Chapter 54:
– Blake Himejima –
I turned around and glanced down toward the source of the voice that just called out to me.
There, standing barely above my chest in height, was one of the most beautiful women I had ever laid eyes on. She had long black hair tied into twin tails that fell down past her hips, framing a face that looked almost porcelain with its smooth, flawless skin and gentle features. Her eyes were a striking crystal blue that seemed to glow with their own inner light, warm and inviting in a way that made it hard to look away.
She wore a white dress that could only be described as scandalously short. The skirt barely covered the tops of her thighs, leaving an obscene amount of pale, soft-looking leg on display. Worse, or better depending on how I wanted to look at it, the dress strained against her chest in a way that defied basic physics. Her breasts were enormous, easily the largest I had ever seen on a body so petite, and they pressed against the thin white fabric so tightly that I could see the outline of every curve. A single blue ribbon ran around her chest, almost like it was the only thing holding everything in place, and her slim waist made the whole picture even more impossible.
I forced my eyes upward and focused on her face, doing my best to keep my gaze respectfully locked on hers and not on the gravity-defying chest that was practically demanding my attention. It was not easy. The dress was honestly criminal.
But there was something else about her that pulled my attention away from her body. A presence. It was warm, gentle, and ancient all at once. I had never felt anything like it before in person, but I recognized it instantly from the stories my mother had told me as a child.
She was a goddess. An honest-to-God, real, living goddess standing right in front of me on a cobblestone street in some random fantasy town.
"Sorry about that, my lady," I said carefully, dipping my head slightly in a respectful nod. I have no idea what the protocol for talking to a goddess is, but bowing has to be a safe bet, right?
She blinked up at me, and then she laughed.
She waved her hand dismissively in front of her face. "Oh, you don't have to call me 'my lady,' silly!" she said, her voice bright and almost bubbly. "Just because I'm a goddess doesn't mean I want mortals treating me any differently! I descended to this world to live with all of you, after all! It would defeat the whole point if everyone just kept bowing and scraping at me like I'm some kind of stuffy old deity stuck up in heaven!"
She crossed her arms beneath her enormous breasts, which only served to push them up even higher against the strained fabric of her dress, and I had to consciously redirect my eyes back to her face for the second time in under a minute.
Goddamnit. She's doing this on purpose, right? She has to be. Nobody's chest just does that naturally. Although, I guess she IS a goddess, so maybe physics doesn't apply.
She tilted her head to the side, her twin tails swaying with the motion, and a curious look crossed her face. Her blue eyes narrowed slightly, studying me with new interest. "Wait, how did you know I'm a goddess?" she asked, her tone shifting from playful to genuinely curious. "Most mortals can't sense it at all unless we do something obvious. You shouldn't have been able to tell just by looking at me."
I gave her a small, slightly awkward smile and rubbed the back of my neck with one hand. "I could sense it," I admitted honestly. "And to be fair, I'm not exactly a mortal myself. I'm new around here, so I don't really know how things work, but I'm pretty in tune with that kind of stuff where I come from."
The goddess's eyes lit up like I had just handed her the most interesting gift in the world.
Before I could react, she leaned forward suddenly, popping up onto her tiptoes and bringing her face within inches of mine. Her eyes locked onto my own, and I could feel the warmth of her breath against my lips. Her chest pressed lightly against the bottom of my own as she balanced on her toes, and the heat of contact through our clothes made my brain stutter to a halt.
"Hmmmm," she hummed, her gaze searching mine intently. The sound was soft and thoughtful, but the proximity sent a flush of heat straight to my face that I could not control. "You are very intriguing. I can sense that your home is very, very far away from here. That's actually why I came up to you in the first place, you know! You looked a little lost, and I wanted to make sure you were alright. Being away from home can always be lonely and scary!" She held the position for another moment, her face still impossibly close to mine, and then she dropped back down onto her heels with a satisfied little nod. Whatever she had been looking for, she apparently found it. "So!" she chirped, her whole face lighting up with a bright, hopeful smile. "What's your name? And, oh, oh, this is the important part, are you in a familia!?"
She practically vibrated with excitement on that last word, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet, which did absolutely nothing to help me keep my eyes off her chest.
What the hell is a familia?
