There were two things I wanted following my fight with Glasses, at least perk wise. I had wanted to test out the new skill, but fortunately some dumb fucks decided to kidnap someone close to Hestia and I's church. Something that let me confirm that yes, I do actually have a heroic spidey sense, and yes, it has a pretty damn good range.
The speed boost was pretty fantastic as well, but the sense was definitely the real meat and potatoes of the deceptively simple skill. It had let me stop a crime happening almost half a kilometer away and be back before my food had even gotten cold. Forget not-stalking people, this was the real future of heroics.
It was -essentially- a skill that would give me more skills in future.
Circling back to perks though, I'd wanted two of them and at the time I only had one perk point, something that was only solved with a shit ton of alchemy grinding. The first perk was a deceptively simple pick that I couldn't remember the name of, only that it made your armour weightless while wearing it and it removed its movement penalties.
Armour had saved my life in the last fight and damn if being able to move in it faster didn't sound utterly phenomenal. Unlocking the perk was somehow even better, with the skill taking care of the hindrances in flexibility that obviously come with strapping big plates of metal to yourself.
As for how it works? I honestly have no idea.
But as long as I'm not trying to bend one of the plates in half, my armour just seems to magically shift with my body. Maybe part of that was skill, the perk definitely having shown me quite a bit about how to move in armour, but I was positive that there was some kind of magical fuckery at play here as well.
Already I had plans to expand the coverage of my armour and introduce some more breaks for the plates to shift over each other.
It was, all things considered, a fantastic perk for something that really doesn't sound that impressive. And -just as an added side bonus- it was the last step before I get the light armour perk that'll regenerate my stamina for me. Which I'm pretty sure translates into unlimited stamina potions.
Which means I'll never have to sleep again.
The second perk was something I'd been putting off for a while now, namely magic.
I've had two long standing theories about how to unlock the magic side of my skill tree, one was the Danmachi special of putting down a cool hundred and fifty million on a book that'll give you a mushroom trip and maybe magic. It's where Bell got his firebolt from and I gave it a pretty decent chance of working.
The other was just slapping a perk into the tree and hoping for the best.
I'd avoided it for a few reasons, one of which seems a bit silly now. See I'd originally thought that my skill might be able to make monsters scale off my level like in Skyrim, which would mean that going for a mixed build could end disastrously. But I was long past ten perks now and I hadn't noticed any increase in the strength of any monster -besides what comes naturally from going deeper- so that wasn't exactly a concern anymore.
It hadn't been a perfectly rational thought, but I had been a lot more cautious back then for good reason after having been booted into this world by something. Given that, it wasn't beyond reason that they might be able to extend their influence into the world itself to fuck with me.
The second reason was sort of an extension of the first. At the time I was just getting started and focused on putting perks into things that would directly let me kill things better, or otherwise survive longer. I didn't want to risk losing a point on a maybe.
But things are different now. Stronger monsters weren't a concern and I didn't really have anything else I wanted to invest in -my skill levels capping me for the most part- so I was now more than willing to take that gamble.
"Are you sure Elric-kun? I told you when we met but the Falna only supports a few spells, this…" Hestia trailed off, her uncertainty clear.
That was probably the final element as to why I waited. Hestia wanted me safe and wanted me to put as many points to that end as I could. Plus everything this literal Goddess knew about the Falna and magic apparently said that what I was explaining was downright impossible.
But then again, that's what she said about my entire skill, so fuck it.
"Do it." I said calmly, at peace with the possible loss.
She sighed dramatically before doing as I asked.
What she said next however, was totally lost to me as instead of the expected rush of information I was smacked face first with the metaphorical knowledge bat.
When I slotted a perk into something like one-handed, a wave of instincts on how to properly utilise the weapons I was focused on would wash over me. It was indistinct, vague flashes and instincts that followed me into combat and guided my sword. This? This was so much clearer, it dug into my skull and drew out a throbbing pulse as the knowledge etched itself into my mind.
