Bell Winters]
I don't know if you know this or not, but forges are hot. Like, insanely hot. I've been working as a prospective apprentice to Hephaestus for a year now, and I'm still barely able to withstand the heat for more than a few hours at a time.
I don't know if that is because of my young age or my lack of Endurance stat, easily my lowest one, or not, but if I'm not sitting outside on the bench and sucking down salt-laced water within two hours then I'm probably already passed out. Yes, that happened a time or two before I learned my limits, and let me say that seeing the beautiful red-headed Goddess that is Hephaestus lecturing me with an exasperated expression on her face is... something else.
I think my time with Zeus has addled my mind, because am I developing a new fetish?
Regardless, my integration into the familia was not as smooth as I would have liked. There were more than a few jealous glares sent my way as my small 9-year-old form sat in the front of Hephaestus' small lecture hall during the last year. Most of them were the 12 and 13-year-old boys and girls who hadn't yet been accepted into the familia, and were being tested on a 'trial basis' as beginner apprentices to see if they were capable of learning the art of smithing. No doubt that they had been refused years prior due to their young age and immaturity, but the joke was on them, I was 10 in age, but 39 at heart.
I even took notes, since I could read and write, which was more than I could say for 90% of the class that was with me, but I couldn't really fault them; literacy was something of a luxury in this world, and the vast majority of people could only learn enough to read what was required for daily life. Some aped what most of Hephaestus wrote onto the chalkboard in the front of the classroom, hoping that they would one day be able to save their notes and read them later after they learned to read, but it was an uphill battle for the majority of them.
I had tried to set up a 'study group', similar to the ones I did for my Rangers who were going to be attending their NCO career courses, but the jealousy of young children often leads to small minds; after being firmly rejected on multiple occasions I gave up and focused on myself entirely. My physical training took up a larger portion of my day thanks to my status update a year ago, which meant that I had to get creative with how I worked out to exhaust myself properly each and every day. I typically worked in squats and whatever exercises that I could do while filling up the coal wagons from one of the warehouses to be moved to the forges each and every day.
Sure, I didn't like that I was inhaling coal dust, but a damp cloth tied around my nose and mouth solved most of those issues, and considering I was working around superheated metals all day long that was going to have to be a health hazard I would have to live with; the higher Leveled smiths never seemed to have any lung problems, so maybe the falna was enough to mitigate such issues?
I also managed to find some time after the initial two months to get Tsubaki to escort me to the Witch's Secret Shop, where I met Lenoa the Witch- a creepy old codger who made the Wicked Witch of the West look absolutely beautiful- but I was able to purchase my first spellbook and my first Casting Stave as a result! It cost me a cool 1.5 Million for both, but Grandpa Zeus' coin sure came in handy.
When Tsubaki asked where the coin had come from I informed her that it was something my parents had left me and kept it at that; she seemed to realize that I didn't want to talk about it anymore- considering my pedigree it wasn't outside the realm of possibility. It wasn't like I stole anything, I was just a 10-year-old that had an inordinate amount of money.
No big deal.
What was a big deal, however, was just how fucking difficult magic was to cast. I'm being dead serious. Most stories like to talk about how easy and intuitive magic is for their heroes and main characters, and fuck, even Bell Cranel had a super fucking simple Super Short Chant Magic that he could cast just by holding his hand out and saying a single fucking word: "FIREBOLT!"
Hello? Balance Team? I would like to report a bug? Yes, Magic is not easy. What? Of course, I'll hold! You guys work so hard after all, yes, uh-huh, no problem. I'll wait until I die for you to take my complaint, thank you!
I had to learn the hard way, through the School of Paralyzing Myself with Immense Amounts of Pain as I Once Again Flub the Weavings of My Internal Mana Once Again.
This was followed by my Master's Thesis on "Giving Myself Mind Down While Sitting in Hephaestus' Waiting Room".
Thank you for attending my Ted Talk on just how hard Magic was to learn.
Shit sucked, for real. Every time I fucked up though, for some reason I held out hope that Riviera Ljos Alf would stride through the gates of the Hephaestus familia and see me fucking up and would then make it her solemn mission to take me, Bell Cranel, the protagonist, as her student to make sure I didn't kill myself.
Unfortunately, that never happened, because I was Bell Winters, not Bell Cranel.
So that shit never materialized. I just had to make do with repeating the flowing weaves of the beginner "Soothing Touch" spell, which was only equal to the effectiveness of a Low-Grade Healing potion and a gentle pat on the back.
It took me 9 months, but I was finally able to learn the Short Chant spell well enough for it to be added to the falna on my back, which unfortunately meant that I needed to get another Status Update to have it put in place. Sure, that update put me firmly in the High C's for my stats and qualified me for the 7th Floor, but my Advisor, a silver-haired elf by the name of Sophie, adamantly refused to let me progress past the 4th Floor.
That was with Tsubaki standing over me as my chaperone. Come on, woman! Have some sympathy for my familia Captain, please? She has better things to do with her time than to babysit my ass every time I wanted to go past the 2nd Floor! Aiz Wallenstein was apparently going deep as shit now that she was a freshly raised Level 3! Let me at least have the 4th Floor!
