Everyone present could only sigh in resignation at Loki's antics.
"Look, so we missed out on a promising kid. It happens. It's not like we're short on talent—Lefiya's plenty gifted. And as an elf, she's downright adorable. Right up your alley, isn't she?"
The moment Finn spoke, Lefiya, standing nearby, flushed crimson.
"Th-that's not true! I'm just a clumsy fool who even trips over her own chants... Please don't say such things! And compared to Alice-chan, I'm not pretty at all!"
Finn completely ignored Lefiya's flustered response and pressed Loki seriously.
"So, Loki, you're upset because Bete drove her away."
"But beyond her potential and looks, there must be something more, right? What is it about that girl Alice that has you so captivated?"
All eyes in the room turned to Loki. Every one of them was a veteran of the Loki Familia, seasoned and powerful adventurers.
In Orario, Level 7 was the highest rank an adventurer could achieve, and while there was only one such individual in the city—who didn't belong to the Loki Familia—the familia itself boasted numerous Level 6 members.
Aside from Lefiya at Level 3 and Ais at Level 5, everyone else present—Finn, the Amazoness twins Tione and Tiona, Riveria, Gareth, and even Bete, who'd been punished by Loki and forced to spend the entire day searching for Alice—were all Level 6 adventurers.
As veterans who'd been in the game for years, they'd seen their fair share of promising newcomers.
Frankly, they'd encountered plenty.
As a goddess, Loki had seen even more.
A single talented adventurer? She'd probably run into hundreds. Ais's potential was something every deity had taken note of.
Sure, if Ais were poached now, Loki would throw a fit—but if she'd been snatched up before joining the familia, Loki would've been disappointed at most. Nothing like this.
So, that girl Alice must have something truly special in Loki's eyes.
"Loki, if you can explain why you're so fixated on her and share your reasons, I can mobilize the entire familia to help search for her." After all, she was their goddess. Finn was offering a compromise.
Hearing this, the color slowly returned to Loki's face.
She frowned, deep in thought, before finally letting out a sigh.
"Forget it. If Alice's secret got out, all of Orario would go into an uproar. I love chaos as much as the next god, but not the kind that could destroy the entire city."
"Finn, go call Bete back later. If Alice-chan really wants to hide, we'd probably need my divine powers to find her anyway." Loki leaned back in her chair, slumping with a melancholic air.
"Though her secret isn't something to spread around, I suppose I can tell you guys. But you have to swear not to breathe a word of it to anyone." Loki sat up suddenly, her usually narrowed eyes cracking open slightly.
She rested her elbows on the table, interlacing her fingers and pressing them to her lips, her expression deadly serious.
"Before I explain what makes Alice-chan special, there's a concept you need to understand first: Worlds aren't singular. There's more than one."
Her opening statement left everyone utterly bewildered. It wasn't that they couldn't grasp the idea—it was just too staggering to accept.
"Go on," Finn nodded calmly. Since this was their goddess speaking earnestly and confidentially, and given Loki's notoriously mischievous nature, if she was being serious now, it had to be true.
Finn accepted Loki's words, but that didn't mean everyone else could.
Ais, Lefiya, and the Amazoness sisters looked completely lost, their faces blank with confusion.
Gareth seemed unbothered, though that might've just been his thick dwarven beard masking any reaction.
Only Riveria appeared deeply troubled, her brow furrowed and her elegant features tense with distress.
"Worlds are multiple, but neither mortals nor gods can leave this one. So, to you, the existence of other worlds is meaningless. The gods know about it, but it doesn't change anything for us either."
"However—" Loki's voice grew weighty. "In Alice-chan, deep within her soul, I saw another world. Alice is not human. In fact, she isn't any naturally born lifeform at all."
"She is a creation—a last-ditch effort by a world on the brink of destruction, fighting for survival, striving to preserve a spark of its existence."
This revelation was even more shocking than the concept of multiple worlds.
"Tione," Loki asked abruptly, "what is Alice's occupation?"
"Huh? Her occupation?" Tione was still struggling to process the idea that Alice wasn't human but a creation of a world. The question caught her off guard. "Um... a dollmaker?"
"Exactly. A dollmaker." Loki nodded. "Hephaestus, as a craftsman, was more focused on Alice's techniques when she saw the dolls floating around her. She was amazed by Alice's godlike skill. But I'm no artisan—I don't care about craftsmanship. What I care about is cute girls. So I noticed something deeper within Alice's soul: a brilliance from another world."
"That child was born with a purpose. Not some grand mission to save her world—her purpose is simply to live, to survive peacefully. That's the duty her world entrusted to her."
"In Orario, the only familias capable of giving Alice a safe life are ours and the Freya Familia. As long as Alice lives, the world behind her continues to exist. If she dies, that world effectively vanishes. The loss of a world... is a tragic thing."
Here, Loki leaned back again, her tone tinged with sorrow. After all, every god was born from the cosmos itself.
To deities, worlds were precious. But the world behind Alice wasn't theirs.
For gods bored with eternity, many might be tempted to kill Alice just to witness the spectacle of a vibrant world meeting its end. After all, her death wouldn't affect this world at all.
And gods were not inherently kind. They followed their desires without restraint.
While Loki believed no other deity had eyes as sharp as hers, Alice's beauty alone was a magnet for trouble. If she didn't join a powerful familia, everyone would want to claim her.
Hers was a beauty that could intoxicate even gods—a non-divine, fully attainable, conquerable "Freya." How irresistible would that be?
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