Title Here: Multi-fandom Writings

[minuseven]

8.

Operation Notzi High started out well.

A walk through the quiet parks of Brockton Bay had yielded a lot of mushrooms, many of them small and hidden. Unless you had upwards to thousands of compound eyes. Still, winter had given me some small yellow mushrooms that, brought to my hand by my loyal flies. From there, it was relatively simple to identify if it had the sweet sweet hallucinogens I wanted.

Then it was gathering mushrooms in a tupperware, against, aided by bugs.

These mushrooms were then refined by the power of magic biology to basically just produce the one chemical I wanted. Centuries worth of selective evolution in an hour or so. Or, you know, millions of dollars in a laboratory somewhere and the tears of many, many scientists. I'd already tinkered with several types of flies and wasps to both A) be able to suck, carry and inject several microliters of any one substance and B) be able to carry other insects in a stealthy way. This, it turned out, was far easier than messing with chemical processes. Slower, but in the end it was the difference between using lego or using, well, large lego.

So I had the magic (mushroom juice), I had the stealth bomber (insects), and I had the intel (-ish).

What could have gone wrong?

A bad trip, that's what.

With the advantage of knowing where the group was meeting up for their… stakeout, I was able to tag the 'participants' and get their license plate number from a block away. After that, as they slowly moved into nastier parts of town, I managed to get keep a track of them even if I lost them every now and then. All I was doing was taking a walk, absorbed by my phone. I did not get mugged. Somehow. Eventually, they paused. Smoke break.

And that was when I struck. (cigarettes. perfect cover.) In my semi-opened backpack, a tupperware with a sponge soaked in homemade energy drink had had holes poked into its cover. My stealth bombers mk1st, the Wasper-1s, picked up their cargo, the delivery ticks mk2nd, which were the Ticking-2s for the lack of a better name. Full of psilocin, because what I needed was the active compound, they departed merrily towards their targets.

In the dark of the early night, which was fairly dark in January, none of the four men, because of course there were no women, noticed camouflage-coloured insects drop several gorgeous engorged ticks (pun intended) in their hair. Every one of them got a full eight ticks in them before I felt comfortable hitting them. I needed to hit them all at the same time so that they thought that the trip had the same source (hopefully they thought of the cigarettes) but also that none of them tried looking for an outside source. And maybe noticed the beachball of bugs hovering near the corner. I did not need them on Taylor's case. Or Taylor on my case, thank you very much a lot.

Now, magic mushroom had a lot of effects. They could make them more relaxed… or more anxious. Euphoria or, you know. Panic attacks. (on top of the heart-rate going out of control, vertigo, derealization, dilated pupils and the outright hallucinations)

People died from magic mushrooms. Usually because their sense of reality and confidence went completely out of wack. And they decided that maybe they could fly and jumped off somewhere tall without actually being parahumans. Since some of those can, in fact, fly.

I… probably underestimated how quickly the drug would act upon human perception when injected into the vessels and tissues of the head. Possibly, the tobacco helped. Or maybe they'd also partaken in some liquid courage beforehand. Regardless, that molecule crossed the blood-brain barrier like whoa!

Which started an argument, panic attack? I was too far away to listen. I did start getting some bugs on them, since I doubted they were capable of distinguishing them from fake illusionary bugs. I was unsure of whether that made things worse.

So some people might have gotten out their firearms. And, hm, shot at each other. And the air. And the car.

And that was when I had enough bugs on them to notice one of them had something on thei face.

A mask. I mean a mask.

(i knew there might be cape supervision but i did not know who or when they would appear)

Which was how I ended up with Victor dead. Yeah. Whoopsie.

---

Spoiler

i hope that's not too much biochemistry. you can tell i got myself an article on psilocybin and psilocin toxicokinetics.
that said, gymnopillum mushrooms apparently

 

[minuseven]

9. +++ just-in-case content warnings: a bit of cannibalism

So I had a dying cape on my hands. And several dead or dying regular neo-nazis.

First, I froze. Then, I fucking cursed. Only after that did I remember that my power was literally eating people.

So, shaking like a motherfucking leaf, I darted out of my alley and into the semi-fenced off parking. My hood was in place and if people were looking through the windows, well, there were worse spots to be surveilled in.

I'd checked before sending in my bugs.

Bugs I was now using unrestrictedly. My level of coordination was not 'skitter'. But sending orders to be obeyed like in an RTS was simple enough even for me. Waspalions, seek-and-retrieve the Waspers and Tickings. Fruitflies, map the interior of the vehicle, stat.

Four men. The driver had gotten shot through the back of his head and was slumped over the steering wheel. Behind him, the cape, only identified by the mask on his face and the way he'd brutally snapped the neck of the man next to him. The front side-seat had been the one to shoot the cape, and was still living.

Neither him nor the cape would last long. (sudden thought: I couldn't leave any of them Alive.)

No witnesses. Oh fuck me. I'd gone out of my way to not kill anybody and ended up with four casualties? I wasn't aware that I also ate people's horrible luck! This was Skitter Level Unintended Escalation!

Anyway, the guy had a face destroyed by a bullet, and another lodged somewhere in his torso.

The cape had one bullet through his lower throat, one through his leg, and was bleeding heavily. Oh, the magic mushroom tachycardia, oooh. Also, just discovered, a bullet-proof vest-armour underneath his shirt, apparently. It had not helped. He had opened the car door, fallen, and was shaking or convulsing? Oh, and swearing to the high heavens with what little breath he had.

I entered hearing range. Ah.

Gun? Not in his hand. Cool.

Adrenaline, it was adrenaline. That was why I managed to run into the scene and kick him in the head like his head was a football. Soccer, as the americans say.

It, uh, ahah, it made a funny sound. Hm.

I just killed a man.

This was fine.

Oooh, that was not supposed to bend that way… no no no, focus. I needed to discover who the heck was this.

No hesitation. There's a lot of blood around. Touch and lick and– okay. It was almost like it did not want me to taste it. A fugitive zone… a thieving zone of superstar talent. Skill vampire. Victor.

"Bloody hell, you are too useful not to…" Snack on. Best not to say it out loud. I was shaking, but I still had enough wits. I just needed to figure out how to do this.

I was not going to take a bite of a corpse. Was I? Fuck, no time. Cannibalism whoohoo.

I cupped my hands around both wounds, full of blood, and brought them directly to my mouth a couple of times. The power started setting in on the back of my head. I let it go unformed for now. Then my brand new switchblade made an appearance. There was no hair long enough to take. I… took my pound of flesh. Gosh that play was the one with the jewish merchant, right? Geezus.

Tupperware, tupperware, okay and we were done– not yet the other dude was– oh, he'd died in the meanwhile. Cool, cool.

Absconding time.

Police were certainly on the way even if the response rates in Brockton Bay were appalling!

What the fuck, what the fuckity fuck of a fucking night. It couldn't get any worse. Well, I could still get caught, but I meant aside from this particular operation.

I got mugged ten blocks away.

---

Spoiler

it was going to happen eventually
this came to me in a flash. quite a bit of escalation.

 

[minuseven]

10.

Killing the prey before eating it gives me more bang for the buck, more fireworks per… ehm… more power per literal pound. Of flesh. One day I shall stop being uncomfortable with my power. 'Tis not the day!

In reality, how this translated was that what blood I had drank from Victor's still warm corpse and the… well, I'd ended up taking my blade to his elbow and stabiddy stabbed and sawed until I'd liberated an entire forearm. I wasn't sure if I'd dissociated or depersonalized because all of this was very theoretical knowledge of what had happened. My brain had registered all of this (hence the nightmares these last nights) and shoved it under the socks in the deepest drawer and closed it shut.