"Uh, my name is Blake. Blake Himejima," I told her, watching as she repeated the name silently to herself with her lips, like she was tasting it. "And as for the second question, I genuinely have no idea what a familia is. If you mean my family, then yeah, I have an older sister, my mother, and my stepfather back home. Plus a few girlfriends, but that's a whole separate situation that I'm not going to try and explain to a stranger I just met thirty seconds ago…"
The goddess shook her head rapidly, her twin tails whipping back and forth with the motion. "No, no, no, that's not what I mean at all! A familia is way, way different from a regular family, Blake!" She struck a pose then, planting one fist on her hip and pointing the other hand directly at her own chest, which was a dangerous direction for any mortal man's eyes to follow. "My name is Hestia! I am the Goddess of Hearth and Home! And since you don't have a familia, you should totally join mine!" Her words came out in a rapid, excited tumble, like she had been waiting all day to say them to someone. "Because, oh, you would not believe the day I'm having, Blake! That MEANIE Hephaestus just kicked me out of her place this morning! She said she didn't want me freeloading off of her anymore! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT? After everything I've done for her, she just throws me out on the street like yesterday's garbage! Isn't that the meanest thing you've ever heard!?"
Hestia waved her arms dramatically as she ranted, and her chest jiggled in ways that made me genuinely concerned for the structural integrity of her dress. I forced my eyes to remain fixed on her face through sheer force of will.
Pepper would be proud of me right now. Tsunade would probably laugh and tell me to look anyway.
"And the worst part is, now I don't have anywhere to live!" Hestia continued, her voice taking on a slightly whiny quality that was somehow still completely endearing. "I have no home! No bed! No roof over my head! And here you are, this handsome stranger who clearly just got to Orario and obviously doesn't have a home either, since you don't have a familia or anything like that. So it's just perfect, don't you think? We can figure everything out together! You join my familia, and we can pool our non-existent resources—and find a place to live, and both find happiness together as our familia grows larger over time!"
Was this Goddess propositioning me right now? She wants OUR family to grow over time? Does she want my babies or something…?
How was I supposed to respond to any of these questions in my mind?
She clasped her hands together in front of her chest and gave me the most hopeful, pleading look I had ever seen on a woman's face. "I got a really, really good feeling when I first saw you, Blake! Like, the best feeling I've had in centuries! You would be perfect as my first child! What do you say!? Pleeease!?"
I stood there for a long moment, just staring down at this short but ridiculously beautiful goddess who had walked up to me on the street and immediately tried to recruit me into some kind of supernatural family unit I had never heard of. My brain was struggling to process about six different things at once. The fantasy world. The Bifrost. The fact that I was probably stranded here for several days at minimum. The goddess Hestia that literally came out of nowhere. Her dress. The fact that I had no idea what she was talking about—but she seemed very nice and genuine.
Okay. Let me think about this rationally.
I was stuck in some random fantasy world called Orario, with no contacts, no money, no place to stay, and a portal power that needed days to recharge before I could go home.
By any reasonable measure, I was in a pretty bad situation.
And then this random goddess walked right up to me and offered me a place at her side. Although, she is technically homeless too. So it's not like that improves my situation, but at the very least I wouldn't be alone, and I would have a powerful—VERY powerful—friend at my side as I figured out this strange new world.
I studied Hestia for another moment, really looking at her this time. Beyond the obviously distracting body and the bright, almost childish energy, I could feel her divinity humming just beneath the surface. It was warm. It was honest. Whatever she was, she was sincere.
She's gotta be ancient. Like, thousands of years old at minimum. But she acts like she's about my age.
She was genuinely different from any of the women I had met before. This goddess Hestia just radiated pure, uncomplicated warmth and optimism.
I let out a long breath and gave her a small, lopsided smile. "Alright, Hestia. I have absolutely no idea what I'm getting myself into here, and I'm probably going to need you to explain pretty much everything from scratch, but sure. Let's figure it out together."
Hestia's reaction was instant and explosive. Her eyes went impossibly wide, her mouth dropped open into a delighted little O, and then she let out a high-pitched squeal of pure, undiluted joy.
"REALLY!? Oh my gosh, REALLY!? You said yes! You actually said yes!" She bounced on her toes, clapping her hands together rapidly. "Oh, Blake, you're not going to regret this! I promise! I'm going to be the bestest goddess ever! We're going to be the bestest familia in all of Orario! Just you wait!"
Without warning, she launched herself forward and threw her arms around my waist in a fierce hug, pressing her face directly into my chest. Or, more accurately, pressing her enormous breasts directly into my stomach, which was the highest point on me they could reach given our height difference. The soft, warm pressure was absolutely overwhelming, and I felt my face go bright red as my body responded to the contact in ways I did not need it responding right now.
