"Lady Hestia, do you know where I could find the property management center of the city?" Henryk called Hestia as she was exiting the basement.
"The guild manages that" She rushed out of there. She was almost late for her shift. She refused to resign from that part-time job at the potato snack stall. She was saying something about not leaving all the work to her children.
Henryk walked upstairs to where some of the others slept. Two would keep watch from inside the church, changing with another pair each day.
"Has Olympia returned yet?" He asked them calmly. 'Hopefully she didn't cripple the guy. I had her activate her skill with Flora as the target, just in case. Flora can Only heal her, so that negates the negative side of the skill's text while giving both all the benefits. But then... *sighs* I just hope she didn't break something irreversibly'
"No, she is still outside, father" It was Gracie and Blanc's turn last night.
'This co-'
"Did I miss something?" Olympia excitedly entered through the creaking front doors. She has a certain glow to her now.
"Why's everyone looking at me like that?" Olympia asked with a tilted head.
"Did you wash yourself this morning?" Henryk said, looking at some crusted blood on a blind-spot on her shirt.
"Yes, thoroughly" Olympia said, only getting more confused. 'Why would dad ask that?' Tracing where he looked, she was horrified to find traces of Bete's blood on her, blood he shed in helpless agony.
"So, let's talk abought your clothing" Henryk sighed while pinching the bridge of his nose, eyes closed.
"What about it?" She did not know what Henryk meant by this sentence.
"Dad? Why did your eyes change? They're worrying me" Olympia took a step back fearfully.
"Ouros, Blanc, take a look at this" He toggled off the 'recent activities' part and gave them a look at it.
(Line Break)
Name: Olympia Williams
Location: Home/Hestia Familia Church's Hall
Condition: Normal
Recent activities: (AN: This is hidden from Ouros and Blanc)
Ate dinner at the Hostess of Fertility.
Dragged Bete Loga's unconscious form to an unknown part of the city and beat him black and blue.
Delivered Bete Loga's unconscious, relatively unharmed body to the Twilight Manor.
Roughed up some guards and executives when they wanted to hold her in place for questioning.
(Line Break)
"Olympia" Henryk sighed. His opportunistic, almost predatory smile did not make sense with the sigh. "You not breaking any of his bones makes us able to exploit the situation for our benefits"
Olympia's smile became its brightest at that moment.
'She's prepared enough. Though, he will have to stay true to his word' "We'll go talk to the Loki familia today. Have a change of clothes and get some rest at home until we finish our business at the guild"
"Yes!" She said energetically.
Scarlet was standing on the side, staring at them from a distance. That ended in her being dragged into their conversations by Gladia. She felt like she may be accepted by them.
(Line Break)
"Miss Eina, we need to talk about buying some land. Do you have time for that? We would like to see their price tags for now" Bell was saying the lines Henryk had him practice.
(Minor flashback, minutes before going out of the church)
"Do I need to be there? And do I need to be the one talking?" Bell wanted to go to the dungeon to get stronger today.
"Yes, captain" Henryk said while nodding sagely. "As captain, you need to take on the responsibilities of one"
"You could have been the captain" Bell slumped over with a droopy expression. "You seem to know what a captain needs to do and act like" He whined.
"You wanted to be a hero, right? A hero also leads their companions" Henryk smirked in a teasing way. "You need to get used to things like these"
"Is it true? Does a hero need this type of skill?" Bell's eyes immediately lit aflame as soon as he heard the word hero. The teasing passed by him without a trace.
".... Captain, not everything anyone says means the truth" Henryk shook his head.
"Your words do~!" Bell was starting to hop his way to the guild. 'Henryk is helping me become a hero! What I thought of him is right! He is both the brother and closest aid for my epic!'
'This rabbit will be the end of me with his childlike antics' Henryk sighed and let Bell be. '... Wait. He's still an actual underaged child...' Henryk let that thought simmer a little more.
(Flashback End)
'It sure is Mr Williams's doing. Bell is not this good at any of what he is talking about' Eina sported a genuine smile for half a second before her professional smile took back over. "Follow me" She guided them to a booth.
