Caw! Caw!
The sun had set on Orario, and Akira woke up to feel his whole body ache. Sleeping on the ground with his injured body had not been good for him.
"Are you up?" Hestia asked. She had been searching all over for him. In the end, a member of Ganesha Familia had found him here, and after they informed her, she ran straight to him.
"Hmm… Ack." Akira nodded his head. He winced as pain shot through his body.
"Are you still in pain?" Hestia asked worriedly.
"A little bit. Nothing I can't handle." Akira replied, though his whole body screamed in pain. He knew the bandages would heal him in the end.
"You can't lie to me." Hestia warned, supporting him to stand up. "You only make me worry more about you if you lie."
"Sorry, goddess. The truth is the bandages are magical and will heal me in due time," Akira said softly, feeling weak. He had his arm around Hestia, who supported him as they walked.
"Okay, but if it doesn't work, you have to tell me. I'll ask Miach to look at you," Hestia accepted his explanation.
Akira nodded in understanding. The reason he was okay yesterday was one of the perks of his clothes.
[Item: Shanks Costume (Legendary)
Properties: Face-Face Fruit, Mind over Body]
[Face-Face Fruit: Like any young master of a famous clan, commoners find your argument logical. (Uses: 2/3)]
[Mind over Body: Who needs bones and muscles when you can move your body through sheer will.]
Reaching their base, Akira looked at the dingy bed and decided to replace it with a new one from his inventory.
[Item: Full Size Bed (Uncommon)
Properties: Good dreams, mental fatigue recovery speed +200%]
He sat on one side of the bed and placed a few pillows to make a border between them. He apologetically asked, "Sorry, Kami-sama. I think we have to sleep on the same bed tonight."
"It's okay. You must be hungry, I got some special Jagamarukun." Hestia showed him a plate, eager to let him taste food cooked by her.
Feeling hungry, he accepted. With the soft bed inviting him to sleep, Akira's will was weakening at a record rate. Even lifting his hand to reach the food was hard. Seeing his shivering hand, Hestia held his palm. "Let me feed you."
Seeing her serious expression, and the fact he couldn't even pull his palm out of her grip, he sighed. "I'll be troubling you then, Kami-sama."
Hearing this, Hestia placed his palm back on the bed and picked up the plate beside her. With every bite of Jagamarukun, Akira grew sleepier until he finally fell asleep.
Seeing him doze off while sitting, Hestia gently adjusted him to lie down and covered him with a blanket.
"Such a cute child… Don't worry, I will take care of you, just like I promised your wife."
With those words, Hestia blew out the candle, and the room descended into darkness.
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Next Morning
Akira woke up in an unusually good mood. Sitting up, he found his wounds fully healed. He felt lucky he had all those expensive healing items in his inventory.
On the bed, Hestia was sleeping, tightly hugging a pillow. He silently left the room and went to the bathroom, finding the utilities still working — chalking it up to the miracle of magic. He freshened up.
Before bathing, he removed his bandages and checked in the mirror to see if they had left any scars. Finding none, he was relieved. He cleaned his body rigorously with soap to remove any lingering smell of alcohol.
After drying himself with a towel, he scrolled through his inventory to find some loose black pajamas, a white shirt, and shinobi sandals from his village. Since he wasn't going into the dungeon today, he opted for something light.
Seeing Hestia still asleep, he decided to do a bit of training. Doing some jumps and stretches, he tested the feel of his new body. He was a little scrawny, and his flexibility was low too.
'Looks like I'm back to square one,' he thought. But he didn't feel sad. He might have lost all his strength, but he still had the experience of a veteran fighter. Since he was starting at zero, he decided to follow the training regime of his beautiful shishou. He took a worn out spear from his inventory.
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Hestia woke up late morning. After all, she was not a morning person. Lazily slithering out of bed, still drowsy, she opened the bathroom door to see Akira showering.
Akira looked back at her and made no effort to cover himself. In a joking tone, he said, "Should I scream now?"
Hestia's face turned bright red with embarrassment, and she shut the door with a bang. "Sorry!!!"
After that little episode, Akira took Hestia, who was still feeling shy, outside the church. Seeing food on the table, Hestia was surprised.
"Akira-kun, you made all this?"
"Of course. I'm usually the one in charge of cooking at my home," Akira said while removing the cover to reveal eggs, bacon, and toast. He had gotten all the ingredients from Orario's market, which had a surprisingly high variety of goods for a medieval setting. He chalked it up to being a Japanese fantasy world trope.