Oh god. Be cool. She's a goddess. She's a goddess and you just met her and you cannot get hard right now. Think about Riser. Think about Riser freezing in Antarctica. Think about Riser freezing in Antarctica with frostbite on his stupid face…
Hestia squeezed me tighter, completely oblivious to my internal crisis, and tilted her head up to beam at me with the brightest smile I had ever seen.
"Welcome to the Hestia Familia, Blake Himejima! This is the start of something amazing, I just know it!"
The next hour passed in what could only be described as an info-dump from a hyperactive goddess who walked at twice the speed her short legs should have allowed. Hestia bounced beside me through the streets of Orario, her twin tails swaying with every excited step, and she explained the entire layout of her world to me without ever once stopping to take a breath.
I learned that Orario was called the Labyrinth City for a reason. Beneath the colossal Tower of Babel that dominated the skyline, there was a Dungeon. A real, live, monster-infested dungeon that descended into the earth across dozens of floors, each one more dangerous than the last. The monsters down there dropped magic stones and rare materials, and those magic stones were the lifeblood of pretty much every economy on this side of the continent. Mortals who were brave or stupid enough to dive into the Dungeon were called adventurers, and they made their living by killing monsters and selling the loot back to the Guild.
The Guild ran almost everything in Orario. They handled adventurer registration, monster stone exchange, mission assignments, dispute resolution, and apparently a thousand other administrative tasks that Hestia waved her hands at vaguely without explaining in detail. They were the closest thing Orario had to a centralized government, and they kept the city running smoothly enough that gods and mortals could coexist without too much chaos.
Adventurers organized themselves into Familias. Each Familia was led by a god or goddess who descended from the heavens to live among mortals, and the deity granted their followers something called a Falna. The Falna was a divine blessing that gave mortals the ability to grow stronger, level up, learn skills, and develop magic. Without a Falna, a mortal was basically just a regular person who would get torn apart by even the weakest monster in the Dungeon. With one, they could become legends.
Hestia explained that diving into the Dungeon was extremely dangerous. People died down there constantly. New adventurers had the worst survival rate, and even experienced ones sometimes never came back from a deep dive. She told me a few horror stories she had heard from other gods over drinks, including one about an entire mid-tier Familia getting wiped out on Floor 18 by a freak monster surge.
While she talked, I studied her out of the corner of my eye, and I noticed she was doing the exact same thing to me. Every now and then her crystal blue gaze would flick over my body, her brow would furrow ever so slightly, and then she would shake her head and keep talking.
I could feel the weight of her divinity pressing against my own senses every time she looked at me, like she was trying to read something written in a language she did not understand.
She's trying to figure out how strong I am. She can sense something, but my power isn't from her pantheon, so she can't get a clean read on me. That's actually pretty useful. Means I have a little bit of plausible deniability.
I was running my own assessment as we walked. Every adventurer we passed on the street got a quick glance from me, and my senses gave me a rough picture of their power level.
Most of them felt like normal humans with a little bit of extra juice layered over the top.
A few of the more grizzled ones felt stronger, with denser auras and the sharp, alert presence of people who had killed things. One particularly intimidating dwarf with a battleaxe—SO FREAKING COOL—almost as big as he was made my instincts sit up and pay attention. He felt dangerous in a real way. But even he did not feel like he was operating on the same level I was.
I'm pretty sure I'm stronger than every single adventurer I've seen so far. None of them feel anywhere close to Tsunade, or even close to a full-power Akeno. The dwarf might give me some trouble in a straight brawl because he looks like he's been swinging that axe for forty years, but I could fly and he can't, so that fight ends however I want it to end.
Then I glanced down at Hestia, and my confidence dropped through the floor.
Yeah. Yeah, no. She would obliterate me. I don't even need to think about it. Her divinity is on a completely different scale than anything I've ever felt. If she decided to actually use her power on me, I'd be a smear on the cobblestones before I could blink. That's a little terrifying, honestly.
I had no frame of reference for the top adventurers in this world. There had to be people stronger than the ones I had seen wandering around the lower districts. The really high-level Familias probably kept their elites busy with deep dives and missions, not casually strolling through the market. So I had no real way of knowing where I would actually land on the food chain in Orario.
But I was not about to admit any of that to the goddess walking next to me.
"You've gone really quiet, Blake," Hestia said suddenly, looking up at me with a small frown. She had stopped walking and was standing in the middle of the cobblestone street with her hands on her hips, which once again did unfair things to her chest. "Are you listening to me at all? Because I just asked you a question and you're staring off into space like a daydreaming squirrel."
