Haimer could only watch, helpless, as Lefiya — every last scrap of caution burned away — came stumbling straight up in front of him. Elves were a proud race by nature.
They prized purity and chastity above their own lives.
Even an elf like Lefiya, born in Wishe Forest where the customs ran comparatively loose, had that tradition rooted deep in her bones.
And if Lefiya came to her senses and found herself stark naked, sharing a bath with a male god — that scene needed no imagining at all.
The sheer volume of the little elf's scream would likely blow the grey roof tiles clean off the Twilight Manor bathhouse and send them sailing for miles.
Amusement delivered right to his door, and far more trouble than it was worth.
Haimer leaned back against the smooth rock wall and drew a long breath at the thought.
Water beaded and slid down his solid chest.
Better to move while Lefiya was still drifting, numbed by Divine Wine and lost in her own muddled little calculations.
While the heavy mist still wrapped everything in white.
He would slip out without a sound and act as though none of it had happened. If this blew up, the explaining would never end.
Haimer turned slightly, ready to swing a leg toward the stone steps on the far side.
But accidents always travel faster than reason.
The instant he shifted his weight.
That was the moment.
The thick white veil that had been hanging over her eyes—
The ventilation duct in the corner changed the direction of its draw.
And the eddy stirred up by the water swept a clear pocket open in the steam, neither large nor small.
Perfect timing.
Half a meter of the curtain between them tore wide.
Lefiya, eyes still half-lidded, was cupping her hands to splash warm water over her face.
Through the gap that had just opened in the mist—
A broad, sharply carved male chest, and that handsome face she knew far too well.
They slammed straight into her vision!
The image bulled its way into her head.
Lefiya's eyes flew wide!
The water she was holding crashed back into the pool with a splash.
In those big amber eyes, the haze and the drunken warmth shattered under the impact!
Between the two of them, the surface rippled.
And the air, in that split second—
That was where it ended.
Ten minutes later.
The lounge area outside the corridor.
A residue of awkwardness still hung in the air. Out of Lefiya's stammering explanation, delivered red to the roots of her neck, Riveria — who had come searching for her — finally pieced together the whole absurd farce.
Once she understood, the ever-composed high elf pressed her fingers to her forehead and produced a rueful smile.
"I am terribly sorry… Lord Haimer."
Riveria sighed.
Her eyes carried the weariness of someone forever cleaning up after a reckless junior.
"At the gathering this noon, that fool Loki topped up Lefiya's fruit wine with a couple of mouthfuls of the Divine Wine Lord Dionysus sent over…"
The girl's tolerance was shallow to begin with.
One touch of Divine Wine and her mind short-circuited; she took the wrong door and walked straight into the men's bath.
Lefiya had thrown her outer robe on in a hurry by now, the collar sitting crooked.
She wrung the sash in both hands, head bowed so low it nearly tucked into her chest. Her face was as red as a boiled shrimp, and the tips of her ears ran hot enough to fry an egg.
"I-I'm sorry! Lord Haimer! I'm so terribly sorry!"
"I'm such an idiot! I couldn't even find the right door!"
Lefiya bowed over and over, her voice shaking so badly she was on the verge of tears.
Shame over the accidental exposure had already pinned the needle past the end of the gauge.
Haimer was long since dressed, his clothes crisp and neat.
Watching the little elf all but claw a crack in the floor to hide in, he laughed softly.
"It's fine."
"It was a misunderstanding brought on by alcohol, nothing more. We're all Familia of the gods here — there's no need to take it so hard."
His tone stayed level and warm.
"I only hope Miss Lefiya won't dwell on it, or feel she carries any burden for it."
Hearing so magnanimous an answer from a Kami-sama—
Lefiya let out an enormous breath and shook her orange head quickly, the flush still refusing to leave her face.
"No! How could I ever mind!"
"If anything… I should say I was lucky it was Lord Haimer I ran into."
Lefiya stole a glance up at him, then dropped her head again just as fast, both hands pinched together.
"After all, Lord Haimer is such a dignified, noble god, and you haven't been in the Lower World very long."
"I'm just a plain little elf. Kami-sama has met so many goddesses — you'd never look twice at a girl like me, or get any strange ideas about her."
She said it with total sincerity.
Relief and utter certainty both.
In her sheltered understanding, gods were objects of faith, seated forever high above.
Mortal flesh and mortal love were passing clouds to the deities of the Heavens.
The moment those words left her mouth—
The air in the corridor turned delicately strange.
Haimer glanced sideways at Riveria, helpless.
