Next Morning
"Bye, see you again later." Akira waved her goodbye.
"Don't forget to rest for the week. Please order some of your potions from your home," Airmid reminded him.
'Sorry, Airmid, lying to you again,' Akira apologized to her in his thoughts.
With Hestia, he traveled back to the church, still injured but able to walk. Mikoto came earlier to see his discharge but left quickly. She always got shy around him and avoided meeting his gaze altogether.
As they reached, Hestia told him to wait outside for a minute, then closed the door after her.
"You can come in." Hearing her voice, Akira opened the door.
Hestia was standing with a plate of food and smiled at him, "Welcome back home, Akira-kun."
Akira smiled back and replied, "I am home."
Akira took a Jagamarukun from the plate and ate it. He couldn't help but ask, "Why are you still eating Jagamarukun, Hestia-sama? I think I had enough savings to last us a while."
"What savings? You only left 100 valis on the bed." Hestia complained.
"Oh! I forgot I carried it all on me." Akira took out 50,000 valis from his inventory. Looking at the sizable amount of money, she was shocked and asked, "Where did you get this money... Did you sell magic items?"
"No! My friend gave me all the money from the loot they earned in the dungeon." Akira thought, not telling her it was not totally voluntary.
"Your friends are really nice." She continued, "You had all this money, why did I live only on Jagamarukun?"
"Well, don't sweat the small stuff. Don't you have to go to work today?" Akira asked.
"Today is my day off. After all, everyone gets a day off in a week," Hestia explained.
'That was unexpected.' Akira made a new topic to distract her, "Since you are free, why don't we watch a movie from my world?"
"Movie? What is that?" Hestia asked.
"Well, it will be a surprise for you." Akira looked through his collection. He decided to go for an animated movie. Looking through, he chose an unknown one, 'I heard from Tony this was based on a game of the year.'
Deciding to watch it outside, he took two beach chairs and parasols. With popcorn and iced cola in hand, they watched Umamusume: Pretty Derby: Beginning of a New Era on a 50-inch monitor. Although there were some things like news stations she didn't understand, it was similar enough to the gods' war game broadcasts for her to guess.
"That was awesome..." Hestia finished her 5th coke. "Do you have more movies? Can we watch one more?"
"Well, I have... no, we can't watch another movie. That's a path to NEET..." Akira denied, putting the TV back into his inventory.
"Now, since it is a holiday—" He handed her a duster and said, "It is time to clean the house."
"But I want to watch more, it was so interesting."
"I couldn't let you become a useless goddess."
"You! How can you call your goddess useless?"
"It is not me that gave you that name. Well, there was a rumor I heard about a goddess freeloading at Hephaestus Familia. I thought that was you." Akira questioned and looked suspiciously at her.
"How rude!! That is not me." Hestia avoided his gaze. Akira didn't believe her and helped her clean the church.
The place they lived was underground, its entrance hidden under a wooden panel. Hestia had cleaned that part when she started living here, but the church above was still a mess—wood, glass, and rusted metal littered the ground.
Akira first pried open the nails joining the pews (A/N: long benches in churches). He disassembled the benches, putting everything in his inventory for later use. With the furniture out, it was time to clean the floor. They decided to only clean inside the church so as not to attract the attention of thieves.
"Phew..." Hestia cleared the sweat on her forehead. Holding her mop, she looked at the shining floor of the church.
"Here." Akira gave her a chilled water bottle. Drinking it all in one breath, she felt refreshed.
"Now what..." Hestia asked as Akira packed up the cleaning supplies.
"Now we make furniture," Akira replied.
"You also know how to make furniture?" Hestia was excited. Back in heaven she never imagined that learning about her child would be this much fun.
"No... When you live with a cheat like myself, you don't have to take the normal path." Akira took out a pair of white gloves. "With these gloves I can do this."
Taking out a plank from the original benches in the church, he wore his gloves. He gripped the plank—it deformed without cracking. He glided his hand, extracting a clear solution. Hestia touched the deformed plank, finding it solid.
"This is the coating. Put it separately." Akira handed her the crystal-clear ball. Taking off his gloves, he gave them to her. "These gloves make the wood soft like clay. With your hands you can control the wood, and with your mind you can separate it based on any property you can think of."
"Wow...." Hestia was excited, snatching the gloves and starting to work on the benches.
Akira asked for the gloves back since they were the only pair he had, so that he could work. But Hestia, confident in her skills, asked to leave the matter to her. Leaving her with a small wooden box with ice cubes and water bottles, he left her to go to the guild.
Carrying the loot Takemikazuchi Familia collected from his body, he walked to the guild—this time taking back alleys as he was not in a rush. Mentally mapping the layout of the roads through the ruins for his future adventures.
Entering the guild, he found the number of adventurers to be sparse. Looking at the reception, he saw his target.
"Hello, Miss Werewolf. Did you miss me?" Akira had visited her every day he came here to learn from Eina.
"No need, everybody knows Eina's adventurer bad luck. Meeting a strengthened species on the 3rd floor." The red-haired werewolf replied.
"It's not bad luck, it's the dungeon's recognition of my strength. It sends a never-before-seen strengthened species to kill me." Akira corrected.