"Sorry, sorry," I said, holding up my hands in apology. "I was thinking. What was the question?"
She huffed and crossed her arms beneath her breasts, which only made the situation worse. "I asked if you were sure about going to the Dungeon. I know we need money, and I know the Dungeon is the fastest way to get it, but you don't have a Falna yet, you don't have any equipment, and you don't have a party. The lowest floors are mostly safe, but accidents happen all the time. I just got you and I really, really don't want to lose you on your first day, okay?"
The genuine concern in her voice caught me a little off guard. She had known me for less than two hours, and she was already worrying about me like she had spent a lifetime as my mother. Goddess of Hearth and Home really does mean Goddess of Hearth and Home, huh.
I gave her my best confident smirk. The one Tsunade always told me made me look like a smug pretty boy who needed to be taken down a peg, which according to her was exactly the kind of look that worked on women.
"Hestia, I appreciate you worrying about me. Honestly, it's really sweet." I paused for effect, slipping my hands into my pockets and looking down at her with the most casual expression I could manage. "But I think I'm going to be just fine in the Dungeon. Don't lose any sleep over me."
Hestia blinked up at me, her eyes going wide. Then her cheeks puffed out in an irritated little pout, and she jabbed a finger into the center of my chest.
"Hey! Don't go acting all cocky on me, mister! Cocky adventurers are the ones who die first! Every single god in Orario has a story about some bigshot adventurer who thought they were untouchable, and then they go and get eaten by a Killer Ant on Floor 5 because they got sloppy! Don't be that guy, Blake!"
Killer Ant on Floor 5? Note to self, do not get cocky around the flesh eating ants.
"I won't be that guy," I promised, letting the smirk soften into something more sincere. "I'm just saying I have a few tricks up my sleeve. I can handle myself. You're going to have to trust me on that until I can actually show you, alright?"
She studied my face for a long moment, and I could see her trying to decide whether to keep arguing or let it go. Eventually she let out a long, dramatic sigh and threw her hands up in the air.
"Fiiiine. But if you die down there on your very first day, I am going to be so mad at you, Blake! I'll find your ghost and yell at it! Don't think I won't!"
"Noted. Death will result in ghost-yelling. I'll do my best to avoid it."
She giggled at that, the irritation melting off her face as quickly as it had appeared. Then her whole expression brightened with a sudden idea, and she clapped her hands together in front of her chest.
"Oh, oh! I just remembered! Before you can even go into the Dungeon, you have to officially register as an adventurer with the Guild! You can't just walk in there off the street! And lucky for you, I happen to know one of the best Guild advisors in the whole building! She's a total sweetheart and she can walk you through the whole process!"
"Sounds good to me," I said. "Lead the way, my lady."
"I told you not to call me that!" she shot back, but she was already grinning as she grabbed my hand in both of her smaller ones and started tugging me down the street.
Her hands were warm and impossibly soft wrapped around mine. She pulled me along with way more strength than her petite body should have had, weaving us through the crowds of pedestrians and adventurers with the easy familiarity of someone who had walked these streets a thousand times. I let her lead and tried very hard not to think about how the bouncing motion of her quick steps was affecting the rest of her body in front of me.
"Oh, by the way!" Hestia chirped over her shoulder, shooting me a beaming smile that nearly stopped me dead in the street. "You have really nice hands, Blake! They're so big and warm! I bet they would feel really nice on my back. I get knots in my shoulders all the time from sleeping in weird positions, you know! Maybe you could give me a massage later!"
I almost choked on my own tongue. But then I remembered that Hestia (at least my world's Hestia) was like a multi-thousand year virgin. And this world's gods were parallels of my own from what I learned from Hestia's explanations. Except a lot of the male gods in this world were gender bent into sexy Waifus…?
Whoever created this universe was a R.O.B of culture…
"Yeah, sure," I managed to get out, glancing back at Hestia. "I can probably do that."
"Yay!" She bounced happily as she pulled me around a corner. "I knew picking you was a good call! I've always been great with people! Except for Loki and Freya. Fuck both of them!" she exclaimed cheerfully.
The Adventurers Guild headquarters turned out to be a massive stone building near the base of the Tower of Babel, with tall arched windows and a steady stream of people moving in and out of its enormous double doors. The architecture had a distinctly old-world cathedral feel to it, all tall ceilings and polished stone, but the inside was buzzing with activity that felt more like a busy bank than a place of worship.
