Afterward, Leo told this junk goddess that he needed weapons forged, and that he wanted Loki to introduce him to a reliable smith Familia.
Hearing Leo out, Loki simply held out her hand to him.
"Hand over the materials and all the money you've got on you."
That line left Leo blinking, stunned.
But he didn't overthink it, and gave her all his savings along with the Infant Dragon fang he'd gotten not long ago.
This Infant Dragon fang was a drop item Leo had earned only after subjugating a full three Infant Dragons.
On Floor 12, Leo had subjugated two Infant Dragons one after another and failed to get a drop item from either, until Line guided him to Floor 11, where he found a third Infant Dragon and finally got a drop item off it, claiming this fang.
Lucky for him, the drop turned out to be an Infant Dragon's fang. If it had been a scale instead, Leo would have had to give up the idea of supplying his own material.
An Infant Dragon's scales can't be used to forge weapons, only armor; only the fang is suited to weapon-making, which is what Leo needed.
After handing over the fang and his four million valis in savings, Loki gave Leo only a single line.
"Come back to my God's Chamber tomorrow night."
With that, Loki shooed Leo out.
So she means to handle this whole thing for me?
Leo had pretty much figured that out.
"Works for me. Saves me the trouble of going off to negotiate with someone myself."
Leo shrugged and left Loki's God's Chamber.
The next day, for once, Leo didn't go to the Dungeon.
With no weapon on him, even if he wanted to clear the Dungeon there'd be no efficiency in it, so he just stayed home and rested for a day.
When he told Line about it, she muttered a single line.
"So Mr. Leo finally knows how to take a rest..."
Heaven have mercy, ever since teaming up with Leo, Line had never once seen him take even a single day off. Even when he ranked up to Lv.2 he didn't rest; the very next day he set out for the Dungeon as usual, more of a grinder than Ais, who was acknowledged as the biggest workaholic in Loki Familia.
So now, hearing that Leo wanted to rest, Line felt not the slightest disappointment, but rather let out a great sigh of relief.
Still, Line did warn Leo that there were people everywhere out there looking for him right now, especially the gods, every one of them intensely curious about him, and that even if he wanted to rest, he'd best not go out, to avoid getting latched onto by those gods and other scheming types.
Leo agreed with her completely, all the more so when, early that morning, people kept showing up outside the Familia's main base, making a racket and prying for news of him in every other word, which only firmed his resolve to stay indoors.
Ais, on the other hand, had headed out to the Dungeon early that very morning, looking like she meant to grind herself to death, so Leo didn't manage to catch a glimpse of her all day.
Did that really get to her?
Leo finally got a real sense of what Loki had been ribbing him about.
It wasn't just Ais, either. Tiona and Tione, the twin Amazoness sisters, along with the Familia's Second Army led by Raul, had all these days been acting as if they'd taken after him, leaving early and coming back late every day, spending whole days in the Dungeon, which left the entire Familia main base a good deal quieter.
"Hard work's a fine thing, but those bastards had better not hold up the expedition prep, or I'll start cussing people out."
That was what Gareth said when Leo ran into the old man in the corridor, which showed the Familia leadership was starting to get a headache over this phenomenon too.
With the expedition coming up, everyone in the Familia was leaving early and coming back late, gone from home every day, so that when the leaders wanted to send someone on an errand they couldn't find a soul. How could that not get a man cussing?
"You're free today, boy? Then go on over to logistics and make yourself useful!" The old man turned his head and started ordering Leo around, gruff as ever. "You know the place well enough anyway."
So even though Leo was supposed to be resting at home that day, he got press-ganged by the Familia leaders, exiled straight back to the logistics department to take up the same work he'd done back when he was still a trainee.
Leo didn't complain about it.
Idle was idle; logistics it was. In a great Familia like Loki Familia, a mere Lv.2 really was fit for nothing but logistics.
And so, once he started, Leo worked straight through till dark.
After he'd eaten and made his way to Loki's God's Chamber, the goddess tossed something at him.