Anyway. I'd bit the bullet (and arm) and choked down Victor's ar. It involved a lot of crying and almost puking. Eating bugs was almost better. A fat lot of good my ability to eat anything was, when the psychological impact of killing and eating people still made me nauseous!

Again, anyway! I hadn't been in the right mental framework to direct the power I was gaining. Without me, it apparently followed whatever subconscious cues I was giving out. At the time, namely, it went something along the lines of: 1 oh my god I killed Victor; 2 the Empire is going to come after me; 3 I'm going to get Victor's power; 4 somebody is going to connect the dots; 5 Kill Order; 6 Birdcage. That train of thought blew through several stations without pausing.

Thus, power nº4, Victor's skill vampirism, was all geared towards subtlety. I'd traded quantity for range with Skitter's, sacrificed speed with Panacea's, flexibility with Marquis', and with Victor's I'd ended up trading speed and power for range and flexibility. I was now not a skill vampire but a skill sponge. I passively absorbed the skills of people just by being near them. That sounded better than Victor, but it wasn't quite like that. For one, my version was slow. Barely better than actually putting in the effort to learn the skills. I'd say I got, per person, about a fraction of a percent per hour. Plus, I couldn't turn it off, I couldn't focus it on specific people, and I didn't choose which skills I was absorbing.

The upsides? The range was good, like several dozen meters. And because it was so weak and slow, it was basically undetectable. People just naturally regained what little they lost to me. It as perfect.

It ended up turning out quite well, you know for a fuck up of a night that basically reignited several gang conflicts.

Oh yeah, I haven't mentioned that yet?

Riiight.

So, long story short, Victor was killed. And mutilated. The police were the ones who ended up as the first responders, and they called the PRT but somewhen during that kerfuffle somebody definitely told a reporter or seven. The next morning, I turned on the TV as I packed what little I had from my motel room, and front page news, Victor was dead.

Who done it? Well, the nazis were blaming the "barbaric" asians. The immigrant coalition was not of one voice but had not taken responsibility. Vigilantism was a possibility. Or a rogue Teeth member.

I'd ended up dropping a grenade in Brockton Bay and now several groups were locally prodding at the Empire's borders, the Empire was being extra aggressive towards everybody, the ABB was matching them, and several other groups were chomping at each other and the territories of bigger gang powers. It wasn't quite a gang war yet, but tensions were definitely up there.

Ahaha, mea culpa?

Ugh, Coil was definitely going to use this to expand his influence, 'hire' more people… and that control freak was definitely going to have Tattletale investigate what had happened. I was precog immune, there was a good chance that I'd crashed his timelines like a bull in a china shop.

Fuck didn't begin to express my feelings about this.

The current 'mood', for lack of a better term, was going to end sooner or later. I predicted a Sonner's Rock meeting with concession and battle lines drawn anew. The ongoing mystery of Victor's killer was likely to stay unresolved for a while because I was going lay the fuck low.

I'd amassed enough money from my nightly wallet borrowings that I got myself a room at a slightly better motel for a week. Then I used my disposable funds to buy myself a few art supplies, parked myself in a coffee shop close to an office with a nearby ATM machine, and bugged that thing. Ants underneath the ATM's keys, a few marked individuals, and two days later I was much richer.

Did Taylor know how good her powers were for subtle operations? Because damn. Between taking money from people's wallets, stealing credit cards and codes, and just plain finding coins on the ground, if there was an issue I wasn't having, it was money.

---

i basically only write this when i'm on the verge or just past a mental crisis. oh yeah, i discovered i had failed a class six months after the exams bc i keep fucking up!​

 

[minuseven]

11.

I tested Victor's power by spending the day near the arts building of Brockton Bay's community college. It was always so nice to look like a college student. But, well, I discovered it worked. I got fractionally, eclectically better at several things. Several instruments, drawing and painting techniques, art history and critique… I could see myself having a future like this.

These were good skills to have.

However, I knew from recent experience that what I needed were combat applicable skills. Oh, and forgery. Spending the day near a police station, however, was not an option. Not a good option anyway. I was trying to avoid suspicion, not cause it.

If I had a job, this would be so much easier. I could just spend my day working and passively leech skill points from people. Janitorial work was the best option, followed maybe by warehouse work or retail. A salary would be a nice bonus too.

My biggest hurdle was the lack of a valid id. Nobody had bothered me until now, but Brockton Bay did have a big immigrant community. Mostly illegal. People were willing to look the other way for cheap work, and motels probably knew better than to press. I was, however, really white. People were going to expect me to have the proper papers sooner or later.

Getting those was going to cost a lot of money. And getting the contacts to get those was also going to cost money.

I could feed myself just fine and hop between motels, but I was aware that my theft carried, you know, an ever increasing risk of discovery.

I needed to find, like, a drug house or another criminal enterprise that I could rob. If I couldn't do that within the next two weeks, I was going to hit that casino the Undersiders had hit. I didn't feel an ounce for casino owners and their profit margins. Bug recon team go!

In the meanwhile, I was alternating between the university, local music schools and trying out classes at gyms and so. I took coffee and read some book (Earth Bet had fascinating fantasy books) near the back of a couple of police stations. Skill Get was an ongoing project by virtue of, you known, me being unable to shut it down.

My other big project was mapping out how I was going to get at Fleur's grave.

So, thankfully, it seemed she had been buried and not cremated. New Wave must have been sufficiently WASP! However, her gravesite was not public. It was taking a lot of library work to get a location. I got the date of her death, her burial, and pictures to geo-locate where it might have been. That combined with obscure but existing fan sites and cape tourism info, had led me to where I was probably going to find her.

There were two hiccups. One, did you know that cemeteries are surveilled? Yeah, I wasn't surprised to learn that. And Fleur was buried in an 'upper-class' cemetery. But that was fine, I was sure I could bypass that with the power of remote controlled bugs. Two, the remains had likely been vaulted, that is, the caffeine was inside a burial vault of metal or concrete. That didn't make it inaccessible… I had the Skitterpan combo. But it was going to slow down the operation.

I needed to have my bugs dig little tunnels to the right grave (ants time). I needed to concoct whatever substances were needed to eat through the vault (abomination time). And then I was going to have to have my bugs carry a dead body piece by piece through a small hole and several dozens of meters of underground tunnels.

The things I was ready to do for power… Kind of a meh one too.

Anyway, acids, caustics. Answer my prayers oh not-wikipedia.

---

this story either moves very fast or not at all. uhm. time to roll for random encounter. i should make a list of skills they are mooching.​

 

[minuseven]

Spoiler

JUMPCHAIN? Ahah. Boink!
>Alt-Chain Builder v1.2
>>+1 Expansion/Supplement (Crystal Gacha Supplement v0.1)
>>Resolve and Leave
>>The Entourage
>>Heavy Is The Quill ()
START JUMP: POKEMON (let's keep it traditional)

"Fuck!" The air is expelled out of []'s lungs as they trip over nothing and fall to the ground. A red hat plops itself unceremoniously on their head. That hurt. The fall, not the hat. "Ow, wait what. Where the… This is not bed."

A stretch of well-beaten road surrounded by trees greeted them. Looking up, they see a signpost announcing 'Route 201', as well as directing travelers towards the 'Twinleaf' and 'Sandgem' towns. A vague sense of horror and a heady mix of excitement rushes through them. They know this. Vaguely. They sit up, and notice for the first time they have a backpack over their shoulders and something in their pockets.

Reaching into the backpocket of their jeans, they retrieve a phone-like device and their wallet. Probably their wallet. It's the same obnoxiously yellow colour, but the logo is not. Flipping it open, an identification card falls out.

