my adventuring party was. Unlike the Ganesha and other monster tamer Familia's, who went down in groups a dozen strong to tame monsters safely. After all, if I broke all the monster's limbs I could just toss it into the 'pet carrier' I used to carry that Jack Bird home and when I got home I could take my time beating it into obedience.
The Infant Dragon didn't give us time to formulate a plan, and nor did we bother to beforehand, as we were well aware the small dragon was physically much stronger than the both of us. Maybe Tina could directly overpower it with her Blood Fury, but at that level. I knew she would lose control over herself and although wouldn't hurt me, would probably just run on a killing spree in the dungeon until she exhausted herself.
And I wouldn't be able to follow her in that scenario.
The infant dragon's flame was like a blow torch aimed at us and I grimaced seeing the rocks under my breath turning red from the flames as we both dodged to the side and closed in on the stomping dragon.
Tina using her Blood Fury skill dashed forward at great speed and tried to ram her spear into one of the dragon's legs but the dragon's prehensile tail whipped at her an actually cracking noise with the Pallum ducking underneath the muscular tail that attempted to snap into her head.
While that happened I ran in on the other side and as the dragon and Tina were resetting from their attempts at killing or crippling the other. I stomped forward and brought down the Kanabo in a vicious axe-chopping motion that slammed the studded club into the orange-colored scales that covered its spine and upper ribs of the infant dragon. With a harsh cracking noise ringing out from the blow.
The dragon choked with gutted flames shooting through its jaws at me knocking the air out of its chest but seeing as it didnt collapse or something, I knew I hadn't shattered its spine to cripple, so I came back with another blow but the infant dragon hissed and with its long neck looked to the side and its large fang-filled jaws attempted to close on my chest.
Seeing the fang-filled jaws and the flames within the back of the dragon's throat building, I rolled to the side quickly with the dragons mouth shattering the dungeon stone floor as it took a bite out of it and then screamed with Tina being the culprit as she had rammed her spear through both of the dragon's back legs like it was a deer about to be hung from a tree to be bled out.
Having a spear rammed through both of your legs as a quadruped must have really screwed with its motor control as the moment it tried to take a step to take a bite out of me again, I could see it stagger as its back legs got caught on the spear so with it staggering I was able to lay a punishing slam of the Kanabo directly onto the snoot of the dragon that made it hiss in agony.
"Jake spear!" Tina called and as I rolled back to my feet I took out my own spear and tossed it at her, with the spear obviously facing completely upwards so she could easily grab the shaft of the spear as flew towards her.
Even as Tina went to stabbing the front legs now of the Infant Dragon, I carefully danced between the lunges and lesser exhales of flames, though thankfully my leather armor under my scale mail was keeping the heat from the dragon flames from burning me from its indirect contact. Thus even as I danced between the dragon's blows, I treated the dragon's head like a Pinata with my Kanabo.
With Tina's spear lodged inside the back legs of the Infant Dragon, it literally could only remain on its feet, it couldn't take any steps backwards or forwards to help it lunge forward or even to reposition itself.
That blow Tina made. Made all the difference as all her other ones did squat as even as she carved into the dragon's front legs trying to bring it down. It didn't matter as much honestly. As after a half dozen blows to the head by the Kanabo, I could see the dungeon-branded hate in the dragon's eyes was dulling as the obvious concussion was scrambling the dragon's brains.
Finally, as its head lolled, I with a batter's swing, swung with all the power of a pro baseball batter with my Falna-enhanced strength. And a loud crack rang out as my Kanabo shattered the dragon's jaw and the shock made the dragon freeze before its head lulled as it fell unconscious due to the blow.
"Ha... Alright, stuff the bastard into the dog house." I panted with exertion as I took out a healing potion. As now I could feel the burns on my hands that didn't have scale mail and leather separating my flesh from the heat from the dragon's flames.
But as I threw out the expanding trap house for monsters to cart the Infant Dragon back home. I froze, as a series of clapping rang out
"Most interesting... Why are you in the dungeon capturing an infant dragon, rather than working on the cure for Alfia and our adorable Materia?" A voice questioned coldly and from the nearby fog came a white-haired, curvaceous woman wielding a trident-style spear in one hand.
'A Hera member was following us?' I thought grimacing at the thought but was thankful they hadn't seen me fuse anything.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 32
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
I took in the Hera Familia member as Tina finished kicking the last limb of the Infant Dragon into the taming carrier. "You think making elixirs are easy?" I questioned with a frown and even as she rolled her eyes I continued. "Hera didn't pay me a dime to acquire the materials used in making the elixirs so I need to source them myself. And in that same vein, why the hell are you even following us? Doesn't a level five or higher have something better to do than to follow a level one around?" I ranted.
Her eyes widened at my rant as all the statements and questions were undeniably true as I imagine Hera didn't hide how exorbitant my demands for a top-tier Grimoire was, in turn for curing Alfia and Materia of their diseases.
A soft cough rang out and I looked behind and saw Tina had slammed shut the doors to the carrier and was just waiting for me to move it now... And after a moment of thought, I sighed and shrunk it, ignoring the gasp coming from the Hera Familia woman as I took the matchbox-sized square and put it away in one of my pockets.
I needed it shrunk down before the dragon woke back up, as when the carrier was shrunken down. It kept whatever was within in stasis.
So with the super pet carrier put away, I looked back to the Hera Familia member. "Well? I am not on some kind of timer, nor do I have any support from the Hera Familia in the production of the elixir's... I understand watching out for me, but why are you actually talking with me, if you were supposed to be an observer?"
Tina then cut in dryly. "Probably because you are bored. Right, Breaker of the Earth?" She spoke towards the woman using her adventurer nickname which made me raise an eyebrow as I still didn't know all the notable names as there were just too damned many for me, who was typically busy either in the dungeon or tinkering with my weapons and such.
Or just putting Tina into a mating press on all the furniture in my apartment.
Either way, I didn't know who she was though her long silverish-white hair and multicolor eyes reminded me of someone else. "I am indeed bored." She said with a flat nod and Tina and I shared a look.
"Soooo... Did you just want to say hello then?" I asked wryly before shaking my head and continuing. "Anyway, my name is Jake. It's nice to meet you but we need to continue our adventure so I can get the materials to make Alfia and Materia's elixirs."
She tilted her head with a small frown crossing her face and as we went to bypass her, a blur shot past us, and with a crunching noise her trident stabbed into one of the dead trees that filled the fog-filled floor cutting us off from passing her.
"You lied in that sentence... Your name is Jake. That we know for a certain." Her voice spoke with clear weight as she ripped her trident out of the tree with another crunching noise with no sign of effort. "Ah... You have finished the elixirs already somehow right?" She spoke with some wonder and I stiffened as her cool eyes seemingly saw through me.
"What is your name?" I asked trying to divert the topic and I realized she was something of an airhead as without a change in expression, she easily bowed her head slightly in greeting as she said "My name is Shenhe, Hera's Olympus Breaker and a lower level Executive of the Hera Familia."
My lips twitched at the title of 'Olympus Breaker' and Tina didn't help when she whispered all too loudly. "She got that title when she caught some Zeus goons harassing some girls going into the Hera baths and she ended up killing three members of the Zeus Familia over the course of a week when they tried to get revenge after she beat up the goons!"
I finally recognized Shenhe... Sorta anyway, her hair was done up differently and without her wearing the tight-fitting nylons she wore in Genshin she looked rather differently in reality.
"Anyway, Shenhe it was lovely meeting you. You are correct in that I have completed Materia's elixer but I am out of funds for the materials to work on Alfia's elixer." I said honestly and Shenhe blinked and nodded.
For a moment I could see the airhead was wondering what she should do. Until finally after a moment of silence, as I idly realized the dungeon wasn't even fucking bothering to send any monsters at us with Shenhe in the area, she finally spoke up. "Ah... Come with me, I will kill minotaurs for you, and you can use the drops for money!" She said placing her fist on her hands at the 'bright thought'
Tina and I shared a look before I dryly said. "Uhh, we are good now. We already got the materials and enough stuff to sell."
And yup, I could tell this Shenhe also had the emotional range of a particularly deep teaspoon as she slightly pouted before nodding with her slumping as she muttered towards the ground. "Ah... I see, I just wanted to help Alfia and Materia get better faster." She said before taking a breath and refocused on us. "Then I shall escort you out of the dungeon... Do not refuse please." She added seeing my face twitch as her face became stern. "Sekhmet and the Apophis Familia were seen going into the dungeon today, they are likely looting and killing people." She said strongly and Tina grabbed my arm.
"Then we thank you for the escort Earth Breaker," Tina said respectfully while sending me a look to accept the deal and I nodded in understanding. I was well aware at this time, let alone Orario which operated on 'Might makes Right'. Here in the dungeon, there were no rules. What happened in the dungeon often stayed in the dungeon, because the dungeon would eat the corpses and remains of the losers.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 33
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Tina and I didn't get to kill a single... Single monster on the way back to the surface. Shenhe literally bitch smacked Silverbacks, and Hard Armored hard enough across the face that their necks got broken to say nothing of lesser monsters like war shadows, goblins, and kobolds having their heads explode like a firework put into a watermelon.
"You guys can get the monster stones... They aren't worth anything to someone level four and above." She spoke quietly as we looked between her and the pile of corpses that was a 'monster party' the dungeon attempted to use to distract Shenhe long enough to have a small squad of war shadows attack us.
But the dungeon was fucking wrong on the level of Shenhe as she spoke softly. "Astralize the ice of my soul. Visions of Antiquity!" Her spell conjured an ice clone of herself which then split off and past us as a blur that tore through the war shadows, while Shenhe finally used her spear as she dashed forward and as she rapidly spun her spear in a simple circle she became a wood shipper to the monsters sending chunks of monsters everywhere, and painting the dungeons walls red with gore.
"We are good Shenhe," I said drily as a loud slapping noise rang out as a chunk of a goblins torso that got caught in the roof fell down with a wet splattering noise in the pool of gore.
Shenhe frowned and said with some frustration. "I don't mean to ruin your dungeon dive... But I really want Alfia and Materia cured, Alfia is a... Rival." She said with a nod to herself and her eyes landed on me as she spoke again. "Do you... Need money for the materials?" She asked tilting her head to the side and asking me with honest curiosity.
And in that moment I knew I could rip Shenhe off to the ends of the earth and so long as I said it was for Alfia's cure. I knew she would accept it without issue.
I wasn't a saint. I could use some funds right now as Hephaestus rightfully wanted me to earn the majority of my materials.
So I took a breath and said honestly. "I could in fact use some funds to finish acquiring the materials needed to make up Alfia's own elixer... I already used all my previous stock in making Materia's so I am all tapped out for now." I answered and without a single blink Shenhe's hand went to her waist and before I could react her palm was just in front of me with a fist-sized coin purse in her palm.
"I carry five million Valis on me at all times. In case I need to rush to buy an elixir... Is this enough?" She asked plainly and my face twitched at the sheer ease she offered it.
But it seemed that wasn't the answer she was hoping for and then she used her other hand to take my own and then put her coin purse in it. "Thats fine. Use this five million for now to acquire the material you need... Then I will go into the dungeon and acquire fifteen more million in valis by the end of the day." She said confidently and I tilted my head to the side in confusion.
"How are you going to get that much in one day? No matter how strong you are, you cannot get past the Water City by the end of the day?" I asked in some interest.
She smiled a small thing but it was all the scarier as she chuckled deeply and spoke. "Ohhh... The Zeus Familia has once again called dibs on the Goliath. It would be a shame if it snapped its neck when it trips coming out of its spawning."
-
There was no discussion... Shenhe quickly escorted us up to the surface, and without another word, once we reached the surface she spun on her heels and returned back into the dungeon leaving us gaping at her strutting into the dungeon.
'Hate for her to leave... But love to watch her go.' I thought with a small smile as I took my eyes of the sight of Shenhe's bouncing waist as she strode back into the dungeon as I looked down at Tina and said bluntly. "Well, today was a thing... Well let's get back and ask Tsubaki for help with the taming." I said and Tina nodded hurriedly.
On the way home, we hit up the adventurer shops and I restocked on lesser potions I could fuse into better products while I also picked up healing salves and other medicinal things to make stronger elixirs for Alfia's own healing potion to cure her magical super cancer. "Is there anything else we should get?" I asked partly to myself.
But Tina still threw out 'helpfully' "More pallum grade illegal aphrodisiacs?"
I looked down at the short stack... Paused at the thought of for whatever reason fusing that perverted shit into my would-be dragon mount and quickly shook my head as I said flatly. "No, Tina... Bad, don't be a pervert."
Even as my short little hellion gave me a small scowl I did realize I needed something though. "Come on... You are right though. We do have something to get past the Red Light District." I said with a wry smile.
I had the power to fuse all things I could physically get my hands on, into something better than the sum of all its parts... And Orario was the largest city in the world of Gekai. Actually, to put it correctly, it was the literal center of the world and that wasn't an exaggeration, it was the literal statement of fact as the dungeon popped up in the middle of the world.
"Tina. We are going scavenging in the city dump past the Red Light District." I said seriously and Tina looked up at me with her face scrunching up.
"Jake... That's where poor people's corpses are tossed." She stated, I nodded. She continued with her eye twitching. "Jake, the worst scavengers, even worse than the street rats of Daedalus Street live there."
"Are you going somewhere with this Tina?" I asked dryly and she sighed muttering.
"You are going to be called a 'bigger, biggus, and other things by the pallums. And other small races that are forced to scrounge there." She said with no infection in her voice and my eye twitched at that hard R she used in calling me a 'bigger'
I looked at Tina and I said flatly. "Then I am going to kill a pallum. Now let's go, we have the materials for Alifa's elixer but I want materials for making other weapons and enchanted objects." I finished clapping my hands and began walking towards the Red Light District with Tina muttering how this was a terrible idea.
But all I could think about was punting another one of those damned racist midgets, that seemed to have a bone to pick with me for some odd reason.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 34
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Instead of going to the city dump which was past the Red Light District we went back home as I was a little worried the compressed pet carrier may get fucked up if we allowed the Infant Dragon do its thing within it for long.
So first I went to Hephaestus and got my Falna updated quickly and seeing my stats in the A/B range I didn't go for the level up even if I was technically ready for it. Due to the high quality Excellia, I got from fighting the Infant Dragon and beating it unconscious.
I still wanted my stats maxed out in the S range before I would rank up. This wasn't the future days of Orario where people would get like a C-B in their Falna stats and then level up as soon as they could. Everyone in Orario knew the strongest adventures had high letter rankings which indicated the proportional rewards their body would receive in the baptism during their level up.
So with my own stats, along with Tina's being increased with the update. Beating the Infant Dragon silly while Tsubaki watched went well. With the half Amazonian giving us wonderful advice like. "Poke it in the eye! Kick it in the back of the knee!"
With my Kanabo, like before I went about beating the Infant Dragon like it was a pinata that owed me money. I knocked out a couple of teeth, and probably broke more than a dozen bones with the spiked club before the infant dragon just curled up into a ball to defend itself from my blows and I knew that it was 'submitting'
From there I pushed its head into the ground and as our eyes made contact, its glowing red eyes dulled until it turned an icy blue which was the universal sign of a tamed monster.