Granted I didn't want to proceed that far anyway, I was just happy with staying at the 1st Floor and exploiting the Dungeon's easiest money-making mechanic for valis. What exploit is that you might ask? Well, my plucky friend, it is the Jack Bird and its egg.
The Rooster-like monster is found only on the 1st Floor, and it is incredibly quick, the cock having preternatural skill at avoiding ambushes and danger like nobody's business; the damn thing was hella quick, and while it was easy money, most Adventurers above Level 1 saw it as a dick move to take the bird and it's 1 Million valis egg for themselves. Which was just as surprising to me as it was anything else, I assure you.
A Level 2 could catch it bare-handed, they just saw it as low-hanging fruit and didn't do so. Hell, I would be farming to damn thing every week until I made it down far enough to not be worth the effort, I don't know what these guys are on about; it is not like anyone else was able to nail the damn thing besides myself with any frequency or anything.
My "Lead the Way" skill, along with a very detailed map from the Guild, allowed me to track the 'Cock of Great Money', and I found that it followed pretty much the same path every single day without fail; the only times it would deviate would be depending on the day of the week - it would move clockwise on even days and counter-clockwise on odd days- and it would attempt to entice foolish or desperate Adventurers into trying to take it. The crowing avian would lead those chasing it into a Monster Party (as much of a Monster Party that could form on the 1st Floor anyways) and more often than not it would lose its pursuers.
I also learned through my careful stalking that the beast would learn immediately when any living being other than a fellow monster stepped within 50 meters of it or it spotted Adventurers outside its range, triggering its 'Fleeing' state and sending it ripping off down the tunnels at its insane speeds. However, it very rarely strayed from its path, and I tested this by introducing some variables by leaving my pack in the middle of its patrol path. The beast didn't even register the pack at all except to navigate around it.
That was when I found out that it didn't make any attempts at defending itself while enemies were otherwise unnoticed. I accomplished this why laying on my side with my pack obscuring my body at a corner of one of the long corridors in its patrol path and shooting an arrow at it through a small crack in between the corner and my bag. It was an uncomfortable shot to make, but I could stomach laying on the cold ground for twenty minutes while waiting for the damn thing to walk towards me! All of my training in the forest was paying off, and it just so happened to be paying me 1 Million valis a week!
Adventurers could farm for years and never see that amount of money!
So for the last six months, I farmed away at the monsters on the 1st through 4th Floors, relishing in the challenge that they sported all the while collecting a single fat paycheck to lodge into my savings account with the Hephaestus smithy's accounting team each and every week.
With my stat's frozen in place as they were, I got to focus on improving my blade play, often using some of my earnings to pay Tsubaki for lessons on the side; she might use a Katana, but there were some finer points of sword-play that just translated well to even the short sword I was using. Some of my money went into getting replacements for the swords and knives Grandpa bought me- and wasn't that a weird thought, me referring to Zeus as my actual Grandfather- but I kept them at the same quality level as to what he purchased. Sure, I could have bought fancier High-Steel blades instead of the Low-Steel trash I was currently using, but preserving the difficulty was paramount in my opinion.
The more I fought the more I learned the movements of the monsters to the point where I could practically react before they could move just because I knew what they were going to do before they even did it. Claws scraping at the ground? Kobold was going to charge. Goblin squaring his shoulders and crouching? The bastard was going to leap. Sure, it sounded incredibly cock-sure and smug to say this, but the monsters here could only challenge me in that they had the numbers I needed to keep myself progressing; this was doubly true as the 'Morning Shift' of the Dungeon ended and the vast majority of Adventurers headed home for the day.
The 'Afternoon' and 'Night Shifts' in the Dungeon saw vastly increased numbers of monsters roaming the floors as there just weren't enough Adventurers roaming around to keep their numbers low. Tsubaki usually kept me well clear of these mobs while we were down there, that was if she allowed me to stay in the Dungeon at all once the clock ticked past 2:00 PM. Slowly but surely, however, as I proved myself more capable, she allowed me to stay out later and later, and while my stamina was good, I wasn't able to last more than a few hours once the 'Morning shift' ended, even with my Healing Spell keeping me in the fight.
Without frequent Status Updates to improve my base stats, I had to focus on fighting as efficiently as I possibly could to extend the length of my dives into the Dungeon. Every single monster killed needed to be done with expert precision- even a little slop here and there, or mistiming my cuts or thrusts drastically changed how quickly I could kill even the most basic monster.
Thrust a little too high? Then I was scraping ribs instead of slipping my short sword between them, which meant I had to pull back, readjust, and take another stab. Not enough 'omph' in the cut? Then it was too shallow and I wouldn't disembowel the Kobold and would have to try again. In the Dungeon, every little mistake like that added up, and since the only increases in stamina were coming from my body as I slowly aged, it meant that I had to be correct with every cut, thrust, duck, and sidestep.
When I cast my Healing Spell I focused on my chant and my weaves, trying to use the least amount of Mind possible to complete the spell and mend my meager wounds. By the end of the year, I was starting to feel like a Certified Adventurer, and Tsubaki's genuine praise that I was a less-suicidal Sword Princess was well received.