The details are unnaturally blurred out… until they squint, a headache throbbing for a brief moment, and the information is clear as crystal. "Ooh, a Trainer ID. Honey, no last name… I guess it's sort of a colour… Female. Ten years old!? What do you mean!? I'm not ten!" She looks down, observes her hands, pats her hair. "... ten? Oh."

Her moment of stupefaction is broken by a yowl. Cat-wrangling instincts, drilled into her by countless instances of territorial felines, have her on her feet and heading in the direction of the fight after one tired sigh. A black feline is yowling, flat against the ground, as half a dozen really big birds peck and crowd around it, aggressive like she's only seen in seagulls. Pokemon, the lot of them. She recognizes them, but the names escape her. Looking around, she can't find a convenient stick, so instead she grabs two handfuls of dirt and gravel and throws them in their direction. Hopefully, enough to scatter all of them.

"Shoo! Shoo!" She yells, and retreats hastily a couple of steps as the birds fly off. Fortunately, into the trees and not towards her.

The cat, however, remains where it is. Unmoving, hackles so raised its real size is probably a lot smaller. (Not that it would make it a small cat by any means.) Dull golden eyes, and black fur with red stripes on its underside. This one, she can name. A Litten. She's not in Alola, for sure, so the little guy is very far from home. Injured cats, however, she can handle.

"Hey, meow. What happened to you, meow meow… Oof, that paw does not look good." She talks to it as she knells, carefully approaching as far as it will let her. "Well, this being pokemon… lemme see what I got."

The bag she's got is carrying a small bounty. A few potions and pokeballs, just what she needs, and a pokedex. First thing, while it acclimates to her presence, she fumbles around with the pokedex. Her fingers are not the size she is used to, but the interface is very simple. (Childproof, you could say.)

"Huh." It gives her the Litten's species, type, a link to what looks like a wiki-like article with information, its general state (predictably in the red) and attributes, and a small blinking icon declaring it as wild. She side-eyes the pokeballs. "Hm."

The Litten hisses again, but it's not yowling anymore.

"Okay. Look here." She removes one potion first, then one pokeball, placing them on the ground in front of her. "I've got this and this. I see you recognize this one." She taps the ball. "I'm not leaving you injured anyway, but would you consider coming with me? I like cats. I've worked with cats before. And fire-types are awesome." She pushes the pokeball towards the Litten.

It (she) bats it away.

"Right, yeah. Okay, I was expecting that." She would have to try and catch her. Better after healing her a bit, or she might resent her. Maybe. How did pokemon work here?

Regardless, she picks the ball up in her off-hand and pushes the potion forward. That is not immediately batted away. Taking it as a… ok sign, she sprays the Litten twice in quick succession, keeping herself well out of claw range.

It reacts like… well, like a cat. And bounds away. Far more than she should have been able to with their leg like that and before she can react, she's going up a tree and settling on a branch.

"Great." She judges the distance and her aim. The prospects: not great. With a sigh, she approaches the tree. It looked like a normal tree from a distance. It is a normal tree, but Honey's now smaller than she's used to by a significant amount. In fact, she can not reach the branch the Litten is on. Not even on her tiptoes.

The Litten watches, tail wagging erratically.

"Please, kitty, kitty?" She waves the pokeball the closest she can to the cat. It's not even a foot away.

And then the Litten bats at her ball, hitting the button and getting engulfed in a red flash. The pokeball wiggles in her hand, once.

Honey stares for a moment. The pokedex in her pocket thrills once. Then she celebrates. "Yes! Yes! My first pokemon, oh my god! Whoo!" She twirls and jumps. "I'm a pokemon trainer! Gonna beat the gyms, try the elite four and be the very best I can be! Ahah!"

Nothing can stop her grin right now.

"My very own pokemon adventure- starts here!"

---

Spoiler

i wanted to. tehe (｡･ ω<)ゞ
Litten because cat, fluff and fire. ... did not consider personality (｡･ ω<)ゞ!

 

[minuseven]

"Okay, let's see." So, the pokedex has indeed connections to a database, formatted a bit like a wiki, but that's about it for connectivity options.The synchronization feature appears to be to allow transfer of individual pokemon data to other devices.

On the other hand, the pokegear, the 'phone-like' device, is a smart device. Phone, watch, radio and map all in one. It's mid-morning in Sinnoh, the radio reception is very spotty and, predictably, Honey only has official-looking numbers programmed into her gear. It's just a bit isolating.

She's not sure she wants to release her Litten yet. She's still thinking of a nickname. Her condition is so-so, according to the pokedex, and she wants to actually read what it has on Littens. Hopefully a how-to-care-for guide is included. But before all of that, she definitely has to do something about the nagging feeling of otherness in her head.

One does not simply appear in another world without… powers? She's still not exactly certain of what happened. She does not remember meeting a goddess or other powerful entity between now and last night. (Possibly last night.)

It ends up being as simple as thinking about it and, in her mind, she has access to the Crystal Exchange. It looks a lot like a mobile game's monetization interface. A gacha interface. A quick exploration tells her all she needs to know. Honey has 1000 Gachabucks to spend in crystals, tickets or direct buying options from the CYOA she's in (plus taxes, plus no discounts applying). Pokemon isn't a bad place, so she's not worried. She even has some money still.

"Gimme ten crystals!" She mentally presses the buy button. "Now, let's try this out."

Ten basic crystals and she's going to start by spending two as they are. It almost goes ka-chink, ka-chink in her head. The crystals disappear from her metaphorical hands and a weight settles in her bag at the same time knowledge slams into her head.

"Oh!" Survival Training and an Echorecorder. Immediately she feels much safer with the knowledge that she could make it out in the wild. There's almost no thought before she spends another three crystals. Instantaneously, she is one HM Collection richer, the proud owner of a parachute-backpack, and built. Well, as much as a ten year old can be built. She would definitely be winning competitions back home. Should she keep rolling? She still has… an incredible amount of gachabucks left, even if she keeps half of them to get a ticket.

Instead, she decides to experiment a bit with crystal upgrading. Five crystals into rank II and III, then combining those… she chucks the advanced crystal into the mental slot. Mechanic drops into her mind. A brief dizzying flash of information before she realizes she can now be the change in the world she has always wanted to be. No more asking people to change lamps, or staring dejectedly at appliances she knows could be an easy fix. A couple of years worth of college education in machinery, all for the cheap price of five crystals.

Out of one hundred total available.

Honey doesn't let herself wince. "It sounds like a lot… well, gacha numbers are never in your favor but still. Worth it." She hasn't gotten anything immediately useful like… well, money. But for now it would have to do.

First, Twinleaf Town. The starting town in Sinnoh. It probably didn't have much, but at least the region's Professor and his lab should be there. She sets off immediately. Following the path, steering clear of grassy areas where she can see pokemon flitting to and fro, it's still a bit of a walk. But the signs are clear and the path well-trodden enough that Honey isn't afraid of getting lost. Perhaps it's the effects of her new perks, but it's obvious to her which way the main path goes in the few crossroads along the way.

It's mostly a straight path, slightly going up, until, at the top of a hill, where the signpost tells her to turn left. In front, the path goes down the hill into a forested basin, and a glimmer of brilliant water can be seen among the trees.

"Lake Verity, one of the three legendary lakes." It sounds like a place to visit for sure… or to really avoid. "Nope. I just want to get all the badges and raise a cool team." She turns on her heel and starts going down the left side of the hill.

She doesn't suddenly find a town, which seems obvious in hindsight. Instead, she starts by seeing one house. Then one farm further along. And a couple more houses nearby. There are nice semi-paved paths between all of them, and the terrain is semi-tamed in the way of old farmhouses and rural areas. Certainly, she's going to find the center town and it's going to be almost twenty buildings in total.

