by Fujino Omori
“Fool’s Plaything.”
“Get out of here!!” Hestia shouted with indignation. “Anyway, why should he be your plaything?”
Soon, all the other deities were piling onto the nasty party that Freya and Loki had started.
“Yeah, I have an idea! Chestnut Cream!”
“Oh Be-ell! Marry me! How about Wedding Bell?!”
“You just turned eighty percent of the deities in this room against you!”
“That huge smile on Freya’s face is the deadliest look I’ve ever seen!”
“Eeeeee!”
“Shut up and listen to my song! It’s called ‘Lucky Pyonkichi’!”
“Give it up already!”
“Brave Long-Ears!”
“Youuuu’re trying too hard.”
“He doesn’t even have long ears!”
“Let’s get away from the rabbit theme.”
“Doesn’t he have any other distinguishing features? Like, some other rumor or information about him?”
“Now that I think about it, there was a rumor at one point that the kid was a monster lover.”
“What…?”
“So that means…he’ll go for humans, and he’ll go for monsters…and he’ll even go for us deities?”
“How about All Okay?!”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHH!!!”
Hestia’s patience had reached its limit. Screaming, she waved both arms in the air. Takemikazuchi and Miach tried to calm her down, but even as they did, the other deities continued to roar with bawdy laughter. Hestia howled with rage. Chaos in the room was reaching a fever pitch.
Finally, someone mentioned it was time to get serious, and the deities put an end to their rowdy jokes. With the help of Miach and Takemikazuchi, Hestia—who was still panting hard—managed to wrench a safe nickname for Bell from the group.
“Shit…They really messed with me.”
After the meeting ended, Hestia threw her head down on the table, completely out of breath. Hephaistos sat beside her, smiling wryly.
“That’s because you’re really moving up in the world these days. It was a kind of baptism, in one sense,” she said.
Perhaps because they had succeeded in teasing the cheeky Goddess Loli, the other deities left the room looking very pleased with themselves. Their number included Freya, who cast a sidelong glance and a smirk at Hestia as she left, as well as Loki, who hugged her stomach and tried to catch her breath after laughing far too hard. Hestia watched them leave with a critical look in her narrowed eyes.
“But in the end, Bell’s honor has been protected…I’d better get back home and tell everybody…Oh, but I just want to rest for a minute…”
Hestia seemed to have expended her last bit of energy waving good-bye to Miach and Takemikazuchi. She looked completely exhausted.
“Hestia, your familia’s rank went up, didn’t it?” Hephaistos asked her.
“Huh? Uh, yeah, when Bell rose to Level Four, our familia went from E to D…But why do you want to know?”
Hestia looked up with a puzzled expression at her friend, the red-haired, red-eyed goddess sitting next to her. As she had explained, with Bell’s improvement, the Guild decided that the familia’s fighting strength had increased as well, and consequently raised its level.
Hephaistos shrugged.
“In that case, a notice should be coming soon.”
“…A notice?” Hestia asked, tilting her head quizzically.
A large number of demi-humans was jostling in the hall.
The crowd was gathered around the huge bulletin board that stood in one corner of the Guild Headquarters lobby. The adventurers had rushed there as soon as they heard that the Denatus had ended, because the nicknames chosen at the Naming Ceremony would be posted there first. A few curious townsfolk and merchants could even be spotted among the crowd, hoping to catch a glimpse of the deities’ influence.
The instant the Guild staff finished pinning up the list of names, dozens of eyes zeroed in on the cork bulletin board. Sighs of admiration and voices both happy and sad began to rise from the crowd.
“…Oh, look at that.”
“I know; I can see for myself!”
Most of the spectators were looking for one nickname in particular. They craned their necks and squinted, reaching out their hands to point. All attention gathered on one name, one adventurer, and the commotion melded into a singular buzz. The animal-person master and servant, the pair of prum sisters standing eagerly on tiptoe, the group of beautiful elves, the ruffian dwarves with scarred faces, and the Amazons licking their lips were all talking about one nickname in particular.
Bell watched the scene from the back of the crowd.
“Oh…Bell Cranell.”
The moment someone mumbled his name, all the adventurers turned toward him in unison. Then, having noted his presence, they fell silent, as if it had been arranged beforehand. Bell had just arrived at the bulletin board, and as he stepped toward the front, he realized that he was the center of attention.
“Excuse me, excuse me,” he mumbled as the crowd parted to let him pass. He walked down the path that had opened for him, stopped in front of the large wooden board, and looked up at it. He found his name and read the nickname granted him by the deities.
“Rabbit Foot.”
That was his new title.
His old nickname, which painted him as a rapidly-growing yet immature rookie, was gone, and in its place was a new one that extolled his appearance and incomparably fast feet, and it was gained in record time to boot!
Some of the adventurers around Bell glared at him with hostility, while others smiled or seemed envious, but everyone recognized the amazing achievements of the record-holding rabbit. Unlike before, when he was ridiculed as a fake, there was no sign of jealousy, and no one considered him an impertinent rookie. There was nothing but praise.
