(This chapter was uploaded on Sunday 14/April/2024 6:00 PM, timezone GMT+3)
Just a quick update. This is how Eucleia looked in a white dress she wore when she was around 12-13 years old.
I imagined her to be like this for over a year and a half and was lucky enough to find a picture that captures it perfectly just a few weeks ago.
('1), ('2), ('3), etc. means that there is some explaining for the thing in the notes at the end of the chapter.
"..." small moment of silence
"Talking"
[Dialogue] (What language it is: Accent if necessary)
"He-" Someone was interrupted.
'Thinking'
{Skills' names, chanting, spell keys and spells' names}
(PoV)
(Flashback)
Don't shy from commenting on typos and/or inconsistencies. That and/or suggesting a modification to certain things that didn't make sense to you.
I hope you enjoy reading this chapter.
(Line Break)
(3rd person PoV)
Nephelont now stood at the door of the mess hall. They took a bit longer due to Eucleia asking him to walk slower, but they were not late by any means. When the kids saw their father's arms being preoccupied by carrying Eucleia, Clementina started anticipating one of the memories she saw of Nephelont and Eucleia's excessive, albeit unusual, ways to show their affection.
And to her pleasant surprise, Nephelont actually kicked the double door open. That startled most people sitting close to the door.
"WHO IS THE NOISY AS-... Sorry, I will stay silent, sir" One of the people was about to call Nephelont an asshole before he suddenly recognized him and recalled what happened the last time he did that.
It did not end well for this person, with them being totally ignored until they humiliated themselves by receiving a one-sided beating in front of everyone.
'What was that?' Nephelont wondered if that person had some trauma or fear of him in some way. It slipped his mind later as it was of no real importance to him.
The others were silent for many reasons. One of the reasons was that they felt too nauseous seeing Nephelont and Eucleia showing up like that. They were not free of jealousy and envy, either. Many singles were present, especially a very particular guy.
"Ours is that table, the one with our parents" Eucleia pointed a finger without looking and still nailed the table.
'Amazing...' Nephelont was surprised by the display of precision. He walked up to the table under everyone's gazes and stood there, confusion painting his face.
"Good morning" He was greeted by a beaming Hephaestus. Her smile could not have been any wider or any brighter. She has done it. She sapped Welf of everything he could give in the forge. Making this special pair of scissors drained him for all he is worth. As for Hephaestus, she was riding the rush that came with her new achievement. They were a pair of scissors that cut through adamantite with ease. She put them away after they were done with breakfast.
"Good morning. And before I take anyone's spot, how are the chairs arranged?" He saw enough chairs around the table but assumed that the rest of those chairs' owners were away for some reason and could return at any given time.
"Take a seat nearby me. I want you to sit by my side now that you are back. And it honestly was your chair back then too" Bell was putting his expectations on Nephelont sitting beside him. His fantasies were shattered to pieces by none other than Ais. She got up from the chair on his left side before dragging Nephelont to some chair and sitting down with him. They sat with a gap of 2 chairs away from Bell.
'I was denied my happiness' Bell was now downcast.
"You leave me no choice, Ais" Bell channeled his inner child for once in a long time. He picked Ais out of her chair and sat in it peacefully, as if nothing was wrong with what he did.
"Bell!" Meteria swooped in and swiftly removed her son from the chair. She sat with him back at the head of the table. She winked at Ais, to which she nodded in appreciation.
'I will do it!' Bell conceded to them today. He resolved to try again tomorrow, a flame burning around him.
'Cute!' Meteria wanted to ruffle his hair, but the others saw enough for a single breakfast. Bell had a dignity to keep as the familia's captain. She wanted to save him some of it, if he did not do something again.
"You are being rowdy. Quiet down" Alfia came in. She was bothered by all the unnecessary noise they were making at the table. She totally ignored the nostalgic sight of Nephelont 'escorting' Eucleia into the hall, at least outwardly.
The plates arrived and Ais was stretching a hand with a spoon for Nephelont.