No sense in not asking for confirmation she's heading to the right place, tho. She approaches an older man who's brushing a Ponyta outside. She stops politely near the wall and waves until he sees her and comes over.

"Why yes, Twinleaf is that'a way. But there's no research center here." He explains. "You must be confusing with the lab in Sandgem. That's in the other direction." And he points right at where she'd come from.

"Oh… drat." The Pokemon Professor isn't in the starting town? "I must have… gotten turned around. So not good." Honey can't help but start worrying at her nails. The route in-game was a skip and a hop, but she spent over an hour just walking to Twinleaf. She's hungry, a bit tired, her sole pokemon is still injured and she hasn't read what she needs to know about anything.

"I hope you're not thinking about turning and starting on your way there now, kid." He scolded her. "You won't make it by nightfall! Youngsters should remember your lessons and not tempt fate. Just last month a kid nearly got himself poisoned to death. Stepped right on a Nido, barely made it out."

Despite herself, Honey feels her eyes widen. That sounds fairly scary. It's not that she thinks pokemon are harmless. Litten and those birds already showed her. But the part of her that'd grown up with pokemon being safe and fainting in games and anime… that part has just gotten a shock.

"I know, I know…" She ends up mumbling. "Is there any place I can sleep in town, then?"

Turns out there is one single place, besides getting a room with a local. Twinleaf is out of the way and not known for… well, Honey's not sure what it is known for or not known for. What are rural places known for, usually? Food? Tourism? Twinleaf can't be too turistic if it only has one inn. Or maybe that is turistic, for Sinnoh.

Armed with directions, Honey sets off more calmly to Twinleaf proper. She takes notes of the kind of pokemon she finds on the way, pokedex in hand. The local wildlife seems to be mostly Starly and Bidoofs, as she expected. She also catches sight of a single Psiduck, gone before she can point the pokedex at it, and the tracks and pellet-shaped excrements of what the database tells her are likely from either Nidoran or their evolution. Human-owned, she sees Buneary, Ponyta, Mareep, a single Tauros and a whole bunch of Doduos. (Eheh, ostriches.)

With more and more human presence in the environment, the danger of having a random encounter fades from her mind and Honey takes her time going over her pokedex and the HMs she has. The pokedex is complete, and she reads through Litten and his evolutions. As a rule, and like most normal cats, the Litten line is slow to trust, generally aggressive and prone to picking fights. Mostly Normal and Fire moves, a physical fighter. Cares to take with a mostly carnivorous pokemon, been there, done that… It's a bit baffling that Litten isn't compatible with any HM (not a single one out of all the eleven).

"Not even Cut. I don't buy it. I can probably teach you. Who's a good kitty who wants to learn how to murder trees?" She teases the pokeball in her hand, then stops. "You wouldn't happen to know what degree of talking to animals and objects is considered sane in a world with pokemon, would you?"

The pokeball doesn't answer.

"Right. Well." She sighs. Twinleaf is within sight. The road widens and turns into actual pavement. She's already crossed a couple of people along the way. "Time to find a place to stay for the night… and not break my wallet."

---

Spoiler

Welcome to semi-realistic pokemonster world! Also, why do 10yo have so much freedom?

 

[minuseven]

Red Haired Red Dragon Heir​

Unlike Sona Sitri, Rias Gremory was a girl who followed her gut. It wasn't just part of her personality, however much she tried to deny it. The true power of the Gremory blood was a razor-sharp instinct, a peculiar ability to sense opportunities that more often than not led to a Gremory being the first to capitalize on them. There was no better example than how Rias herself had gained her Knight.

The old church across town had been bothering Rias for weeks now, and it had only gotten worse the longer time went on.

It was no secret to the two devil heirs that fallen angels had taken residence there, although for how long they didn't know. It rankled that they could have been in their town for months undetected. It particularly galled Rias that she couldn't prove for sure that they were behind the death of Hyoudou Issei. The boy had been found stabbed to death in an alley near his home, much to his family's heartbreak. The police had deemed it a mugging gone wrong, but the humans didn't know that Hyoudou had been a potential Sacred Gear holder. One that Rias had been in the process of approaching. It was too much of a coincidence, but they had no proof and Rias hadn't wanted to start a skirmish just then.

That had changed when Koneko had been hurt. Almost a month after the Hyoudou murder, her Rook had been ambushed at the house of a contractor. A rogue exorcist, Freed Selzen, a man skilled enough to take down her Rook single-handedly, had killed the contractor and laid in wait. Only the devil's own luck had saved Koneko. The other rogue with Freed had actually protected and attempted to heal Koneko, dropping the barrier isolating them and allowing Rias and her peerage to come to Koneko's rescue. They had retreated that night only because her Rook needed them to.

Rias had been more than ready to charge the church and teach the Grigori why no one was allowed to even touch a single hair on her peerage's heads, but once again it wasn't to be. The very same night, Freed Selzen's head had been delivered to Kuoh Academy by a hypnotized courier, and the rest of his body was found strung up at the same house where he'd nearly killed Koneko. It was distasteful, but the message was clear. Selzen's actions hadn't been condoned and the fallen angels took responsibility. It was almost an apology, if fallen angels knew how to apologize. It didn't make up for the harm done to her Rook, the contractor they'd lost or the rest of his family, similarly butchered, but it had stayed Rias' hand.

Suffice to say, there wouldn't be a next time. If she even saw one black feather out of place, she and the fallen were going to have… words.

And so, a week had passed, then a second one. And on the last day of that week, on a night where the old church and the fallen that had made it their base wouldn't leave her mind, she heeded her gut feelings and sent her familiar to peek in on them. Only for their bond to cut off after a burst of surprise and panic, as something killed her bat. Her own familiar, slain just like that-

The line had been crossed.

But…

"My, oh my… This wasn't what I was expecting." Akeno vocalized her thoughts perfectly, standing next to her in front of the old church. Despite her airy words, her brow was furrowed in worry. It looked like they were going to have to be less worried about the fallen angels and more for them.

The church was a wreck. The grand wooden doors had been busted open, a feat that seemed somewhat redundant with all the gaping holes through the stone walls, and from where they were standing, the roof appeared to have partially collapsed. Some of the stones were partially melted, others cut so cleanly it could only have been magic. The smell of dust, smoke and blood permeated the air. All holy protections that had lingered past Heaven's abandonment of this place had been stripped away, leaving nothing but a very recent ruin.

"This was an attack." Kiba unsheathed one of his swords, eyes scanning the shadowed trees of the church's grounds.

"And Carmilla must have stumbled upon it. It can't have been more than thirty minutes." Rias bit her lip and revised her expectations. Whoever or whatever had done this had been strong, and fast. "Let's go. We need answers. Be careful, the enemy might still be around."

Her peerage assented as one. They approached as a group, meeting only silence and desolation. The doors had crushed one unfortunate exorcist, by the look of his clothes, and splinters the size of spears had impaled two others further inside the nave. More bodies were strewn around amidst broken pews and other furniture, and these showed clear signs of battle. The high windows opposite the entrance were completely done in, letting moonlight inside, and the high roof had indeed collapsed, scattering tiles everywhere and blocking half the aisles. But the centerpiece was the remains of the altar, now tipping into a large, dark hole. The chancel had partially collapsed into a sinkhole, caving into whatever basements and hidden passages the church had possessed.

"Twelve." Akeno roughly tallied the corpses. It was a worrisome number to find in the middle of a devil-controlled town, more so considering there had to be even more bodies buried in the rubble.