"In which district is the land that interests you?" Eina laid the first question before them.
"We want lands that surround our current familia home" She then told them to wait as she brought the necessary materials from the guild's archives.
"Did I do good, Henryk?" Bell was getting fired up. His actions made him feel like he was the true captain of his familia.
"For now, yes. You're doing better than I expected you to in your first time, congratulations" Henryk complimented him as he gave him a pat on his back. He watched as Bell swayed from side to the other in contagious joy.
Henryk was not surprised by Bell's overachievement, but he did not know he would go that far beyond his expectations. Henryk expected him to fumble a few words here and there, but he did not.
"You need to stay focused, though. The business isn't done yet" He wared Bell just before Eina came back.
Eina entered the room with a thick stack of papers in her arms. She arranged copies of the district's maps. They had details on where the boundaries of properties there start and end.
"Look through them and see what suits you. You can take your time to look at them then call me when you are done" She left them to attend to her desk at the guild's entrance hall.
"Look here, captain. What do you think of this?" Henryk drew a rectangular with the church in the middle of it, a little off-centered.
"But is that not too big? Would the price be something we could manage?" Bell looked at them. Even with his limited experience, he knew that they might be pricey with how many Henryk highlighted.
"Well, we came to put a goal in our minds. We see the prices, we go on a little murder spree, on monsters of course, then we see how much valis we still need to gather. Rinse and repeat until we gather enough of it" Henryk thought of utilizing Ouros's [Claim]. But due to safety reasons, they will limit where that is used.
"But would that not take long? These lands may be sold by the time we try to purchase them" Bell voiced his concern.
"Don't worry, captain. I'm sure we can gather enough before many of them, if any at all, were sold. Although, the method's risky"
"How... risky?" Bell's instinct screamed at him.
"Very. It's only because of Ray and Gladia's participation that I may even think of using this as a viable option. What do you say about facing a horde of monsters instead of the Goliath?" Henryk wanted to know how facing a large number of monsters at once felt. Facing as many as fifteen to seventeen monsters at once felt kind of nice to him.
Eina's glasses barely managed not to crack when she heard him casually discussing killing the Goliath, a level 4 monster rex, while they were two level 1s and some monsters.
"An adventure!" Bell saw an adventuring opportunity. Nobody knows how he saw that opportunity, but no one was going to sway him away from it now.
"Captain! Calm down!" Henryk squeezed the muscles that stretch on from behind the neck towards the shoulders' joints, and he squeezed hard.
"Aw aw aw aw stop it aw aw!" Bell started feeling pain like no other at that moment. He broke free easily, though.
"We can go on that adventure tomorrow" Henryk said. "I need to do something else after this"
Bell nursed his shoulders. He gave Henryk a playful "hurt" look and went back to look at the map.
"Henryk, what will we do with all that space again?" Bell wondered. His thoughts did not reach that far into the matter. He only thought of their current members, including Henryk's sons and daughters, the few members that would join later and a small garden for the blue papilioes and purple moths.
"You see, captain, we need to account for a further future than just a few months from now. Our familia wouldn't stop at adventurers. I have a good number of monsters I want to add to our ranks. Think how cool it would be if we got war shadows, silverbacks, hell hounds, bugbears, mad beetles, hard armoreds, infant dragons or even the cuties like needle rabbits and almirajs to join us. Heck, we don't even know if a Goliath could be tamed yet" Henryk enthusiastically said. The possibilities were endless.
"I am bothered with the way you worded it, Henryk" He was particularly bothered by the mention of the rabbit monsters.
"Forget that, captain. The length and width of the land we aim for would allow us to build a pretty big house and have space for a decently big garden. The house should have one floor for now, going up to three at most. Every floor should contain 15 bedrooms for two people each. The men and women's rooms are going to be separated. Of course, we may also rebuild the church as lady Hestia's place. It will be the most guarded. A separate building should be built for training. Another would have the living necessities. They may have passages in-between to make it easier to go from one to the other without getting hit by the burning sun" Henryk sported a fond smile. He was imagining Flora and the rest fly from plant to the other, trying all the different nectars they had.