I don't remember much about her early years at this point, my memories dulling with time as I struggled to comprehend and remember all of the new things being shoved into my brain, but she was pretty darn self-destructive if I remembered correctly. My image of her being 'covered in cuts and bruises while desperately wielding a broken weapon against foes without number' starkly contrasting with the actual sight of her when I saw her for the first time surrounded by her familia members during one of Tsubaki and mine's initial forrays into the Dungeon.
She looked absolutely adorable in her absolutely useless armor with a toothpick-thin rapier at her side instead of the famous Desperate that she was using in my memories of Danmachi.
When I voiced my opinion, my half-dwarf Captain chortled indulgently as she used my cranium as an elbow rest and buffed her nails on her chest wrappings. Apparently, I was similarly adorable with my totally practical Dungeon leathers and chainmail, bow, quiver, short sword, Supporter Pack to carry my loots, and my knives strapped to my thighs.
I protested this of course- I was actually very practical in my choice of apparel, and unlike the Sword Princess I was ready for any eventuality, even having backup weapons for my backup weapons!
We were NOT the same!
While I argued the finer points of my preparedness, Loki, the Goddess of Trickery herself, was witness to my faux pas of speaking ill of her 'precious Aiz-tan!' and she declared me 'totally uncute!' before spitting on my boots and skulking away as if I'd walked up and slapped an expensive bottle of Soma out of her hands.
My blush was atomic, although not for the reasons Tsubaki probably thought. I didn't like speaking ill of people, but sometimes my thoughts got ahead of my lips, and when I did and got caught it just magnified my embarrassment one hundred-fold. I'd made a mental note to apologize to Aiz Wallenstein if I ever saw her again, but considering it had been three months I probably wouldn't be seeing her again any time soon.
So, other than my classes with Hephaestus, my training with my magic, and my near-daily excursions into the Dungeon to acquire wealth, my first year in the Hephaestus familia was slow and uneventful, which was honestly pretty damn great because I thought for sure that my Protagonist-Aura would kick in and force me to do something silly like resolve some sort of child-trafficking ring and force me to fight for my life while facing scumbag Adventurers outside of my level.
All the while I lamented my inherent need to eschew status updates just to eke out every possible gain for the floors I had been restricted to in the Dungeon!
Nope, it appeared as though while my seeming lack of a Protagonist-Aura worked against me in that I didn't have established Major Characters falling out of the sky into my lap to teach me all of the important shit I needed to learn, it also meant that I didn't have life-threatening situations leaping onto my back at every turn; the Fate of this universe trying desperately to claw my eyes out at every opportunity. It was very nice because it allowed me to focus on the important things, like my smithing training.
"-now that we know why heat treatment and tempering are very important to the forging process, I think it is time we do as we always do, and view a practical demonstration," Hephaestus spoke with a smile on her face.
This was the last lesson of the day, and my Goddess saved the topics that required such demonstrations for a reason; it was a lot easier for her to run through the classroom instruction first and then go through the practical instructions at the end. If only because she didn't want a bunch of curious children running around the primary forge building and poking things or bothering the various smiths while they were about their business. It also served to keep the children motivated to pay attention during the lessons because there was always the possibility that something cool would be shown off at the end.
It was effective too.
I remember at the end of our very first day of lessons Hephaestus went through the creation of a simple letter opener from start to finish in about an hour and a half; from drawing out the bar stock to forging the letter opener's blade and handle, grinding out the bevels on the small blade, and conducting a normalization cycle. She didn't bother heat-treating or tempering the blade as it was not something meant for combat. Needless to say, she made everything look positively effortless, which I felt was a little off-putting, if only because it put unrealistic expectations in the children's minds about just how easy smithing actually was.
The metal flowed out from the bar stock with each strike of her hammer, the tacky steel acted like it was bending itself to her will with each shaping blow, and when she began to grind it all down the material seemed to know exactly what she wanted and allowed itself to be removed with each revolution of the stone grinding wheel.
Hephaestus wanted a letter opener, and the steel rushed to comply.
It certainly kept the kids entertained though, and even if I was bursting full of energy myself watching her captivated me in a way I didn't think was possible.
I often found myself staring at expert chefs as they moved about their kitchens when I was in culinary school and wondered if I had it in me to move like that, but with Hephaestus, it was like that and more; her Divine presence and aura just highlighted how she could have used her Authority to simply will such a letter opener into existence, but she lowered herself to mundane means because she was so damn passionate about her Domain that taking such a shortcut was blasphemy. It cheapened the connection between the smith and whatever it was they were making.
It was beautiful.
Myself and the seven other students that had survived to the end of this year followed Hephaestus out of the small classroom she had built near the entrance to her forging district- a nice little space where the winds seemed just perfect with how the streets and wall was laid out to keep the smoke from the forges away- and towards the primary smithing compound in a little nook near the entrance where she typically held her impromptu lessons for the active smiths. She mainly did those little lessons for them when they were taking a break from their current orders or were waiting for their normalization cycles to finish.