"Do you plan on taking the taming Development Ability?" Tsubaki asked curiously and I paused at the thought.
I didn't really need construction development abilities for when I leveled up. Only combat development abilities or other passive ones could help me out. Like the Luck, Mage, or Spirit Healing, Development abilities would be highly useful.
Taming could also be useful as it would make my tamed monsters stronger and more loyal as well... Though I wasn't sure how that would affect the tamed beast section of my fusion cheat.
"I don't know... I need to consider it honestly." I said with a shrug and then I started feeding the now tamed Infant Dragon some healing potions to get it healing its wounds that I inflicted. "But thank you for being the safety net Tsubaki," I said nodding in her direction as I threw the Infant Dragon into the tamed beast section of my Fusion Space where the tamed Jake Bird was resting after her earlier egg laying.
Tsubaki lazily waved my thanks away as she chuckled and sat up from her sitting position. "Alrighty then, I am heading back to work on a commission I got. You kids stay out of trouble Haha." She said with some teasing which made me snort as I was well aware of Hephaestus giving Tsubaki shit for going deep into the dungeon to test the weapons she made alone.
I looked back at Tina and she nodded with an exasperated smile. "You still wanna go to the dump?" I nodded and she visibly shuddered and said with annoyance. "Fine lets go... But when you get shanked by a shit-covered glass shank that shatters inside your neck... I get to tell, I told you so." She said making my eye twitch at the utter surety in which she said that.
-
With a short stack riding on my shoulder I walked into Orario's dump and... It was horrible. "Why did they build the dump into a marshland?" I demanded with a frown as I realized that as we came out of the South side of Orario's walls the ground had become utterly slop with thick mud clinging to our feet and my feet sinking into the deep mud that came up to my shins.
Hence why Tina was on my shoulders because the mud would come up past her damned knees.
"Orario itself is on a plain you know... But with so many rivers crossing through Orario, inside and out of the Dungeon. All the excess water has to come up somewhere right? Hence this marshland with its waters slowly flowing down towards the Lake of Melen with the river following the dungeon tunnel leading to the great lake." She explained and I realized how with this was way before canon, they hadn't killed let alone used the corpse of the Leviathan to plug up the dungeon's exit in the Water City floors which had a tunnel leading out to the Lake of Melen.
"Anyway the trash is just down that way Jake. The city typically uses tamed Silverbacks and Minotaurs to pull sleds filled with trash to the central dump so just follow the mud path." She said flatly and the mud path was just as she said. A smooth sloppy overly used path filled with marshy water that was made smooth by the large sleds that the tamed monsters pulled behind them.
After a good five-minute walk. I could smell the dump before anything else. Before I heard the huffing of the large Silver Back's trudging through the mud and pulling truck-bed-sized sleds. I smelled the decay, and before I could lay eyes on the minotaurs working under the direction of their tamers to keep stuff organized. I could smell discarded remains of Orario's population of twenty million souls.
"Still not as bad as Chicago on a bad day," I muttered to myself as I took out some handkerchiefs I fused some soap into, so Tina and I could tie them around the lower parts of our faces.
Both to obscure our identities if we did anything note-worthy, and of course fusing the soap into the clothes had given it anti-bacterial properties which would help with the smell and diseases obviously laying in wait.
"Where is the furniture piles is the question?" I asked more to myself as we entered the dump while staying out of the way of the workers adding to the massive dump that was actually seemingly a never-ending island of garbage that would eventually float downwards with the marshes tides.
I was here for materials and rather than hoping to pick up trashed weapons and such. I was just going straight for piles of materials.
But with no answer on where the more valuable trash was. Tina and I headed to the one notable part of the dump. The dead Monster Stone pile.
Monster stones were used as replacements for electricity in Orario. And in the city, there was little difference so long as you lived in a middle-class household compared to a modern household. They had powered stoves, heated water, air conditioning, and everything else you could want. But all that stuff relied on monster stones which people had to buy and replace like batteries to use those magi-tech devices.
And there was no way to refuel a monster stone at all... So they just tossed them out like empty batteries to be endlessly replaced as there was no recycling them.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 35
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
There was a reason why the dry monster stone cores were actually tossed into one area. And that was simply human laziness. Grinding down a monster stone for a civilian wasn't at all an easy task especially when it came to larger more potent monster stones that came from monsters like minotaurs and the floors past Rivira.
Although the guild repeatedly asked everyone not to just throw away used monster stone, they were just like back in my old world ignored for the most part when it came to asking or even demanding the exact proper methods of recycling and trash disposal.
But there was just one major issue that divided the discarding of a used up empty electric battery, and a dead empty monster stone
Monsters if they ate other monster stones, even empty ones could mutate and become an aberration that would become much stronger, and gain special abilities according to their monster type. And worse, become more intelligent and cruel.
And thus it was... Common for low-ranked weak monsters to sneak in and eat the dead monster stones. And likewise, some adventurers are both looking to hunt an aberrant for High Quality Excellia, and people like the Artemis Familia just want to cull the native surface monsters.
The ground around the monster stone dump wasn't marshy so Tina was able to walk without her sinking into the mud though the ground did still have a good softness to it in the area's that hadn't been worn to oblivion to the large carts pulling trash and whatnot.
"The corpse pile is just over there as well." Tina said quietly and as we passed through a path I couldn't help but swallow as Tina's words were no lie. Down a long road was a massive pit that looked to be a quarry and Tina confirmed my thoughts as she said that quarry was where the stone for the walls of Orario was mined up with the gods directions. "Then once the city was enclosed they used the quarry as a mass grave and occasionally some mages and workers throw pitch and burn the piles of bodies down a more manageable stack." Tina said quietly.
'Is this insanity what made Evilus pop up?' I thought as I swallowed down my bile at the distant sight of a pile of humanoid corpses more than thirty meters tall and the pile spreading out further and further as it reached the bottom.
"Disgusting." I said frankly shaking my head and looking around and I frowned saying. "Where are the pallums and other rejects you said was going to be an issue?"
Tina scoffed and looked at me with a teasing smile. "Jake, we have been walking past them all day in the marsh. They have reed snorkels and when monsters or unaware people walk by. Who aren't adventurers they will stab them and drag them into the marsh to drown in the mud." Tina said and I looked back to seeing all those singular reed patches with cat tails growing up like typical pond edge growth and I swallowed at the thought of laying in the muck for hours.
"I... You aren't that crazy are you?" I asked with some dark humor and her smile died and her green eyes turned the glowing crimson of the Blood Fury Spear.
"Jake, I choke down your above average human-sized dick every morning that goes past my collarbone... All in repayment for you giving my life worth living, is my determination any less than theirs when I gladly slaughter monster and man beside you?" She asked rhetorically.
I had. Literally nothing to say about that.
So I kept walking, and although I had the thought of fusing the corpses pile.
That sounded fucked up even for me... And what would I even get by fusing thousands of corpses together? Its not like even if I got a 'super' corpse I could do anything like reanimate it as I certainly didn't know any necromancy.
Eventually though we reached the Monster Stone depository and as we came closer, I realized it was built inside another quarry and the massive hole in the ground was covered in endless monster stones of all sizes. Which was awesome and all... But the quarry was massive, easily a couple dozen miles wide in all directions and like a lake it sloped downwards towards the center being deeper and deeper with large monster stones towards the center.
As I took in the quarry properly I could then pick out the monsters that had called the dump home. There were the oversized armadillo-like monsters in the Hard-Armored that I could clearly see but coming out of one of the limestone caves was trio of bipedal lizard humanoids with a wooden shield and a stone like weapon.
"Lizardmen..." I grunted with a frown as I took in the monster that was only found past Rivira in the 19-24 floors of the dungeon.
Tina and I could handle Hard-Armored's with little issue now. But Lizardmen had the physical abilities of a decent level two, along with monster ferocity and loved to work in groups which made them dangerous.
And that was just the normal Lizardmen... As Tina added on. "The leader is an aberrant." She said and I looked at the Lizardman who had prominent blue scales which contrasted with the other Lizardmen who had red scales and then my lips twitched as Tina added shamelessly as she channeled her Blood Fury Spear to increase the potency of her vision. "The leader is a female as well... Do you wanna fuse her to your Infant Dragon?" She questioned with a bit of teasing.
This little troll knew I was steady person. And thus wouldn't want to tangle with a monster clearly out of the level one zone.
But as I looked at the lizardmen[woman] I realized that killing and smashing a lizardmen to death even if I used magic would give us a massive upshoot of Excellia which would be enough to pad out my stats for my first level up to Level 2.
Not to mention the Lizardmen weren't far from us, and if we started raking in the monster stones... It was inevitable for us to get their attention, so it was best if we could make an alpha strike on them!
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 36
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
I fused a lot of shit in my free time. A lot of things weren't that special or worked all that well in most situations or in other words, I made a lot of niche situational items. A lizardman was the equivalent of a mid-level 2 and even then people typically fought in parties past Riviria due to the way the dungeon worked all the harder to kill you via monster parties and traps.
And an aberrant? That basically added a half-level's worth of stats if not a full level to a monster's danger level. Hence why I under no circumstances wanted to fight that aberrant in melee range as she and the other two would shred me apart without much issue.
So with the monster danger level in mind, I took out my oversized crossbow that needed both me and Tina who was boosted with her blood fury spear skill to actually pull the string back into position. Allow me to nock a small javelin with an explosive tip on its head.
"Range?" I asked Tina softly and she hummed and told me it was about five hundred feet and I focused on the little sight my fusion had made for the heavy cross bow and once the three got to a decent place I loudly whistled making the lizardmen whip around and look for us but we were hiding on the edge of the quarry.
But as they stood like a deer in headlights looking for the source of the shrill whistle I pulled the trigger and a loud crack rang out as the string shot forward sending the javelin zooming out of the crossbow and even with my enhanced senses I couldn't even see the blur of the javelin as it zipped downwards.
A split moment, at that moment the oversized arrow traversed the distance and I could hear the mental 'oh shit' as the aberrant lizardman reflexively blocked the javelin with her metal-looking wooden shield that lizardmen could make with their racial talent.
But even blocking the fast-flying arrow was a danger as with a flash of blinding light the explosive tip of the disposable arrow went off with a mighty booming noise. That rumbled in my chest like a large firework going off in the distance and as the smoke cleared I saw that the other two lizardmen were seemingly dead as they were lying on the sides.
While the aberrant was staggering on their feet with only their enhanced constitution keeping them alive as blood gushed from their form due to the explosion ripping off chunks of flesh.
The lizardman seemingly recognizing the direction the arrow had come from, looked directly at Tina and I. And even with the distance between us, I could hear its roar of fury as it began limply running towards us. "Tina you front line, I will take the flank," I said with a frown as I took out my Rivers of Blood katana with the knowledge that I wanted to kill this monster as soon as possible.
Tina looked between me and the loping monster that had crossed a good hundred feet already and was clearly getting used to its wounds as its stride increased in speed. And Tina asked frankly. "You don't want to tame the aberrant? It's a surface-born monster, it doesn't have the dungeon connection making the taming a dozen times more difficult you know?"
I looked back down at the Lizardman, and she was right, the lizardman in the brief moments I could catch sight of her eyes had brown eyes instead of the glowing red eye sockets that all dungeon-born monsters had which was an indication of them being both dungeon born and under the control of the dungeon directly.
Which also meant... With her being a surface monster, she was literally only half as strong as a dungeon monster due to her not having a monster stone!
"We can try!" I said taking a breath as the lizardman clawed their way up the stone quarry's walls with her sword and clawed hand going through the hard stone like it was a hot knife through butter.
And within a couple more moments the lizardman vaulted over the edge of the quarry and only a hiss of fury fell upon Tina who stepped forward and swiped at the draconic-looking lizardwoman with her spear.
Long clanking noises as armored clawed hands met the blade of the spear, and harsh clacking noises rang out as Tina used the long shaft of her spear to block the swipes of the lizardman's oversized saber she tried to chop the pallum apart with.
While Tina kept the aberrant busy I had taken out a metal wire net that Tsubaki had me make with my fusion ability if I wanted to catch more monsters as all tamers used various methods to cripple or make the monsters as vulnerable as possible before they began beating them silly to tame them.
"Tina get out of the way!" I said as I spun like a discus thrower and just like back in my old life when I would go net fishing, as soon as Tina ducked down with her spear not pointing in the air I threw open the heavy metal net that was lined with hooks to bite into the monsters flesh so they couldn't pull it off.
A metallic clatter rang out as the netting fell onto the lizardman who couldn't move out of the way of the large sheet of hooks in time and the moment its hands attempted to rip the net off... Even I grimaced at the scream of agony it made as the hooks I fused into the net bit deeply into its flesh as it attempted to rip the net off.
'It's a monster, not a person or even a Xeno... Just do what you gotta do Jake." I told myself to shut out the screams as I carefully ducked under its staggering form and with a wet crack I smashed my kanabo right on the lizardman's knees obviously breaking it. As the lizardman fell down with a whimper as the hooks got pushed further into her flesh.
"Alright Jake, now just start being its head in, to tame it," Tina said cheerfully as she took a breath to calm down after using her Blood Fury Spear skill to match the lizardman's strength and speed in the short engagement.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 37
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The use of a missile, and a very heavy hooked net, made the taming process for the Lizardman far... Far easier than it had any right to be. And I was reminded as the bipedal lizard that looked alot like an Argonian from Skyrim, had a blue ring of light fill her eyes. Those tools and strategies were what separated humanity from monsters and animals.
If Tina and I had walked into the quarry and straight towards the lizardmen trio. They would have without a doubt torn me apart. I wasn't sure how Tina would have done with her Blood Fury Spear skill, but it would have probably been a tight fight.
Either way, I had successfully given the lizardman the domestic violence equivalent of the talk no jutsu so I was able to send the hooked net into my inventory and then send her into the tamed monster section of my fusion space while Tina and I got to work collecting some of the discarded monster stones.
"Jake, before we get too invested into this, let's at least see what happens should you fuse these empty monster stones into something. To make sure they still give a magical effect." Tina advised and I hummed before snapping my fingers and I put a blanket inside my fusion space along side the piles of the dead magic stones we had been collecting.
After a brief moment in which the piles of monster stones fused into the blanket, I looked at the blanket with my inspection glasses. [Rechargable heating and cooling blanket of weighted doom!] [The empty magic stones allows the blanket to store large amounts of mana and once activated the blanket will smother whoever the blanket is laid upon with sweltering heat not unlike the flames of a forge, the icy embrace of an ice dragon's breath. And the weight of a thousand beasts pressing down upon you.]
My lips twitched as I read the description of this fucking blanket and after a bit more testing as I fused more of the empty monster stones into other things I learned how it worked. Basically instead of running off my own internal mana like when I fused full fresh monster stones into an object or weapon. Empty monster stones when fused would give a battery-like aspect to the items that required me to fill their energy storage before fully using them.