"Henryk? I know you love your children, but isn't this excessive" Bell was dumbfounded by how much Henryk is willing to give to his children.
"How so?" Henryk asked.
"The garden, at least according to your drawing, is about 50% or more of the space we are going to buy"
"If Flora wants to cooperate, it'll also double as our farmland. The trees, the bushes and the herbs in the spaces around them. All will be edible or sellable" Henryk pointed at places where placing small farming plots would not inconvenience them. "Well? What do you say, captain?"
"It looks appealing as a plan. I am just unsure if we should buy all this land" Bell said.
"We'll use it eventually. It's also better than allowing someone to buy it just so they can overprice it once we needed it" Henryk said.
"That is... true" Bell thought over it for a good minute. "We would need this much land if we kept adding members to our familia" They called Eina in.
"Are there any other buyers aside from us?" Bell asked.
"No. There is currently no one else that wants any of these properties" Eina answered.
"What about the prices?" Henryk asked.
They negotiated the prices for a few minutes afterwards. They settled on approximately 5 million valis total.
(AN: I've failed to elaborate on the land's size they were aiming for when this chapter first came out. Considering the area calculation done by Drite77 on VS Battles Wiki, requested by Peter1129, Orario is approximately 82.723 kilometers squared. I did my own research on that and came to a close enough conclusion of approximately 81.50 kilometers squared. Now that we determined Orario's approximate size, let's specify the land Henryk marked. The area that Henryk had them mark is approximately 1 kilometer squared (or 0.386 miles squared, or 226,757.370 Ottars squared, with a squared Ottar coming at exactly 4.41 meters squared. Yes, I went through the calculations to convert that seriously). I hope that made it a bit clearer 👀)
(Line Break)
"Has Fey returned yet?" Henryk asked them first thing after returning to the church.
"She didn't, pa" Gladia answered him.
"Haaah" Henryk checked her using [Observe]. "She's sleeping while enveloping miss Hiryute in her feathers, it seems. They're currently in a park somewhere in the city. I will let her play until she was needed for something or until tonight" Having time with a friend was something she needed to experience. This was a prime chance for that as Tiona was a friend she made all by herself.
"Get ready. We're going to the Twilight Manor" It was afternoon now. They are probably awake. Henryk had the courtesy to give them some breathing room to recover from a hangover that was surely making them feel as though they were treading through a particularly deep swamp because of how sluggish they would be, some of the mat least.
"We were prepared beforehand, father. We were anticipating this moment" Gracie told him.
"Then let's go" Henryk marched with the kobold siblings close behind him. 'Bete Loga, I will make you face some consequences for making fun of my captain'
Bell decided to go to Welf's place and have a chat while Henryk solved his family's problem. He didn't know that what Olympia did was a minor reason in the grand scheme of things.
In Henryk's perspective, Bell had better things to do than to argue with Loki over settlement for their grave mistake in the dungeon.
(Line Break)
"Halt! Identify yourselves and the purpose behind your visit!" One of the guards standing at the manor's gates questioned them.
"We're members of the Hestia familia. We came here to meet your goddess and talk about what Bete Loga did yesterday" Henryk replied as politely as he could.
The guard entered to ask if Loki would like to meet them while the other guard stayed at his post.
"Welcome to our familia's home, the Twilight Manor. If you would follow me inside" The guard came back with another member. The other member would guide them to a guest room and Loki would come later.
Henryk was the only one sitting down. The others were standing behind him in their kobold forms to make an imposing image. Even Ray, with her feather armor on, was standing there, although she purposefully stood in the back. Her cloak was discarded for good, as her poster as a tamed monster was out for enough days to not freak civilians who saw her walking in the street.
Loki came mere minutes later. She was accompanied by Gareth, who sat on the sofa beside hers, drinking. He would not be drunk from this little, so he was allowed to.
"Hey there, hunk" Loki was not surprised by the figures standing behind Henryk. She did her research on Hestia's two children. As he was a tamer, those are his tamed kobolds and siren as announced by the guild.
Loki's greetings weirded Henryk a little. He felt uncomfortable hearing it. "Good afternoon, lady Loki" His children followed in his example.