It wasn't quite memories, nor was it… complete? It was more like a path, a way forward that would let me learn and make the knowledge my own. And as the throbbing subsided and the rush died down, I could just barely hear Hestia speaking again.
"...doesn't look like it worked." Her whispered voice pierced through the haze clouding my mind and I blinked.
"It did." I spoke up, my voice feeling scratchy, but my certainty undeniable.
"Eh? But-" I shook my head.
"It's not based on the Falna, it's…" Knowledge, a skill to be learned and developed. "Something I have to do myself."
Hestia hummed, her cute little face appearing over my shoulder as she wrapped up what she was doing to my falna, but there was still doubt there. "Mortal magic huh… Well, try not to get too disappointed alright with all the chanting alright?"
I didn't know what she meant by that, but I was also a little distracted. Magic in the eye of my skill was a deeply personal thing, no two spell casters used magic in the same way, and one had to discover their own path. Their own way to their inner spark.
As for how you do that?
Generally a lot of sitting on your ass.
My leg was shaking violently at just the thought of it.
Fortunately there were other ways. It apparently wasn't uncommon for people to 'ignite' in the heat of battle, you just needed the presence of mind and the awareness to be searching for it in the first place… or exceptional luck.
And with my skill guiding me and a fair understanding of my own nature, I had a pretty good idea how I could go about that. Issue is I'd have to find something strong to fight if I wanted to recreate that state of focus I'd found myself in while fighting Glasses.
Which was just another reason to track down said man's organisation and see if what he said about his boss was true. It was just a matter of how to go about that.
…First step should probably be to go and bother Tsubaki about it, see if she knows anything. Second would be to start employing more radical information gathering methods.
And if that stalls out -and I do mean stall, no shot I'm leaving villains that blatant alone- then I can probably try and get my fight elsewhere. This is Orario after all. The chance of this city not having some place where adventurers can beat the shit out of each other was slim to none.
But first, I'd go see if a certain tanned tomboy had anything for me.
-
"Got something for you." I greeted, holding up a bottle of the good stuff as I stepped into Tsubaki's private getaway; a shaded porch overlooking a Japanese garden lit only by the moon.
"Oh, what's the special occasion?" Tsubaki leaned back on her cushion to favour me with a smirk, red eye gleaming as her loose robe gave me an excellent view of her deep cleavage.
I smiled. "Need advice, thought I'd butter you up a bit."
She laughed. "Well c'mon then!"
Given my usual appetite for grinding and quirks in general, it was pretty hard for me to just sit down and enjoy a peaceful moment. If anything, sitting still was basically against my nature as a person.
Fortunately I had a few exceptions to this. One was beautiful women, a weakness of mine that I was particularly fond of, but another was oddly enough a good night sky. I couldn't tell you why, but ever since I was a kid the sight of the stars always made me feel a little less stir crazy.
In the village I was dumped in, the almost total lack of light pollution meant that you could see entire oceans of stars glimmering amidst technicolour swathes of distant galaxies. And on the nights where the sky was the clearest I would always find myself getting lost in its beauty, just like when I was kid staring up at the scant few stars visible in my city.
Orario's sky wasn't quite as beautiful as the one in that village -on account of all the magic lamps- but it still blew anything I'd seen in my past life out of the water, leaving my monkey brain strangely satisfied.
It just made it easier to relax, to not focus on getting back to the dungeon grind for once, and when combined with alcohol and the rather beautiful woman across from me, I was more than willing to enjoy a few moments of peace before I broached heavier topics.
Tsubaki's eye was filled with mirth as I made myself comfortable on one of her little cushion seats, her cup offered up for me to fill. She whistled in appreciation as I poured.
"Altean Homare? That's pretty rich for a rookie like you." It was, but still nowhere near the price tags I'd seen attached to basically any sake that came from the Far East, and that was the usual shit Tsubaki drank. Hard to compete with someone that made millions from a single blade, but this was more about showing sincerity than anything.
"I make enough."
"At level one?" She asked, lone eye tracking me with a touch of concern.