Both had their pluses and minus's but in reality, with a bit of testing I realized that I could without issue add the dead monster stones to my already enchanted stuff to give them a sort of internal storage that would store my mana to use their enchantments... Except my mana was leaking out of the enchanted objects instead of being retained.
"Hmm... Maybe using gems to store the mana?" I muttered as I stared at one of the enchanted bolts I had for the oversized crossbow that could now store mana to be used later in its explosion. But with the bolt-enchanted head having something like a hundred units of mana, it was leaking a good five units of the mana every ten or so seconds.
So if I wanted to make my items hold their own stores of mana for long-term storage I needed to find some kind of medium or material that held mana long-term without dissipating it. "Anyway, let's keep collecting the dead monster stones, and once we get plenty we can head back... It stinks of death and despair out here." I muttered at the end as Tina used one of those push brooms to push piles of monster stones towards me while I sat down and just stuck my hands in the piles to send the piles into my fusion spaces storage area.
But as we were collecting the monster stones I heard the sounds of stone crackling as things walked over them, and from around one of the bends of the mining quarry came something surprising.
A one-armed dwarf was dragging a ragged rope that was tied around a knot that had several other ropes that were tied in the knot and on the end of the ropes were a literal dozen ragged-looking women going from young teens and what looked like adults and a couple of younger feminine-looking boys all of different races.
"Oh, you lads are working for your level ups I see!" The dwarf said cheerfully as his eyes locked onto the mangled corpses of the two lizardmen we couldn't do anything with due to them being a surface monsters and thus not having a monster stone.
I looked past the dwarf as Tina stood beside me with her spear at the ready and I saw the utterly dull and dead look in the majority of the girl's eyes and even the two boys eyes. "Yeah, you can say that... Gotta reach level three and make it into our Familia's expeditions into the dungeon." I said confidently as I looked back at the dwarf and the moment I said level three and the way my armor gleaned and Tina's fantasy-like spear that glowed with her slightly touching upon her Blood Fury Spear skill.
The dwarf had realized we weren't anything he could play with as his single hand visibly tightened on the leash he was pulling the women by.
'Wait... Are these people being sold into the Red Light District?' I thought as I remembered how the Orario guards were dead drunk sleeping at the Red Light District exit out of the city.
Sure Orario had banned slavery... But murder and violence weren't illegal with the might makes right method of ruling that Zeus and Hera used, so long as you didn't leave corpses everywhere. So if you were powerful enough, who would dare to question you?
In the brief moment of staring between these women of various races, I couldn't help but think about how similar to they were to Tina and I couldn't help but ask. "How did you get these ladies if you don't mind me asking?" Seeing the man look defensive I held out my hand and said evenly. "I am not looking for trouble... I am just curious, they look utterly broken after all."
The man sighed and visibly relaxed but before he said anything Tina spoke up dully. "They are survivors from roaming monster groups right? Or worse people taken from monster clans who were used as bait or used in any other way." The man grimaced but nodded and I realized how easy these broken people were to sell into a brothel with how mentally shattered they must have been.
'With how broken they are... Do they even count as sentient so I couldn't fuse them? Could I tame a completely broken human being?' I couldn't help but think and that realization that I would think and consider it. Was a stark reminder of how I had changed to fit better into this world.
"Alright, please move on so we can continue our own business and you can do your own." I said holding my hands up to end the conversation and the one-armed dwarf chewed on a thought before gruffly snorting and with a jerk of the rope he dragged the women and couple boys onwards.
A couple of moments later as the dwarf and his entourage moved out of the area I heard Tina speak without any inflection in her voice. "Although a part of me hoped you would give those shattered wretches purpose as you did for myself... I am glad to still be your sole tool."
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 38
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
A series of tapping rang out between two goddesses, Kusanali with her green eyes met Freya's purple eyes as they shared a moment of silence as their adventurers had given the two goddesses some space so they could speak in private.
"So. Any words as to what I had requested?" Freya spoke gently and Kusanali hummed in thought while she stirred some sugar into her tea.
Freya with unusual patience waited for her friend who loved their tea and once the green-eyed silver-haired goddess drank some tea she began speaking. "Hera's Empress, Albion Weststock, registered duchess of the elven lands... She was a tricky one to find the 'weaknesses' you desired." Kusanali spoke and Freya smiled at the confirmation that Kusanali had actually gotten something indeed.
Without any fanfare Kusanali began to speak and list out what could be considered weaknesses of the captain of the Hera Familia and one of the strongest adventurers in the world. "Albion is as you well know, a woman of nobility in all most all things, all of which she does outside of adventuring. Is kept strictly behind closed doors. Now as for weaknesses and things in which you could apply pressure upon." Kusanali took a breath and continued.
"The elvish king back in Deep Wood, is deeply worried that Albion may seek to usurp his rule and that is a reason why Riveria was forbidden from joining the Hera Familia as she being his heir cannot be put into a subordinate position to a duchess." Kusanali spoke and already Freya could see it.
Using her charm or other methods to start a civil war in the elvish lands and using her own high leveled elves she could further enflame the battles to draw out the Empress from Orario should her lands be attacked. If the Empress left Orario and the Hera familia to become the queen of the elves, Freya wouldn't bother her in the slightest.
She just wanted Hera's strongest supporter taken out from under her, by blood being spilled or a silver-tongue. It made no difference to her.
Kusanali coughed and Freya raised an eyebrow as Kusanali continued with a slightly discomforted expression. "As for her major weakness... Remember some twenty years ago after she reached level nine and she went on that five-year-long vacation?" Kusanali asked and Freya nodded.
"Indeed... I considered making moves during that period. But at that point, none of my adventurers were even level five so no such actions could be taken." Freya said nodding in agreement.
There was a moment of tension and Freya couldn't help but raise an eyebrow as Kusanali was obviously playing with her. To make her ever more curious as to what had happened and would become Albion's so-called true 'weakness.' So with an eye roll Freya herself took a drink of tea to let the goddess of life and knowledge get her kick in making her 'desperate' for the knowledge she held.
But Kusanali seemed to have purposefully waited for Freya to take a drink as the moment the goddess of beauty brought the drink to her lips, Kusanali announced. "The Empress has an illegitimate child with the elvish king after a meeting in which they tried to soothe tensions but other forces spiked their Soma wine with aphrodisiacs's now both the Queen of the elves and the king's other consorts also want Albion and the daughter born of that union dead as that child with the help of Albion and the backing of the Hera Familia could easily take over as a new royal bloodline."
Freya pushed hard the instinctive choke on her tea at hearing Kusanali's words and unbidden she coudnt help but wonder who in the world was the child of Albion, 'Was she in the Hera Familia already? Did Albion hide her child remotely or even in another Familia?' Freya pondered and as she stared at her friend. She realized what that smug smile Kusanali wore meant.
"You little cheat... You already know who and where she is, don't you?" Freya said with a frown as Kusanali giggled and then gave Freya a cold smile.
"Indeed, I do. I couldn't let you make the girl disappear after all. No, she is too valuable with her latent potential born of the Alf bloodline and Albion's talent which had reached level nine, and it is clear that Albion's falna is sublimating Hera's divinity within herself to make her into a new goddess." Kusanali said with a wide smile that made Freya grimace at the thought of a mini Hera running around.
"But regardless, she is indeed already a member of my own Familia after I... Coincidentally picked her up while visiting one of the nearby towns down near Melen where the secondary dungeon entrance is."
Freya eyed her friend silently for a long moment as she considered if Kusanali had overstepped and whether she should get revenge... And after a long thought, she snorted and leaned back into her chair as she knew all to well, that unless she was willing to pay dearly to have Kusanali sent back to Tenkai. She couldn't make an enemy out of the mind reader who could tell all her many rival familia's the paths her adventurers would be using during an expedition so they could be easily ambushed.
"Very well... The information, you have given me will prove to be a good use. And Zues's Familia crush event on the crafting familia's are planned to begin soon. So I will make sure that Jake survives the event, and does not suffer too much." Freya promised while mentally hoping that the level sevens of the Zues Familia didn't get involved with the crackdown that was going to happen.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 39
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
After gathering a great deal of dead monster stones into the inventory side of the fusion ability, Tina and I started heading back towards Orario.
But as we were making our way past a trash pile I coughed as a sharp crunch rang out and I looked down to see a bolt or small arrow had dented my scale mail just below my throat.
Wordlessly I took out my River's of Blood sword and and I slashed in the direction the bolt had come from and screams rang out as the solid blood-like construct tore through scrap wood and metal buildings that lined the area like they were nothing.
"Behind!" Tina yelled and I whirled around as her spear smashed into another Pallum or Dwarves spear with their diminutive size but and although Tina had the advantage, it was clear that her opponent was a level two or a powerful level one.
Trusting my instincts I tilted my head to the side and another bolt skated just past my face and I shouted. "Going!" I dashed forward with my peak level one speed and thankfully my specialized boots kept their grip as I sprinted across the mud to jump atop one of the decrepit slum-like houses.
Atop the house was a pallum woman with a somewhat childish looking face but utterly gaunt with starvation and her eyes were filled with vicious hate as she lifted her already reloaded crossbow and without hesitation pulled the trigger but seeing the crossbow aiming at my face naught but five meters away, instead of dodging I summoned a metal tower shield in front of my body and as I heard the loud dinging noise of the bolt colliding I sent the shield back as I dashed forth.
And before the pallum could get another bolt off, I slashed down with the Rivers of Blood katana carving the Pallum in half with the supernaturally sharp sword that seemingly drank and combusted her blood from within.
As the pallum's body fell, cut in half from shoulder to waist I turned and saw no other archers on the other nearby rooftops. So I dashed off the roof back down into Tina's fight only to see her double tapping the now very dead dwarf or pallum male by shoving her spear through both of his eye sockets to scramble the brain.
Then my lips twitched seeing Tina bend over and begin patting his pockets and pulling out a coin pouch along with an utterly trash murky healing potion that was more likely to give me cancer or something.
Tina looked up and saw me already close and she asked nonchalantly. "Did you already loot the other one?" Even as she asked, she still was looking around for any more assassins or more like street rats that wanted to harvest our lives.
I took a breath and even as I put on my helmet. In case there was more archers, I still replied blandly. "No... I very much doubt she has a hundred Valis to her name Tina."
And my pint-sized short-stack sociopath had the gal to simply shrug as she said with some scolding in her damned voice. "Jake, you cannot turn away a single Valis as that one Valis may be the difference between you getting a meal or not."
In response, I just sighed and with one hand picked Tina up by her back armor plate and carried her with me as I replied flatly. "I don't want it anyway." Honestly, I was more worried that the street rat had hidden a poisoned needle or something in her coin pouch than like how dirty the coins were.
Thankfully other than that one jumping, we only had to kill a couple of Almiraj or rabbit monsters before we made our way back into the relative safety of Orario.
But as we entered Orario on the south side and naturally had to walk through the Entertainment District, we saw something... Very interesting.
Standing in a small crowd listlessly was the crowd of women but without the boys that, that one-handed dwarf was leading into Orario to sell to the brothels inside the Red Light District.
"Whats going on here?" I muttered and Tina wordlessly followed me as I checked around the group and I blinked seeing the girls were actually standing around the dwarf who was dead as a doornail with another homeless man dead next to his corpse with the same dagger I saw strapped to the dwarves side buried in the center of his chest.
Tina pinched my sleeve and said bluntly. "Goddess Hephaestus will be angry if you bring more broken toys home."
I took a breath and seeing the women just dully staring at the corpses I decided to try something and for the next minute, with Tina's help pushed the women deeper into the alleyway out of view of the uncaring gazes of the men and women who were buying and selling flesh on the main street.
Once we pushed the ladies into a dead end outside of the view of everyone Tina asked curiously. "Jake, I know you aren't going to... Use them sexually and if you wanted to kill them, we wouldn't have pushed them over here and done this hassle. Wanna tell me what you are planning?"
I didn't reply and for a moment I stared at the dull-eyed women who hadn't resisted our pushing and corraling to get them to this position. "Can any of you even speak?" I asked the crowd and there was no response.
A couple of them blinked at being spoken towards. But there was light in their eyes at being spoken to, of their minds coming to an answer or any other reaction.
A sigh rang out and Tina stepped over to a rather voluptuous human woman and her hand snapped forward with a cracking noise as her hand slapped one of the hanging breasts that were above her head. But even with that adventurer-enhanced strength that would have obviously hurt... Fucking greatly I imagine as none of these women had a falna.
The woman only flinched but didn't retreat, if anything she almost leaned forward towards Tina who said dully in her typical voice when she shed any pretense of having any emotions. "Jake, they are broken. Gods and Goddesses have seen people like these and called them walking meatsuits... Their very souls broke down due to their suffering and melted within themselves as they couldn't escape their mortal bodies to go back to Tenkai to be reborn in a better life."
Tina looked back to me and raised an eyebrow as she held up a knife as she asked with some curiosity. "Did you want to see if their corpses could be fused into something with how no one is here now like Tsubaki or killing someone in the dungeon?"
I grimaced at her question as although yes I did have the thought... But unless I actually killed someone for attacking me, I wouldn't just start harvesting lives for no such reason.
Tina patiently waited for me to come to an answer and it was. Scary how utterly apathetic she was to other people's lives besides my own and even then... But I spoke with my voice steady. "So far my fusion ability has been able to fuse tamed monsters and non-living materials... They clearly don't have a soul as you already claimed gods of death have remarked, so can I fuse them into one another to make the best version of themself?"
"Or would leaving them here, to be used in a brothel, or die of exposure be better?" I finished quietly and Tina was silent for a long moment. She had no answer besides a simple. "Do what you want Jake. I won't judge you in the slightest either way."
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 40
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
I was painfully aware that what I was going to do, was in all terms of the word. Utterly fucked.
But in the end, these women had no life left in this world, their souls had literally dissolved within their bodies when they couldn't kill themselves after being captured by the surface monsters that ran around Gekai. I was basically just overthinking things.
"Well... Got to at least try." I muttered as I laid my hand on a clean part of one of the women's arms and then I tried to mentally take her into my inventory.
And with a soft popping noise of displaced air, she disappeared instantly into my inventory with Tina exhaling from behind me. "That's interesting." Tina then dragged the other women towards me via their leash and I silently took them into my inventory while scanning them.
[Human Female- Age 26, No Falna, No Soul- Fusion Material]
[Amazon Female- Age 23, No Falna, No Soul- Fusion Material]
[Renard Female- Age 19, No Falna, No Soul- Fusion Material]
Only the Renard was of decent note and after taking them all into my inventory I took a breath of air as Tina patted the crook of my arm as she said. "Alright, let's get out of here. Go home so we can wash off the day's events and then in the comfort of home you can try to fuse them." She said and I nodded as it was truly a good plan.
I walked home with Tina walking by my side but as we continued home, I swear I could feel someone was watching or even following us. But with the thick crowd of people on the main streets of the Red Light District and the other main streets, I couldn't pick out who was watching us.