She took us inside, gave us the same spiel about staying in the nook and not bothering the other smiths while she went to one of the back rooms, and retrieved her props for this particular demonstration. Of course, two of the kids- although I say kids they were both 13-years-old but compared to me they were all children- had to push the limits of Hephaestus' patience by riding the line of what was the nook and observing the smiths as close as they could. The smiths for their parts just smirked or smiled indulgently; more than a few were wistful, no doubt the men and women remembering a time when they looked at forging with the same awe and enthusiasm as the children were now.
Of course, just as always, they were properly chided by my Goddess upon their return and she returned she had four small steel bars in her hands.
"These four bars of Low-Steel were draw out from the same bar stock, but considering the topic we covered today, can anyone guess what the differences between them are?" The Goddess smiled as she fanned the four half-inch thick rectangles in front of the children for them to closely observe them.
I had long since stopped raising my hand and answering if only to help out by forcing the other kids to think; I would only answer if it was clear that no one else knew. Himiko, a 13-year-old girl whose mother and father were of the Kagu-Tsuchi smithing familia, was the one I was banking on to be one of the children who would finish out the Goddess' courses and be taken on as an apprentice. She was literate, could speak Koine, Far Eastern, and Dwarven - due to her Far Eastern father and Dwarven mother- and had a leg up on the other kids simply because she grew up in the smithy.
The young girl looked like she ate coal and spit out nails, but while she had resting bitch-face, she was quite pretty and very attentive for a child; if anything it unnerved me a little bit how well she paid attention, but I couldn't criticize since people probably felt the same way about me.
"Those look like a normal bar stock, one that has been normalized, one that has been normalized and heat-treated, and one that has been normalized, heat-treated, and tempered." Himiko's shoulders drew back as the Goddess nodded at her answer, and a proud smile tugged at the half-Dwarf's lips.
"Very good, Himiko-chan. Yes, that is indeed the case, however, since we were just discussing the effects of normalizing, heat-treatment, and tempering on steel, that should be a given." A blush formed on Himiko's face at Hephaestus' teasing, but thankfully the Goddess saw fit to leave it at that for her sake.
I watched as she placed the bars into a set of vice grips and she struck each bar multiple times with a large sledgehammer with all of her strength. The normal steel folded over with just a handful of blows while the normalized steel deformed less but still was far too soft from what you would want in a blade. The normalized and heat-treated stock deformed far less than either- the material much more rigid, but after Hephaestus' sixth blow the bar seemingly shattered under the force, sending bits of steel skittering over the floor. The final stock- the normalized, heat-treated, and tempered steel- resisted each hammer blow with surprising strength, the steel only bending mildly; the Goddess was able to hammer it back to true with just a few spirited taps against an anvil.
"So, as you can see, while steel is very hard by normal standards, children, it can still be deformed. It is up to the smith to properly heat-treat and temper the material so that it can be stronger than it would be otherwise; a blade that has been bent in the Dungeon can be hammered back to true even while cold should the smith have sufficient strength to do so. However, with a shattered blade?" The red-head held out the fragments of the 3rd stock in her gloved hand before she dropped it into the Low-Steel scrap bucket to be melted down, "The best you can do is recycle it. Are there any questions about what you learned today?"
The children shook their heads before they all hugged the smithing Goddess and ran back to the classroom to gather their things and head home for the day.
For my part, I gave my Goddess a bow and smiled. "I am going to do my chores and then head off into the Dungeon today, Hephaestus-sama. Is Tsubaki free to escort me today, or will I need to stick to the 3rd Floor?"
She shook her head. "Unfortunately Tsubaki-chan is working on an Adamantium project for me, so she'll be quite busy for the next few days. Best to stick to the 3rd Floor."
I nodded and turned to walk towards wide open double doors of the forge and she called out to me. "Be careful, okay?"
A grin spread across my face as I waved at her over my shoulder. "Of course! I have a Goddess worth coming home to every day, I'll be careful!"
"Come on you little fucker. Come on. You're a little bit later than usual today, but if you'd been killed I would have heard about it." I whispered to myself as I laid myself out on the ground at the corner of my usual Jack Bird kill-spot with my little "hunter's blind" set up. I had a dark grey cloth wrapped around my head to conceal my shock of white hair and face; only my eyes were visible as my small-sized Supporter pack obscured most of my body. My bow was in hand with an arrow nocked and ready to be drawn, but in this position, the best I could get would be a half-draw, but since the Jack Bird wasn't exactly a hearty opponent it was more than I needed.
The tip of the arrow poked out between the corner of the wall and the corner of my pack, and I was forced to do the one thing I hated most but learned to tolerate as a soldier and get good at as a hunter. "Hurry up and wait, huh?"
I was forced to kill a half dozen Goblins over the better part of half an hour until I saw that fucking Rooster come strutting down the corridor like he always did; the little bastard walked like he owned the place, his head bee-boppin' and his clawed feet scritch-scratchin' away. It was uncanny just how close this monster looked to a real chicken that always threw me off, and make no mistake, this was a monster. Sure, it was incredibly weak for a monster, but if this thing ever decided to leave the Dungeon and happened upon a mortal settlement it would be like that rabbit from the Holy Grail- a monster chicken slaughtering mortals until people realized just how dangerous it was.