The interior was split into long counters with Guild employees stationed behind each one. Adventurers in various states of armor and exhaustion lined up at different windows, some dropping off magic stones to be exchanged for cash, others picking up new mission assignments, and a few arguing loudly with the staff over what sounded like fee disputes. The smell of paper, ink, and something faintly metallic from all the stones being processed filled the air.
"This way, this way!" Hestia tugged me through the crowd, weaving us toward a counter near the back of the room. "She's usually working at this station around this time of day. She has a whole schedule and she's very disciplined about sticking to it. Eina is just the most responsible little half-elf you ever met!"
We rounded a pillar and stepped up to the back counter, and that was when I got my first look at the woman Hestia had been raving about.
Eina was tall for a woman, with long, soft green hair tied back into a neat ponytail that fell partway down her back. Two pointed ears poked out from the sides of her head, marking her as a half-elf even before I noticed the slight inhuman delicacy of her features. She wore a crisp white blouse buttoned all the way up to her throat, with a dark green vest over the top that emphasized a slim, professional figure. A pair of silver-rimmed glasses sat perched on her nose, and she was currently bent over a thick stack of paperwork on the counter, marking up a document with careful strokes of her quill.
Tall librarian half-elf with glasses and a perfect ponytail and a buttoned-up blouse. Whoever designed this universe knew what they were doing. She is a total waifu as well.
Now that I had thought about it, I don't think I had seen a single unattractive woman actually pass us by in the streets…
"Eina!" Hestia called out, waving her free hand wildly above her head. "Eina, hey, Eina! Over here!"
The half-elf looked up from her paperwork, and her serious working expression immediately softened into a warm, genuine smile when she spotted Hestia. She set down her quill and straightened up, brushing a stray strand of green hair behind one of her pointed ears.
"Goddess Hestia," she said, her voice carrying the kind of pleasant, professional warmth that you would want from someone whose job was to keep you alive. "It's good to see you. I wasn't expecting you today. Is everything alright?"
"Everything is great!" Hestia practically vibrated with excitement as she dragged me up to the counter and presented me with a flourish, like I was a prize she had just won at a festival. "Eina, I want you to meet Blake! He's the very first member of my brand new Familia! And he needs to get registered as an adventurer right away so he can start diving into the Dungeon!"
Eina's emerald green eyes flicked over to me, and I watched as her professional Guild advisor mask slid back into place. She gave me a polite, measured smile and offered a small bow of her head. "Welcome to Orario, Blake. It's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Eina Tulle, and I'll be happy to walk you through the registration process today."
"Nice to meet you, Eina," I said, giving her my most polite, respectable smile. "I appreciate the help."
She held my gaze for a half-second longer than was strictly necessary, her eyes flickering with something I could not quite read behind those silver-rimmed glasses. Then she picked up a fresh sheet of parchment from a nearby stack, and dipped her quill into an inkpot. "Alright then," she said, her voice all crisp business. "Let's get started, shall we?"
…Another hour later, I sat slumped against the back of a worn leather couch in the corner of Eina's private office with an actual otherworldly goddess practically draped across my side. My eyes had started to glaze over somewhere around the forty-five minute mark, and Hestia had given up on looking interested even sooner than that. Her head rested against my shoulder, her twin tails spilled over my chest, and her warm body pressed into me with the kind of casual physical closeness that suggested she had no concept of personal space.
Eina stood in front of us with a clipboard in her hands and a serious expression on her face. The half-elf walked us through what had to be the twelfth or thirteenth different scenario in which a new adventurer could die horribly in the Dungeon. This particular one involved getting separated from your party in a dark corridor and being ambushed by a pack of Kobolds who would drag your corpse back to their nest to feed their young.
"And that's why you should always, always carry a magic light source with you," Eina finished, tapping her quill against her clipboard for emphasis. "Even if your eyesight is good in low light, the deeper floors have darkness that no normal vision can penetrate. Skipping a torch or a lantern has killed more new adventurers than I can count."
"Mhmmm," Hestia mumbled into my shoulder, her voice muffled and slightly drowsy. "Torches. Got it. Buy torches."
I nodded along politely. "Torches. I'll remember the torches."
Eina gave us both a flat look over the top of her silver-rimmed glasses. I'm pretty sure she knows we stopped really paying attention an hour ago. To be fair, she's covered every possible way someone could die down there at least twice now.