'Or hell... Could it be Freya using that enchanted mirror she watched Bell with later on?' I thought as I instinctively looked towards the Tower of Babel before shaking my head as Freya didn't live in the tower and instead lived with her Familia in the Folkvanger manor.
Then I had a different thought. 'Oh hell... It's probably one of the Hera girls following me around to make sure I am still making Alfia and Materia's potions.' I thought as I was reminded of Shenhe who had probably already stolen that Goliath kill to pay for more materials for my 'help'.
So I swerved around with Tina and made sure to pick up some herbs, materials, and even some of the less expensive potions I could pick up as I felt the presence following us become heavier.
Finally though as we entered the north side of Orario where the reputable smithing, crafting, and other high-end service-based Familia's were located. I could hear shouts ringing out and I froze and my eyes widened as we reached the Hephaestus Familia compound.
Mounted atop the fenced-in wall around the apartment-like buildings for the Hephaestus Familia members she rented out to us. Was a head, but not just any head... But the head of the retired Familia Captain who I didn't really interact with due to him being firmly within retirement.
"The Hephaestus Familia will just leave Orario then you uppity shithead mortal!" I heard Hepheastsus roar and I took off into the Familia ground to see what had happened and my eyes widened at the carnage.
Dozens of smiths, from level one and up were laid out on the large park with many of them missing limbs or even fucking just dead in general while my goddess Hephaestus was standing protectively in front of Tsubaki who had lost the eye she had kept behind an eyepatch to match her goddess.
"What the fuck..." I whispered taking in the carnage even as my eyes snapped at the male voice who spoke to Hephestus coldly.
"You were warned to lower your smith's prices... The Zeus Familia and neither should any Adventurer have to spend millions of Valis on a weapon without powerful enchantments like Durandal." The male voice spoke and I took in his form and saw he was wearing thick but plain black armor with spiky pauldrons while resting across his shoulder was a brutal mace with gore sticking to the spikes on the top-mounted spike ball.
Even as my goddess's leather gloves creaked loudly in her wadded-up fist the Zeus Familia member continued. "Now with the Hephaestus Familia humbled. We will hopefully not need to make an example out of the other crafting Familias... As after all, the strong rule. And your entire Familia couldn't keep two of our weakest level fives from butchering your weak Familia, so bow your head, little craftsman. Behave or we will have another god under Zeus's umbrella send you back to Tenkai." He bluntly threatened the smithing goddess.
There was a long moment of silence and then Hephaestus's head tilted to the side and she slowly removed her eye patch from her face and my very soul retched as sheer vile hatred and cursed filth assailed my mind. As Hephaestus's cursed eye was unveiled in the back of my mind, I heard Tina retch her stomach's contents onto the ground before collapsing onto the ground.
The man however just staggered in place matching my own mental strength if not exceeding it as I almost wanted to collapse at the mind-bending revulsion I felt looking at Hephaestus's fiery glowing pit that was her cursed eye. "Oh... And what if I decide to rip your skull off your shoulders and then before Ouranos sends my ass back to Tenkai. I make the Olympus Manor a purgatory of flames?" Hephaestus coldly threatened and I couldn't help but finally vomit in front of myself as her Arcanum and the curse became more and more powerful as the forge goddess was about to show how petty a Greek Goddess she was.
The reason mortals didn't fuck with gods and goddesses directly was for one simple reason. Those divines knowing that their time and games in Gekai were about to be ruined, could be petty as hell... So if they were going to lose and get sent back to Tenkai. Why not just say 'fuck it' and with a wave of their hands just smash all their opponent's chess pieces as a final fuck you.
And it was clear that the Zeus Familia member was just realizing that he had pressed Hephaestus entirely too far as crimson and azure flames escaped her form as Hephaestus's Arcanum shed its leash with her 'normal' eye glowing crimson and her cursed eye a haunting soul-crushing azure.
"Enough Hephaestus!" A male voice roared and I barely looked behind to see a man running into the property and feeling his aura I easily felt it was a god.
And without a beat Hephaestus's power increased as she hissed out. "Zeus... Are you here to finish the job then?"
'Am I going to die here?' I thought shuddering as the dungeon below Orario rumbled shaking the world as Zeus's own divinity leaked as he pushed back the flames leaking from Hephaestus's form from her simply taking off the bindings to her divinity.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 41
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Zeus and Hephaestus stared at one another for a long moment before the forge goddess spoke slowly. "Zeus... Darmun was the grandson of my first mortal apprentice when I landed on Gekai centuries ago." Hephaestus spoke and Zeus grimaced as his eyes snapped to the mounted head of our retired familia captain.
Hephaestus walked towards Zeus with her flame-covered form melting the pave stones beneath her feet and as she came face to face with the regal older man whose lightning-sparking frame they silently made eye contact and I could see Hephaestus's mind whirling.
The pain that she felt at the loss of so many smiths she had personally trained. She had watched literally grow up within the Familia. I could see in her eyes how she was weighing the scales.
The scales of being on one side bitch smacking Zeus with her true divinity and smiting his Familia and getting banished back to Tenkai. And on the other side simply swallowing her frothing rage for now.
She was obviously torn on the decision... It was a heady thing to watch a goddess, a divine being consider their actions in causing terrible destruction because I knew that as a puny mortal, it would affect me just as much.
Because if Hephaestus gets the boot back to Tenkai... I will literally lose my Falna.
"Hephaestus I didn't want this... Maxim, just said he was going to send people to negotiate for large orders for the days to come." Zeus said with clear regret in his tone but Hephaestus wasn't having it.
"Your Captain didn't even show up Zeus. Your children Krios, Wiles, and Hafrid there came, and told me the Familia was going to lower our prices by eighty percent while also doing free maintenance." Hephaestus leaned in and hissed. "I rightfully laughed them out of my office for demanding such foolish nonsense, and with their pride slighted they began killing my Familia members as soon as they left my office."
Zeus took a step back away from the beyond pissed goddess and he looked over at the armored man who was previously threatening Hephaestus and he snapped. "Is that true?"
The armored man nodded without a change to his expression as he simply stated. "It was Captain Maxim's order Lord Zeus. The goddess refused Maxim's orders and as per his follow-up orders we precisely decimated the Familia killing ten percent, crippling another twenty percent and at the end of the day she will still have fifty percent of her Familia after another twenty percent likely leaves out of cowardice."
'That's beyond cruel and calculating... No wonder they call Maxim, the Cruel Lion of Lightning.' I thought as I held Tina behind me and just tried to stay invisible.
But as though my thoughts summoned their gaze, I saw Hephaestus's eyes finally land on me and she grimaced as she saw how her injured Familia members couldn't even run away from her cursed eye being unveiled. That sight seemingly made her calm down slightly as she took a breath and covered her eye with her eye patch.
However, Zeus didn't relax at all with the eye being veiled as Hephaestus's lone crimson eye landed back on him and she stated frankly. "Zeus, you let your Familia off the leash, in wanting to push your members to their furthest with those damned quests... Congratulations your Familia is a cabal of monsters who only believe in might make right. The Hephaestus Familia formally hence forth, will not sell or perform any form of maintenance for a member of the Zeus Familia while Maxim still lives."
Hafrid the armored man wielding the mace snorted and Zeus closed his eyes as he seemingly realized something else wanna going to happen. "Lord Zeus, She is threatening you! You cannot allow an uppity crafting goddess threaten our goals in taking the Three Great Quests in the next few couple years! She was to be the example to other Familias to behave Lord Zeus!" Hafried spoke impassioned and then he looked around and his eyes landed on me and a smile crossed his face.
"Ah... A little level One or Two? Is he one of your smiths?" He spoke and then blurred with motion and before I could blink I heard a cracking noise as the level six Adventurer snapped in existence from his high-speed movement and I screamed as his hand landed on my armored shoulder and with a squeeze, I with all too much clarity felt his fingers dig literally into my flesh through the thin metal of my scale mail armor and break my Clavicle and Scapula with wet crunches.
Blinding pain filled my body as the man tittered and then absently as I tried to move away from him I heard Tina snarl before another crunch rang out and she gurgled as the man kicked her swiftly in the chest cracking her ribs and obviously giving her some internal bleeding as she flew back a couple meters.
"Hafrid... Thats enough." Zeus spoke out with a sigh while I gritted my teeth as I felt the man pat my other shoulder with his hand obviously taunting Hephaestus whose form was engulfed with flames again and gritting her teeth at Zeus and the man behind me.
"I only obey Captain Maxim's orders Lord Zeus." And then he did it. My eyes went white and then black with agony as he crushed my other shoulder in his palm and as I was about to collapse at the agony he tsked and spoke. "Jeeze... Four cleanly broken bones and you are about to faint? No wonder you guys are so fucking weak... Might as well just kill you with how you can't handle even this much." He said and then his hand moved from my shoulder and landed on the back of my neck.
There was a long moment as I looked at Hephaestus with blurry eyes as I realized I was going to die... None of my enchanted weapons could do anything to a Level Six, my armor made out of scales of adamantium alloy the most durable known dungeon material was just thin aluminum to this monster.
I had no cards to play.
A soft whisper caressed my ears and I felt the agony of my shoulders dissipate as the whisper made my vision go pink. "Oh dear... I had hoped I wouldn't have to directly stand in, but there is no other choice I suppose."
Hafrid went still and so did everyone else as a woman... No, a goddess walked in alone into the gore-filled courtyard and it didn't take me more than a second to figure out it was the goddess Freya who walked over to me and Hafrid. "Hmm... She was right, you are quite interesting indeed." She spoke as her purple eyes captured my vision and while maintaining full eye contact with me and dulling my mind.
I heard a guttural choking as she stuck a sparking dagger into the throat and spine of the mentally ensared Hafrid and in that motion, her Charm weakened allowing my form to naturally collapse but as I went to fall I fell into soft arms and I heard Freya speak as her blood covered hand petted through my hair as she perfectly supported my body to not put strain on my broken shoulders.
"Hephaestus, Zeus. It was a lovely day, wasn't it... Now while Hera is on her way. Let me put this adorable young man to bed." She announced and then her Charm blasted my mind making my head roll forward but even as my head slumped into her divine tits... I kept my mind on one thing as I whispered. "Get Tina toooo..." And with that one whisper, I let go of my consciousness and gave into the sinful whispers Freya was soothing my soul with.
And in the depths of my mind, I heard Freya chuckle with a smoky tone as she whispered into my ears with sweet temptation and need. "Oh... You resisted my charm so well, maybe I will give you a surprise my Einherjar."
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 42
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Six beings sat in a meeting room high in the tower of Babel. On one side of the meeting table sat three, the goddess Hera, her familia captain Albion, and the goddess Hephaestus. On the other side of the table was the God Zeus who was sitting with his own Familia captain Maxim, a mountain of a man more than seven feet tall and clad in gleaming armor that was covered in a lion pelt that sparked with lightning.
Lastly, acting as the 'unbiased' intermediary was Freya who was all but giddy at seeing the utterly stupid act that Maxim pulled in his desire to suppress the crafting Familias into forces he could order about as he pleased.
To say nothing of how gleeful she was at seeing the Hera Familia drawn into the mess as although Hephaestus had some bad blood from Hera from times back in Tenkai, here on Genkai they had a good working relationship in which the ladies of the Hera Familia would get their gear from Hephaestus.
And with the Hephaestus familia expected to be slashed in half in numbers, to say nothing of Orario's demands for the arms of the one of two best Familia's in Orario, but the Zeus and Hera Familia's contracts were obviously going to be expected to be indefinitely put off with the loss of so many smiths.
Freya elegantly clapped her hands together to break the tense silence that was left as Hephaestus was staring daggers at the unflinching peak level Eight monster that was Maxim. "Now... We are in the Tower of Babel, no smiting the mortal, Hephaestus." She made sure to warn the smithing goddess who slowly nodded at the reminder that Ouranos would give anyone who flickered their divinity here on the seal for the dungeon a swift boot back to Tenkai.
"Why are we even here?" Maxim abruptly spoke and Zeus covered his face as from beneath the hood of the half lion head covering his head Maxim continued coldly. "There is no reparations to be made, there will be no agreements or movements made to punish my Familia and no one can challenge my rule..." His fingers arced with arcane blue lightning as he tapped the marble table and left burnt scars across the table.
"You are weak Hephaestus. Your familia was weak. You don't have the strength nor will to strike me down to avenge this slight and be sent back to Tenkai to face eternal paperwork." The sound of rumbling thunder rang out and for those in the know, they knew it was just Maxim just chuckling in his chest as he shook his head. "Therefore this meeting is utterly a waste of time." He said standing up.
Seeing Maxim standing up Hera softly spoke. "Zeus, what is your stance on this?"
Maxim actually paused to listen to his god who sighed and shook his head. "I do not direct my children. I simply give them goals to gain strength... I am not the villain of this epic."
The giant chuckled loudly with lightning forming in his eyes under the shadow of the lion helmet as he retorted. "Heh! I am the villain?! When I crushed kingdoms underfoot, taking their princesses and queens as my concubines while slaying terrible monsters didn't you applaud my actions, calling me a great hero?" Maxim shook his head with clear mirth coming out of his voice as he left the room with one final statement.
"I am going to be the greatest hero in history, it doesn't matter the means used, but once I complete The Three Great Quests I will reach level 10 and become an immortal! Whatever means used in that goal will be forgotten in history!" And with that, the door into the room closed behind the large man leaving the now five to sit there and share a look.
Hera sighed and then spoke bluntly. "Zeus, will you wipe Maxim's Falna clean during an update?"
There was a moment of tense silence before Zeus shook his head and said with a wry smile. "I took in Maxim as a boy... He has gone off the path, but he can be redeemed once he completes the Great Quests and kills those monsters." He then looked at Hephaestus and spoke sincerely. "Hephaestus, I am sorry, and although that means nothing to you. I promise you I will make sure Maxim and his men stay away from your familia, and Hafrids death will not be mentioned either."
Freya however snorted as she retorted. "Hoh, so you walk off without a bruise while Orario basically loses one of its two first-class adventurer-smithing Familia's."
Zeus simply shrugged as he stood up unable or unwilling to answer while Hera coldly stared between Freya and Zeus as they prepared to leave the meeting room with no true resolution in sight.
After the Norse Goddess of Beauty left just behind Zeus, obviously being unwilling to stay in a room with her enemy Hera. The Queen of the gods spoke slowly. "Albion... Go check on the injured Hephaestus members, use your magic to heal them if possible."
Left unspoken to Albion in front of Hephaestus was the order for Albion to go check on their Familia's investment. The investment that had supposedly been in the hands of Hafrid and had been Charmed by Freya in order to save his life supposedly with Zeus and Hephaestus both agreeing that Hafrid would have snapped his neck should Freya not have mentally shattered Hafrid's mind with her Charm.
'Albion has to make sure that Freya didn't scramble his mind... To say nothing of whether he will even be an adventurer here in Orario after seeing Zeus's rabid dogs attacking civilians and his Familia members.' Hera thought with a frown as she was well aware there were plenty of opportunities for adventurers outside of Orario like Melen which was controlled by the Poseidon Familia.