Ahead of them, Kiba leapt into the air and manifested his wings as the floor groaned under him, landing back next to them. The sound of shifting debris under their feet echoed around them. "The whole building is unstable. I'm not sure how long we can stay here."

"Well, we were already going to have to send a cleaning crew…" Rias muttered to herself before eyeing her peerage. One tough Rook, one swift Knight and her Queen. "Koneko, do you think you can check out the lower levels? Koneko?" The Rook, who had been frowning heavily at the corpses, startled, then nodded. "Good. Kiba, the perimeter." Akeno stepped behind her without any prompting. "Be careful and remain in contact."

Kiba and Koneko departed in opposite directions, him flying up while the Rook gently glided into the hole by the altar. Rias reexamined the layout of the church's ground-floor. The fallen would have used the underground levels, but with the number of exorcists present, they probably had to house some of them above ground. Koneko would notice anything too egregious below, and if the building held until she was done Rias herself would be taking a second look. In the meanwhile, this church, like any other, must have a number of side rooms for storage, meetings, preparations, and even lodging and cooking.

She floated around one of the broken ceiling beams turned columns, finding that it had knocked down portions of the walls and went in. The destruction was less prominent in these spaces, but not the bloodbath. Every room had signs of prolonged occupation, months at least of exorcists and fallen living here. Every single one of them was dead. Some had perished immediately, but most had fought and died standing, guts and blood painting the walls. Those that had tried running had been skewered through their backs.

"This was a complete massacre." Akeno whispered, disgust tainting her usually composed tone. A heavy frown had settled on her face, something that likely was mirrored in Rias' own.

"Yes, but who did it? And why?" Only devils would be this aggressive towards fallen, but then why would this be so hidden while in their territory? If a devil had known about the fallen and wanted to intervene, they should have contacted her or Sona. And if it hadn't been the work of her race, then who would be this strong, bold and aggressive?

"It's only been humans so far…" The Queen noted carefully. "Maybe whoever it was wanted the fallen?"

Rias stopped, squinting. A single shaft of moonlight caught her attention, coming through a hole that had once been a door, wood, bricks and tiles blocking most of it. She approached it, peeking around the obstruction. "Maybe not." Through the destroyed doorway, she saw what looked like the tip of a black wing. The May breeze shifted some of the plaster dust on the ground, sending a single black feather fluttering. "I think we just found one of our missing fallen."

Unfortunately, it seemed they were too late. The fallen angel had been pinned to the ground like a butterfly. She'd been thrown down with enough force to crack the ground, maybe through the roof itself, before the ceiling had collapsed. The smaller debris covered her legs, one wing, and mixed with a large amount of blood. The roof's support beans had come crashing down like giant spears, one of them traversing her abdomen through and through. Besides that, the body showed clear signs of the fight, bruises and cuts, and her left arm had been severed clean off and laid in its own small puddle of blood a few feet away.

Rias kneeled carefully next to the body. She looked a lot like Akeno, eerily so even. Older, of somewhat more western features, but their shared race was evident. Maybe… She shook that thought away, wincing at what Akeno would do to her if she even suspected she had been thinking of it. Rias sighed and leaned forward to check if the fallen had any pockets and saw the fabric of her shirt move. She blinked. It couldn't be. She put her hand against the body's still warm lips, and felt a weak, rattling breath.

"Akeno!" She called over her shoulder, hands flitting over the many wounds of the survivor. "She's still alive!"

Akeno kneeled next to her, eyes wide. "How?"

"I don't know but…" Rias hissed. Devil magic couldn't heal fallen angels. Few things could, and this one was barely clinging to life as it was.

"There is nothing we can do." Her Queen put a hand on her shoulder, urging her back.

Rias clenched her fists by her sides. Unlike what might have been expected of a devil like her, she felt no particular joy at watching the death of a fallen angel, even one that had caused her and her peerage some trouble. That it was a slow, painful and inevitable death didn't help at all. Much to the contrary. This whole affair just felt like such a waste. There was nothing to be gained, no information, no closure, nothing.

"Unless..." She mused, noticing only after her voice echoed that it had been said out loud. There was one thing that could be done.

Akeno realized what she meant after a moment of stupefied silence. Then she shot to her feet, uncharacteristically raising her voice at her King. "Rias! You can't be thinking…" Her voice cracked. "One of them?"

The inflection she put on that last word wasn't lost on Rias. She cringed, then firmed her expression. She looked over her shoulder, meeting Akeno's eyes. Her Queen glared back, then caught herself and averted her gaze. Her posture stiffened, and she politely excused herself to keep an eye on the surroundings while Rias was 'occupied'. Rias sighed but held onto her convictions. She knew this fallen was important, she was the key to understanding what had happened here. She had a very good feeling about her too, one that solidified the more she thought about it. This fallen was a survivor, and her heritage alone would make her good piece. Rias would make sure she became a valued part of her household. There was no reason to feel guilty.

Akeno was only ever that cold when she was genuinely angry.

Perhaps that was why she summoned a pawn piece first.

However, the evil piece didn't react properly to the fallen. The ritual's power nosedived after a rapid build-up. One pawn wasn't enough. She summoned another. But two pawns didn't work either, so she brought out her remaining knight, then the rook after the same reaction. Rias hesitated. She wasn't a weak King by any measure, yet this two-winged fallen was worth more than five of her pawns. Maybe there was some sort of mistake? Nobody had ever reincarnated a pureblood fallen angel, but theoretically it should be possible… Could it be that this fallen was unexpectedly powerful? She was still alive, stubbornly breathing on despite several fatal injuries. A frisson of excitement ran down her spine. Had she gotten incredibly lucky?

She set aside her pieces, deciding to trust the ritual to use whatever pieces were necessary.

She rose from her crouch and summoned her power, only for a rattling cough to break the dead silence of the church. Under her, the fallen angel's eyes struggled to open. Purple eyes looked past the devil, pupils uneven. "A-a. A-zi-a." She twitched, but no greater movements were possible.

Rias dropped down and pushed the fallen back down as gently as possible. "Stop. You're too hurt." Dying really.

Her voice reached the concussed angel, because purple eyes focused on her with an unnerving intensity for somebody with one foot and a half in the grave. Suddenly a force pulled on her collar and Rias barely had time to catch herself with her knees before she fell onto the angel. The fallen's remaining hand had shot up and pulled her down with a strength she shouldn't still possess. Now nose to nose, the fallen's purple eyes flared with purpose, chasing away the shadow of death. "Asi-a. De-vil. Where?"

Rias kept her composure. She recognized the name. Asia, the rogue exorcist that had saved Koneko and yet another unanswered question. And the answer to all of them was dying in front of her. "I don't know." She told her truthfully. Rather than let the fallen respond, she went straight for the kill with her proposal. "Do you want to live?"

"Li-ve? I'm al-ready dead." The fallen spat then paused, uncertainty twisting her face. She looked left, then down. "Ah." Rias opened her mouth and the fallen pulled on her collar again. Her fist was trembling with exertion now, and her eyes had changed. The raging fire that had dominated her became a hateful simmer. "Ne-ver." Fingers lost their strength and her arm fell down the rubble, freeing Rias.

The devil frowned and caught her hand. "Don't give up. I can save you." Rias ran different options in her head, looking for the right thing to say. She obviously didn't want to become a devil, but Rias was certain there was a way to convince the fallen angel. Everybody had a price, something they wanted, a wish, a desire…

"You're… strong." The fallen looked almost through her, wholly unaware and uncaring of Rias' mental struggle. "Do you want… to be stron-ger?"

"Eh?" Was she… turning the negotiation… on its head?