I could feel the weight of something heavy behind those green eyes whenever Eina talked about lost adventurers. Her voice would tighten just a little, her lips would press into a thinner line, and her grip on the clipboard would shift like she was bracing herself against a memory.
She's lost people before. Probably more than one. That's why she's like this with new registrations. She's trying to keep me from being the next name on whatever list she carries around in her head.
So I sat through the whole thing without complaining. The lecture had been brutal in length, but it was hard to be too miserable about it when I had a beautiful goddess curled up against my side with her enormous chest pressed into my ribs. Hestia was warm and soft, and she smelled like something faintly sweet I could not place. Every time she shifted against me to find a more comfortable position, I had to mentally redirect my attention back to whatever Eina was saying.
"Alright," Eina said finally, flipping her clipboard around to a fresh page. "I think I've covered all the most common dangers. We can move on to finishing the registration. I just need a few more pieces of information from you, Blake."
Hestia perked up against my side and lifted her head off my shoulder. "Oh thank goodness. I was starting to think this was going to take all day, Eina! Blake and I are going to starve at this rate!"
"Goddess Hestia, this information is important," Eina said patiently, in the tone of someone who had clearly had this exact conversation with the small goddess many times before. "I would much rather spend an extra hour now than attend a funeral next week."
Hestia pouted but did not argue further. She sat up a little straighter, though she did not bother removing her hand from where it had settled comfortably on my thigh during the lecture.
"Date of birth, please," Eina asked, her quill poised over the parchment.
I gave her a date that put me at eighteen years old and adjusted for the local calendar based on what Hestia had mentioned earlier.
"Place of origin?"
"A long way from here," I said carefully. "Past the East. You probably haven't heard of it."
Hestia's head tilted against my shoulder. Her gaze flicked up to mine with a strange, searching look on her face. Her brow furrowed for just a second, and her lips pressed into a small, confused frown.
Huh. That was a weird look. Did I say something wrong?
She did not say anything though, so I let it go.
Eina's pointed ears twitched slightly, and her eyes flicked up to meet mine for a half second before returning to her parchment. Yeah. She caught that I'm being vague. She's letting it slide for now, but she noticed.
"Marital status?"
"Single," I answered, which was technically the most accurate answer I could give without trying to explain my entire situation back home. I mean, I technically was not married…
Hestia made a small, pleased humming sound against my arm.
"Combat experience?"
"Some. I've been in a few fights. Won most of them…"
Eina's quill paused. She looked up at me again, her expression unreadable. "Most of them?"
"All the important ones," I clarified.
She studied my face for a moment longer, then went back to writing. "Alright. And finally, race? This is just for our records, but it does help us provide better guidance based on physiological differences."
I hesitated for a half second. What do I even put down for this? Half-fallen angel is going to get me a whole lot of follow-up questions I don't want to answer. But if I just say human, it might come back to bite me later if anyone notices anything weird about me.
"Nephilim," I said finally.
Eina's quill stopped moving entirely. The half-elf lifted her head and blinked at me through her glasses, her expression cycling through several different versions of confusion before settling on polite uncertainty.
"I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with that race. Could you describe it for me?"
Hestia had also lifted her head off my shoulder and was now staring up at me with wide, curious eyes.
"It's not common around here," I said, which was probably the understatement of the century. "Basically, I have black wings. I can fly with them. But I have magic that lets me keep them hidden inside my body when I don't need them, so most people would never know I had them just by looking at me."
The reaction from both women was immediate and almost identical. Hestia gasped and clapped her hands together in front of her chest with a delighted little squeal, and Eina's whole face lit up with a warm, recognizing smile.
"Oh!" Hestia exclaimed. "Oh, oh, oh, Blake, you must be a beast person from way out east! That makes so much sense now!"
The half-elf nodded along enthusiastically and scribbled on her parchment with renewed focus. "That actually explains quite a lot. We have a fair number of beast people here in Orario, especially from the eastern regions. Cat people, dog people, fox people, all sorts. Wing-bearing beast people are rarer, but not unheard of. I should have considered it as a possibility earlier. I apologize for the confusion."
Oh. Oh, that is so much better than any cover story I could have come up with on my own. Thank you, Eina. Thank you, this entire universe for making my life easier for once.
"Yeah," I said, going with it. "I'm one of those. From way out east. Very far east."
Hestia suddenly paused mid-bounce. Her gaze narrowed slightly, and that strange searching look flickered across her face again. Her smile faltered for just a beat before she pasted it back on, but I caught it. She tilted her head at me in a way that almost reminded me of a confused puppy.