Nephelont looked at the spoon, at Ais, and back at the spoon. He then looked back at Ais and pointed at the spoon.
"Say ah~" Ais said with her stoic face showing the tiniest of smiles. Ais was enjoying this.
'Why? Am I a kid?' Nephelont kept staring at the spoon in denial.
In response, Ais brought the spoon closer to his mouth. By now, Eucleia got off his lap and into the chair on his other side.
'Ugh! Whatever!' Nephelont's mind was overloaded, leading it to short-circuit. He did what he did on the spur of the moment and chomped down on the spoon.
To his pleasant surprise, he enjoyed the weirdly soup-like salad. He definitely knew that it was meant to be a salad, but it was more liquid than solid in most of its ingredients.
*CRICK* A crunchy sound came out when Ais took the spoon out of Nephelont's mouth. The spoon now consisted of only its handle.
"This tastes amazing!" Nephelont praised it before he started shamelessly opening his mouth to receive more of it from Ais. He was shocked when he received nothing but blank stares from others.
"What did I do?" Nephelont looked around with bewildered eyes. He was wondering why people looked at him like that. When Ais showed him the spoon's handle she was holding, he immediately knew why it was so crunchy. He bit off the spoon's bowel.
"Ah~" Nephelont shamelessly brushed it off and was asking Ais to continue pampering him. He was shocked to receive the next mouthful of food from elsewhere, from his other side. A pouting Eucleia was not-so-secretly upset when another person was spoiling Nephelont in her presence.
"That was my role, mother Ais!" She was upset that the one pampering him was not her. Her left eye was overflowing with some unknown urge.
"Cute" Ais jokingly covered her mouth with her left hand, as her right hand still held a spoon's handle, and said something to catch Eucleia off guard. She succeeded. It was not because of what Ais did, though. It was a success because Nephelont was doing the same with an astonished expression.
"Don't say that!" Eucleia playfully punched his shoulder. But the problem was that her strength increased during these six years due to training while his did not at all. She almost broke his shoulder.
'That's definitely a bruise. Allen, do I heal quickly from bruises?' Nephelont asked for the future, to know if bruises were dangerous or not for the current him.
'You do. Your current bruise will heal within a day' Allen answered him, relieving him of the worry that, for days, every move of his arm will cause him pain.
"Now, now, we should continue eating~" Eucleia fed Nephelont another spoonful. Nephelont kept enjoying the meal. Until halfway through the meal, that is. He then took note of the fact that Eucleia had not eaten anything yet.
'How shameful. I should make sure she eats something too' He was blushing a bit as he cut a bite-sized bit of steak and gave it to Eucleia.
Eucleia felt somewhat self-conscious about the fact she was over-indulgent in pampering Nephelont that she forgot to eat herself. Nonetheless, she ate what Nephelont gave her.
"This feels like heaven!" Eucleia tried whispering it, failing to control the volume of her voice. Some of the closer tables heard her words. And among them was one troublesome individual.
"Oh! Right! Where are Raya and Ludwig? I don't see mother Tiona either" Nephelont finally noticed their absence.
"We are late! Why didn't you wake me up?" A voice was heard through the unhinged doors. The owner of the voice was screaming at another person.
"Like you don't know! I was trying to do just that for hours! Shut up and go faster! We are already late!" Another voice rebutted them. The two were arguing on their way to the mess hall.
Raya and Ludwig were running pretty quickly. They reached the mess hall and beelined to the table the rest of their family was sitting on.
"Those kids! Aren't they adorable?" Tiona appeared behind Bell without him noticing. He was too absorbed in the scene that was unfolding between Nephelont and Eucleia to have noticed Tiona walking up to him from the side.
"You scared me there, Tiona. Your seat was prepared for you" Bell was openly sulking at the fact because he wanted Nephelont to sit beside him and could not get it to happen. He also was upset that Ais instigated it this time.