The hand in hers started gripping back. "Do you want to be stronger?" The fallen rasped, blood spilling from her lips. At every word, her voice grew steadier, the gravelly tone of abused vocal chords deepening until it flanged, the low subvocals resonating within the devil's ribcage. "Do you want power? Do you want to stop grieving at your impotency? Do you want to laugh at those you envy? Do you want to sink them to the very depths of the Abyss, to burn the flesh of their bones and dance over their skulls? Do you want to rise up as the true King? Do you wish for the Power of Domination?"

"Yes."

Rias blinked. Her lips were parted, but she hadn't ordered them to move. Her heart thrummed in her ears, blocking all other sounds. A force like a vice had her left hand captured.

[TRANSFER]

The last thing she saw were the blazing green eyes of the fallen angel.

Then her soul was on fire.



I Hope You Last Longer Than The Last One I Had Good Hopes For It Too The Dragon Said But How Could She Focus On That Everything Was Fire Everywhere Burning And Hurting Her It Was Unstoppable Consuming Her Defenses Until There Were Only Ashes And Smoke And They Were Alive They Had Names They Had Died Too Soon She Choked On Them Black Lungs And Teary Eyes Not A Promising Start Really The Dragon Sighed Without Control It Is Just Going To Get Itself Killed Shame She Could See Them Feel Them And Oh She Was Next

She

Was

Next

---

Spoiler

Wrote this in 2020, can't remember where exactly I was going with it, but probably just to the Rating Game since my interest in HDxD plot wanes heavily after that.
Ghost Issei and Ghost Raynare were going to be a thing, the metaphorical angel and devil on Rias' shoulders. Raynare herself was already suffering from mental contamination due to the way she acquired the BG.

 

[minuseven]

[1]
Somehow, it had gone wrong. She wasn't surprised. Not only had the circumstances been against her, she was well-aware of her own gormless nature.

It was her own impulsiveness. For all she overthought things, when it came down to it, she never thought twice before jumping. And so there she was, a gnawing hole within, and a weapon too powerful in her hands.

She didn't curse the powerful entity that had stolen her breath even as it presented her with an ocean of choices. She avoided those thoughts. She was too afraid.

***
There were many craftsmen's familias in the city. From swordsmiths and potion-brewers to basket-weavers and glassblowers, commerce was abundant and gods were aplenty. Reputation was important for these divines, stripped from their unearthly powers. Obtaining a list of them was as easy as asking for a pamphlet.

Business was good, but never enough.

Of blacksmiths, the greatest and renowned was Hephaestus. She started there. Conveniently, because she was so successful, Lady Hephaestus kept her main office in the very same street as the Pantheon.

The guard at the door was approached by a thin weretiger woman, who greeted him politely. He returned the greeting and mentally prepared himself to turn her down. If she was a client, she certainly hadn't enough to afford them. If she was an aspirant, a single look would tell she lacked the muscles and calluses of even a forge-hand. He was, therefore, pleasantly surprised.

"The requirements to enter the familia?" Despite her appearance, at the very least it seemed she wasn't an idiot. "Well, I can tell you already. You do not possess them."

She nodded, an ear flicking the only sign of emotion. "I'm aware. But for future reference?"

"Aside from being a decent enough fighter…" if nothing else because it was fully expected they be able to procure their own materials, be it by trade or by adventuring. "All members of Hephaestus are already full-blown smiths when they join the familia. And even then, they must prove their skill and potential before the eyes of our goddess."

The weretigress nodded. "I see, of course."

"Are you even a smith, tho?" The guard found himself asking.

She wasn't offended, but a wry little smile broke the dead-eyed countenance she had maintained. "Not yet."

A smith himself, he saw little opportunities for a grown woman to start learning the craft now, but it wasn't impossible. "Well, when you do become a smith… then maybe you can try to impress our goddess and join Hephaestus familia."

"Or you could join my familia right now!!"

She stopped, mouth half-open on the way to a sentence, and looked down. She was a runt of a tiger but this one was short. A short and stacked goddess. Shining blue eyes framed by long pure black hair looked up at her. "... pardon?" Her tail lashed out behind her once, before being brought to heel. Even as a runt, her chin was over the goddess' head.

"Join my familia! Hephaestus is great and all that but don't you want to join Hestia familia? We, huh… We are great!" The goddess crossed her arms, her divine beauty emphasized.

Surprisingly, the guard wasn't insulted. He turned to the woman. "Ah, this is Lady Hestia. She's a friend of our goddess who's currently…enjoying her hospitality. For the last two months." He ignored the squawk coming from below. "Hestia familia currently has zero members. And as such, technically, does not exist." Another shriller sound.

She nodded. "Ah, I see. Is she a goddess of smiths as well?" The name was familiar, but she didn't remember exactly her domains.

"I'm Goddess of the Hearth!" The divine interrupted. Her cheeks had flamed up to resemble a tomato. "... and the Sacred Fire and Architecture. And the State too, sometimes! And, hm, Home, Hospitality… Bakers…"

Dull, golden-eyes characteristic of the beast-men tribe met hers. Nearly below the limits of her hearing, she heard the child clearly. "Home? Tch, cruel irony…" Then the weretigress turned back to the guard. "This goddess… is she a good person?"

Both adventurer and adventurer-to-be examined the deity now standing seriously between them, who'd quickly unpuffed her cheeks and tried to radiate as much of an aura of competence as she could. "She's lazy. Loud. Good-for-nothing. A complete layabout. And a crybaby." The more experienced of them both declared. "But, yes. I'd have to say that at least she's a good person."

"Alright. That's it then." The woman turned fully to the goddess. "I wish to join your familia."

""Wait, really!?"" Both goddess and adventurer boggled at her, one ecstatic, another worried.

"YES! Alright, come on!" And the goddess was grabbing her wrist and insistently dragging her away. The guard was left behind, stuck between going after the stranger that had so carelessly accepted the ditzy goddess' offer, a goddess good friends with his, and his duty to remain on his post.

***
The goddess brought her to a bookstore. She marveled at the amount of books.

"Do you like reading?" Hestia asked with a self-satisfied smile.

She nodded. "Yes, quite a lot. I used to write a little too." She traced the spines of books with careful fingers, admiring the work put into the works.

Hestia had gone for a walk, browsing stores. She did leave her room every few weeks, no matter how much Hephaestus nagged her. And just as she was returning to tell Hephaestus about her day, an opportunity had appeared! A weretiger, some of the strongest mortals! And if she was a candidate to Hephaestus, she was going to be a great adventurer for sure. Hestia did feel a bit bad about potentially poaching from Hephaestus… but first come, first served!

Hestia observed the child for a moment. Being a beast-person was the only remarkable thing about her, dressed in the generic clothing of a laborer. Her ears and tail were the same yellow-orange of most common tigers and her hair matched. The markings on her tail were dark brown. Golden yellow eyes were the only thing that stood out, but only because of their iron-like dullness. This child was driven but lost, hiding secrets beneath a calm exterior.

Truth be told, the goddess felt like she was understating the issues. Who answered the request for a name with 'I don't have one, why don't you name me since you are a goddess?'. And it had been entirely truthful. Not that she would ever back down from her very first child! If Hestia had sensed anything bad from her, she wouldn't even have approached.

"So, hm, have you decided on a name?" After Doris, she had immediately exercised her previously undiscussed right to veto, and now the weretiger had a small list to choose from.

"I like Korina." Isidora had also been tempting.

"Korina. Kora, Kori… It does fit you!" Hestia clapped and was rewarded by a slow wag of a fluffy tail. She reminded herself she would absolutely not act like Loki or the other gods, even if that tail was awfully fluffy. "Come here. I need access to your naked back to apply my Blessing."