Which specialized in the subjugation of the side dungeon entrance that opened up in the massive great lake.
And at this point, she wouldn't be surprised if Jake followed the many others who thought the current Orario simply wasn't worth dealing with Zeus and other arrogant Familia's antics.
That couldn't be allowed. After all, she needed that special elixer for Alfia and Materia... To say nothing of keeping a smith who could smith adamantine armor within Orario for her own Familia's needs.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 43
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Hatred. I felt utter and all-consuming hatred. Not at the Zeus Familia, not Hephaestus for being useless in the face of the adventurers, or even Freya for saving me via mind control that even now I still wanted to be under her gaze.
No I felt utter hate towards myself for being weak. For being that place to begin with.
I had a literal cheat, I could combine entire hills of materials to make better materials, I could have taken those elixirs to Hera and gotten a Grimoire and instead was playing coy to play down my talents.
I could have enchanted my armor with wards or other forms of automatic defensive measures, I could have inlaid gems into my armor that would store ridiculous amounts of mana to use the enchantments on the armor to passively defend myself.
I could have gone full slave master and merged dozens... Hundreds of monsters together to make a super monster to fight for me and still get Excellia through the Taming ability.
There was so many 'what ifs' and so many 'what I could have done' in the time I had been in this world. Laying here with still fucked up shoulders in my apartment that had thankfully survived the thrashing the Zeus Familia gave the compound with the sound of Tina sleeping across the room on the couch wasn't helping my mindset either.
But in the end, I needed to buck up. I wasn't going to play around anymore... Orario simply wasn't remotely safe with how fucking insane the stronger Familia's were with their might-makes-right mentality. Being an unmatched smith, magical item creator, or elixer maker won't protect me.
As Maxim's purge of the Hephaestus Familia was a very... Very blunt wakeup call that simply no one was safe in this Orario.
I gritted my teeth as I raised my hand up even as my shoulders crunched as the magically assisted healing through healing elixer's allowed me to move my arm at all. "That... Won't happen again." I hissed clenching my hand closed in a fist as I swore that I wouldn't be at someone's mercy like that again.
And with a thump my now painful arm dropped back down onto my bed as I tried to make up a game plan.
'Hephaestus isn't going to have much if any time, to help her Familia members get prosthetics. Tina and I are too vulnerable in the dungeon in the deeper floors past the tenth floor. Frankly... I already made a mask that gives me water breathing.' I thought before nodding as a solid plan came to my mind.
'I will take Tina to the Great Lake of Melen, it's not far from Orario being less than six hours walking and we could get back and forth from Orario to Melen in probably half an hour using my Infant Dragon as a mount... Probably far less time if we can secure a Unicorn or Kelpie to use as a mount.' I thought as I knew a great deal about the city of Melen.
For good reason, as it was called the minature Orario for a reason. Due to the secondary dungeon entrance within the center of the lake, there was a constant stream of middle-floor monsters streaming into the lake allowing adventurers in the area to consistently reach level four or even five. And then they would typically switch to an Orario-based Familia to continue growing.
It was perfect for me because it was a much lower leveled zone for the adventurers which were the true danger in this world right now. Also... The deities of Melen were more focused on using the city in games to make money and entertainment. Rather than Orario's current atmosphere of just getting as strong as you can.
I nodded my head with a solid plan settling in as I finally relaxed slightly and then as I was considering getting a sleeping draught that I used to tame monsters to knock my ass out to rest. I heard a thumping on the door before it was opened and wordlessly I summoned an enchanted dagger under my blanket from my inventory.
As my door opened up I blinked seeing who was coming in and I grunted out seeing royal-looking elvish beauty stride into my room with purpose. "Empress, what do you want?" I asked bluntly as I looked at the highest leveled adventurer in the world along with being the Hera Familia's captain.
But Albion didn't respond as she came over and with a snap of her staff she dragged over a wooden seat so she could sit beside me and without a word she stared into my eyes for a long minute of silence before she broke it. "Coward." She stated.
I didn't blink, I didn't deny it, nor lash out at her for her words. I simply responded in kind. "I cannot grow here, there is no hope for a sapling to grow when rabid lions burn down the jungle to have a savannah."
The Captain of the Hera familia closed her eyes and without her responding I continued. "I have been in Orario for less than a month... In that month, all my close death experiences were the cause of an adventurer." I shook my head and spoke with clear derision in my voice.
"I have been an adventurer for less than a month and I already can kill infant dragons. I slaughtered my way out of monster parties being dropped on my head. I can even kill minotaurs if I wanted too without much issue."
I looked directly at Albion as I bluntly asked. "What kind of heroes are the actual threat to someone's life when just below a person's feet is a pit filled with endless darkness and monsters that slathered for our lives?" I asked rhetorically and she finally reacted to my question.
"We are not heroes Jake Barris, we are adventurers who fight to become strong and lay the foundation for those who follow to go further beyond our own steps." She stated coldly and with a hint of disappointment in her voice.
But I hit her with a gut punch as I softly responded. "Is that what Materia would say?"
Albion froze and for a moment I thought she was going to storm off with how stiff she went but instead, she sighed and nodded. "Indeed... Materia is sheltered and none of the Familia would bully her in such a way."
I then pulled my hand from under my blanket but instead of the dagger, I held the golden glowing elixir that had streams of silver light forming and disappearing within it. "Take it, this is strictly for Materia as it has her blood tied to it's creation. I however am leaving Orario in the morning. When I get the materials I will come and give Alfia her elixer as promised."
A comical loud thump rang out and for a moment I thought Tina fell out of the couch or something but she was still asleep, but instead my eyebrow rose as heeled footsteps rang out in my apartment as from the hallway came another woman. This one being Shenhe who was armed with her spear in one hand.
"My goddess was worried that you would flee Orario, either giving up being an adventurer altogether or simply have your mind tainted by Freya's charm... Gladly I can report that although you planned to leave Orario, your mind is still your own. And more importantly you still have the light of ambition in your eyes." She spoke before looking at Shenhe as she spoke at me.
"Your leaving Orario will not happen as of right now Jake Barris. With Hephaestus gutted, Hera wants you to make the familia adamantine quality armor, weapons, and of course, continue making our elixirs. You running off to Melen or another area will not be considered... But you are right Jake." She admitted while my face was blank.
"You are a sapling right now... And if the Hera Familia is to get any use out of you, then we have to make sure to invest in your present and make sure you simply survive to unlock more of your potential. Hence Shenhe will be living here as the guardian of the Hephaestus Familia... And your minder."
With that, Albion stood up and without another word, she elegantly strode out of the room without giving me a look or allowing me to reject her 'royal' decree.
'I am going to fucking make a teleporter to get away.' I mentally swore as Shenhe without a hint of shame climbed onto my bed straddling my waist and tilted up my chin as she leaned down with her face coming close as she said softly. "I have materials for you to make elixirs... Heal up quickly please."
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 44
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
"Drink," Shenhe ordered simply as she brought an elixir to my mouth but I turned my nose up to it as I scanned it and knew it was weaker than my own elixirs.
"No. The ones, I already consumed are better... I just need to heal overnight." I said with some annoyance as Shenhe was weighing down on my sore shoulders with her forceful approach of literally sitting on my chest.
And as she just tilted her head in a silent state of wondering what to do next I asked with a slight groan. "Shenhe why are you sitting on me?" I asked with an eyebrow twitching.
Her silver hair moved through the air as she looked straight down towards my face and she replied evenly. "Lady Hera told me I am your sitter... I do not know what a sitter is, but judging from its root word of sitting I am supposed to be sitting on you to make sure you don't run off to Melen."
Shenhe as though proud of her mental jump in gymnastics nodded to herself with some obviously wrong thought running through her brain as she continued slightly under her breath. "Indeed Lady Hera's wisdom is of the divine. No matter the Skill or magical item you possess while I sit atop you... You cannot escape me!"
Silently I pulled one of the two pillows I had behind my head and then while smothering my face I screamed out my mental frustration until soft hands took the pillow from my face and Shenhe who had leaned in even closer with her face naught but inches away from mine spoke with utter seriousness. "No Jake... You cannot smother yourself with a pillow either to escape. You are not allowed to escape life via suicide." She said bluntly while even poking me in the chest.
'Reeeeee!'
-
After a bit more of her antics in which I attempted to explain to Shenhe that she didn't need to truly sit on me to keep me safe. I finally made a compromise as she graciously allowed me to lay down with her wrapped around my back with her hands encircled with my own and her steely arms wrapped around my chest so that I may not 'escape'.
It was honestly... Something to say the least. Even though I couldn't really enjoy the feeling of her curves pressing into me due to the persistent ache in my shoulders.
But as I awoke the next day with my shoulders feeling much better I was awoken by the sounds of Tina working in the kitchen and she soon came out with a couple of bowls of eggs and some cubes of steak in the eggs.
"You alright Tina?" I asked softly and she nodded quietly. From there we just ate silently as Shenhe sat across the room still watching me like a hawk.
Tina then made me feel a bit better as she added on. "You used a full vial of the elixer on me... I am a Pallum we weigh far less than other races so we don't need as much." She said with a joking smile making me snort as I should have realized that but oh well. That just meant she had stronger medicinal stuff running through her veins.
I then looked over at Shenhe and spoke. "I imagine you want me to get to work on Alfia's Elixer right?" And at my question, she firmly nodded.
I continued. "Where are the materials you went into the dungeon to get, including the Goliath monster stone?"
Shenhe froze and some distress entered her eyes as she muttered. "I left them at the Hera compound... I couldn't carry them all in one trip and I didn't know where you lived so I didn't know where to go from the start." She frowned as she then hit the head of the issue in her mind as she actually looked at me with some concern. "I cannot leave you alone, so how do I go get the materials?"
I couldn't help but think how adorable Shenhe's troubled face was but I kept a straight face as I said gently. "Shenhe, there's a door bar over by the door. Why not bend it around my leg while I am sitting in a chair so I cannot leave while you go get them."
A light of comprehension entered her eyes and she firmly nodded with a small smile coming across her face as she hurriedly went to the door and came back with the thick bar of metal that level fours were supposed to have issues bending.
"Uhh Jake, are you-" Tina started with a raised eyebrow but I waved her off as Shenhe kneeled down beneath the table and I shivered hearing the groaning screech of the metal bar that was supposed to secure the door be bent around the tables central pillar before she grabbed my leg and then I felt cold metal wrap around my ankle as she wrapped my leg around a couple loops of the metal before she finally satisfied stood up with a small proud smile.
"You stay here." Shenhe said simply as she grabbed her spear. "I will be back in probably. Twenty minutes, I will need to use a cart to bring the Goliath monster stone and other materials." She finished with a nod as though confirming the steps to bring all the stuff she had collected for me and without a word spun on her heels and left my apartment with her heels making clicking noises on the stone ground as she left.
I turned to Tina and then spoke relaxedly. "Tina I am very hungry... Could you please make 'All the sandwiches." I said putting emphasis on my words and Tina's eyes widened as she ran into the kitchen to grab all our food as I laid my hand on the table and just popped the table and my leg bindings into my inventory.
'I kinda feel bad about tricking Shenhe... But Orario is a bit too dangerous right now.' I thought as I mentally crossed out the Melen plan as that wasn't possible with how Hera was going to look for me... But the world of Gekai was massive and there was infinite potential for my growth so long as I was willing to do whatever it takes.
'Fuck it...' I mentally cursed as I threw all our food into my inventory as Tina quickly followed me into the streets of Orario as I resolved. "Besides Melen Lake there are still many options. I say we head straight East to the Alv Mountains and the Seol forest. What do you think Tina?" I asked quietly as we raced towards the basically unguarded and unmonitored southern exit of Orario which was where the Red Light District was.
Tina who was basically jogging to keep up with my powerwalk instead said. "Let's go to the north leading to the Beol Mountains... Remember Hera has a lot of influence in the elvish forests due to Albion so our best bet would be the Dwarvin mountains to the north."
In the end, Tina had a good point so I nodded and once we thankfully got to the edge of the city I quickly threw my Infant Dragon out of my tamed space and we rode it into the distance to get some distance from Orario and once it tired we ran on foot pushing our adventurer endurance to the limit.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 45
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Although the Infant Dragon I tamed didn't have wings or even was developed for long-distance running. It still could waddle run across the ground with its powerful scaled legs tearing across the root-covered ground of the forest we were traveling through while heading towards the Beor Mountains.
"Jake. What are we going to do about our Falna updates?" Tina asked after we continued jogging towards the mountains in the distance.
And at Tina's question, I shook my head with a wry smile as although thankfully I was able to collect some Status Thief so we could unlock our Falna's to view it. Still, with having not even been in our goddess Familia for a year, we couldn't change to a different god.
Unless... I could upgrade the Status Thief to something that could wipe our Falna's clean somehow so another god or goddess could fill it.
But regardless I answered Tina's question as it deserved its weight with how she was tied to me. "I can try to wipe Hepheastus's signature from our Falna's leaving the essence empty so another divine could take over... Or we just go until the natural year is up and we can naturally switch over or something."
Then Tina said something that made me frown. "Kinda makes me feel bad. We didn't even leave a note for Hephaestus after all."
'Sorry Tina. But Orario... Is not something I care for.' I thought with a frown as I finally sighed and responded bluntly. "It's a shit move on our part... But Orario is fucked, I am not going to be Hera's crafting slave as she is well aware my crafting abilities far out scale my level. To say nothing of a Zeus member or just any higher level psychopath killing me for looking at them wrong." I finished with Tina grunting in agreement.
For the next few hours, we quickly rushed through the countryside avoiding the main roads knowing it was exactly where Hera's adventurers would first check using high-level adventurers running down the roads at sound-breaking speeds to find us.
But thankfully I had made sure to buy maps not long after arriving in this world which came with the enlarged maps of Orario itself. So we weren't lost with us used a compass and running directly towards the tallest mountain peak within the Beor mountains which had a dwarf kingdom built upon and within said mountain.
A loud hiss rang out as we were riding my Infant Dragon and I blinked seeing a squad of surface-born goblins with stone weapons running away from us on our dragon mount.
"Ignore them," I said with a wry smile as there was no value in killing the surface goblins that were supposed to be less than half as strong as their dungeon counterpart.
Then as we continued our journey Tina then spoke with a bit of humor in her voice. "Jake actually wouldn't it be funny if we went to Melen instead of the mountains?" I looked at the back of her head with a look of utter confusion as she was riding in my lap and as though sensing my utter confusion she continued.
"We already are gone out of Orario's typical routes if we are seeing wild monsters, and our switching between foot travel and mounted travel will obscure our tracks... But we could just turn West and follow the Lagog River that merges into Melen and use the river to wipe away any of our traces." Tina explained and I just had one point.
"Beside it being the place they 'least' expect us. What's to keep us from getting caught by Hera?" Tina actually looked up with a deadpan as she retorted.
"They won't look for us for long in Melen, so long as we keep our heads down and don't make a scene we will be fine... Plus you already have the equipment to fight underwater so we can get all the materials and Excellia we need via killing the monsters coming from the side dungeon exit... Maybe we could even use the tunnel to get back into the Dungeon itself and make our way into Orario as well?"