Okay, she definitely just looked at me weird again. What is going on with her?
"Is something wrong?" I asked her innocently.
Hestia made a small, quiet hum next to me. I glanced down at her, and she was staring at the side of my face with that same odd expression. Her lips pursed thoughtfully, and her eyebrow scrunched up like she was trying to solve a math problem she did not have all the numbers for. "Nothing. I just think that the first member of my familia is verryyyyyy interesting," she murmured, almost teasingly. "I'm gonna have a lot more questions for you later after dinner!"
Did she notice my lies? Did I mess up the cover story somehow?
Before I could think about it any harder, Hestia shook her head and the strange look vanished from her face like it had never been there. She beamed up at me with her usual bright energy, like nothing had happened at all.
Eina, completely oblivious, kept writing on her parchment. "Wonderful! I'll note it as such. Now, that brings up an important point about the Dungeon. I know your wings are probably one of your most valuable combat assets, but I have to warn you, they're not going to be very useful on the early floors."
I tilted my head slightly. "Why not?"
"The ceilings on the first several floors are only about twenty feet high at most. Some sections are even lower. There simply isn't enough vertical space for proper aerial combat. You can hover briefly or use your wings to assist with jumps, but you won't be able to dive, swoop, or maintain altitude for any kind of sustained engagement. Most wing-bearing adventurers find that their wings only become a real advantage starting around Floor 18, which is the great open space we call the Under-Resort."
"Thanks for the heads up. That's good to know."
"Of course." Eina set down her quill and slid the completed parchment to the side of her desk. "I think that's everything I need for the official record. Welcome aboard, Blake. Try not to die immediately…" She extended her hand across the desk, and I leaned forward to shake it.
"Thanks, Eina. I really appreciate the help."
Hestia bounced off the couch with sudden energy and grabbed my hand in both of hers. "Okay, okay, that's enough SUPER BORING Guild stuff for one day! Come on, Blake! We need to go find some monsters to slay! Oh, and we'll do your Falna later tonight after you've had a chance to see the Dungeon for yourself!"
Eina's head snapped up so fast her ponytail whipped around her shoulder. "Wait, Goddess Hestia, you haven't given him his Falna yet!?"
"Nope!"
"He cannot enter the Dungeon without one! That's incredibly dangerous! He won't have any of the divine protections or stat enhancements! He'll be going in there as basically a normal mortal!"
Hestia waved a hand dismissively. "Eh, Blake said he can handle himself! And I want him to see what the Dungeon is actually like before I lock in his stats! It's better that way! Bye Eina!"
"Goddess Hestia, that is not how it works! Blake, please, I really must insist that—"
Hestia tugged me up off the couch with that surprising strength of hers, and I let her drag me toward the office door before Eina could finish her sentence. I gave the half-elf one last apologetic smile over my shoulder as Hestia pulled me out into the main hall of the Guild.
Eina's exasperated voice followed us out the door. "PLEASE COME BACK ALIVE, BLAKE!"
…Ten minutes later, I stood in front of the entrance to the Dungeon.
It was—BIG.
The Dungeon entrance itself sat at the base of the Tower of Babel, a massive set of stone steps descending into a dark archway that was so deep and so ominously shadowed that I could barely see five feet past the threshold. Adventurers in various states of armor and equipment streamed in and out of the entrance, some heading down with grim determination, others coming up dirty, bloody, or carried by their teammates on improvised stretchers.
Hestia stood beside me and clung to my arm with both of her hands, her eyes fixed on the dark archway with an expression of barely contained worry. Her grip on my bicep was tight enough that I could feel her tremble slightly. "Okay, Blake, okay, listen to me." Her voice came out fast and a little breathless. "I want you in there for one hour. Just one hour. No longer than that. Do you hear me?"
"I hear you."
"And don't go past Floor 2! Floor 1 is for absolute beginners and Floor 2 is fine for someone with combat experience like you, but anything past that and I am going to march down there myself and drag you back out by your ear! It's literally against the rules for me to follow you in there, and I will get in a whole bunch of trouble if I do, but I would do it anyway!"
I just met this goddess but her concern genuinely touched me. "Floors 1 and 2 only. Got it."
"And only kill enough monsters to get a reasonable amount of magic stones! We just need enough for dinner tonight and a decent hotel room! That's it! Don't get greedy and try to grind out a whole bunch of crystals on your first day!"
"A reasonable amount of stones. Dinner and a hotel. Got it."
