Chapter 12: The Dragon King's Fellow Inmate.
....
They hadn't gone far into the sixth floor when the first War Shadow made its move.
It was a humanoid creature of pure black, built long and lean, with three hooked talons extending from each wrist — designed by nature for ambush in exactly this kind of environment, where the darkness was deep enough to swallow it whole. Under normal circumstances, it would have been on them before either of them registered the threat.
Shinobu was not normal circumstances.
[Something's pressed against the wall around that corner. Waiting.]
The War Shadow launched its ambush into empty space. The Crimson Blade came down from above and split it cleanly in two before it had time to reconsider.
[With Shinobu-brand radar, the dungeon is mine to roam freely.]
[You are exploiting child labour. Ten doughnuts upon return or I strike.]
[What if we settle in milk instead?]
[Will Lili be visiting tonight?]
[She's well-behaved. One word about needing rest and she won't come.]
[Deal.]
With his premium radar subscription renewed, Kihara moved through the sixth floor with the ease of someone who had turned the cheats on. War Shadows were specialists in attacking things that didn't know they were coming — a specialisation that became considerably less useful when the target knew about every ambush before it happened. He cleared each one before it could commit to a strike.
Lili watched him dismantle monsters that genuinely terrified her as though he were doing something mildly inconvenient, and felt a warmth she didn't have a good name for settle in her chest.
Strong. Handsome. She paused on a private thought. And built on a scale that, without the transformation magic, would have been genuinely catastrophic.
During one of the post-battle cleanups, she spotted a pair of pronged blades on the ground and her eyes lit up immediately. She scooped them up and trotted back to Kihara with the energy of a dog who had found something excellent and wanted to share it.
"Lord Kihara — rare drop! War Shadow Talons! If we sell these through the Guild we'd get close to twenty thousand falis!"
He ruffled her hair in acknowledgement.
"Good eye. Keep them if you want — I'm not short on money."
Her cheeks puffed out with immediate seriousness. "That's exactly the wrong attitude. Every little bit counts. Lili has been going over the Familia's daily expenses these past two days, and the average is coming out to around thirty thousand falis per day on food alone. Even if Lord Kihara is wealthy, running a deficit indefinitely isn't sustainable!"
"Is it really that much?"
"The golden honey at breakfast is five thousand falis by itself. And then there's the fresh ingredients for lunch and dinner, the good white bread — Lili actually thinks eating at the Hostess of Fertility every day would be cheaper at this rate."
Kihara rubbed the back of his neck, slightly sheepish. "I did think about eating out, but — you've seen how Hestia dresses. I'd rather not have her going out looking like that. Easier to just keep things at home."
"Lord Kihara." Lili's expression was carefully neutral. "It kind of sounds like you're keeping Lady Hestia as a pet."
"That's an uncharitable way to put it. I prefer attentive caretaking."
"Does Lady Hestia not want to change clothes?"
The question sat in the air.
Kihara had no immediate answer for it. He turned it over and arrived at a realisation that was somewhat embarrassing in its obviousness: Hestia hadn't left the house since moving in. During the early weeks of looking after her, buying new clothes for her simply hadn't crossed his mind — she'd been perfectly comfortable in what she was wearing, and he'd had no particular objection to the view. Since starting dungeon exploration, he'd been too focused on gathering intelligence to revisit the question.
If Lili hadn't said anything, he might not have thought about it for considerably longer.
From the shadow-space came the sound of helpless, rolling laughter.
[HAHAHAHA—]
Shinobu had clocked this weeks ago and kept it to herself purely to see how long it would take him to work it out independently. Her standards of entertainment were specific.
[You. Tonight. Don't go anywhere.]
He patted Lili on the head. "You're right. We're heading back — I'm buying everyone new clothes. No arguments."
"Yes! Thank you, Lord Kihara!"
"New clothes?! For me?! I'm so happy—!"
Hestia clutched a pale, simple white dress to her chest and spun in place with the unself-conscious delight of someone who had not received a gift in a while. Then she pressed her face briefly against Kihara's chest, held it there for a moment, and ran back to her room to try it on.
"Lady Hestia seems genuinely thrilled," Lili observed.
"She'd better be. I spent the last ten minutes being looked at very strangely by a shopkeeper."
Lili failed to contain a laugh.
Selling the day's haul at the Guild and then hitting the shopping district had seemed straightforward in theory. In practice, it turned into something considerably more complicated.
The problem was Hestia's dimensions. Her height and her other measurements existed in a relationship that standard shops were simply not equipped to accommodate. After the third failed attempt at a regular clothing store, Lili suggested the small-folk specialist district.
This also failed. Small-folk clothing was scaled to small-folk proportions in every respect, and Hestia at one hundred and forty centimetres was effectively a giant by their standards. The relevant measurements still didn't correspond to anything available off the rack.
Kihara ended up relaying Hestia's exact specifications to a shopkeeper who received the information with an expression of profound scepticism, and eventually left with a semi-custom piece — a long dress, the chest panel substantially modified.
[Master. I have just noticed something that requires serious consideration.]
[What?]
[Does this world have a concept of a certain type of legal guardian situation?]
[Where is this coming from?]
[Consider the heights involved.]
One hundred and forty centimetres. One hundred and thirty. One hundred and ten.
"...Oh no."
The arithmetic resolved itself with horrible clarity. He had, without realising it, assembled the exact demographic profile that would have certain people on the internet raising very pointed questions.
[Don't panic. None of them are human. Jurisdiction unclear.]
[Does the small-folk count as human?]
[Probably demi-human?]
[That doesn't actually help.]
Hestia came back into the main room wearing the new dress, already composing the expression she planned to use when asking for a compliment — and found Kihara on the sofa looking like a man quietly wrestling with a philosophical crisis.
The excitement redirected itself immediately into concern. She recalled a specific passage from her reference materials: when a man is troubled or burdened, a warm embrace will significantly increase your standing in his heart.
She didn't overthink it. She climbed into his lap, settled her knees on either side of him, looped both arms around his head with her ivory-pale hands, and guided his face gently into the warmth of her chest.
"What's wrong? You look miserable."
Her voice was soft and unhurried — maternal, somehow, despite everything — and the effect was immediate and completely contrary to what the position might have suggested. Something in Kihara simply settled. The tension went out of him. It felt, against all reasonable expectation, like the particular comfort of being warm in bed on a cold morning.
His arms found her waist without conscious decision.
"Hestia — where do gods get their clothes made?"
"I genuinely don't know. I'll ask Hephaestos for you."
"When you go out, take Lili with you. And wear this dress."
Hestia wasn't clever about everything, but she understood what he meant. The corner of her mouth curved. "Alright~ And I'll bring a cloak too."
(T/N: Sorry guys i wasn't able to update yesterday, I had to go somewhere.)
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Thank you for reading.