One brow lifted, amusement glinting in his eyes.
He didn't correct the girl's naive declaration outright. "Miss Riveria," he said instead, "it appears Miss Lefiya isn't terribly familiar with certain local customs here in Orario."
As a First Class Adventurer, the "Nine Hell."
Riveria caught the weight buried in his words.
That only deepened her resignation; slender fingers rubbed at her temple. "Forgive us the spectacle."
Riveria went on, clearly at a loss. "This child left Wishe Forest to study at the School District, and not long after arriving in Orario she converted straight into the [Loki Familia]. She has lived under the roof of the Twilight Manor ever since."
"Between Wishe Forest and the School District's education, when it comes to the tangled common knowledge of this Lower World city — especially the less respectable sort, the talk and rumors about gods and the children of the Lower World — Lefiya's ignorance is truly out of the ordinary."
"I see."
Haimer nodded and let the subject rest there.
Seeing it, Riveria drew Lefiya closer to her side.
"We won't disturb Lord Haimer's rest any longer. I'll take her back now."
Riveria bowed.
The two of them turned and left, following the long corridor toward the women's bath at the far end.
Lefiya kept pace at Riveria's side like a startled rabbit caught misbehaving, not daring to fall a single step behind.
Before long.
The two of them were back in the women's bath.
Standing under the shower again with warm water pouring over her, Lefiya finally felt her racing heart begin to settle. She scrubbed the last of the liquor from her skin.
And all the while the exchange between Lord Haimer and Lady Riveria kept circling in her head.
"Lady Riveria…"
Lefiya wiped the water from her face and turned toward Riveria in the next stall.
"What Lord Haimer said just now — the local customs I don't understand — what did he mean by that?"
As far as she knew, Orario was Dungeon expeditions and Familia testing themselves against one another, and little else.
The gods sat high above the clouds and bestowed their Grace.
What common knowledge was left for her to be missing?
Unless… he meant something like Lady Loki — a goddess who never tired of teasing the girls?
At the question, Riveria's hands paused midway through washing her long hair, and she let out a slow sigh.
There were things this hothouse flower ought to learn about the world's darker side, before she blundered into another headache like tonight's.
"Lefiya. Do you believe the gods descend to the Lower World simply to found Familia and watch everyone go kill monsters in the Dungeon?"
Riveria pulled over a bath towel and dried her hands.
"They spent ages in the Heavens that were far too long and far too dull. That is why they sealed away their Divine Power and came down here."
"They didn't come only for the food and the diversions of the Lower World… they came to taste its feelings and its desires as well."
"Desires?" Lefiya blinked, still lost.
"Yes."
Resigned, Riveria decided the lesson required plain speech.
She lowered her voice.
"Throughout the Lower World."
"A god taking a liking to a mortal, falling in love with a child of the Lower World, entering into that sort of physical relationship… none of it is the least bit unusual."
"Some gods take beautiful men and women into their Familia for exactly that novelty."
"In Orario, a god falling for their own Familia, or a Familia's children pining after their patron deity, isn't merely common — it's practically the fashion of this Labyrinth City."
"Love that crosses lifespans and ranks of being is everywhere you look."
"Take Apollo, patron god of the [Apollo Familia]. What he… well, those rumors that circulate among adventurers are entirely true."
"Eh?!"
The words landed like a dropped bomb.
Lefiya was thunderstruck.
The soap slipped from her hand and clacked onto the tiles.
Her eyes went perfectly round, disbelief written across her whole face.
"G-gods do… gods do that sort of thing with mortals too?!"
Lefiya's entire picture of the world took a devastating blow in that instant.
So gods knew love between men and women? They had the same passions and appetites as anyone?
"But… if gods and mortals can do that…"
Lefiya swallowed.
"Then… the people in Lord Haimer's [Haimer Familia]… Miss Marie, and Miss Tsukuyo, and all of them…"
"I would imagine Miss Marie and the others are hoping for precisely that."
Watching her elf junior's dawning comprehension, Riveria gave the confirmation with a resigned air.
Of course!
Everything clicked into place at once.
So that pink haze hanging around them really was a contest for Lord Haimer's affection?!
They didn't only want to be comrades fighting shoulder to shoulder!
They wanted to be the one in Kami-sama's bed as well!
"Good heavens…"
Lefiya clapped both hands over her cheeks.
And then she remembered standing stark naked in front of Lord Haimer only minutes ago…
"Wuwaaah!"