A normal mortal could handle goblins in the Dungeon without a falna, and with goblins formed on the surface, it was more like handling a child than an adult male in the package of a child. I don't know if there has actually ever been anyone killed by the Jack Bird itself, but there was no doubt in my mind that its deceptive appearance would be the death of any unblessed mortal who believed it to be a mere chicken.
I drew back my bow, the end of the arrow brushing up against my belly button, and I released. The damn chicken stopped and lowered its head to peck at the ground as he was wont to do, and the arrow sailed right over him. The cock startled briefly, his wings flapping as he hopped to the side and observed the area around him before he settled down again. I missed. Again. This was the 7th week in a row, but I'm getting closer, and for me, that is all that matters.
To be fair, it was only because I didn't aim center-mass like I used to do when I first started this farming rotation a year ago; in order to keep up with my ever-increasing self-imposed difficulty, I was now aiming for headshots on a target the size of an egg while laying on my side from almost sixty meters away. I slowly drew another arrow, nocked it, and fired again, this time aiming for center-mass; I needed to kill him before he got me within his magical 50-meter 'Big Cock Sphere of Sensory Bullshit' and started to run off. I'd never catch the bastard for the rest of the day if he did that.
If there was one thing that never got old, however, it was the elaborate death animation that the Jack Bird went through each time I punched an arrow into his chest; the bird's wings gripped the shaft dramatically as he stumbled left and right until he theatrically collapsed, the avian monster just barely managing to cover his face with a wing before he dispersed into dust leaving his tiny magic stone and the egg behind.
I grinned as I stood up, taking an opportunity to slip a few arrows into my fingers as I moved towards the stone and the egg; I'd been ambushed at this location before by Goblins and Kobolds while retrieving the egg, and I learned not to take any chances. The egg was warm and smooth in my hand, just a touch bigger than an actual hen's egg, and just as I was about to slip it into my pouch the scuffing of boots echoed down the corridor, and a man wearing trashy leathers and even shittier clothes underneath skid around the corner.
His beard was patchy and unkempt, the lines of his face were deep, almost as if they'd been etched into his face with a chisel, and his eyes were bloodshot to hell and back.
There was only one familia in the city that had Adventurers who looked like they were constantly blitzed on heroin, and that was the Soma familia.
Don't get me wrong, there were Opium dens in the Far Eastern quarter of the city in the Entertainment District, but the people that frequented them were Adventurers with Abnormal Resist; the Developmental Ability helped them shrug off the negative effects of the drug and fought off the majority of the addiction. It was actually one of the safer- and far more enjoyable- methods of leveling the DA for the first few Ranks.
What would you rather do to Level up your Abnormal Resist? Stand on the 6th, 7th, and 8th Floors and let the various moths douse you with poison, irritant, or paralysis powders? Or would you rather smoke opium and enjoy the high while getting sucked and fucked by one of the whores there?
It is a pretty easy choice, in all honesty.
The issue I'm having is that I'd done well with avoiding the Soma pukes during my time here, and now when Tsubaki isn't here to scare them off with a glare my Protagonist-Aura is finally acting up! Fuck!
"H-hey there kiddo," The man twitched as he scratched at his beard with one hand, "What'cha got there, huh?"
I forced myself to relax. Maybe I didn't need to kill the guy?
"Ah, the silent type, that's cool. I can respect that." He took a few shuffling steps forward. "So you're the infamous Cock-Slayer, huh? I've been trying to figure out how you were killing the Jack Bird for the past few months now, trying to learn your secret. S'a lot of money for just a brat to be bringin home, right?"
"So I thought to myself, 'Hey, why don't I just find out how he does it and I can do it myelf?' Although that looked to be a fair bit more tricky than I thought, I'm sure I could do the same if given some time." He smiled a little bit and drew a wicked-looking long-bladed knife. "Anyways, you seem like a smart kid, so how's about we do it like this. You hand over the egg and stop farming the Jack Bird and I'll let you walk away; unlike you, I need the money. Familia tithes are going up by a lot since our new Captain took over and things are getting real tight, yanno? It's hard for us little people out here, so you get to walk away, and I get to farm the bird. Pretty good right?"
He rubbed at his chin and gestured at me with the knife. "Sound like a deal?"
Give up my farming spot just so he can get a fix? Fuck no. More importantly, he'd have no problem shanking me and leaving me to die down here if I didn't hand over the egg and give up on a Million valis per week? Well, the Soma cats have killed people for far, far less.
I made a big display of looking sad before nodding, "O-okay. Y-you can have the egg, mister. I love my Goddess and I want to return to her safely, so you can have it a-and the farming spot. I-I don't need the money anyway."
He grinned and walked closer, and I kept my bow low while I held out my outstretched hand with the Jack Bird egg resting in my palm. "Good, good. Now don't try anything stupid. That's it. Smart kid-"
When he reached out to take egg I gave it a little pop into the air, and being a drug-addled fool who didn't see me as a threat without a blade in my hand, his eyes and hand tracked the egg on the way up. Just as his head tilted up I dropped low to my knees, my form hidden by his chin and beard, and drew my bow from the hip. At this distance, I didn't need a full draw to kill him, and I certainly didn't need to bring the arrow to my cheek to aim either; he was more likely a Level 1, with equal or lower stats than I had if how slow he was at catching the egg indicated.
