After being sent back to the Hephaestus Familia and resting through the entire night, Noah finally woke up in his own bed.
He was immediately summoned by Hephaestus afterward.
As always, she was dressed in masculine attire.
The goddess spoke with an utterly exasperated tone.
"What were you thinking, going to the Dungeon before dawn? When I heard you took down an Evilus executive, I broke out in a cold sweat."
Noticing the dark circles under Hephaestus' eyes, Noah felt genuinely moved.
He didn't hold prejudices against all gods.
Even if their motives for descending to the mortal realm were beyond mortal comprehension, most gods' affection for the children in their Familias wasn't false.
To gods, mortal lives were fleeting.
Yet they would still feel sorrow and grief if their children met untimely ends.
Just like ordinary parents.
Noah bowed his head and said, "I'm sorry, Hephaestus, for making you worry."
"Why did you suddenly drop the honorific?"
"..."
So she did mind being distanced by her children.
She'd been keeping track of him always addressing her formally.
Gods should be respected.
But parents should be cherished!
Within the Familia, Hephaestus was more family than deity.
Hephaestus, "Never mind, I'll stop teasing you. But why did you go to the Dungeon so early, and alone at that? If you wanted to improve your stats, couldn't you have done that at the smithy?"
The goddess, who knew about the Truth Seeker's effects, questioned his sudden trip to the Dungeon.
Yet she seemed to vaguely guess the reason.
Noah cleared his throat meaninglessly, as if trying to dispel the awkwardness.
He muttered quietly, "Well... I just wanted to test my newly completed work... or something?"
"Sigh..." Hephaestus let out a long breath.
"So that's it. In the end, that idiot Tsubaki has been a bad influence on you. It's fine, Noah, you can go back now. Oh, and if you see Tsubaki, tell her to come see me."
'Gulp.' Noah only dared to nod.
'Sorry about this, Tsubaki.'
But thinking about it, this wasn't really shifting blame onto her.
After what happened last time, he really had been influenced by her!
The moment he completed the sword, he couldn't resist the urge to test it by cutting something.
Encountering danger was just accidental.
After all, running into the Evilus wasn't a common occurrence.
Over a decade ago, the most powerful Familias in Orario were still the Zeus Familia and Hera Familia.
Compared to them, both the Loki Familia and Freya Familia were merely juniors.
With those two Familias maintaining order, all of Orario had remained peaceful.
But over ten years ago, the two great Familias joined forces to challenge the Black Dragon and failed.
They were severely defeated by the Dragon King, with nearly all members wiped out, leaving only a few non-combat personnel who hadn't joined the expedition.
Afterward, the two Familias pretended to be "expelled" from the city, using this as an opportunity to retreat behind the scenes.
But with the city losing its restraining force, darkness began to spread unchecked.
Evil gods grew restless.
After that, Orario entered its "Dark Age."
What followed was a great war between Orario 'righteous' factions and the 'Dark faction' represent by Evilus.
It could only be described as brutal.
By the time Noah arrived in Orario, the great war had already ended.
Evilus had been completely driven out of Orario, never to regain significant influence.
Running into that bastard Jura was really just his bad luck...
Bang!
Noah slammed his fist on the table with a grim expression, cracking the surface with fissures.
'Am I an idiot?'
'Is it all over with just an "accident"?'
'I almost died!'
If he hadn't been holding that sword, if the weapon he forged hadn't been as powerful as Crimson Guardian, he would already be a ghost under the Evilus control!
He was deeply dissatisfied with his performance in the Dungeon.
Somehow, he had become arrogant.
He had always reminded himself to stay vigilant, yet he had grown complacent.
Those experiences had boosted his stats and quickly turned him into a "battle-hardened" veteran.
But his body hadn't fully absorbed those experiences.
His mind always reacted much faster than his body.
Otherwise, he could have done even better.
'This isn't a game.'
'Experience isn't just about knowledge.'
'Hah—'
Noah gradually calmed down.
"I reflect on myself three times a day—so i don't forget that again."
'Huh?'
Just then, he noticed the workbench he had smashed with his fist and the overturned Lizardman mucus.
'Am I an idiot?'
'Now I have to start over, god damn it!'
"At least it didn't get on the dragon liver."
Noah tidied up the materials on the table.
To create his ideal piece, he had extracted the dragon blood stored in the Amphisbaena's dragon liver as a material.
Though this material was precious, compared to the dragon liver itself, it was more of a byproduct.
What he needed was the resilient dragon liver itself.
With exceptional resistance to heat and cold, and toughness slightly inferior to dragon scales but possessing a flexibility that dragon scales lacked, it was an excellent material for crafting armor.
Among the materials he had anticipated acquiring, this was the one that best matched his vision.
He had also requested rare materials like Goliath's tough hide and even the membrane of the powerful dragon Cadmus, but in the end, what he received was the Amphisbaena's dragon liver, one of his target items.
If it were just for heat and cold resistance, using the Amphisbaena's dragon liver would be somewhat wasteful, as grinding the liver into powder could be entrusted to Airmid, the Dea Saint of the Dian Cécht Familia, to create very high-grade potions.
If all he needed was tough hide, the problem would be simpler.
But Noah was targeting the ultra-high magic conductivity and adaptability it possessed as a drop from a floor boss-level monster.
Materials that could simultaneously meet the criteria of toughness, flexibility, and excellent magic conductivity were extremely rare—barely enough to count on one hand.
The grade of the material determined whether it could be imbued with powerful magic!
Ordinary equipment would break under the strain during the enchantment process, though that was still better than failing during use.
Although the unexpected commission had taken some time, strengthening his own armor had been his original goal.
If he tried to make a shirt, pants, and shoes, the amount of material would be insufficient.
So Noah planned to craft a long coat and a pair of leather boots.