"So, can I assume that you're mine for the day?" Tiona rested her head on her interlocked fingers. She looked at Bell and he looked away, burning. He understood exactly what Tiona wanted and it made him flush.
'Not in front of everyone!' Bell flushing was because she said it without much concealment. Tiona giggled at her recurring achievement; making Bell turn red before morning ends. She also covered for Ais by taking Bell's attention away from them.
'We are not done yet' Bell only forgot things on the surface. He still got a plan in motion for the next day.
"Welcome back, our little golden rabbit" Nephelont heard a warm voice nudge his ears. It made him calmer after hearing it.
When Nephelont looked around, he found the source of the voice. It was none other than a ridiculously proportioned woman holding a plate of what looked like some fried snack. The other thing that grabbed his attention, besides the captivating smell of the snack, was the aura around the woman.
"Are you lady Hestia?" Nephelont gave them his guess.
"Yes, Nephelont. Welcome back to your family" She put the plate down and pulled him into a hug. They stayed like that for a bit then she smiled as she pushed the plate his way and went to her own chair.
"I would not want to interrupt your reunion any longer, you lovebirds!" She teased him, only for Eucleia to be flushed as well. Her remark made him forget the mention of a golden rabbit somewhere there in her words.
After an eventful meal, they were now simply chatting around the table. That was when a young man got up and walked up to Nephelont with a plate in his hand.
'Allen, am I hearing things right? Is that a person with something in their hands walking towards me?' Nephelont picked it up with his sharpened ears.
'A man holding a plate of soup. Let us show you' After saying that, Allen manipulated light to bring him an image of what was happening behind him.
'Allen, help me with this idea I have' Nephelont then conveyed his idea to Allen.
"A waste of s-!" The man was trying to humiliate Nephelont then drench him for reasons of his own when Nephelont disappeared from his chair.
At that exact moment, Eucleia felt it, as Nephelont, the focus of her attention, had disappeared.
*CRASH* Everyone looked for the place the crashing sound came from. It was the table Nephelont was sitting on. It was now simply turned to dust by Eucleia's capable fist.
"Touch a single hair of his, and I will make sure you taste despair" Her tone sent shivers down the spines of almost everyone. Even for the older members of the familia, or even her parents, almost none heard Eucleia openly threatening someone or destroying things because of mere anger.
Some of the dust choked people, but Eucleia did not care. Some of the noise almost stopped people's hearts, but she did not care about that either. The only thing currently on her mind is to prevent any harm from reaching Nephelont at any cost, even if she had to murder someone.
"Clea, calm down" Nephelont almost jumped out of his scales-studded skin when he laid eyes at Eucleia's left eye. It was heavily filled with such craze that he feared what could happen if she let loose.
"Clea, did you hear me?" Nephelont put a hand on her shoulder to shake her out of it.
"Huh? What did you say?" Her quick switch in mood made him worried.
'Did she develop some form of obsession or insecurity during the time I was gone?' Nephelont was thinking of asking her about it but ultimately decided against it. He changed the person he would ask for that information to leave Eucleia off the worry that he might be getting second thoughts.
"I say, let's give him a chance to explain himself?" Nephelont wanted to understand why this person targeted him. He turned around to face the young man, whose face was twisted in jealousy and anger.
"As you may already know, my name is Nephelont Cranel. What is yours?" Nephelont asked with some measure of politeness. He wanted things to calm down, so he showed some respect to the other person.
"You don't need to know" The young man replied rudely while taking off one of his gloves.
"Marcello! You aren't doing what I think you are, right?" Eucleia lost control of her anger. It was bad enough that some of her draconic features showed through, from her fangs to some scales and her horns.
"And what if I am?" The young man, now named Marcello, threw the glove at an unimpressed Nephelont.
"YOU DA-" Eucleia was about to let lose for such disrespect towards her beloved, but she was interrupted by that very person. Nephelont stretched an arm in front of her face to tell her to calm down.
"Can I understand that as a challenge?" Nephelont asked in a flat tone with a stoic and blank face.