"Here, see if it's to your liking."
Caught off guard by something thrown into his arms, Leo nearly didn't react in time.
But the moment he did, his attention was instantly seized by the thing he was holding.
It was a sword, sheathed in a finely crafted scabbard.
The blade was tucked inside the scabbard with the hilt exposed, and at a single glance Leo spotted a line of marking on the hilt: "Hephaistos."
"This is... the mark of Hephaestus Familia?"
Leo looked at Loki, somewhat astonished.
Hephaestus, a deity renowned in Heaven as the god of fire.
This deity was both a god of fire and a god of the forge, and after coming to the lower world had founded her own Familia in Orario, namely Hephaestus Familia.
Hephaestus Familia was a great Familia of immense renown in Orario, famous even across the whole world, its fame no less than Loki Familia's.
Because Hephaestus Familia was the most famous and largest smith Familia in all the world.
It possessed and trained a great many high-class smiths, and was known in the trade for turning out high-quality, high-precision weapons and equipment, products counted among the lower world's finest, one in a hundred, widely sought after not only in Orario but across the whole world.
"Don't let appearances fool you, Phi-Phi and me go way back as close friends." Seeing the astonished look on Leo's face, Loki said smugly, "This is a weapon being forged for you, after all. Even if it's only Third Class equipment, a first piece of superior equipment can't be done half-heartedly, so today I made a special trip over to Phi-Phi's place and had her find a reliable high-class smith to forge this sword for you."
"Go on, draw it and have a look."
At that, Leo pushed down the astonishment in his heart and drew the sword in his hands.
With a crisp ring of steel, the blade hidden in the scabbard was bared before Leo's eyes.
It was a keen blade somewhat longer than Leo's short sword yet somewhat shorter than Ais's Desperate, only about eighty centimeters in length.
The blade was silvery-white through and through, its surface throwing back a glaring arc of light, its edge giving off a sharp air, plainly exceptionally keen at a glance.
Loki's voice rang out, reaching Leo's ears.
"It's made from the Infant Dragon fang you supplied as the main material, with a little Hardsteel mixed in. Hardsteel, also called ultra-hard metal, is a metal ore that can only be mined in the Dungeon.
"It's a high-grade material for weapon-making, generally minable only in the Dungeon's Lower Floors or even the Deep Floors. Its hardness is extremely high and it's quite rare; among rare metals it's said to possess the highest tier of hardness, and so it's of immense value, a treasure that can even serve as the main material for First Class equipment.
"They say that apart from orichalcum, called the hardest metal, of all the rare metals in circulation Hardsteel is the toughest, and weapons forged from it all have extremely high Endurance and are hard to damage.
"A weapon forged with this rare metal mixed in, naturally, couldn't possibly shatter as easily as that short sword of yours did before.
"Though it's only Third Class equipment, because the smith's craftsmanship is so superb, its power already comes extremely close to Second Class equipment; speaking purely of hardness and Endurance, it can already stand alongside Second Class equipment."
Loki, hands on her hips, laughed and laughed, leaning in toward Leo as if angling for credit.
"Well? Didn't let you down, did it?"
Far from letting him down, it was a huge surprise.
And yet Leo couldn't quite manage a smile.
"A sword this good, the price must be steep, right?"
Leo wasn't feeling great about it.
Power coming extremely close to Second Class equipment, able to stand alongside it in hardness and Endurance alone, anyone could tell with their eyes closed that even as Third Class equipment, this was a superb piece of the grade.
On top of that, with the exceedingly precious and rare Hardsteel mixed in, and the smith being a high-class smith of Hephaestus Familia, even with Leo supplying the main material himself, it could probably fetch a high price.
And so it was.
"Its original price is four million five hundred thousand valis, and even with you supplying the raw materials, it'd cost about four million valis."
Loki said the words in a cheerful voice, and Leo's face changed.
In other words, this junk goddess had sunk her entire fortune into it?
Just as Leo was weighing whether to give Loki a good whack with the very sword, the next second her words sent his mood soaring from hell straight to heaven.