The moment his hand closed around the egg I released the arrow, the bodkin-tip arrowhead easily defeating his Level 1 Endurance; the steel tip punching through the floor of his mouth, his tongue, piercing the bottom of his nasal cavity and up until his brain. The man convulsed as he rag-dolled onto his knees and collapsed onto his back; the egg leaving his hand and gently rolling off of his fingertips across the stone ground of the Dungeon floor.
I stood up, regaining my feet before I bent down and picked up the egg before breathing a sigh of relief as I found that there were no cracks in its surface. The hardened leather pouch I purchased for the Jack Bird egg was popped open, and the egg was safely ensconced in the fluffiest fabric I could get my hands on before I snapped the pouch back shut.
I kept the egg on my person at all times because even if I was forced to abandon everything else I had in my small Supporter Pack, as long as the egg made it out with me I would still come out way, way ahead. The pack itself was 50,000 valis, but it was made from a sturdy, treated canvas, and the rations, potions, and bandages I kept inside of it were another 50,000 valis. I had a thigh pouch made from treated orc leather that had a cork insert where I kept my potions; I could carry five in total- 1 Mind Potion, 1 Stamina Potion, and 3 healing potions. I had two High Potions which cost me 10,000 valis each, and one Low-Grade healing potion for when I didn't have enough time to stand still and chant out my Soothing Touch spell.
A sneer curled my lip back and I kicked the bastard's body after I yanked the arrow from his head.
"You stupid bastard, don't you understand that we shouldn't be fucking each other over down here? We mortals, we're supposed to be on the same side!" A low hiss escaped my lips as I began looting his corpse of anything that might be valuable and could be concealed easily in my pack, "But noooooo, you have to be a worthless piece of shit who thinks that stealing from children is okay! Well, now look at you, where did that get you, huh?"
His short-sword, hide buckler, and the knife went into my pack; they could be melted down for scrap and reforged into something useful. The only other thing that looked to be of value were his boots, and I wasn't about to take those things off of his corpse; who knew how badly they stank!
The 4,570 valis he had in his coin pouch joined the coin in my own pouch, and I began dragging his body off the main path towards one of the little side pockets that people rarely traversed around; I knew this because I ambushed the Jack Bird at this spot every damn week, and almost nobody came down here unless they were taking the shortest path to the 2nd Floor.
The Dungeon seemed happy to help me clean up the mess because as soon as I rolled the guy's body down the slope into the little cul-de-sac-like area at the dead-end of the tunnel, a quartet of Kobolds spawned from the wall and began to savage the guy's corpse the moment they gained their bearings.
I didn't stick around the watch the proceedings.
With my mood soured by that asshole I left the Dungeon, turned my Jack Bird egg over to the Guild receptionist, and held up two fingers to signal the anonymous teller on the other side that I wanted a 'discreet' payout; no advertising my earnings for all and sundry to hear- no sir!
1,03,980 valis. Even without the Jack Bird egg, 4,000 valis for just three hours spend on the 1st Floor wasn't bad at all, especially since I wasted an hour of that time just waiting on the damn cock to even show up. No doubt that bastard was the reason it was late- the fool probably ended up chasing it off and pushing its patrol path further ahead, forcing me to wait for it to settle back down and resume its normal routine.
I was about to leave when my Dungeon Advisor, Sophie, caught me on my way out and pulled me into the back office. "Winter-kun, if you'd please come with me?"
I nodded and slipped around the large wooden counter and followed the silver-haired elf, doing my best to not stare at her ass and how the Guild uniform's pants looked to be just painted on. It was difficult since I was just a head taller than ass-level with her, but I managed it, somehow.
When we stepped inside the room I sat my pack down and hopped into the chair while Sophie followed in after me before seating herself across from me. "We will be waiting on just one more person, Winter-kun."
When I nodded my assent we made small talk while we waited. "Your dive seemed a little short today, did it not? You're usually down there for four or five hours at least. What changed?"
I tilted my head. "Well, Tsubaki-sama wasn't there with me, so I decided to just kill a few Goblins and Kobolds, and kill Mr. Bird while I was at it."
The silver-eyed elf's lips tugged up into a smile as she folded her hands in her lap. "Of course, I would expect nothing less of the city's Highest-Earning Level 1. You never let an opportunity to catch the Jack Bird pass you by."
Her smile faded away as her posture became a little more rigid. "However, even after getting the Jack Bird egg, you never leave the Dungeon early. Something happened, what was it?"
I sighed and removed my dark head covering before scrubbing a gloved hand through my hair. "Man, I really can't pull one by you, can I, Sophie-san?"
She shook her head before gloved fingers pushed her silver hair back behind her long, pointed ears. "I have a sixth-sense about these things, Winter-kun. While you might be one of the Adventurers who aren't constantly trying to give me an ulcer, you still have your tells. I know when something is bothering you."