Bell could sense it with his whole body, but he couldn’t help feeling embarrassed. He turned toward the reception desk, hoping to escape the crowd and consult with his adviser. He searched out the half-elf from among the receptionists who were looking at him and chattering in girlish voices, but—
“…Miss Eina?”
“…”
The half-elf receptionist just stared at him. It was as if the beautiful emerald eyes behind her glasses were watching some other far-off scene, and her cheeks were as flushed as if she had a cold.
Bell didn’t know what to do, since Eina was just standing there motionless.
“Eina, Eina. Mr. Bell is here, look!”
“—!”
Eina gave a start as her coworker Misha poked her. Finally, she looked directly at Bell, but she immediately lost her composure and flushed even redder, sputtering, “Uh, um, oh?!” Uncharacteristically flustered, she withdrew something from the counter.
“B-Bell!…T-take this!”
“Huh?”
She was holding a pure-white sealed letter.
Bell looked back and forth between Eina’s face and the letter. Some of the adventurers watching from the sidelines screeched, “No way, Miss Eina wrote a love letter?!” but Bell recoiled in surprise as soon as he took the letter in his hand.
From the feel of the envelope, he could tell right away that the paper was of high quality and the sealing wax was imprinted with the Guild’s seal.
Bell had seen a letter like this before. He scanned his memory for the details, and unconsciously his lips moved.
“A mission…?”
CHAPTER 2
ADVENTURE INTERMISSION
After Hestia left the Denatus and Bell received the letter at Guild Headquarters, the two met up at a café on Northwest Main Street, which everyone called Adventurers Way.
Sitting directly across the table from Bell was Hephaistos, goddess of the forge, who wore a large patch over one eye. Hestia had been on her way to Hephaistos’s northwestern branch store to get more details about “the notice” when she ran into Bell coming from Guild Headq
uarters. In the end, the three decided to sit down for a cup of tea.
“Hephaistos, is this letter that Bell received what you meant by a notice?” Hestia asked, flapping the white envelope between her fingers. Her friend nodded.
“That’s right, Hestia.”
It was late afternoon, and the sun was approaching the western city wall. Bell and Hestia asked Hephaistos to explain more about the mission from the Guild.
“Once a Dungeon-exploring familia reaches a certain rank, it has a responsibility to go on expeditions at set intervals—and it has to produce results on those expeditions,” she said.
“Expeditions?”
“Yes. The Guild delivers an order, like the one you just received.”
Hestia was startled by this news and hurriedly looked over the contents of the letter again. Just as Hephaistos had said, the parchment signed by the head of the Guild declared that their familia had a duty to carry out an expedition.
“Lady Hephaistos, you mentioned a certain rank…?” Bell asked.
“It’s rank D or higher, Bell Cranell. The biggest factions like Loki’s and Freya’s do it regularly. Well, Loki Familia goes to the Deep Zone, so they’re not pushed to do it all the time.”
“And what exactly are the results that we have to produce?”
“You can just improve your Dungeon range by one level, or you can contribute to the discovery of various resources like an unknown mineral, or map a Frontier. It doesn’t really matter. I think even defeating a floor boss is sometimes acceptable. Most familias just clear a new floor they haven’t reached yet.”
In contrast to his patron deity, Bell seemed to be thinking about something specific as he asked Hephaistos various questions. She gave him a look that said, What are you up to? but nevertheless answered in detail.
“The Guild wants unknown areas of the Dungeon to be constantly explored and new resources uncovered. Dungeon-type familias only exist in this city, and if you want to call yourself one, then the Guild demands that you have something to show for it.”
“I-I didn’t know that…”
Hestia seemed as if she had received a minor shock. Given the Guild’s history and the fact that it held the real power over the only dungeon in the world, it made sense that its ultimate goal was to explore and understand the subterranean maze that sprawled beneath their feet. These as-yet-unknown resources, territories, and discoveries would of course be closely connected to the future development of Orario. That was why the Guild made things like adventurer registration so convenient. Unlike commercial familias, Dungeon familias didn’t have to fill out any complicated paperwork, and the taxes collected by the Guild weren’t too high, either.
When Hestia started out, she had not felt any preferences for a particular sort of faction, and she made the decision to register as a Dungeon-type familia quite lightly, figuring a small-scale familia would be just right for her.
“I wish Miach or somebody had told me about this before I registered…”
“No one thought you’d ever make it to rank D. I honestly didn’t expect it, either. Who would’ve guessed that you’d rocket to the top this fast…”
Hephaistos smiled wryly at Hestia and shot a sidelong glance at Bell.
For his part, Bell knew he was the catalyst of all this. He pressed his right hand to his temple, feeling a little guilty. Expeditions were required of only upper-class familias—the ones who were able to explore the depths of the Dungeon and come back alive. None of this should have affected any weaker groups…At least, that was how it was supposed to be.
“I bet the reason Hermes doesn’t report his children’s true levels is because he doesn’t like expeditions…” Hestia grumbled. As far as she could tell, the condition for completing an expedition-type mission seemed to be making a clear effort. Hermes’s smile floated before her eyes as she speculated that this was the reason the gentle god—who preferred a middle-of-the-road position over a prominent rise—falsified the levels of his followers on the public reports.