The female gave him only a doubtful stare.
"Now, now, I think that should be enough conversation to fulfill my promise. See you again tomorrow." Akira saw Eina and picked up his loot.
'If it still goes on this way, he will break his promise like every adventurer.' The werewolf shook her head. It pained her knowing she couldn't stop him. She felt more sad thinking she might outgrow this pain too.
"Eina-sensei, good afternoon." Akira said cheerfully. Ignoring him calling her sensei, she asked, "Are you okay? I heard you were heavily injured."
"Ah... I have healed enough to walk around, but it might take a week to get well enough for the dungeon." Akira replied.
"Misha, take my place for a while. I need to talk to Akira-kun in private for a while." Eina asked him to follow her.
After closing the door, Eina turned to see Akira preparing tea for her. He pulled the seat back for her to sit.
"Sensei, your tea." Akira poured tea for her, taking a packet of cookies out of his inventory without her noticing. Plating it in front of her, as Eina ate cookies with her tea, she looked pleased.
"You know, this wouldn't make up for your recklessness. What were you thinking fighting a strengthened species? After all that I taught you about the dungeon, you still fought something so dangerous." Hearing her outburst, Misha, who was outside listening to their conversation, felt sorry for him.
"But I could handle it."
"Handle it... How did you handle it, with a hole in your stomach? How did you expect to come back after that big of an injury?" Misha felt her worry increase. The man she thought was becoming responsible was back to his unreliable ways. She slumped on the table and muttered, "Why didn't you run?"
"Well, I came to this city for an adventure, so I was not going to back down from an adventure." Akira's tone was firm.
"That's just recklessness."
"Yes, but sometimes that recklessness is adventuring."
Seeing his firm stance, she felt more worried and felt down. "If I can't stop you from betting your life, what does being my advisor actually do?"
Akira thought about her role. He tapped the table to make her look his way, "Eina-san, I have always been reckless, but it is with your teaching that I could even survive. I am sure others who you taught also feel the same. So please continue teaching a reckless guy like me so that I can return alive."
"Akira-kun..." Eina felt better. She gave him a sweet smile, "I will continue to do this."
After she cleaned her tears, she got back to her professional self. She asked him about the strengthened species he encountered. Akira gave her the whole story, other than his inventory.
Hearing his story, Eina was vexed about how she should report it. Seeing her confusion, he asked her about it.
"According to you, the speed of the monster was about Level 2, but you are Level 1, so the guild might not accept your words."
"That's true, I don't want it to be underestimated, so I will find a way to make the guild believe it by the end of the week." Eina asked him how he would do that. He only put a finger on his smile and said it was a secret.
She got on with the second problem. "What do you mean by the monster's skill was similar to Allen Fromel? I think it is the same name as Vice Captain of Freya Familia."
"Yeah, I am talking about him. You know his skill, right? Where the faster he runs, the more his strength increases the faster he runs." Akira explained as if it was common knowledge.
Eina massaged her head and told him strictly, "Listen, I don't know how you know of his skill, but you shouldn't be walking around telling others about it. If Freya Familia finds out, they might attack you to silence the leak."
"Okay, I understand." Akira forgot that although everyone knew Allen Fromel's magic attack became strong enough to hurt Ottar, they didn't know its mechanism.
"And one last thing. This is what I got from the strengthened species." Akira took out a magic stone and the monster drop from his pouch.
Eina looked at the two things. She pushed the monster drop toward Akira, "This is a never-seen-before monster drop. It would be better if you take it to a blacksmith. If you sell the drop, please don't forget to pay 60% to the guild. As for this..."
She picked the magic stone and leaned closer to take a look. It was not like a normal magic stone, which was purple, but an orange one with a light hue trapped inside it.
"Angel's stone..." murmured Eina. She fixed her glasses and straightened up. "Akira-kun, you remember the dungeon riot on your first dungeon dive?"
Akira nodded. She continued, "During that riot, Loki Familia came across a group of strengthened species which dropped orange liquid and orange-colored magic stones.
Using those drops, Airmid was able to create potions with extraordinary effectiveness. Now all these are in great demand by pharmaceutical Familias. They are also given the names Angel's Blood and Angel's Stone."
"So these would be worth a lot?" Akira asked.
"Yes. Since the only source of this was the monsters Loki Familia encountered during the riot, they set the price of stones this size to be around 50,000 valis. I suggest you sell it to a pharmaceutical familia before the report about the strengthened species is released," Eina suggested.
'50,000 valis... That Loki had guts for asking the guild for 200 million valis for the stuff I destroyed.' Akira felt all the guilt about involving them in his fight dissolve into air.
"But 50,000 valis..." Akira remembered the face of a broke pharmacist who saved his life.
"Eina-san, I only have to pay for magic stones, right? So if I give it to another as a gift, I don't have to pay." Akira asked.
"Well, yeah. You will have to let them inform the guild though. But are you sure? This is 50,000 valis," Eina asked.
"Yeah, I am sure." Akira smiled. He took out all the other magic stones he had and continued, "As for the money from these stones, you can put it toward repaying the loan."
"Okay." Eina had already labeled him reckless and now added a new label: prodigal.
.....................
(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.