"Mainly from you guys actually." I admit, I'd been selling a metric shit ton of swords through the Hephaestus familia over the last week. Most of their blacksmiths thought of themselves as 'artists' and thus above mass producing the kind of steel that the guild needs to provide to rookie adventurers.
The woman sitting across from me complained about it all the time, despite her being just as guilty of that mindset.
But, given that my skill handled most of the mental load while I was making shit, I was quite happy taking their job and just spacing out to churn out blades as fast as I humanly could.
Well, happy is a strong word, but I needed those fucking smithing levels man.
If I'm going to one day make a sword that can cut a dragon in half, then I need to follow the time honoured tradition of making a thousand dogshit swords for exp first. At least you get paid for your skilled labour in this world. How you lose money making weapons in a country currently in the middle of a civil war is…
Fucking Skyrim.
"Shouldn't you know that already?" I asked, while already knowing the answer.
"You think I do paperwork?" Tsubaki laughed. "That's what minions are for."
Once upon a time I'd wondered where Tsubaki found the time to check up on me so much. I didn't have to wonder for very long after I visited her office and found her 'assistants'.
…I could respect the hustle.
"Ah..." Tsubaki starts, looking at me awkwardly. "Just don't tell the boss yeah? I'm uh, not really supposed to be here right now." She laughs again, scratching her cheek.
I just shared a conspiring grin with my fellow captain. "Relax, I dropped off Hestia on my way in, your goddess should be nice and distracted right about now."
My plan to bring Hestia along and divest some of her endless energy into her rekindling friendship with Hephaestus was going swimmingly. And by that I meant Hestia wasn't pestering me all the time now, only some of the time.
It's the little things in life.
"Well then… to our Goddesses' play date going well."
"I'll drink to that." I laughed, feeling some of my annoyance melt away as I tipped back my little saucer thing you're supposed to drink sake from.
Sake is usually a bit of a mixed bag in my opinion, sometimes it hits those sweeter flavours I prefer in my drink of choice, but oftentimes it's all over the place flavour and consistency wise. The issue is that distillation is a crapshoot here, so most cheap sake comes out pretty rough texture wise and leans more on the bitter, sharper side of things.
The fancier shit that me and Tsubaki were drinking was thankfully a lot better, fruitier and almost like water in its consistency. Which was actually the complete opposite of what things were like in my previous world, there the clearer, fruity stuff was considered cheap instead.
Just my luck that the good shit was expensive as hell here.
I let out a long breath, savouring the taste as I felt the warmth pool in my stomach. "This is the first good drink I've had since I came to Orario." I'd always brought my own drinks to these little meetups.
Tsubaki grinned proudly. "I know right? My old man used to rave about how good ale was til he was blue in the beard." She said, fondness beneath her excited voice. "But I reckon my mom had the right of it, nothing can beat a good clean bottle of sake!"
"Cider, for me personally. Unfortunately you uncultured swines don't have that here so I guess this'll do… as a distant second place." Tsubaki's glare was actually something to behold, but before she could go on a crusade for the sake of sake, I grinned cheekily.
"...I'll make you eat those words." She snorted. "But I'm generous, so I'll let you off just this once! Now come, tell me what's brought you bearing gifts."
I hummed. "I… intervened in an ambush the other day, some bastards that tried to kidnap some girls in the dungeon."
"Oh…? Seems like you're turning into a regular hero now; heard you even saved one of my boys the other day and now this." Tsubaki smiled, before she turned a little sheepish. "I was supposed to thank you for that actually. Boss was real happy about it. But I uh, kinda forgot." She laughed nervously.
I waved it off. "Short, stocky woman?" She nodded. "Don't think I actually spoke to her, she ran off before I could." Heroics didn't really mean much if people didn't have a name to go with your face, so I normally at least tried to talk to the people I saved. "How did you know it was me?"
Tsubaki just gave me a flat look. "Gaki, how many rookies do you think are running around in armour like that on the lower floors?" Then she frowned in thought. "Actually, mind telling me how you were on the eighth floor? I thought you were fresh as a daisy."