"I don't suppose you'd let me know what those tells are, will you?" I couldn't stop the half-smile from tugging at my lips. Humor wasn't my strong suit.
The elf didn't speak, instead merely gesturing for me to gather my thoughts and let it all out. I took a few moments to organize what I wanted to say as my gloved fingers interlaced themselves in front of my belly. "I was ambushed by an Adventurer in the Dungeon after I killed the Jack Bird."
She inhaled sharply through her nose, a severe frown tugging at her lips, but I held my locked fingers up and stopped her from speaking. If you're going to force this out of me, then at least let me finish my thoughts, woman!
"He admitted to stalking me the past few months, trying to figure out how I was managing to kill it with such success. He pulled a large knife and told me to hand over the egg, and not to bother coming back for the Jack Bird in the future. The threat was readily apparent." I relaxed my hands and scratched at an itch on the side of my nose. "I tossed the egg, forcing him to catch it, and then I released my arrow and neutralized the threat. A pack of Kobolds forced me to disengage and return to my belongings."
The woman slumped in her chair, her fingers coming back to massage her temples. "Do you know what familia he belonged to?"
I arched an eyebrow. "The only familia in the city that is addicted to wine to the point where they would ambush other Adventurers to take their hauls, their gear, and their coin?"
She worried her lower lip. "This should be reported."
My neck popped as I shook my head. "How many complaints have been levied against the Soma familia thus far? More importantly, has it made any difference? No, filing a complaint would be just admitting to them I slew one of their members, and while the guy was alone, he might not have been the only one of his fellows he blabbed about 'following the Cock Slayer and taking his shit' to. It would be safest just to let his body stay buried, in a manner of speaking."
Her eyes drifted over towards the light shining through the window. "Killing monsters is one thing, Winter-kun, slaying another mortal is another. Are you okay?"
I shifted in my chair to make myself a little more comfortable; the thin leather cuirass I was wearing was not meant to be worn while seated. "I was a hunter before I came to Orario, Sophie-san. I hunted deer, elk, wolves, Garrick beasts, surface monsters, and bandits. This is not the first time I've killed a mortal, and until the Soma familia realizes that all of us Children are on the same side and should be united against the Dungeon, then it probably won't be the last."
"Children shouldn't be forced to kill their fellow mortals." It was a nice sentiment, but ultimately foolish in its naivety. The elf wiped her nose on the back of her glove as she blinked back a few tears before the door opened and a surprising face stepped into the room.
"H-hello, my name is Eina Tulle, and I will be taking over as your Dungeon Advisor." The bespectacled brown-haired elf bowed toward me after she closed the door behind her. "You will be my first Adventurer, Winter-kun, and I look forward to advising you in the future."
She was younger than she had been in canon, of course, but that was because I was years ahead of it. I turned my grin back to Sophie. "You didn't mention my new Advisor was so cute, Sophie-san."
Needless to say that Hephaestus was none too pleased with my recounting of my Dungeon dive and the slaying of the Soma member. Not at me, of course, but at the situation. Since she just couldn't view my experiences because I didn't do frequent updates, I had resolved to keep her informed of anything outside the norm for my Dungeon dives.
No, that is a lie. She was actually very displeased with me because of the risk I took to bring him down, and she banned me from dives for a month while doubling my chores to keep me "occupied".
Instead of complaining about my misfortune, I merely increased my amount of training with Tsubaki when she was free, but that doubled the costs of my lessons from 25,000 valis to 50,000 valis. In the beginning, she had tried to do it for free, but I adamantly refused- her skills as a smith capable of enchanting and molding Adamantium weapons meant that her time was incredibly valuable. In the hundreds of millions of valis kind of valuable.
Even if it was just her free time, it was time she could have been using to tutor her junior smiths or spend on improving herself. The 25,000 valis I was able to pay her on a consistent basis thanks to my Jack Bird income was at least enough to pay for all of the chest wrappings she went through, and maybe enough to get her pampered at the Entertainment district; she went there at least once a week to get rubbed down and have her hair, nails, hands, and feet taken care of after a long week in the forge.
The high heat from the fires was murder on a girl's hair, who would have thought?
A shock ran through my arms as my twin-daggers impacted against the flat of Tsubaki's katana, and I back-pedaled as quickly as I could to avoid her retaliatory swipe. I leaned my head back and to the side instead of ducking like I used to do, having learned my lesson about how easily a stronger Adventurer could adjust the trajectory of their strikes mid-swing; getting your face cut open was not fun at all.
"Good, you're learning," The half-dwarf remarked as he foot snapped out and caught me in the gut, sending me skidding across the dirt in the yard.
Bile and my lunch spewed from my lips, but I managed to struggle to my feet while keeping my guard up. I learned long ago I could puke while running in the Army- the Rangers were positively fond of long, arduous runs. It was practically the official past-time. The issue I found myself struggling with was how does one regain their breath when their diaphragm is collapsed and vomit obstructed the airways?
The answer was simple; vomit faster, and vomit harder. Get the evil out.