"And I am going to be standing right here the whole time you're down there, Blake! I'm not moving! Not even an inch! If you need me, just yell! I probably won't hear you because the Dungeon swallows sound, but I'll be right here anyway, okay!?"
I looked down at her, and the sheer worry on her face made my chest ache a little. She had known me for less than three hours, and she was looking at me like I was about to march off to my death. She really, really cares already. That's wild. I have no idea what I did to deserve this kind of immediate devotion from a literal goddess, but I'll take it.
"Hestia." I gently turned to face her and rested my hands on her shoulders. "I promise. I'll be back in one hour. I'll be safe. I'll bring back enough crystals for dinner and a hotel."
"Pfff, look at this guy!"
The voice came from behind me, loud and openly mocking. I turned my head slightly without releasing Hestia, and I caught sight of three armored adventurers loitering near a column to our right. They were all human men, probably in their late twenties or early thirties, and they had the loose, swaggering body language of people who had done a few real Dungeon dives and now thought of themselves as veterans.
"Some rookie getting tucked in by his goddess before the big bad Dungeon. Adorable." The biggest of the three made a kissing noise in my direction. His two friends snickered.
"You sure he can even walk down there without holding her hand, Borst?" the shortest one asked, grinning.
"Doesn't look like it. Better walk him to the door, Goddess. Tuck him in nice and snug."
A fourth voice from somewhere behind them added a low whistle. "What's the over-under on him coming back up crying?"
A few other adventurers nearby laughed openly. A few others did not laugh but did not say anything to stop it either.
Hestia's whole body went rigid against me. Her hands balled into fists at her sides, and her eyes flashed with something dangerous as she turned her head to glare past my shoulder at the group. Her divinity flickered just slightly under the surface, and even in that small moment I could feel a fraction of her real power leaking out into the air around us.
"You take that back!" Hestia snapped at them, her voice sharp. "You don't even know him! Blake is going to do amazing down there, you stupid jerks!"
Her defense of me was so genuine and so immediate that something warm twisted in my chest, separate from the heat of her body still pressed against mine. She really is the genuine article. There is not a single drop of pretense in this woman. Goddess. Whatever.
I did not even bother looking at the laughing adventurers. They were not worth my attention. Instead, I let my hands slide from Hestia's shoulders down her back, and I pulled her gently into a hug.
I had not planned on it. My body moved before my brain caught up, and by the time I realized what I was doing, I had already wrapped both arms fully around Hestia's body and pulled her in close.
The contact was a lot. Her enormous chest pressed against my stomach, her face fit perfectly against the center of my torso, and her twin tails brushed against my arms as her whole body melted into me. The thin white fabric of her dress did almost nothing to mask the softness of her body, and the warmth of her skin radiated through my shirt in a way that made my breath catch in my throat.
"Eep!" Hestia squeaked against my chest. Her whole body went rigid for a half second from the surprise of the contact. Then she relaxed into me almost immediately, her softer hands coming up to fist gently in the fabric of my shirt at my lower back. "Bla-Blake!?"
I kept the hug going longer than I should have. Way longer than was strictly necessary to make a point to the laughing adventurers. The truth was, once I had her pulled in like this, I did not really want to let her go yet. Her body was warm and soft, and she fit against me like she had been designed to. The way she clung to me with those hands made something protective stir low in my gut.
The laughing behind us had gone quiet. The mocking adventurers had clearly not been expecting whatever they were now witnessing.
I tilted my head down and spoke directly into Hestia's hair, my voice low enough that only she would hear it. "I'll be fine, Hestia. I promise. And we'll have plenty of time to learn more about each other when I get back. Alright?"
She nodded against my chest. Her hands tightened their grip on my shirt for a moment before slowly releasing.
I let her go and stepped back. Her face was bright pink, her crystal blue eyes were a little dazed, and her pink lips were slightly parted as she stared up at me. The white ribbon across her chest had shifted very slightly during the hug, and the strain on the fabric of her dress now looked even more dangerous than before.
I should leave. I should leave right now before this gets even more complicated.
I gave her one final smile, turned on my heel, and walked toward the dark archway of the Dungeon entrance without looking back. The mocking adventurers were dead silent as I passed them. One of them actually took a small step back out of my path.
The cool, damp air of the Dungeon hit me as I stepped under the archway. My eyes adjusted quickly to the dim light, and the long stone staircase descending into darkness stretched out before me.
Alright, I thought, rolling my shoulders and cracking my neck as I started down the steps. Time to go hunt some monsters and make some money.
XXX