"Enough with all that polite talk, yeah? I'm not one to mind it" Loki said in a casual tone.
"Really?" Henryk asked for confirmation.
"Really" Loki gave the confirmation.
"Fine then, Loki" Henryk dropped the honorifics.
"So? What brought Loli Big-Boobs's children to me?" She was going to ask them about Tiona later. This thing with Bete sounded much more troublesome. Truthfully, anything related to a drunk Bete did. He arrived bruised all over, but nothing beyond that. He was treatable and would have been able to return to the dungeon and his other duties in about a week at most.
"Well, sorry in advance. I will be insulting him" Henryk said unapologetically.
"Go on" She wanted to know what he did to them. It would be good for her if they would keep silent about it.
"You might have forgotten because of how drunk you were yesterday, Loki, but the asshole made fun of our struggle to survive minotaurs that your members failed to contain" Henryk was seething, but he contained himself. "He belittled our effort to survive them even though he and others should be apologizing for letting them come upon us in the upper floors. That's not to mention the fact that he also went on to spoil our little celebration of our survival"
"Bete Freakin' Loga..." Loki groaned as she leaned back and threw her head on the headrest, covering her face with her hands. She indeed forgot that that did happen yesterday. She leaned forward again. "What do you want?"
"A little favor would do, something when we need assistance or have a thing we want from you" Henryk said with a poker face.
"You aren't gonna ask me to hand over someone or something essential to our familia, would you?" Loki's eyes slowly opened wide, making Gareth sit alert in his seat.
"I wouldn't like the responsibility that comes with either, considering our small familia" Henryk shrugged. "It isn't like you'd hand it over quietly either. I fully expect you to go the route of a War Game if we ask for a "favor" of that caliber"
"Hmm" Loki's eyes went back to normal. She assumed their growth not to be able to catch up as a familia, and with the lack of knowledge of how quickly Henryk's children grow, she agreed thinking that there was nothing big to lose here. It was always better to close things before they escalated, she knew from her experiences. If they forced Henryk to accept other terms when these terms seemed reasonable, their public image would take a hit.
Loki went to his room. She slammed the door open then dragged him out. She dragged him out by the ears, ignoring his screams along the way.
Once they reached the room, she threw him in the meddle.
"What was that all about?! Huh?! I was chilling in my ro-...!!" Bete started shouting at a still open-eyed Loki. He only then noticed that Olympia was there. He shuddered. His memories may have been hazy, but his instincts remained sharp. His entire body went rigid when he laid eyes on Olympia.
"Bete Fucking Loga, apologize for saying what you said yesterday" Loki was standing beside him, arms folded over her non-existent board of a "chest". "It was inappropriate of you to belittle others' strength before giving them the chance to grow first"
(Line Break)
"Ray, why were you silent all this time?" Henryk was worried about how she felt a tad distant during what happened moments ago.
"I felt like I had no place to talk. This was your family's problem, and I am not a part of the family yet" Ray was feeling distant in this new place. Although Henryk treats her well, she still had not been with him long enough to interfere in his family's problems.
Henryk stopped completely. He turned to her and held her firmly by the shoulders.
"Look me in the eyes, Ray" Henryk said. Ray's eyes hesitantly drifted until they met his.
"Ray, you're misunderstanding something here. You're as much a part of our family as Scarlet is. She's new to us, but she's already a daughter to me. A lover who I'm getting married to later counts as family. It isn't a matter of whether you can be considered one, it's that you're already one. You're always welcome to see yourself as a part of our family" Henryk said with unwavering eyes, his words unfaltering.
"Really?" She was hesitant to accept it. It was a new feeling to her. While the xenos certainly are her kin, it was more of a community instead of a family, unlike how Henryk considered his adopted sons and daughters. This was a completely new experience for her.
"Come here, big girl!" Henryk brought her close to him. They walked like that back to the church. Henryk was walking with Ray hugging him closely, which looked weird to the onlookers with the disproportionate height differences of this family.
Ray was reconsidering some things.
Flora came by some time later to find him and was enjoying her stay atop Henryk's head for now, buzzing happily.