"Delicious!" Hestia's eyes were shining. She felt that Akira's cooking might even be better than hers. The night before, she had thought of taking him to her Jagamarukun stand to work once his injuries healed.
Thinking of his injuries, she looked at him. Akira had changed into his shinobi outfit consisting of a light purple kimono jacket and purple pants. He wore a patch over his right eye, but the bandages covering his neck yesterday were gone.
"Are you still in pain?" Hestia asked with concern.
"I'm fully healed." Akira pulled up his sleeves and energetically swung his arm to show her he was fine.
"Good…" Hestia was ecstatic. She knew Akira had magical items from his past world, but this exceeded her expectations. "Then let me take you on a tour of Orario."
"Sorry, Hestia-sama. I still have to visit my guild advisor and then Airmid today," Akira replied apologetically.
"Airmid the Silver Saint. And your guild advisor… isn't she also a beauty?" Hestia said in an accusing tone.
Thinking about his guild advisor, Akira nodded in agreement.
"Listen here, Akira-kun. You shouldn't go around flirting with girls behind your wives' backs. You know…" Hestia began lecturing. She knew from her talks with Konan that her first child had a harem. Still, since the girls and he were happy, she let it slide. But she wasn't going to let him do the same here. She was determined to make her child a better man.
"Ah… It isn't like that." Akira sweatdropped. He never expected Konan to tell Hestia everything about him. He had already decided not to pursue romantic relationships in this world, as promised. (A/N: Not if I disagree.)
"Then why are you going to visit them?" Hestia pressed.
"I want to meet my guild advisor to learn more about the dungeon and tell her about my recovery so she doesn't worry. As for Airmid… you know she's too kind. I bet she's still worried about me, even though I only met her for a check-up before running away. You wouldn't want to make someone like her sad, would you?"
"Okay… but no flirting. Got it?" Hestia warned.
"I promise," Akira said.
"Good." Hearing him say this, Hestia was satisfied.
"By the way, Kami-sama, don't you have to go to work?" Akira asked.
Hestia looked up at the sun, already thirty degrees in the sky. "I'm super late! The manager might cut my salary." She stuffed the remaining eggs and bacon into her mouth in one bite as Akira handed her apron.
"Thanks, Akira-kun!"
Holding a toast in her mouth, she put on her apron. "Shee uu later, Akira-kun!" she mumbled around the bread, waving goodbye before running off.
"Take care of yourself, Kami-sama," Akira waved back.
'We have enough money to live comfortably even if she quits her job. But… there's a little problem I forgot to tell her about.'
Akira pulled out the page with Ouranos' signature on it. This was the second page given to him by the goddess when she provided the dungeon pass the day before yesterday. It didn't have much written, but what was there made it clear how she got the pass so quickly.
The page only had one paragraph:
Akira fully takes responsibility as the source of the dungeon riot, and as such will provide a reasonable amount of monetary penalty, to be decided by Ouranos himself.
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On the other side, Airmid was walking toward the guild. Unlike her doll-like princess look, she now resembled a Japanese salarywoman working in a black company. Dark circles ringed her eyes.
The source of this was two days of continuous work. First, it was the dungeon riot. When she finally got free from that, a bigger wave of sick adventurers came. After asking around, she learned some fool had let adventurers drink a special Soma wine for free.
The result was predictable. They drank beyond their limits and ended up falling sick. If not for the fact that the wine wasn't addictive like Soma's divine wine, she might have thought it was part of a dark plot to overturn Orario.
After seeing this, she had already informed Shakti of her hypothesis. Shakti assured her that her familia would keep watch for any other such events in the future. As for the culprit of this one, it was said he was still recovering from drinking too much.
Now, what the overworked healer wanted from the guild was to find the address of the seriously injured adventurer who had run away from her.
'He must not have the money for treatment. I'll just use some low-level potions to stabilize his condition. It might take him longer to recover, but it'll save him a lot of money,' Airmid had already decided the whole treatment plan.
Achooo!!!
Akira sneezed. 'Looks like Hestia-sama is missing me. Such a clingy goddess.'
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(A/N: It has been so long that I wrote something by myself that I feel I forgot how to write. Any advice to improve would be a huge help)
You can Support me on p@treon: [email protected]/Uchiha_Itachi007 (replace @ with a)
I mainly translate other fanfics on there.