Normally those words would cause me to instantly deflect or start outright lying. In fact there was a ceiling high pile of crystals in one of the broom closets back home because I was currently pretending to still be stuck on the fifth floor to the guild.
In regards to that I would have to announce things eventually -partly because it was the rules and partly because I wanted to watch Eina bluescreen- but attracting too much attention to yourself while you were still level one was just foolish.
Despite all that though, I didn't want to lie here. Tsubaki was a friend and her familia an ally that had helped me and Hestia out alot. Hell, Hephaestus had even told Hestia off for accidentally spilling our secrets. Their actions were not the actions of people who would fuck me over for something like this.
So I could spare some trust, they'd certainly earned it.
I gave her a serious look. "Complicated. Are you sure you want the answer?"
"What, like familia secrets kinda complicated?" I nodded and Tsubaki's face screwed up into an almost comical expression of pondering, her fingers tapping a beat on her chin. "Hm, nah, keep your secret. Way easier for me that way!"
I blinked at that, before returning her beaming smile with a chuckle.
"Fair enough."
"So! Kidnappers, you want advice on what to do with them or something? 'Cause if so, the answer's kinda grim." She frowned down at her sake. "Not good drinking talk, I'll say that much."
I shook my head. "I've already dealt with them." I hid the obvious inflection in my words, so as to not spoil her mood. "I just wanted to pick your brain about something they said."
"Sure." She perked up.
"Do you know anything about the 'altar of knowledge'? Or any divines in the city whose domains include knowledge?" At my words her eyebrow raised and then realisation spread across her face.
"You think it's something wider?" She chewed on her lip a little as her head tipped back and forth in a weirdly expressive form of contemplation. "Tell you what, I'll tell you what I know; but only if you promise to come back if you find something and then we'll handle it together alright?"
I blinked, taking in the incredibly reasonable request, something I'd asked Skadi for just yesterday. "Alright, but if it's possible, do you mind if I take the lead?"
Tsubaki's eye turned a bit softer at my words and she smiled at me. "Sure, a person's gotta finish what they start right?"
Not quite where my thoughts were, but I was always happy to course correct into other people's misunderstandings. So I just nodded.
"Right… dunno anything about this altar thing, so domains of knowledge then huh?" She slumped back. "There's Athena and her enclave obviously, but I doubt she'd do this kinda thing. I suppose there's Hermes, he's got cunning as a domain and he's kinda… sketchy. Dian Cecht has his whole medicine thing, and I think there's another medicine god…"
"Miach." I answered, though the idea that the incredibly kind man who lent me my first potion glassware was behind this was… slim to none, especially given his resources.
"Right that one." Tsubaki snapped her fingers. "Loki I suppose with her whole trickster thing and I think magic? But again, doesn't seem like the type."
I snorted at that, drawing a side glance. Loki's captain may have been playing fast and loose with the whole thing, but they did threaten to essentially kidnap me. Still, this didn't really feel like her style and the fanaticism that glasses showed had to have come from somewhere. Loki's familia showed no real signs of devotion outside of their willingness to put up with her groping.
"Only other one I can think of would be Ganesha." She frowned. "He's got a whole lot of weird mythology around him, but I remember something about him being a patron of the arts and science."
In my head I pictured the weird elephant mask dude who kept shouting 'I am Ganesha!' at the top of his lungs every time he appeared in the anime. It was pretty hard to square that away with Glasses' whole schtick. Plus his familia kept the peace in Orario and he seemed really into his whole 'god of the masses' thing in the anime, so it probably wasn't him.
Tsubaki shook her head, her long low ponytail fluttering behind her. "Definitely not him though." She said, like it was a foregone conclusion. "Any of them ringing a bell in your noggin'?"
I hummed uncertainly. My first thought was Athena; I couldn't remember her being in the anime and she seemed the most likely to inspire that kind of devotion to the concept of knowledge. The only issue was Tsubaki seemed pretty confident it wasn't her.
My best bet would be to… "I'll have to ask Hestia."