Face blazing, she crouched down on the floor, buried her whole face in a towel and folded herself into a ball.
Okaa-saaan!
The world outside Wishe Forest!
It was absolutely terrifying!
"Miss Marie and the others… want to do that with Lord Haimer…"
Crouched beneath the showerhead with both hands pressed to her burning cheeks, Lefiya kept muttering the words under her breath.
For a young elf, that much information was no gentler than catching a [Sword of Promised Victory] full in the face.
Riveria looked at her junior huddled in the corner blowing bubbles and sighed once more.
"Better to understand it now than never. Your grasp of Lower World common sense still has a great deal of catching up to do."
Riveria picked up a wooden basin, scooped a ladle of warm water and poured it down over her shoulder.
"Lord Haimer is unlike other gods. His methods can be vicious, but he holds himself to rules."
"Had it been some other male god, and you had delivered yourself to him bare like that, I'm afraid…"
Riveria left the sentence unfinished.
What she didn't say sent a hard jolt through Lefiya where she hid down in the water.
However hot the bath ran, Lefiya felt a cold draft go crawling up her spine.
It was true! She could have died of shame!
The scene flashed back through her mind whether she wanted it or not.
The white mist parting.
That broad chest, the tracks of water rolling down over lines of explosive muscle — unnervingly vivid.
She could still call up the startled look in Lord Haimer's eyes as he glanced down at her.
The more she thought about it, the hotter her cheeks burned.
So Lefiya simply sank to the bottom of the water.
A stream of glugging bubbles echoed through the women's bath, announcing the total collapse of one innocent elf's defenses.
Meanwhile.
The west-wing guest suite of the Twilight Manor, home base of the [Loki Familia].
Before the wide, bright balcony, Haimer had changed into a dark grey silk sleeping robe.
The sash was tied carelessly.
The collar hung slightly open, his lean, powerful chest showing and vanishing again in the hazy moonlight.
He dragged a high-backed velvet armchair over to the floor-to-ceiling window.
And sank back into it.
Outside, a bright moon hung at the very tip of Babel Tower.
Its glow spilled across the tangled streets of Orario.
At the same moment.
In another oversized guest room two corridors away.
On a row of low tatami bedding laid out side by side, Tsukuyo Inaba lay on her side at the very edge.
Her long silver hair spread over the pillow like satin, and her tightly shut eyes trembled.
Tsukuyo Inaba was not asleep.
Once the alcohol's grip faded, the abnormally sharp senses of the "Ill-Fated Sword Demon" had taken over the watch on their own.
To say nothing of the Development Ability "Mind's Eye" that Tsukuyo had awakened.
So in the deep quiet of the night, nearly every stir within the Twilight Manor fell inside her perception.
Which meant.
Everything that had happened in the manor had gone straight into Tsukuyo Inaba's ears, not one word missed.
And now.
Tsukuyo Inaba's head had gone off with a buzz like a kicked hornet's nest.
Miss Lefiya took the wrong door?
Ran into Lord Haimer without a stitch on?
At that thought, Tsukuyo Inaba's heart hammered, alarm flooding through her!
Her hand under the quilt tightened around the sheet.
Her delicate brows pinched into a small knot.
An elf of the [Loki Familia] had walked right into a bath where Kami-sama sat alone!
Lefiya had stammered out an explanation about mistaking the door, true.
But to Tsukuyo, who had spent her whole life crawling through schemes and power struggles, an accident like that was far too interesting to take at face value.
It was the highest grade of the offer-yourself-up-for-free tactic!
Especially from elves, a race said to guard their chastity above all!
How could one of them possibly make so amateur a mistake? It had to be a ploy to get close to Lord Haimer!
Leaving Lord Haimer alone in this enormous manor was clearly far too dangerous.
She had to guard not only against those women in Kami-sama's own Familia, but now against heavyweights out of other Familia as well.
That settled it. Tsukuyo rose from the bedding at once and set off at a brisk pace in the direction of Haimer's room.
Tonight, at the very least, she would stand guard at Kami-sama's side!
____
📢 WANT MORE CHAPTERS? HELP THE STORY GROW!
💬 Reviews: Leave your review! Every 5 REVIEWS unlocks 1 bonus chapter.
💎 Power Stones: Reach 100 POWER STONES and another bonus chapter drops!
🚀 P@treon: Want to read ahead? Support on P@treon (Walnut-chan) to access over 60 stories and 40 chapters ahead!
🔥 New history: DanMachi: Collecting Goddesses Right from the Start! — posted on The_Mikudayo