My lips twitched at the utterly mad idea...
But the thought of the haughty elvish queen Albion being utterly flummoxed as we are hiding just under her nose living life in the tourism-filled city of Melen... That filled my spitful heart with glee and without a word I turned the Infant Dragon towards Melen according to my compass.
-
Two days later of camping in the wilderness and taking the long route to Melen we finally made it to the city with only a pack of Kobolds and a single Orc being attempting to mess with us during the nights as we camped out.
But I had... Gone above and beyond and using a cut-down tree I fused a cabin I could fit inside of my inventory and to reinforce the five-meter wide single room wooden cabin I fused a great amount of dirt and eventually stone into it to make it stronger than just basic wood.
'I mean, is it actually camping when I can slap down a literal house?' I thought wryly as we entered the city of Melen while looking around like the tourists we were.
Melen was completely different from Orario in design as instead of being a walled-in city like Orario was. Melen was a widespread coastal city with large grand properties and estates that bordered the Melen Lake and we quickly learned that the Familia's actually had the practice of claiming parts of the beach in which monsters would commonly wash up so they could fight them.
Of course... If the adventurers died fighting the monsters that made their Familia's look weak and the worst sin in this city was getting a rich tourist killed on your Familia's beach.
[Melen. The City of Luxury!]
That was the signboard leading into the city and as we came into the city with beautifulwell-made clothes that I had fused together and Tina driving the carriage I also fused together with my Infant Dragon pulling said carriage.
We quickly were accepted into the city without the normal checks as I played at being a young master visiting the beautiful beaches with Tina obviously being my servant/loveslave.
"Young sir, do you have any questions as to where you wish to go?" A guard asked respectably as I leaned my face on my hand boredly as Tina filled out the paperwork for our entry pass into the city.
"Hmm, I want a nice beach house. Also, it needs to be close to the Red Light District that way after my waist is sore I don't need to ride in my carriage far." I said snootily and the guards face twitched but he happily told me how the Goddess Pallas had bankrupted herself with loans after her Familia was wiped out by a monster wave so her estate was being sold off.
"Thank you." I said boredly and then I tossed the young guard a thousand Valis piece as a tip and he smiled at the coin that was probably equal to a whole week if not a couple weeks of payments for his work with how the Valis was worth so much more outside of Orario and their ridiculous prices for stuff.
Tina then having finished the paperwork continued to drive the carriage into the city of Melen towards where the Pallas estate was while I had a thought as I lost my arrogant demeanor.
'The goddess Pallas that Athena killed? What even is her domain's being the daughter of Triton?' I thought before shaking my head as Tina had to yell at some kids to stay away from the very unamused Infant Dragon pulling the carriage.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 46
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The queen of the gods. The goddess of possibly the strongest Familia in the world. There were many titles and adjectives that could be applied to Hera.
But she hated the adjective of 'perplexed'
Hera gently pinched the bridge of her nose as she stared at the sheepish form of Shenhe who shifted at the pure annoyance radiating from her form. "You lost them... You a level six adventurer lost two level one adventurers who just left Orario. How? How does that happen?" Hera questioned in pure disbelief.
She was well aware that Shenhe was a monster in combat, and even more importantly she regularly acted as an elite slaughter scout who would clear the way for smaller expeditions into the dungeon for wealth gathering. So although she wasn't a true tracker, she did have some tracking abilities.
To say nothing of the sheer physical ability she could employ in searching for people at high speeds.
So in essence there was just one question... Just how did they get away?
And Shenhe with a frown answered. "Their tracks out of the city were wiped out as you well know. And it's not like they escaped on their own as I used a bent Mythril rod around his leg and his table with that table's base also had a dense metal pole that went into the floor... Jake and Tina were level one's so it's impossible for them to have broken or even sawed their way out of the bindings I put him in without a higher leveled adventurer releasing him."
It wasn't an excuse for her failure. It was just a simple reality that there was an outside influence acting as Jake was acknowledged as a great crafter, he most certainly wasn't a woodsman who could wipe out their traces like an accomplished assassin.
So that left one other option for Hera.
"So who kidnapped him is the question... No, the real question is whether they know about Materia's cure already and want to hold Alfia's cure over our heads." Hera mused with a frown and at that Shenhe frowned with her hands on her knees cracking into a fist at the realization that not only had she failed in her duty, but she might have put her friend and rival's recovery into jeopardy.
Sitting down at the long table filled with the Hera Familia's high leveled executives the beautiful blond Sword Saintess Eris spoke gently with her covered eyes taking in the souls of her surrounding members. "Unless he is being held in captivity within the dungeon, at least to my own senses I can confirm he and little Tina are no longer in Orario. Should we expand the search outside Orario then?" She finished with an open question.
At that question Hera grimaced as although she and Zeus had unrivaled power within Orario, stomping on people's toes in searching for an 'unknown' adventurer would only make their familia weak. 'If only I had Eris or Barghest watching him.' She thought irritably as neither of them would have left their posts even for a good cause.
But still she responded in clear reluctance. "We can pay off some information brokers to look for people meeting their description... But we cannot directly be looking for them, especially with how the Zeus Familia members may take the person as some kind of challenge and willkill him just to prove a point."
The Captain of the Familia in Albion then spoke out with her voice coming out bluntly. "Speaking of proving a point... Already many Familia's are complaining rightfully that their weapon and armor orders are going to remain incomplete with their multi-million Valis payments being wasted with the cullingof the smiths in the Hephaestus Familia."
Hera's eyebrow twitched and she snapped slightly at the elf royal. "And? What will those complaints due for anyone, just ignore them as no one can help them now, and even Gobininu has pulled a number of his smiths out of the city to supposedly go 'teach the smiths of Melen.'" Hera snorted and continued. "More like the old goat is getting prepared for his own Familia to be tested by Maxim."
As it was clear that Maxim the captain of the Zeus Familia couldn't give a rats ass how Orario felt about him and his Familia so long as he gathered the power and materials for him to complete the vaunted goal of slaying the monsters of the Three Great Quests. He was at the peak of Level 8 currently and by taking part in slaying either the Leviathan or Behemoth he would for sure reach level nine and by killing the other and then with some grinding to pad out his stats, and then killing the One-Eyed Black Dragon...
He would fulfill his goal of reaching level 10 and becoming a divine with his falna's stored divinity sublimating to elevate his existence.
Albion then added on with a snort. "I am of the opinion that Jake somehow fled, sure someone or many other people may have helped his escape subtly. But regardless I did speak with him after he woke up, and he made it clear that he wanted to leave Orario while still wanting to keep his agreement with you Lady Hera."
Before Hera could respond Eris then softly spoke. "If that is the case, then trying to force him to come back to Orario, or otherwise hunting him down like a dog will only make him feel adverse things towards our Familia... Honey is more valuable than vinegar after all." She finished and Hera sighed giving Materia's closest friend in the Familia a look before she closed her eyes to gather her thoughts before nodding.
"Fine... We will all keep an eye out, but don't draw attention to him as I agree with you both. From my own meeting with him, I can say he is a rather prideful young human who will fulfill his end of the deal one way or another." Hera finished before shrugging with a cool smile crossing her face as she added. "And once the adorable mouse sticks its head up from its burrow we have many ways of making sure he can be tracked and we will have a smith and potioneer that can make high-end things."
Eris then stood up from her seat her taking her large staff/blade into her hand as a walking stick with her speaking out. "In that case, I am calling in my vacation days... After helping console all the new orphans of the Hephaestus Familia I am going on vacation for a week."
Hera waved her hand in acceptance as she was well aware that unless it was an important expedition Eris was typically a solo act anyway.
-
Across the city in a beautiful lounge filled with the soft sound of water flowing from a small waterfall in the center of the room were two goddesses sitting across from each other.
One being the goddess of beauty in Freya, and the other being the goddess of knowledge in Kusanali both sitting across from the other. With Freya not at all being happy due to recent events.
"Kusanali... You really put me in a bad spot with this." Freya said with a frown as she looked at her ally of convenience.
Freya was a goddess who preferred a more subtle touch. Walking up and shoving a knife into an adventurer's throat while he was mentally shattered under her divine Charm was not at all subtle. And even Ouranos made a mention of how everyone in the incident was trying his patience with how they were all but unleashing their Arcanuem here in Gekai.
Which would equal a swift boot back up to Tenkai, and even he particularly focused on Hephaestus. With the true king of the gods rather bluntly telling her to get over the losses of her children as they were just mortals. And if she cared so much she could go back up to Tenkai to take care of their souls rather than making his job of keeping the dungeon from eating all of Gekai harder.
The green-eyed goddess of knowledge sighed and then said bluntly. "And what am I supposed to do about that? I myself put my neck on the line when I wiped Shenhe and Gawain's memories of trying to track down Jake so they couldn't then track him down. And then I had my own Familia members in the crosshairs as they wiped away his tracks."
In response, Freya leaned forward with her silky pale breasts becoming more exposed in her open-cut dress peeking out as she twirled a finger over the rim of her wine glass as she said huskily. "Even still... I want repayment for my work in keeping your boy toy alive."
Kusanali however snorted and quickly retorted. "Freya you are fooling no one... You saw his soul, you tested it with your charm and now you want to mount him like a dog in heat at how he kept his mind at feeling your divine essence of beauty. I in fact could be seen as giving you the favor of having him owe you a life debt." She finished with a cold smile making Freya roll her eyes.
'Damned goddesses of learning... Can never play with them fairly.' Freya thought with a huff before she tilted her head to the side as something occurred to her. "Oh... You little fox you, you pushed him to go to Melen where your Familia is based correct?"
The snow-white-haired goddess clapped her hands with a proud smile as she happily agreed and even explained more. "Indeed! I even went so far as to make sure as to which house he would be living within after helping an ally on hard times move onto a new place. We are even going to be neighbors in fact!"
'And they call me a thirsty goddess whose desire knows no limits.' Freya thought sardonically as she raised her glass to her ally in congratulations but as both godesses drank their expensive wine, Freya had one last thought in her mind. 'Hmm, Melen... I do in fact look rather fetching in a swimsuit, maybe it's time I also get out of Orario before Maxim decides to pay me, in particular, a visit.'
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 47
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
I had a great deal of money in the Danmachi currency of Valis. Sure I didn't have enough to straight up buy a high-end Hephaestus sword made by the very goddess. But once I got out of Orario I started looking at the prices of stuff around here...
It's like going from modern Japanese yen or Chinese Yuan currency amounts to US Dollars back in like the seventies or eighties... Everything was fucking cheap!
Back in Orario getting an average apple would cost a good fifty to seventy-five valis. Here in Melen, with it being the shipping capital of the world fresh produce of even higher quality of an apple was at ten valis max unless it was some weird apple coming from the elvish forests.
In Orario a non-enchanted weapon for a level three which was currently the average strength level of adventurers who started to matter in the city, would typically run a good five hundred to seven hundred Valis depending on the monster materials used in its creation. Here in Melen, where deeper floor monsters were streaming out of the dungeon into the lake and coming to attack the city regularly, those same exact plain weapons would cost a fraction they would in Orario!
"Well this place is rather nice." I spoke taking in the greek style beach mansion that Pallas's old Familia had lived within and I hummed as I looked past the mansion and saw the almost pristine white soft beach behind the mansion.
And the real estate agent/city worker I was speaking with to buy said mansion spoke seriously. "Young sir, even if you have the funds to own the property, as an adventurer you will be expected to keep your property line of the beach safe and clear of monsters. Should you fail to do so, the city will confiscate your property just as the previous owner lost everything they had, when a trio of Voltimeria surfaced onto the beach and killed many people."
My lips twitched as I recalled the information on the Voltimeria in being a monster that was the strongest and most dangerous monster in the Water City floors and was recommended that only level Four and Fives fight it. And they were supposed to be solo hunters not running around in a trio...
But regardless I spoke bluntly. "I understand, I have my own measures though." And the civil servant having given his obligatory warning all but threw the paperwork at me so he could get the delightful bonus he would be getting for selling this property to me.
After signing all the annoying paperwork and paying a good million Valis to outright buy the property from the city I then sat down on one of the couches that came with the beach house from the previous occupants. Then as I relaxed with my eyes closed as I leaned back into the couch I felt Tina snuggle up to me with her resting her head on my chest as she spoke quietly into my chest.
"Now what do we do?" She asked simply.
With one hand going to the back of her neck below her hair to hold her head I used my other hand to firmly pull her into my lap so I could use her short form as a hug pillow as I spoke out. "I am going to do damn near everything in my power to become stronger. The Water City monsters regularly coming out of the dungeon will be a good source of materials... And more importantly, they will be a very potent source of tamed monsters as almost all of them are amphibious and with powerful abilities in some way or another."
Even as I spoke... I also didn't forget to give Tina's very nice booty a good squeeze making her snort as she dryly retorted. "And beyond that? How do you plan to for us to get back to Hephaestus to update our Falna... As remember we are both on the damned cusp of leveling up and breaking the record actually."
I took a breath and then listed off my two options. "Going back and forth to Orario is too dangerous, especially with how Hera will likely be hunting for me for Alfia's own cure and to keep a high-end smith, and elixer creator within their reach. So I see two options, one I make some device of teleportation Hephastues can keep so we can teleport directly to her. Or secondly, we cheat and go through the dungeon's Water City tunnel and up through the floors to reach Orario through the dungeon itself." I finished with a small frown.
As no one has ever actually managed to travel through the tunnels to the dungeon itself without either drowning or being overwhelmed by the monsters within the pitch-black tunnels.
"What is teleporting?" Tina asked with honest confusion looking up at me and I hung my head in memory that such a phenomenon was utterly unknown in this world. Hell Hephaestus said that my actual fusion space to hold stuff would be seen as more valuable than even the fusion ability itself to members of the Hera and Zeus Familia.
So to say the least Spatial abilities and knowledge was... To say the least were unknown basically.
With the hand that was holding Tina's head I moved her head up by gently pulling her hair to tilt her head up so I could give her a soft kiss while my other hand gave her one a gentle pat on her backside before I broke the kiss and said firmly. "Alright Tina. It's time I fused those soul husks."
At my reminder of the soulless meat suits I picked up Tina just blinked before saying calmly. "Ah alright then." She said and then she hopped out of my lap as I began mentally sorting out the women I had picked up and decided which one was going to be the 'foundation'
Finally, I landed on either a half-elf or a Renard. 'The elf is half dark elf and half human... Half-elves only really have the elongated lifespan of elves and their more elegant features rather than fully inheriting the elf's tendency for magic. But the Renard is a broken race which has inborn soul magic so she will form the strongest foundation most likely.' I thought as I took in the form of the brown-haired dully-eyed Renard inside my fusion space and then looked at other stuff I could fuse into her.
I wasn't sure what would happen should I fuse other bodies, monsters, or even objects into her... But as my eyes landed on the pelt of a fox monster and the vials of blood Hephaestus gave me to experiment in making Smithing boosting equipment.