Obediently, the tiger sat down and pulled her tunic open. A slim back was presented to her, but Hestia's eyes were immediately drawn by several big tattoos. Jagged runic designs drew a large but simple design on the back of her right shoulder, then a different one on the outside of her right bicep, and a final one ran along the underside of her forearm. It was quite the array of tribal marks.

Then she banished those thoughts from her head and pricked her fingers with the tip of a very sharp letter opener. A nervous fluttering accompanied the smile on her face. She had never done this. Korina would be her first child.

Ichor was spilled, the ritual set. Newly-named Korina stared blankly ahead as divine radiance drew a line separating them from the mortal world. She wondered when the goddess would realize what sort of trouble she was bringing to her doorstep. Dust motes floated in the air, the light from the window only half illuminating the cozy corner on the second-floor storage room of this bookstore.

She found herself poetic. The beginning of a tale, a chapter? It was fitting for her circumstances.

The radiance started to die down, and Korina heard the goddess behind her take a startled breath. She didn't turn, but she could imagine the look on her face. Horrified, scared? Not eager, she didn't think, because she was a good person.

"I don't think I should write down your status." Hestia's fingers hovered almost fearfully over her back.

The weretigress nodded. "Makes sense. Not without omitting that part anyway."

"Korina," and there was a hint of hardness in the goddess' voice, a weight that had been completely absent until then. "Did you know you had these spells?"

The mortal half-turned so that she could face the goddess. "It's a spell then? I knew that three things would appear sooner or later, but not what shape they would take." She took in the goddess' pale face. "I'm guessing Mortality is really that… blasphemous then." The ever present anxiety in her gut was slowly being dispelled now that the secret was out.

Hestia frowned. "How could you know? No god or goddess gave you their blessing before."

"Can't you tell?" Korina blinked.

"It doesn't work like that!" Hestia couldn't read a mortal's whole life story in the blessing. Especially not after just granting it. At most, she could get impressions of why certain skills or spells would manifest, as they were indeed roughly tied to a mortal's soul, self, will and accomplishments. "And… you have three spells and two skills."

That surprised her. "That's… hm. Maybe you should write down my status after all."

The goddess transcribed the status into a blank sheet of paper, muttering how they were going to have to burn it. Korina pulled her tunic back up and, after reading it, told Hestia her tale.

***
The pair returned to Hephaestus' headquarters after they'd had a very long talk. Korina nibbled slowly on a potato puff snack, authentic jagamarukun brand. Hestia was subdued, pigtails limp. One of her remaining manifestations of power, beyond the inherent physical perfection, was some sort of selective buoyancy. At least, as far as Korina could tell, that was why not only her hair seemed to have a life of its own, but also how her chest moved around according to her mood without hurting her.

Hestia's dress mocked the very concept of support. Godly perks, apparently and pointedly.

"Is it a good idea for me to enter Hephaestus' house now that I have your blessing?" She asked. She was fairly sure such things were discouraged. Spying, sabotage, the fact that it was somebody's home in the end.

"Of course, of course!" Hestia laughed it off weakly before her child caught her eye with a single raised brow. "... I'll ask Hephaestus…" She did not have to, as when they reached the door they were informed that Hephaestus wanted to speak with them.

Hephaestus was an impressive goddess. Flame-haired, one-eyed, she emitted an aura of both shrewdness and cordiality. In practical but quality clothing, she sat behind a wide desk and her attention didn't leave the demi-human as she entered the office. Despite that, she was smiling, maybe even relieved. Korina got the distinct feeling that she cared deeply about Hestia. She had to, to have put up with the moocher for two entire months.

"Well, congratulations on finding your first child." She gave it to Hestia, who smiled brightly.

"I know! Korina is great and super strong!" Behind her, the weretigress shook her head silently at the other goddess. "She's going to show Loki and all of her children!" The mortal mouthed another negative.

It seemed those two had already established a dynamic. "Well, you've certainly taken the first step. I'm guessing that means you'll finally move out of my home?"

The pointed question hit Hestia along with knowing looks from both Korina and Hephaestus, and her enthusiasm popped like a balloon. "Hm. Well. About that. Could you help me out for a little while longer?..."

Hephaestus was actually surprised. In the time Hestia had spent in the mortal realm, she had never shown a hint of shame about her ways nor a single clue of how the world really worked. And here she was, sweating as she asked for what she'd taken for granted not hours ago. The child's dead-pan stare was fixed on the back of the shorter goddess' head and had to be burning mightily. Hephaestus was curious how that conversation had gone.

"Well… seems like you've found a reliable child indeed. I suppose I can extend my hospitality for another week."

Hestia seemed to melt with relief. Korina took that clue to approach a few steps further and bow at the waist. "Thank you, Lady Hephaestus. However, you need only house my goddess. I have enough money for myself for a few days. I'll start at the dungeon tomorrow and make more detailed plans once I know how much I can make by myself."

Hestia's spine made a surprise reappearance. "That's not true, Kori only has enough money for one night and then she'll sleep on the streets! Hepha–" The weretigress covered her mouth with an annoyed frown.

"That's not true." She lied. "Regardless, we much appreciate your generosity, Lady Hephaestus, but I really have to go now." She bowed again. "Until tomorrow, Hestia. Don't forget about that." Her tail was swishing more violently than before as she left.

The goddess of the forge raised an eyebrow as she eyed her friend. "I approve." The surly-looking weretiger didn't seem to be a good match for the child-like Hestia at a first glance, but they meshed well. Hephaestus also wasn't going to complain about a child with her head on straight.

Hestia huffed. "She's too serious about some stuff." A great deal of her afternoon had been getting mercilessly scolded by her own child. Korina, it seemed, had a thing about owing debts, particularly money.

"Hm. It also seems you poached her right under my children's nose." A strangled noise escaped Hestia. Hephaestus gave her a serious stare for a moment before laughing. "Well, think about it next time you try to recruit somebody. You're lucky she isn't a smith, or I might have gotten cross with you." She was a bit curious about Korina's apparent smithing ambitions, nevertheless.

"Hephaestus…" Hestia suddenly asked, and her countenance had turned serious unlike anything Hephaestus had ever seen out of her… in the mortal world. Blue eyes weighted with divinity met crimson. "How do you hide a status?"

---

KORINA Lv.1
Strength I.0 Endurance I.0 Dexterity I.0 Agility I.0 Magic I.0
Spell
[Celeritas] Chantless aura; this rune boosts speed and damage.
[Pabulum] Chantless aura; this rune heals the user proportionally to damage dealt.
[Mortalitas] Chantless aura; this rune makes any damage dealt by the user lethal.
Skill
[Wound] Thou hast been stricken, robbed, defiled. In search of thyne most precious light, this blessing be given to thee.
[Runeforge] The user can create equipment with the power of runes.

---

Spoiler

look sometimes a quick idea comes and when you grab it... it unfurls.
also, until the end of october, everybody has free reign to call me out on the progress of my thesis. future-me will appreciate it.

Spoiler: cards

Rune of Speed
Rune of Sustenance
Rune of Mortality

 

[minuseven]

[2]
Korina dragged herself out of bed and presented herself at Hephaestus' door. A rucksack was thrown over her shoulder and she held more than a few rolled up sheets of paper in her free hand.

"I'm here to wake up Hestia and do some division of labor." She said, and the morning-shift guards smiled widely and bid her to wait a few minutes.

Ten minutes later, a rumpled-looking goddess of the hearth was at the door. Regardless, she was smiling widely and tackle-hugged Korina. "You're here!" The mortal patted her head, and she didn't even complain. "So, what are we going to do today?" Pick out weapons, train, shop... whatever gods did while their children went to the dungeon?