“Getting back to the subject at hand…What’s important is that your own familia does the expedition. You can hire adventurers from elsewhere, but you can’t simply tag along on someone else’s expedition. Make sure you keep that in mind,” Hephaistos explained, emphasizing the importance of taking independent action.
“And by the way, if you don’t go on an expedition or don’t produce enough results, it’ll be treated as a failure and you’ll be penalized,” she added, wrapping up her lesson. Apparently, the penalty was generally issued as a fine. “That’s about all there is to these expedition missions. Did you have any questions?”
“No…It’s just that this is all so sudden that it hardly feels real. I don’t even know what I don’t know…”
Hestia appeared to still be in shock after hearing her friend’s lecture.
“Miss Aiz…and lots of other upper-class adventurers have succeeded, haven’t they?” Bell asked, looking straight at Hephaistos with his rubellite eyes.
“…That’s right, Bell Cranell,” she responded, squinting at him with her good eye as if she understood everything. Her expression relaxed, and she gave an affirming smile.
“Well, do your best. If you need me, I’ll do what I can to help…I’m here for you,” she said. Then the beautiful goddess in men’s clothing finished her tea, paid the bill, and left. Bell and Hestia looked at each other and nodded.
“At last…an expedition mission.”
Mikoto was sitting in the living room, murmuring contemplatively. Dinner was over, and the whole familia had gathered around Hestia for a meeting. The topic, of course, was what they would do about the expedition.
“When I was with Lady Ishtar, I went on a number of expeditions with Aisha and the others,” Haruhime said as she passed out tea, dressed in a maid’s outfit.
“Lady Hephaistos runs a smithing familia, so we didn’t have to do them…But Tsubaki was so curious she joined other peoples’ expeditions just because she wanted to.” Welf added his experiences while sitting on a chair with his legs crossed.
Bell and Mikoto pulled another seat over for the renart girl, who had finished serving. She thanked them as she sat down.
“Lady Hestia, did you not know that expeditions were required? Didn’t we carry out a small expedition before?”
“Well, uh, we were invited by Takemikazuchi that time…But I guess it wouldn’t be a bad idea to do one now to improve our situation in the future.” Hestia gave a hollow laugh as she avoided looking at anyone. Lilly glanced at her through narrowed eyes.
“Oh geez.” The prum girl sighed, looking up. “This is just like when we delivered Wiene to the Hidden Village. We essentially have no right to decline the mission. The only way we can get out of it is if the Guild determines that our fighting strength has suffered a major blow or if we were already on an important long-term quest or another mission.”
“And taking on an important quest…would be impossible right now?” Haruhime asked timidly.
“Yes, that would be prohibited.” Lilly summarily discarded the suggestion. Haruhime hung her head, but Mikoto already seemed to accept that they would be going on an expedition.
“The lowest floor we’ve cleared is the twentieth…That means we’d need to aim for the twenty-first, right?” she said.
“Well, it’s not completely absurd to think we can do it. I mean, now that Mr. Bell is Level Four, he might even be able to manage quite easily…” Lilly said.
The suggested standard for those aiming to reach the twenty-fourth floor—the lowest floor of the middle levels—was Level 2 with ability levels that were anywhere from C to S. Considering that Bell was currently Level 4, he conveniently met these requirements.
“Of course, you have to be vigilant anytime you go to a floor for the first time,” Lilly added.
“This is a basic question, but how do we prove our expedition was a success? Guild staff don’t tag along or anything, do they?” Hestia had posed the question
to Lilly, but Haruhime answered instead.
“As I recall…Aisha used to bring back drop items from specific monsters or chunks of ore. She used to say it was annoying because she had to return with at least ten things according to the rules…”
Although Haruhime was the weakest member of Hestia Familia, her input was priceless, since she was the only one among them to have gone on an expedition during her time spent with the large Ishtar Familia. There was a lot she didn’t know, because she had been a noncombatant, but she still had much to share.
“Also…I don’t really understand what they mean by your own familia has to do the expedition. What does it matter if I go along with someone else’s party or if I organize people from other parties myself? What’s the condition for meeting the requirement?” Welf asked.
Hestia examined the letter from the Guild.
“Um, well…it seems that members of our own familia have to make up more than half the party,” Hestia answered, reading through the mission order.
“Since the parties going on expeditions have been recognized as rank D or higher, they probably have to produce results in line with their ranking,” Mikoto added.
To give an extreme example, if the Sword Princess were to join in a Hestia Familia expedition, it would be easy for them to achieve results. But the Guild expected members of the familia to act as a group when earning excelia on their target floor to make sure they grew stronger. The ultimate goal was to improve the efficiency of Dungeon exploration.
On the other hand, only the kindest people would be likely to dispatch one of their best adventurers on another familia’s expedition. That was all the truer if the expedition was headed for a destination where party members might be in danger.
Lilly, the brains of the faction, outlined their best plan going forward.
“To sum things up, if we care about our future, we can’t shirk this mission. And if we’re embarking on this expedition…then our safest plan is to gather a party including Mr. Bell, Mr. Welf, Miss Mikoto, Miss Haruhime as an emergency supporter, and some upper-class adventurers from other factions…”