I decided to say fuck it. I was going to go all the damned way and whatever happened, happened.
The Renard's body glowed with blinding light within my mind as I fused the other soulless husks, Hephaestus's blood, Adamantine and Mythril dust, a couple scrap used Grimoires I got from a junk store and couldn't do anything with, the fifteen collected so far Golden Eggs from my Jack Bird,
And then without any more hesitation, I fused the alpha female lizard warrior I previously tamed into the now incandescently glowing form of the Renard.
A few moments of stress later... It finished!
And I took in the new form of the Renard that I had mentally guided during its fusion process similar to how I got certain weapon designs for when I fused them.
'I got the fluffy tail of my own Haha!' I thought with a smile as the Renard didn't come out as some kind of complete abomination... No she actually was hot as I used the image of FGO Tamamo as the template of her form. So after admiring her form I then mentally scanned her to get her actual details according to my fusion system.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 48
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[Nameless Renard Xeno/?] [User has created a monstrous abomination of potential. In using divine blood with ties to flames in fusing into the Renard, it has awoken the divine blood of Amaterasu and Inari who made the race. The user has fused various filled and empty monster stones and a tamed monster into the target, evolving their body into a Xeno which will grow more powerful in all system of thought by eating monster stones.] [Tamed monster fusion will provide the target a nascent personality based on the fusion process.] [When a man cannot get a girlfriend... Just make your own that loves you!]
The random ass taglines at the end of my fusion items always was as seemingly weird as possible... I mean I literally have a shortstack girlfriend!
Ok maybe Tina isn't my girlfriend and more my love slave/dependant who would probably have a mental break down with her skill driving her insane if I wasn't there to ram her some sanity back into her via the occasional almost racially motivated dicking, as she calls out terrible slurs about my height in comparison to the men of her own race.
Either way! I took in the Renard more physically by dropping her out of my fusion space onto the couch beside me with a soft thumping noise. And as she landed across from me on the couch I was previously sitting upon Tina I took in her appearance.
Pinkish hair and smooth pale skin that shone with an almost hypnotic purity, her face was a gentle beautiful appearance and even as Tina coughed and covered up the Renard's nudity, I saw she definitely had all the curves a man could ask for.
"So is she going to be like alive and can talk to us even?" Tina asked with curiosity and before I could respond the room went tense as a form of pressure filled it.
My eyes that were on Tina slid back to the Renard as she slowly sat up from her laying down position with the blanket that Tina had thrown over her falling down to expose her ample breasts. But I didn't focus on her breasts as the Renard's eyes had one target.
Her golden-slitted eyes hummed with power so like Hephaestus when she flared her Arcanum was taking my appearance and she spoke. Her voice was like velvet across my ears and I shuddered feeling the same pressure upon my soul just in so much a smaller quantity and power that Freya's Charm had upon my soul meaning that this Renard did have a Charm skill of some sort.
"Master?" She spoke tilting her head to the side in thought as she looked at me and then looked at Tina who stiffened under the powerful gaze of the Renard hybrid who was undoubtedly a demi-god of some sort. But then her eyes tightened as she looked between Tina and I.
"No..." She whispered shaking her head with her large fox ears twitching atop her head and from behind her I saw all nine of her tails hypnotically begin to sway as she laser-focused upon me as she spoke again. "No, not my master, my Lord Husband I am to adore correct?"
She seemingly asked me and I realized the one fuck up with using forced magical taming on monsters without sentience to a truly sentient being.
The sentient being would not want to be a true slave and even if the system ensured their loyalty and obedience, a natural mind would fill in the holes of their circumstances for things that they didnt understand to make things make sense... And with the prior memories of all the soulless husks I fused into the Renard, it's likely that the best thing their mind could come up with for a submissive but still equal woman would be an adoring wife.
I took a breath and then answered slowly. "Just call me by my name Jake, this is my companion in Tina. And your name..." I paused and the Renard tilted her head to the other side before she slowly nodded in agreement.
"I have... The memories of the bodies you fused into the Renard core body, this body's original name will not work especially with how her appearance has changed so much. So Jake, will you please grace me with a new name?" She asked simply as she began to look around the beach house further.
And honestly if while doing the fusion process I gave her the appearance of a certain waifu... There was no reason to give her a different name. So I said firmly. "Your name is to be Tamamo-No-Mae."
Her eyes snapped to me and said with an eyebrow raised. "After the fox spirit of the Far East? I see..." But for a moment as I feared that she wouldn't like it, she instead smiled in a way that made my heart pump as her Charm rose in power before she said softly. "I like it. Very well I shall be your Tamamo."
So while Tina coughed and said she was going to make us some tea I was thinking about how a crucial thing. Tamamo clearly had some form of sentience now as the system tag said she had some sentience derived from the souless husk remaining memories.
'Could she get a falna? And even if so... Is it worth eventually letting people know how powerful she likely is?' I thought before shaking my head and asking Tamamo more pressingly. "Tamamo, what capabilities do you have?"
Tamamo blinked and then responded with almost cutely as she spoke with some honest confusion. "Capabilities in what Jake? I have memories of cooking, cleaning, as well some farming from the previous bodies? Or are you asking for my ability to preform combat?"
Then as I went to answer combat after realizing I should have been more specific. Tamamo put her pointer fingers together as a small flush entered her cheeks as spoke in a rush. "Or are you asking me to serve you within bed already?!"
And so I heard a glass shatter in the kitchen as Tina dropped one of the cups or something and I just face palmed as Tamamo covered her own face as she quickly realized her mind went too far.
'I now have my own group of misfits. I am now a bonafide anime protagonist... Except I actually get laid! And Tamamo won't need much encouraging it seems.' I thought wryly as I finally got some answers from Tamamo about what she could do for combat.
All the while I was considering my plans for the future and I realized I wanted to try to make methods of teleportation, as Tina was very correct in wanting to have some way for Hephaestus to update our Falna's. As I certainly wanted to level up and gain more skills!
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 49
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Tamamo only had some hand-to-hand, and knife combat experience from the Amazon that was fused into her. Other than that, all her previous memories were from people that lived civilian lives before their village or town was overran by roving tribes of surface monsters.
"Hmm... I need to get you into combat then, especially with a Falna." I muttered as I nodded all the while Tina came out of the kitchen with a quickly put-together platter of finger sandwiches of various toppings.
And while I ate a sandwich, I told Tina. "While I figure out what weapon Tamamo uses." I paused and relished a small sandwich before continuing. "When you are finished eating Tina, I want you to head into town and find two things, one being more scrap Grimoire books or even the remains of broken magic swords. Secondly, I want you to find trees that had split in half due to lightning or just naturally split apart into two separate tree trunks." I explained making Tina raise an eyebrow.
And the short stack nodded calmly as she said simply. "Fine, anything else you want me to get?"
I held a hand to my face in thought as I considered my options before shaking my head as in reality. I had plenty of scrap materials remaining from our trip into the Orario dump so I had the materials to do what I planned to do, in order to secure my strip of the beach. So I told Tina. "Nah... I should be fine, if you want to buy something for me to fuse or whatever you are welcome too." I finished.
Tina gave a quick look at Tamamo before shrugging and grabbed a couple finger sandwiches as she announced. "Then I will be going, as its likely that once Hera's goons finish combing through the surrounding forests and Orario itself, they will probably give Melen a quick check-through with how thorough they are typically."
But before Tina left she said strongly. "Jake, we don't know the players here in Melen yet, so let's keep our heads down please." She finished with something akin to teasing in her tone making me snort in amusement as she left the beach house.
After watching me finish my finger sandwiches I held out a minotaur monster stone in front of Tamamo and asked with some curiosity. "Can you eat this?"
And without a blink, Tamamo nodded gently taking the fist-sized crystal from my hand and with a loud crunching noise she bit through it like it was a brittle hard candy with her audibly chewing the monster stone before swallowing it down. Tamamo looked at the monster stone and grimaced as a hand went to her stomach but thankfully before I could react she muttered. "Stone is too strong... I am already full Jake."
'So she can eat and digest them. But the stronger the monster/stronger essence in the magic stone the more filling it is for her.' I thought in realization before saying supportively. "Good, I will make sure you won't be hungry... Honestly I am a bit jealous you can just eat these to get stronger." I said with a bit of wistfulness in my tone as Tamamo's head tilted to the side cutely as she watched me stand up and stretch.
"Anyway let's do a couple of tests." I said helping Tamamo stand up on her feet and I led her to the thick marble slab topped table in the middle of the meeting room that was probably for the Pallas Familia to come together in meetings. "Alright let's test your general strength in an arm wrestling competition, don't try to slam my hands down and instead we will just see if you can resist the push of my own hands," I said as a though hit my mind.
'What if she is already comically stronger than I? I don't want my hands pulped into the damned table.' I thought wryly as Tamamo nodded quickly and sat across from me and although a blush crossed her cheeks briefly as our hands came together she put on a more serious expression as I slowly began to push against her hand.
"Uhm... Are you pushing yet?" Tamamo asked and I felt my masculinity dying on the inside as even as I used half of Falna-backed strength, her face was completely serious and her arm didn't have a hint of flexing in it. And then I realized the truth of things.
I fused literally a dozen women into Tamamo, and assuming the fusion granted them all that strength to say nothing of the lizardman I also fused into her along with the supernatural smithing materials... Her base body was clearly stronger than a level two and probably in the midst of level three!
"Haha... Yes you did great Tamamo, good job." I said with a wry smile before I shook my head and said. "So what kind of weapon do you want to use in battle?" I asked Tamamo who was currently refusing to let go of my hand and actually pouted when I gave her a look to let go so I could flex my stinging hand that couldn't make her own budge.
'Uhm... Gauntlets or large serrated daggers? That's what the Amazon you fused into me used before her soul broke down?" She spoke with a bit of emptiness entering her eyes and I snapped my fingers in front of her face to bring her back to reality.
I stood up and said firmly. "Alright here, you are now a spear wielder. Abandon those memories that cause you pain and embrace your new life. Now come on, we got work to do on the beach." I said as I handed her the shortened swordspear I made in honor of the Nameless King of Dark Souls 3. Sadly it didn't have the true weapons lightning abilities but lightning manipulation stuff was stupidly expensive.
Tamamo now armed with a spear followed me out into the back of the property and I took in the long stretch of beach that I was supposed to be in charge of and I had a number of thoughts to defend it. 'Time to remake the beach's of Normandy Heh." I thought with some amusement as I first fused four plates of monster stones into a dozen trash-broken swords and a charm of detection that would heat up and hiss supposedly around monster stones.
The item in theory was sound... Except for the fact that it would boil over and explode like a firework on your body if you entered the dungeon and the surface monsters of Gekai were naturally bred and thus didn't have a monster stone fueling their bodies so the charm couldn't sense them.
With a quick fusion of all the items, I had my solution for literal monsters washing up on my damned backyard.
[Monster Refining Array] [Placing the tags in the four cardinal directions, all monsters who wander into its radius will be sliced, slashed, and penetrated by the twenty-five swords making up the array of sword formations. During off times, the swords will dissect the monsters to retrieve dead monsters' stones to help fuel the array.] [Costs ten, Floor Ten quality and above monster stones to run per hour. The cost will go up should the array be activated to kill monsters.]
The array was pretty good although I would probably need to replace the swords used in the array as they weren't really rated for killing Floor 20 plus monsters, but as I was placing down the array I checked the flavor text out of some morbid amusement. And I wasn't disappointed at all! [Warning, should a furry in a convincing enough suit run through the array, the array cannot be held liable for someone's terrible fetishes leading to that person's death.]
"Jake, why do you look like you wanna drown yourself?" Tamamo asked with some concern as I looked out into the massive lake of Melen in front of myself and I took a breath and answered deeply.
"People... People I know will get killed by this array." I finished making Tamamo's head tilt to the side in confusion before I shook my head and continued fortifying the actual house with an array that came with a few keys so should anyone enter without a key they would be facing a a barrage of flying knives trying to shoot through themselves.
But thankfully after I finished setting up a good deal of protection Tamamo called out that Tina was coming down the road driving the carriage pulled by my Infant Dragon with the supplies I asked for.
'Whelp lets see if I can make a Vanishing Cabinet from Harry Potter.' I thought with a wide smile seeing the Infant Dragon panting as it pulled a large wagon bed that had three different dual tree trunks that merged together into a base.
But as I came closer I blinked as I saw that Tina had also thrown in a bunch of other living supplies into the back of the wagon with Tina saying proudly. "I got us some stuff so you can fuse our bed to be an enchanted bed!"
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 50
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[Vanishing Cabinet] [Through the use of conjoined twin tree trunks this 'cabinet' has a shared space of existence with its twin cabinet. Should someone or something be within the cabinet when the other's door is opened while the original cabinet's door was still closed, the item or living being may exit the twin cabinet.] [The best way to smuggle drugs, booze, terrorists, and enchanted playboys into magic schools!]
As always the flavor text of things always made me smile wryly and as I looked at the large, thick, and reinforced box with a door on it that was bigger than a refrigerator I realized the major issue with my plan to sneak this back to Orario to Hephaestus so we could teleport back and forth to her.
'How the hell do I get this Vanishing Cabinet to her in the first damned place?' I wondered as I really didn't want to trust some random adventurer's with it.
And then it struck me as I knew Hera was going to have people looking for me within the guards who watched the entrances to Orario. 'I can have Tamamo deliver it as no one knows who she is! Also with a matching pocket watch, we can setup a time for Tina and I to come out of it and into Orario!' I thought triumphantly and nodded as I looked over at Tamamo who perked up at me looking at her.
"Alright Tamamo, we are going to work to make you stronger, and when you eat enough monster stone to equal a good mid-level one in a few days I will need you to deliver this to Orario while following one of the caravans from Melen to Orario." I explained and she bit her lip before nodding.
"Yes Jake... I assume this cabinet is to be delivered to your goddess Hephaestus?" Tamamo finished and then looked pensive as she shifted slightly and spoke nervously. "Uhm Jake?" Tamamo seemingly asked for my attention and I raised an eyebrow in a clear go-ahead with her taking a breath as I held the napping form of Tina in my arms.
"Could I also join your Familia?" Tamamo asked with clear expectation in her voice and I didn't hesitate in answering.
"Yup that's perfectly fine, don't worry about anything." I said cutting away any worries about her state of being part Xeno or whatever. Thankfully with the monster of an Adventurer that was Zald the Gluttony that could eat monster parts and stuff to grow faster, Tamamo could claim to have a similar skill to eat monster stones.
Especially when if you consider it Tamamo's Renard special skill that the cheat fox race can typically get. 'Now just to make sure no one tries to stick her soul in a Killing Stone like they tried to do to Haruhime.' I thought before shaking my head as I pulled Tamamo into a hug and my eyes rolled up in sheer comfort at the enchanted bed I made with the supplies that Tina made.
'Ok major goals while here in Melen. Get girls into sexy swimsuits and have a nice day at the beach... More importantly, find water-based materials to fuse some water themed enchantments. And lastly and most importantly, upgrade from the Infant Dragon mount to the Kelpie's that can run on land along with running on and through water!' I thought while making up a to do list as I considered the things I could make.