"It should have been obvious. To think you would need confirmation for that" Marcello marched out of the hall, leaving behind the stunned familia members.
'Allen, can you take full control over our body?' Nephelont asked Allen as he was picking up the glove.
'Affirmative, physical body, so long you give us permission' Allen confirmed.
"Why?" Eucleia asked him, a shadow cast over her eyes. She was trembling.
"Why did I accept that challenge?" Nephelont saw Eucleia silently nod before he said, "I accepted it to teach him a lesson. Remember this; what you saw while I fought Udaeus was nothing of what I could do going all out"
(Later, in some arena in the familia grounds)
"Marcello Everett Ghram, for the last time, you know what would happen if you insisted on going through with this duel?" Bell asked for his last confirmation. If he was ready to bear the results of his actions, then so be it.
"I am ready to be cast out of the familia forever" Marcello arrogantly confirmed it. He was full of himself and too blinded by rage to sit still while Nephelont took Eucleia's attention away from him, not that he had any to begin with.
While they were getting ready for the duel, Nephelont was told of Marcello's past actions. Marcello is a 20-year-old man. During his search for a familia to join, he saw Eucleia and wanted to get closer to her. He joined the familia, which was not wrong and there was no reason to reject him.
But the problems only start from there. He gradually spent more time running into Eucleia and talking to her over the period of 2 years. And after he learned that she had a husband, he was on the brink. His last ray of hope was that the husband died years ago. Marcello then became more insistent than ever. He started bothering her about it and confessing every chance he got.
At the start, Eucleia politely rejected him and then walked away to attend to her business. After some time, seeing that simply rejecting him was not enough, she told him that she still cherishes the memory of her late husband and will never marry after him. Marcello started going crazy from there. For the last 2 months before Nephelont's revival, Marcello started showing up at the entrance to the women's quarters to forcefully meet her and try again.
Eucleia started doing many things to avoid him. And when they eventually ran to each other, she restrained Agni, who wanted to rip the man to shreds for bothering Eucleia so much. The last string tying his sanity was on the verge of snapping when he heard that Nephelont might have been revived. And when it was confirmed, he snapped. He made a mess of his room and swore to never live with Nephelont if he could not get one over him in front of Eucleia, to fuel his inflated ego.
"Nephelont Cranel, do you accept this duel?" Bell called his son by his full name as a formality, something necessary to initialize the duel while indirectly saying that he will be impartial, even if one is his beloved son.
"I accept, father" Nephelont's reply was short and lacking in warmth, just like his expressionless face.
'Allen, don't fight him seriously. Take him for a joke if you could' Nephelont told Allen with some twisted emotion he could not identify.
'As you wish, physical body' Allen agreed to do what Nephelont wanted.
"Then, in the name of goddess Hestia, have a fair duel... START!" Bell initiated the duel before disappearing from the platform. The platform used for the duel is big enough for the 2 combatants to move around freely to some extent, that space being 625 square meters. It was elevated above the ground by a few steps. That was to ease the process of clearing the rubble and replace the broken parts of the arena much easier.
As soon as Bell disappeared, Marcello, wielding dual blades, dashed towards Nephelont. But to his misfortune, he was not fast enough. Nephelont disappeared into a wisp of light.
"Slow" Nephelont's voice reverberated around the stadium. Neither Nephelont nor Allen knew at the time, but Eucleia's heart sank deep into the pit of her stomach when she witnessed Nephelont disappearing into light once again. She was about to die of fright until his cold voice reached her ears.
"He is... still alive..." Eucleia put her hands in front of her mouth as she stifled a cry. Hephaestus repeatedly patted her back to sooth her and reassure her that she was not alone. She was going to have a word with Nephelont later.
"Show yourself! You coward!" Marcello shouted in his anger. His inability to deliver the first hit to Nephelont maddened him.