"Relax, I haggled them down for you."
At that, a jolt ran through Leo.
He remembered: his own goddess was a master haggler, the sort who could beat down even Riveria's staff, hailed as one of the Five Greatest Staves, to an unheard-of price.
That staff named Magna Alfs, its starting price alone could probably fetch five hundred million valis, not even counting those nine magic treasure stones, and yet Loki had stubbornly haggled it down to three hundred forty million valis, slicing off several hundred million in price.
Now this goddess had brought out her greatest talent again, so the final deal price on this weapon, originally four million five hundred thousand valis, surely wouldn't disappoint him?
Sure enough...
"One million eight hundred thousand valis, and I snagged it for you."
The words Loki said with a grin made Leo, for the first time, feel this goddess was so great, great to the point that he couldn't help wanting to plant a big kiss on her.
And as it happened, the good news didn't stop there.
"I know you're going the Magic Swordsman route, so besides a sword you're short a staff. So while I was out today, I scouted out a staff for you too."
Loki tossed Leo another staff.
Leo hurriedly caught it, and on a closer look, was once again drawn in by the staff in his hands.
It was a forty-centimeter staff, its shaft a jade-like hue, its top set with a crystal-like orb, cool to the touch, with clear Magic flowing within.
"The staff's name is Emerald Staff. Like that sword of yours, it's a superb piece of Third Class equipment. The materials used are jade stone from the elf forest and a rare crystal that holds Magic; it can raise the Magic stat, regulate Mind, and strengthen Magic power, with mana fusibility no less than an ordinary Second Class staff's."
Loki spoke with a fresh, clear air, looking every bit as though she'd had her fill of haggling today.
"Original price was five million seven hundred thousand valis, deal price two million valis. If that shop girl hadn't been pretty, looking about ready to cry, I'd definitely have haggled it down to cost. Here, the rest goes back to you."
Loki returned the remaining two hundred thousand valis to Leo, leaving him half amused and half exasperated.
He didn't know whether to call Loki amazing, or to wonder whether she'd used some kind of foul play, like threatening the person...
Otherwise, how could anyone haggle this outrageously?
A sword and a staff, two pieces of equipment that came to over ten million valis together, and she'd stubbornly haggled them down to only three million eight hundred thousand valis, slicing off well over half. Was that really a price haggling could reach?
If he didn't figure Loki still had some principles and wasn't likely to use any despicable, shameless methods, Leo would really have suspected she'd used illegal means to land the two pieces of equipment.
Of course, compared to Riveria's staff with several hundred million valis hacked off it, this was just child's play.
"Guess I should be thanking you?"
Leo looked at Loki, his expression complicated.
"No need. Just work hard, boy, and win some glory for our family, that's enough." Loki waved a hand at Leo, not caring in the least. "I've been showing off plenty out there on your account these days, so call it a reward for you."
Much as she gnashed her teeth at those gods trying to poach from her, it had to be said that after Leo's inconceivable leveling speed took Orario by storm, these past days Loki had been stared at with envious, jealous, resentful eyes wherever she went, and those gods she'd never gotten along with couldn't help looking sour when they spoke to her, which thrilled Loki to no end.
She loved watching those fools go crazy with envy, wanting it so badly yet unable to have it.
A pity the Denatus hadn't come yet. The last Denatus had convened the day after her Familia returned from its expedition, back when Leo hadn't even received his Falna yet, otherwise Loki could already imagine how many envious looks from gods she'd draw at the Denatus.
"There's still two months until the next Denatus. If you work hard enough, boy, squeezing in at Lv.3 shouldn't be tough, and when the time comes I'll be sure to win you a resounding alias."
Loki patted Leo's shoulder, saying this with a touch of anticipation.
"An alias, huh?"
Only then did Leo remember such a thing, and he nodded.
Hopefully a normal one.
He hadn't forgotten that those meddlesome gods loved nothing more than giving the children of the lower world the most embarrassing, edgy aliases...
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