"Probably a good idea. Though take what she says with a grain of salt, sometimes Gods can get a little wrapped up in how things used to be, back up in Tenkai." My fellow captain hummed, taking a sip that immediately brought a fresh smile to her face despite the topic. "I don't think they think they can change, which is pretty weird cause they definitely do. The boss… well, she's different to how she was when I was a gaki, I'll tell you that."
"I did hear that Loki used to be different."
"You don't know the half of it." Tsubaki agreed. "Still, that everything? 'Cause if so then you're definitely not getting your money's worth."
Well if she's offering… "Couple more questions then; you know anything about any arenas? Or just any kind of organised adventurer fighting?"
"From a topic like that to this?" She shook her head, giving me a confused and yet searching look. "I might know a few things… but first I need to know why you want to know."
"Is that required?"
"Yup!" I opened my mouth to respond, but Tsubaki got there first. "I wanna know my fellow captain better!"
I closed my mouth with a humoured exhale. "Fair enough."
"I suppose I'll just tell the truth then." And I would, just not all of it. "...The simpler reason is that I'm a bit of a battle junkie." I laughed sheepishly, playing it up a little.
My drinking partner snorted at that, not hiding her amusement.
"The greater reason is that I need to start building up the reputation of my familia." I explained. "I don't know what the Hephaestus familia was like when you joined, but right now mine is just me and Hestia in a destroyed church." Granted, given the money I was making from selling weapons, I could probably afford to get us out of there.
But the bigger issue was the lack of -as Tsubaki called them- minions. People I could use to deflect Hestia's attention away from me and occasionally order about if I needed something. Hell the lack of manpower was such an issue that I'd occasionally considered some options that were probably not kosher.
"Getting people willing to entrust us with their very lives… well that all begins with a reputation right?" I wasn't really asking, I was already confident in my answer.
My fellow captain hummed. "Alright, alright! I can't say no to the big blue eyes of yours." I blinked, I hadn't even been giving her puppy eyes. "Arenas huh? Well there's the big one but I'm sure you already know about that, so-"
"Wait, big one?" I blinked, and Tsubaki blinked back at me.
"Big colosseum on the east side? Ran by the Ganesha familia? Damn you really are new!" She laughed, meanwhile my mind was reeling from the sheer… possibilities.
I knew the colosseum, how could I not? It was in the first season of the anime for some weird monster taming event that apparently got the entire city up and about. Of course it was ultimately just set dressing for Bell to have a fight with a Silverback, and the reveal of that stupidly expensive knife that Hestia bankrupted them for.
But now that I actually thought about it beyond the context of the anime, it was kind of obvious; a stadium of that size would not sit empty year round waiting for the next event. There were maintenance costs to such a thing and who in their right mind would just leave a money printing property like that to sit, much less a God of the Masses who seemed to love every moment of attention he got.
Of course there would be more events and of course those events would include live combat in a city like Orario. It was a city of superhuman soldiers, that was prime entertainment; hence why I'd thought there would be some kind of organised fighting, but my thoughts had obviously been too shallow.
"Yeah, yeah I am…" I uttered, my mind captured by the idea of fighting before that many people, raising a blade to a crowd cheering my name and basking in all those narrative buffs.
"Right well, they do a lot of fights, some bigger, some smaller." The tanned woman explained in good humour, not even commenting on my starry eyes. "Only issue is that you're not really applicable; too many rookies entered it back in the day only to trip over their swords and die, so the paper pushers had to step in."
I nearly choked and in my mind's eye I could see Eina laughing at me as she pushed her glasses up. My greatest enemy, reemerged to torment me once more, fucking bureaucrats.
"By rule you have to be an adventurer for half a year before you can join." And then Tsubaki twisted the knife with a foxy smile. "According to them you don't know what end of the sword is pointy gaki."
"Any way I can skip the wait?" I tried, holding on to hope.
"Nah." She laughed as my heart broke. "Only way I can see them changing their minds is if you rocked up as a level two, and that ain't happening…" She trailed off, realisation dawning in her eye as she turned to me and the shit eating grin spreading across my face.