I squeezed my guts as much as I could to force the remains of my stew past my lips, and when I was finally able to breathe again I took a slow but measured approach to regain the initiative; well, actually, it was to give myself time to actually breathe because I knew that if I wasn't advancing, then Tsubaki would.
She would give me far less time to recover.
I closed the distance and swiped with one blade, a cross-strike that would have cut into her elbow had her blade not intercepted it; my second blade forced her to lean back as it struck right towards her throat. With her balance off and blade occupied, I lashed out with a kick that impacted against her leg. However, since she was faster than me, Tsubaki was able to bend her legs just a bit so that my steel toe struck against her outer thigh instead of her knee-cap.
A smack echoed across the small courtyard and I made distance again, although I was not able to fully avoid the tip of her blade that grazed my chin; the katana was so damn sharp I didn't even know I had been cut until I heard the tell-tale sound of liquid dripping onto my leather forearm guard.
The half-dwarf grinned broadly as she sheathed her sword and placed her hands on her hips. "Getting better every day, Bell-kichi. I almost felt that kick!"
I nodded and relaxed my stance, inspecting my daggers before resheathing them; the blades were cracked from the bout as she amped up her strength towards where a Level 2 would be at just to give me a feel for how much at a disadvantage I would have been if I tried to fight a Soma member who was indeed stronger than me. My guard crumbled under the force of her blows, but I did manage to slow them down enough to where I could prevent the strikes from landing on my body.
As for the kick? Well, had I landed that on someone of my Level that would have severely bruised them and hampered their mobility, and if I managed to strike the knee like I was aiming for? I would have shattered it entirely.
The issue is that with Tsubaki's Level 5 Endurance, nothing I could do would more than tickle her. In the beginning, I tried to be careful with my blades and the shot placement of my arrows since it was the first time I ever went all out in a spar against another mortal before, but she quickly disabused me of that notion of 'holding back'.
The woman had grabbed my hand with one of my daggers in it and she pulled it towards her exposed belly. In a brief moment of insanity, I had forgotten that Adventurers were not normal, and I struggled against her with all of my might... but she held my hand in a vice grip that I couldn't budge no matter how hard I tried. I watched in horror as the tip of the dagger pressed against her beautiful skin and it indented until it met the veritable wall of muscle that was her abdomen, and much to my shock the blade didn't penetrate.
No, with her strength guiding my hand, the steel blade snapped and went shooting off to the end of the small training ground. Her flesh was unmarred, and I never felt more relieved.
"You're a good kid, Bell-kun. I'm glad that you struggled against me so hard, it really warms my heart, you know?" The half-dwarf released my hand and buried my face in her breasts as she hugged me close. "However, you don't need to hold back against me; you could shoot me in the eye with one of your arrows and it would bounce right off. The Endurance of a Level 4 Adventurer is nothing to scoff at... the sooner you realize this the better."
That had been ten months ago, and she gained her Level 5 since then, further cementing her place in the Hephaestus familia as the Captain; the only one stronger than her now was Vornir, and when it came down to capabilities as a smith and an administrator? Tsubaki seemed to get the paperwork done a lot more quickly, and she was catching up to the old dwarf in the forge as well. It was only a matter of time until she became the Gold Standard that every other smith in Orario was measured against besides the smithing Divines themselves.
"You're using your body a lot more, which is good because a lot of Adventurers forget that their fists and feet can hurt monsters just as easily as their swords, spears, clubs, hammers, and axes can." The woman's words cut through my musings as she dumped a bucket of water over my head. I sputtered and coughed as I wiped the water from my face and followed after her as she walked away with her hands and the bucket tucked behind her head.
"Was that really necessary?" I griped a little bit, trying not to acknowledge how good it felt to complain and act my age. "You always do that."
"Nope!" She grinned at me, "But you were getting lost in your head again, and this seems to be the only thing that stops you from taking a leisurely stroll down memory lane."
I followed along behind her, trying my best to not look like a water-logged grumpy rabbit.
I'd like to think I managed to accomplish this well enough, the smiths snickering at me as we passed them by needed to get their eyes checked.
Shovel in, shovel up, toss.
Shovel in, shovel up, toss.
Shovel in, shovel up, toss.
The other apprentice hopefuls had already done home for the rest of the day, but since Hephaestus doubled my chores I will still here, by myself, shoveling coal into the many wagons that would be hand-carted over to the various forges around the district to be offloaded. Sure, a Level 3 could fill up this wagon in a tenth of the time it took me to do it, but I'm pretty certain that menial, petty labor like this built character.
Not that I was unused to doing such things- the Army wasn't much different; I'd unpacked and repacked my rucksacks so many damn times for spot inspections that I could do them in my sleep- the same for our vehicle inspections when we were on deployment.
To think that I would never jump into a combat zone despite being in an Airborne unit. That Jump Master certification course was barely worth the effort it took to get it on my paperwork, not that any of that experience was worth a damn here anyway.
No, I wasn't bitter.
I might not be jumping out of an airplane any time soon, but the skills I learned there were serving me well enough- getting used to mundane repetition until it was second nature was a valuable skill to have; even if the skill itself was the ability to do said mundane repetition without pulling your hair out in frustration at the sheer boredom of it all.