"A coward is he who runs away when faced with reality" Lo rebutted as he swept Marcello's legs from under him while he was still invisible. Marcello felt the pain of the hit. Even with his high level 4 status, Marcello's legs were not able to take the hit without feeling it.
"This is a duel in our goddess's name! Show some respect!" Marcello tried to provoke Nephelont to show himself again.
"It is exactly because of that why I hid myself. From what I heard, my current abilities are a result of her falna, her blessing. Using my blessings to their limits isn't a lack of respect. It is a show of appreciation" Allen replied after conjuring a few spheres of light and launching them at Marcello. Since Nephelont wanted him humiliated but not defeated, Allen lowered the power and speed to be just fast enough to catch up to Marcello but not truly injure him.
Allen then showed themselves to Marcello, who took the chance and charged. His blades were sunk deep within Nephelont's abdomen. The result was that Nephelont's stomach split open, and his intestines fell to the ground with a resounding squelch.
"I... didn't mean... to..." Marcello's eyes were shaking. No matter how much he hated Nephelont, he still did not want to kill him. He did not want to wash his hands in the blood of another person like this.
Eucleia received yet another shock. She was almost on the cusp of insanity after seeing such a thing happen.
"Don't worry" Nephelont's voice came into her ears once again. She stayed silent this time. She was in too much shock to react to this.
"Marcello Everett Ghram, what you destroyed was simply a clone" A gust of wind and a flash of light later and the clone was gone. Everyone gasped at the sight of 2 Nephelont's standing on either side of Marcello.
"Let's see how you fare in front of these 2 first. If you defeat them, I will face you myself" Allen dared him then appeared with a chair. They were holding a cup of warm tea in their hand and sipping calmly, looking as the 2 clones got closer to Marcello.
"You are worse than I thought" Marcello was angry at 'Nephelont's methods. He did not know that what he was fighting against was not Nephelont, but his cold and calculating instincts.
"Less talking, more fighting" Allen urged him while provocatively taking another sip of tea.
The fight went on as the clones played Marcello light a fiddle. They tripped him on his face often and only injured him in meaningless ways. He was a bloodied mess after they were done with him.
"Are you ridiculing me?" Marcello's anger reached the breaking point. He was no longer against stabbing Nephelont for the humiliation he faced today. He did not intend to kill him, but a few deep wounds would not hurt.
"Did you only notice that now? I took you for a smarter person, Marcello Everett Ghram" Allen sneered at him, a clear provocation using Marcello's own words against him. "I didn't think you would need someone to confirm such a clear thing to you" Allen provoked him even more. Just to spite him even further, Allen closed their eyes and took another sip while not paying attention to Marcello with their eyes.
Marcello did not let go of that chance. He saw an opening to reach Nephelont as his eyes were closed. One of Marcello's blades slashed at Nephelont's chest while the other stabbed at his right lung.
Allen only smiled before allowing the blades to sink deep within them.
"You fell for it" Allen smiled warmly at Marcello' who wondered why the sky was in front of him instead of the prior view.
He bolted to his legs and saw Allen still drinking tea with the blades embedded in them. Another clone kicked his legs. When he looked around, he noticed the many clones he was not paying attention to. There were 31 clones in the arena, including the one sipping fake tea.
"All of this was fake, idiot" Allen's crazed smile planted a sense of fear within Marcello, a sense that no matter what he did, it would not work.
"Allen, I think we should end this" Another Nephelont appeared. This time, it was the real one and not a clone of Allen's. "I want to end this myself"
Allen debated if they should say something, and the majority of them agreed to do so.
"Just know that you poked a beast that will end up ruining you if you do not submit to it. And another thing, you were the one disrespecting the goddess you ordered us to respect, you hypocrite" Allen said dismissively as they, along with the clones, merged back with the original Nephelont.
"Marcello Everett Ghram, I introduce myself to you another time. I am Nephelont Cranel. And this time, I am the real one" Nephelont bowed politely to show the least modicum of respect given to another person.