'Now besides the Falna, and the enchanted objects that I can wear that don't multiply off of other enchantments. What supplements or whatever can I make to increase my actual stats or my bodies state?' I wondered before I hit on something!
"Xcuse me girls." I whispered making them groan and look up at me a pout as I gently rolled over Tina's form who shamelessly snorted and snuggled into Tamamo's large soft breasts as I spoke up a bit more wryly. "You girls be good for a bit, I am going to go on a quick run for something." I said and the two overly comfortable girls just waved with Tamamo clearly already half asleep.
I quickly got dressed up in some newer clothes and then I went to leave the beach house to look for a store owned by an Asian god or goddess to look for supplements I could fuse. But as I exited the small walled-in gate I heard a voice call out. "Lady Kusanali, our neighbor."
I looked over with some confusion and I first registered the divinity radiating from the white-haired beautiful goddess who was standing beside the person who talked. In a young elf woman with ample curves, green hair, darker green eyes and was wearing a tightly fitting hunting outfit that looked like Kelpi leather that would remove the water resistance, people would feel while in water.
"Hello neighbors, I just moved in today." I said nodding my head respectfully in their direction and I continued calmly. "My name is Jake Barriss, and are you two a Familia?" I asked to open up a conversation even as I very much noted down the name Kusanali and recognized her from a land she wasn't supposed to be from.
But honestly... For all I knew, the name Kusanali could literally be a goddess in the massive Hindu religion who just now looked like Rukkhadevata.
The elf took a step forward and honestly... As she gracefully laid a hand on her chest and began introducing herself, I could see the same grave confidence and grace in Hera's Albion that it was uncanny. "My name is Elanor! Captain of the Kusanali Familia and your neighbor as of now." She finished while giving me a look and then saying more gently. "I can see you are new to Melen Jake, do you need directions?" She asked and I blinked before nodding and saying I was looking for medicinal herbs and such.
Her eyes went kinda unfocused as it looked like she was in deep thought before she smiled and said. "Ahh I see, then in that case. Then you will likely want the Bazaar at the main beach front. Would you like me to escort you?" She offered but it was clear that she wasn't all to enthused but was offering it out of courtesy.
So I gracefully declined her offer as I said gently. "Thank you Elanor, I should be fine and it was nice to meet you as well Lady Kusanali," I said nodding to the silent goddess who was staring at me... With entirely too much intensity.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 51
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
I quickly beat a retreat as Kusanali was looking at me with the patented 'bad touch' goddesses would have. When they noticed something that fits into their interest line entirely too closely and thus they were compelled by their very own domains to satisfy their own curiosity.
'Alright, now to make some fantasy level Protein Powder, Creatine, Berberine, Omega-3, and other supplements...' I thought with a wry smile as memories of my health nut family members in my past life endlessly going over how their supplements were going to make them immortal went through my head. And of course memories of them saying all the time how the medical world was completely evil.
Either way, I thankfully knew the properties and main ingredients used in 'natural' supplements so I quickly made my way over to the Bazaar and began picking up said items.
The Bazaar was... Utterly massive though honestly. It was like like they decided to do a large outside mall in one area and then said fuck it and then decided to do eight more similar-sized malls around it and it was easily noticed how there were nine distinctly different shopping centers.
As each shopping center was owned by five separate Familia's who were supposedly the strongest in Melen. With four of the Familia's owning two different shopping centers in different spots as they tried to control the market of goods going through the major commercial hub.
"Just further proof of Melen being more money-focused then Orario's strength-based outlook." I muttered as I saw every single person haggling for the prices on the stuff they bought and I quickly realized that rather than strength speaking here. It was the intent they would use in bargaining for items and would either walk away leaving the item they clearly wanted, or they would pay the merchant's price.
It was pretty novel as there wasn't really much haggling to do in Orario besides in pawn stores and what not. But as I went to one of the nicer exotic stands selling natural herbs my lips twitched hearing the prices the busty amazon was proudly announcing.
"Come on big boy. I see you in that nice clothes that are clearly from a crafting Familia of Orario, you saying... You simply cannot afford a bit of Valis to support my business?" The Amazon simpered with her arms going under her ample bust and lifting it up to my eyes to distract me.
And in return I bluntly stated. "Yeah I am from Orario... But this isn't fucking Orario with Orario prices, I will give you five hundred valis for the whole lot."
Her seductive appearance thinned as she spoke more seriously with her amber eyes tightening on my form with intent to do battle. "I will only accept seven hundred and fifty at the least!"
I reached into my pocket and pulled out six, hundred Valis coins and held them out to her and said with a small smile. "Six hundred and I will come back to you for any fish oil and ashwagandha I need."
With the offer of a repeat customer and still making some profit the Amazon grinned and swiped the money with a blur of speed that told me that she was likely level three! And then she happily put the herbs and the bottle of fish oil into a paper-like bag before handing it to me. With her then waving me along, so the next customer could begin the battle of words with her.
'Alright got some supplements. And I can probably use monster stones as the catalyst to make them magically potent along with a Golden Egg as well... Is there anything else I should get?' I wondered before a series of loud shouting hit my ears.
"The flesh auction is here! The flesh auction is here!" A series of shouts hit the surroundings and I saw several people grimace and at the news making me raise an eyebrow as I wondered what the hell that meant so I asked one of the merchants who didn't have a customer after slipping him some Valis.
"Never heard of the Flesh Auction have you... Probably for the best honestly." The old dwarf merchant muttered as he knocked back a drink from his flask before shuddering at the strong taste and continuing while not making eye contact with me. "Basically a bunch of evil gods in some group named Evilus before they got kicked out of Orario cut off the goddesses Libertas arms and legs and using their own domains made her batshit insane..."
The dwarf took a breath as I absorbed that insanity and then continued "Anyway the goddess of free will, now under Evilus's control strips the free will of others using her domain in some kind of magical ritual and so the Flesh Auction is Evilus selling slaves they gathered from around the world to fuel their god's opulent lives as they are killed on sight in Orario so they cannot make real money except for here in Melen."
For a long moment I wondered why in the hell the gods and goddesses of Melen would allow them here and as though answering my unasked question the Dwarf answered bluntly. "It's all in the coin young man... Gold runs through Melen faster than the blood spilled in the alleyways. But the auction is safe to go to... If you have a strong stomach anyway and hey if you have the coin you could buy a tamed monster. No need to buy an actual person" He finished with a shrug.
'Maybe I should go take a look?' I wondered before handing over some more valis with a muttered thanks as I left towards the supposed Flesh Auction to go see if there was anything of value.
The Flesh Auction was held in the shopping area where the Plutus Familia held it in an iron girp and it didn't take me long to realize that Plutus was at some level an evil god as he was selling crazy shit like aphrodisiac's directly on the street. Along with other stuff like cursed objects that would harm the user or others in their use.
And finally there were whores working their wares hurriedly trying to reach the 'quota' that Plutus had imposed on all who entered his domain of wealth to ply their trade. Not that Plutus wanted a direct cut no... He wouldn't take a cut if you actually made the quota of wealth acquired but if you failed to meet your quota... His enforcers would beat you half to death and take all the money you made that month!
The so-called Flesh Auction was taking place in a large open courtyard with several covered wagons holding the 'wares' pulled into the courtyard and the merchants selling their wares would drag the person or monster being sold onto a raised platform so people could judge it.
And as I came in they were already selling a trio of burly surface minotaurs with blue glowing eyes showing that they were tamed. To be used as workers in harsh menial tasks like mining and other things.
'Hmmm... Some tamed minotaurs that are fused with some stuff could make a damned good tank honestly.' I thought logically and then my degenerate mind went to making the minotaur into a monster girl and I shoved the thought down as the minotaurs being sold were very clearly male anyway.
"And now for a real treat!" The announcer spoke as he waved to his side and from another cart that was smaller than the previous cart that held the minotaurs came a busty milf of a catgirl with black hair, yellow eyes and almost carbon copy of herself that was clearly her daughter.
"These lovely ladies were liberated from being the handmaidens of a goddess of a weak Familia in the southern deserts... And yes my dear patrons, they are mother and daughter with the mother still having her Falna and she is level three! So not only could you gentlemen and ladies buy two lovely treats but the mother could act as a hidden guard so long as you don't piss off a real Familia Haha!" The announcer introduced, and the ladies who were steadfastly staring at the ground didn't move an inch.
Their plight reminded me of something very powerful from canon. Freya could mind control all of Orario, whether it be gods, goddesses, and all the adventurers to believe that Bell was her adventurer all along and was never part of Hestia's familia despite Bell constantly breaking the level up record and winning a War Game.
The power a god or goddess could pull on should they not piss off Ouranous with their antics was baffling and something I needed to be wary of. Besides just enemy adventurers coming onto my path.
"The bidding for these lovely ladies starts at fifty thousand Valis and each increase in bidding is at least one additional thousand Valis!" The announcer finished and the shouting began for the two while I bought a pamphlet from one of the workers for the list of wares that were going to be sold later on as well.
And dear gods the list was degenerate.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel
Chapter 52
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Looking through the list of people and monsters being sold my face was a blank mask as I pushed down a desire to start swinging on the people of the Plutus Familia. As they were merely the enablers for the terrible shit I was seeing.
[Elf Female Virgin- 13 years old, trained by the Goddess Artemis in hunting. Lvl 1 ] [Male Boaz- 15 years old, trained by amazons to fight.] [Cat Beastkin Daughter and Mother combo 17-33, Mother is lvl 3 and was captured after the Osial Familia butchered the Sekhmet Familia in the Southern Deserts.]
The list went on describing the people being sold and of course monsters being sold as well. Even the offspring of mundane animals that had been forcibly mated with monsters and their resulting weaker but much more manageable combinations were being sold.
'Like what the actual fuck is with these people.' I thought with disgust... And admittedly with some morbid interest as there was a whole paragraph of an advertisement for female tamed minotaurs that could be milked for their extremely high-quality milk. With their milk actually having some magical properties in helping bones grow stronger and help them heal faster should they be broken!
But my thoughts were cut as I began reading about the major prize of this auction this month being a captured Mermaid which... I was actually very tempted to buy! As mermaids freely given blood were so potent a healing agent, that they could literally reattach limbs within seconds should the limbs be put back on their stumps!
"These lovely ladies are going for a great price! The daughter is still pure and the mother is obviously a great breeder even if you don't trust her to protect you! So can I hear five hundred thousand Valis now?" The caller called out and the crowd made loud whispering noices before a voice called out in turn.
"Five ten!"
"Five ten going once... Twice... Oh five twenty?!"
My lips twitched seeing the price of the daughter and mother being sold being all but what I had managed to sneak out of Orario in my storage and honestly as much as these black-haired cat girls were hot. I couldn't afford them. And seeing the supposed price of the mermaid being a base five million Valis and expected to greatly rise in price?
Yeah I was out of my depths... I was too weak to stomp around in Orario and have fun. But here in Melen, I was just too damned poor to do whatever I wanted as well!
So dejected I walked away from the Flesh Auction without buying anything as I headed back home with my head filled with what ifs... Like those cat girls. Such a damned waste honestly.
But my thoughts of cat girl Oyakadon were cut through as I sidestepped a Pallum that was going to bump into me and probably try to pickpocket me or something.
Undeterred and just ignoring the street rat as I wasn't going to just kill the... The short monster here in the middle of the streets I continued on with my hate for fucking Pallums only strengthen but as I turned into a side road leading out of the Plutus Familia a gruff voice spoke out.
"Hmm fresh blood to Melen I see." I looked to the side and instantly I could see trouble was afoot.
As the source of the voice was a shorter weaselly looking human with a missing eye due to a right swollen scar from from a blade crossing over his face from a knife. And he was walking alongside me from his perch on a patio leading to a brothel.
"What do you want?" I asked bluntly and the man smiled with darkened chipped teeth entering my eyes making me grimace as this world. As stuck in fantasy as it was, did literally have proper hygiene items due to the gods not wanting the mortals to smell like shit in their own words.
And with that nasty smile the man said happily. "I saws you going to the Flesh Auction. You had so much confidence in going, buts you are weak... So you have money instead Haha!" He cackled and silently in my sleeve that covered up my hand I palmed a long knife from my inventory that I could easy throw into his face should something happen.
But instead of just robbing me he continued on. "Yes! You have some money so come, the Plutus Familia has special shops over here, come see the wares!"
I blinked as the... Obviously mentally fucked up dude was actually aggressively pulling me in as a customer and looking around I noticed that a couple whores or otherwise people were approaching some people in better clothes like me as well too. Just a lot more subtly than this pyscho...
'What's it with me and getting the short psychopaths in this world.' I thought tiredly before I nodded and said evenly. "Alright, lead the way then."
Although I wasn't exactly in a rush to buy anything. In reality, I did need to sell some stuff and an official shop even one being held up by an evil god was just a source of money.
So the man quickly led me to the so called hidden shop... Which in reality was a large building the size of like four or five convenience stores put together and was at the heart of the Plutus Familia's territory and closer to the beach front.
"Welcome to the Red Manor, we sell magical treasures, slaves, magical reagents, and the Plutus Familia also offers protection services in loaning out Familia members to guard you for a time." As soon as I was brought to the building a scantily clad woman in a tight-fitting toga was assigned to show me around. And obviously, drain my wallet of all my coin.
It wasn't a bad tactic as the girl knew what the store had and when I asked about a couple of things she concisely answered me and looking around I saw other 'guests' in the private store were pawing at their assigned girls while other servant's brought the items they wanted for the guests own servants to pack them away.
"Hmm, so do you have any reagents with ties to life force, healing, or otherwise potent magical herbs and such?" I asked and the woman nodded as she quickly listed out some materials and of which I only recognized a couple from being from the dungeon's deeper forest and jungle-themed floors.
And lastly, I asked another pressing question. "And do you guys purchase things as well?" I asked after spending the majority of my money in buying up a good amount of herbs and such at a decent price here as I was buying them all but wholesale.
As funny enough... When an evil god's Familia runs a shop using mind-broken slaves and often stole or slaughters people to get their materials and wares. That obviously kept overhead low and allowed them to confidently sell stuff for what I considered a very nice price. Or that could still be me still used to Orario prices.
"Yes customer, though if the items are weapons, potions or otherwise items that will face the rigors of combat, they will need to be appraised before we will offer a price." She said bluntly and I nodded and bade my goodbyes as I made some plans to mass produce some decent swords and armor to sell so I could restock my funds as I did have a lot of basic ore and such I could fuse to make some lower grade weapons that level twos and some fresh level threes wouldn't be ashamed to be using.
Notes:
I've got a lot more chapters and stories on my other sites such as Questionable Questing, Webnovel, and Scribblehub. It's a journey to transfer everything over so please have patience or just go to those sites to continue reading at your own pace.
Also, I do have a Patreon but I respect the rules of this site and won't be linking it, however, if you wish to read advanced chapters or commission more chapters or new stories please go to the other sites and follow the links there.
Azazyel