Because damn if it wasn't on, level two? Literally, just give me three weeks. Hell the wait actually made things better; if I had to wait for my level up then I could strike just as my reputation was starting to form.
Bell was absolutely hated by adventurers who'd been stuck at their levels for years, so much so that some were willing to kidnap a Goddess and slowly beat him to death over it. Given that I planned to be even faster, I obviously had to do something about that and this could be that something. It was a lot harder for people to argue that you cheated the system somehow if you could give them a real, tangible example of your strength.
Then there was also the small matter of finding a decent enough fight to maybe unlock my magic with…
I'd have to look through what kind of matches they had on offer, but if they had anything king of the hill style then that would be perfect.
Tsubaki looked at me and I smiled.
"...I still don't want to know." She claimed, though I could see how strained that resolution was, how curious she was.
So I just asked her about the other arenas and after that everything else going on in her life, just enjoying a night with a friend, getting drunk together beneath a sea of stars.
-
The event mentioned at the start of this chapter is an omake that I put up on QQ & SB, check it out if you like, oh I also put up a lemon for the last chapter as well.
Like if you liked it and have a good one everyone.
-
Glossary
Magic
Magic in Danmachi comes in two forms normally: the mortal kind which is performed generally by Elves and tends to be rather weak. And the Falnic kind, spells facilitated by the Falna and generally known for their devastating potential.
Mortal Magic
Incredibly difficult and not particularly useful for the amount of effort required, mortal magic generally requires specialised rituals just to unlock the ability to use it in the first place. Following this, casting even a simple spell requires a large amount of training and focus, while the spells themselves are composed of exceptionally long arias; twelve or more line long chants.
Generally speaking this is only done by Elves due to their inherited proficiency with magic, and even then it's not particularly practical due to most magic casters being unable to move while casting due to the mental strain of handling both sets of actions at once. To get around this, many Elves learn to cast from horseback, letting the horse handle the movement.
In the times before the Falna, this form of magic was used to great effect by exceptionally talented spell casters. But those times have largely passed due to the prevalence of a much easier form of magic being available.
Falnic Magic
Magic performed via the Falna is more powerful and easier to use by default, from fireballs that can be cast with a single word and no real understanding of the magic at hand, to six line arias that can incinerate entire battlefields. The only true downside to Falnic magic is in the limited number of spells you can learn, provided you don't have a workaround.
This limit is three spells total, though sometimes adventurers won't even be able to learn one spell, with even Grimoires not granting them magic. There are two known ways for getting around this limit; either by acquiring a skill which lets you 'use' the Falnic magic of others you have some connection to (See Lefiya or Ryuu). Or by being a magical genius who somehow works out how to skill diff your chants to turn your original spells into multi part spells like Riveria, effectively multiplying your number of spells.
The acquisition of Falnic magic generally comes in one of two ways: naturally, either through congenital or experience based means. This is when a spell will just randomly pop up in the adventurer's Falna or even when they were first given their Falna, it is typically tied to their race in some manner. The second is through a Grimoire, an expensive magical item created by a Mystery DA user that has a chance of granting the reader a new spell.
Skyrim Magic
Elder Scrolls magic relies upon the direct manipulation of the soul and the energy that comprises it 'magicka'. Just learning how to take the first step on this front is an intensive and deeply personal pursuit that gets skipped over in the games in favour of 'eat book, shoot lightning'. And while the game version is certainly easy, lore spell casting gets pretty fucking wild so just bare with me.
From a Danmachi perspective, this magic is frankly impossible and incredibly effective for how little power/prep it takes. The fact that the only limit to the number of spells you can learn is your own memory makes this divide even starker.
Athena
Goddess of Wisdom and Strategy, Athena's familia manages the country of Altena, known for its strong magical inclinations and research. To this end Altena maintains strong trade ties with Orario, the largest source of magic stones on the planet. Athena herself is a distant figure to most in Orario. However in recent times a number of concessions made by Altena has granted them the privilege of stationing a limited number of adventurers in Orario for training purposes, making her a far more notable name in the city.