Without another word, Nephelont took on his dragon form in his original size. He easily dwarfed Marcello. His looming shadow painted the picture of an undefeated figure in Marcello's mind.
'If what I couldn't defeat this entire time were simply his clones, what power do I have that could defeat the real thing?' Marcello's mind stopped thinking after processing that last thought. It reached the conclusion of his utter and undeniable defeat. Marcello's blades almost slipped from his gripped hands. He was in denial.
'No! I refuse to surrender!' He stubbornly and foolishly dashed at Nephelont for another time. He arrogantly thought that his experience in killing a Goliath alone would have meant something, anything. But that vain hope soon got crushed brutally when Nephelont increased his height further. He was now standing at twice the height.
What little light in Marcello's eyes was snuffed when Nephelont sucked all light to form his own blades of light, dozens of them floating in the air. He did not know why Allen formed a spear in his right hand and a sword in his left hand, but he welcomed it.
Nephelont stabbed the spear beside Marcello, with the blast almost erasing Marcello's left arm at the shoulder. After the dust cleared, Marcello's despair intensified after seeing another spear in Nephelont's hand.
"I... surrender..." Marcello finally let go of his blades. They fell to the ground with a clank then he followed. He collapsed to his knees as he was taking in what he was going to have to deal with had Nephelont not shown him mercy.
"Marcello Everett Ghram, for trying to fatally wound another familia member, you are to be banished from the city for a year. If you decide to return, you are never to be allowed into the familia again. Never interact with our members for another year after re-entering Orario. Do you have anything you want to object to?" Bell gave his verdict. He knew well enough that Marcello did not have the right to object. Bell was just spiteful that Marcello tried killing his son.
"I have nothing to say, cap-..." When Marcello was about to call Bell 'captain', he received a piercing cold gaze that penetrated his soul. He was shaken anew and left with his back hunched in shame. He was to no longer be considered a member of their familia, ever.
(AN: Poor Marcello. He was a small-time antagonist whose role ended in a single chapter. I pity him)
Nephelont had to stay in his dragon form since he irresponsibly tore his clothes to shreds, much like how Agni's clothes are. After everything was over, Nephelont was taken to a room to talk to Hephaestus. She made sure he knew what he did wrong.
"Sorry" Nephelont miserably apologized. He was paling at the consequences of his actions. Eucleia was suffering from them, and he regretted that. He promised to inform her before doing anything like that again.
After that, Hephaestus felt challenged by his hair, which ruined her special scissors to achieve the unbelievable. It managed to cut one, singular hair of his. Welf lamented the loss of sleep he will experience for the coming days. He stayed silent about it, however. He knew better than to take Hephaestus out of her competitive mood abruptly.
It was noon by the time Nephelont was let off of his "imprisonment".
(End of Chapter)
Good news for those reading this fic. I will at least upload 2 chapters, including this one, before I go back to focus on the serious version of the other fic. But, that also will be put on hold as I will be watching recorded lessons on writing to learn from them. It will take some time, but it will hopefully help me deliver better storytelling to my readers.
Now, what do you say? What improvement do you think could be done here?
And for the next world, I solidified the travelling method from DanMachi to the other side. It will be After the children had enough time to grow closer to their father, do not worry about them.
What do you think about Eucleia? Am I exaggerating her reactions towards what happened to Nephelont's clones? (She did not know they were clones at the start)
From my perspective, losing a loved one can weigh a lot on the mind. And in her case, she lost someone that was her other half, literally. I am not talking about their marriage, but about their mental state. (Do not take this next part literally) Because they spent the entirety of their lives together, Nephelont and Eucleia are more like the male and female counterpart of the same being split into two different bodies. Losing half of who you are will break your mind. Good on her that the children kept her mind off of it long enough to somewhat stabilize at a surface level.
There is also another reason as to why she became like this, something related to how they both could even be conceived at all. I will bring it up later with as little detail as I could, though, as it is also related to something else that I do not want to spoil on you.
Have a good time, ladies and gentlemen.