Korina passed her the sheets for Hestia to read. The goddess frowned, read it again, checked the sheets behind, paled and re-checked everything. Pleading eyes met Korina's. "No." Said the mortal, and Hestia urk-ed.

The first sheet was a list of objectives and instructions, helpfully titled 'Familia Chores, Day 1, Hestia'. The very first one was: Find out what gods do. The instructions made for Hestia to do a list of gods she knew (minimum of ten), then find and interview them about what activities made up a familia head's purview. Hephaestus, Hermes and Takemikazuchi were cited as possibilities. A note was added to, before the accorded meet-up at the end of the day, to request available statistics from the Guild about those interviewed. Other chores included scoping out food and lodging prices, research about places, services, and other preparations.

The following sheets were empty tables for Hestia to fill in.

"What about–?" Korina held up a single sheet titled 'Familia Chores, Day 1, Korina' and sank the goddess' argument before it had finished leaving port. "Nggn– My child is too well-organized."

She allowed herself a rueful smile. "I'm a really lazy person, but I like lists and tables. They're great tools to get things done." She patted Hestia's shoulder. "I believe in you."

Hestia pouted. Using a god's intuition against them like that wasn't fair. "What about your status? You've marked it for 'after-dungeon'."

"I want to get stuff taken care of at the guild as fast as possible, so I can try out everything at the dungeon today." A shrug. "Actually, small correction there," she leaned over to point at Hestia's chore list, "that should be the first thing, 'cuz it should be fast and I need to know this afternoon. Oh, and don't forget to ask for a pencil. I don't have any extras."

"Okay, okay! Stop– stop mothering me, I'm the goddess!" A small goddess comically flailed against her mortal follower's prodding. Finally disentangling herself from a smiling weretigress, Hesetia regained a more serious demeanor. "And Korina… be careful and return to me."

An honest smile was her response, a wave before the adventurer departed.

***
The first thing a new adventurer had to do was to register at the Guild. She'd been at the Pantheon before, where she'd gotten her list of craftsmen's familias. In the morning, all adventurers going or gone to the Dungeon, traffic wasn't horrible.

The single sheet, made out of nicer parchment than the paper she'd procured for herself, was fairly simple. Perhaps strangely, there were very few required fields. Even things like personal history were optional. Nevertheless, Korina filled it as well as she could. There was no information there that could hurt her.

The employee that received her form took a quick look, appeared minutely interested and walked to the back to talk with his colleagues. There were only a couple of things that could have bothered him. The fact that she mentioned she'd been raised by humans, or her preferences about an advisor, where she'd been perhaps too blunt. Or perhaps her age? It seemed petty, but who knew.

After a while, a different employee returned to the counter, a half-elf wearing glasses. "Excuse me, Korina from Hestia familia? Right, my name is Eina Tulle. As of today, I will be serving as your adviser." She looked serious and competent enough and that was what she'd requested.

The second step for a brand new adventurer was orientation, in a word. In an established familia, senior members would take care of it. Alone, Korina was necessarily going to rely on the Guild. As such, she'd requested somebody with good and in-depth theoretical knowledge. Besides, above all, discretion. Tulle did not disappoint. Step by step, they went through the process of determining what was necessary for her.

The foremost thing that Korina lacked was knowledge. Tulle immediately set out to correct that and found a sharp student. The weretigress had mentioned she had education in several areas, including mathematics and other sciences. It wasn't common for natural philosophers to become adventurers, but it also wasn't unheard of. Usually, mages did the reverse, gaining magic and then deepening their knowledge in several areas. Her advisor, Korina learned, was classically educated, and the conversation between tutor and tutored flowed well. As she was only going to try out her abilities in the dungeon today, she needed only to know about the first floor. Her willingness to give some information on her status had impressed upon the advisor the requirement for discretion and a relative sense of confidence in her chances.

Before leaving to pick up some proper equipment, Korina had a question. "One last thing. Would it be correct to assume that the dungeon is more dangerous on the ascension than when going down?"

The half-elf blinked. "Well, to some extent. The dungeon isn't naturally more dangerous or hostile to returning adventurers. However, adventurers on their path back are inevitably weaker than when they descended, which makes for easy targets." A grimace covered her features. "There's also the psychological state of the adventurers to consider. It's unfortunately common for adventurers, even more experienced adventurers, to dismiss the dangers when climbing up, or to rush back up without proper precautions. Such mistakes are very well fatal." She was

"I see. Thank you very much." Korina's skill Wound, beneath its flowery wording and according to Hestia's best interpretation, consisted of raising her attributes so long as she was progressing in the dungeon. It did not, however, apply to the travel back to the surface.

Really, it was a bit of a horrible skill. It distorted Korina's perception of her own strength and facilitated overarching and entrapment.

***
The Dungeon really was just a hole in the ground. A hole with stairs, but just a hole. It was slightly past lunchtime and Korina found herself descending into the underground labyrinth for the first time. She wasn't anxious, but caution had her on her backfoot and sticking to the plan.

The Guild did provide fresh adventurers with equipment. It was a loan, and the quality was basic, but it was better than going in what amounted to nothing. Taking into account her magic, Korina had chosen primarily armor. A chestplate to protect her vitals, vambraces and greaves. The armor for the upper body was medium, not too heavy but not light. She'd opted to take light armor greaves, making it a mismatched set.

As for weapons, a simple longsword was enough. She wasn't going to go with anything she didn't have experience with, so it was either a blade or a staff.

The first floor started with a wide hallway where most rookies, Korina now included, did most of the hunting. As expected, there were quite a few adventurers. If there really wasn't a spot she could pick and take as her own, Tulle had advised to find the first branching corridors and to keep to their entrances. So she did, and soon enough, found herself confronting a goblin.

What was it like, fighting a monster for the first time? It wasn't easy. It had been much like her experiences in martial arts tournaments. A deceptively short fight with a strong opponent. Her only edge was the sword. It was a decisive edge. Unlike a bare-handed fight, she had the advantage in reach. And unlike a tournament fight, every blow that connected permanently degraded the goblin's ability to fight, namely, its health.

The goblin was fatally injured when she interposed her blade between her body and itself. When she managed to push it off, a blow to the head had cracked it open. One last strike had killed it dead. Regardless, it had managed to leave several scratches on her, including one too close to her eyes for comfort.

"Well, it will get easier as I update the status." She hoped she could feel some significant gains, and had to remind herself not to get her hopes up.

She reran Eina Tulle's words in her head, checked her surroundings, and knelt down to figure out exactly the magic stone was in the corpse. Considering it was the size of a fingernail, not the easiest of tasks. Financially also not encouraging.

Then it was time for magic. She opened the map of the first floor, the only which the Guild provided free of charge, checked her position well, and plotted her course. A certain person would be quite angry if she knew, but privacy was required. On the way, of course, she encountered two more monsters. Unwilling to deviate from her route and plans, she dispatched them with sword alone.

The shorter the chant of a spell, the less focus it required on the build-up phase. Korina's spells were all chantless. That is to say, their activation required only their trigger words. The magic would then just happen. Korina had the feeling that it was possible to build-up magic power, focusing the mind that would be used. Those tests could wait. As soon as the first crack appeared in the wall, she activated the first spell.

Celeritas was the simplest, a straight up enhancement. A red glow washed over her and her arm tattoo lit up. She was on the kobold with incredible ease, and her blow crashed through it with strength she should not possess. It was hard to gauge but– the dungeon was not stopping there.

She turned in time to see a kobold drop to the ground, and in time to feel the aura run out. Short. That had been too short. On to the next then.

Pabulum did not improve her combat capabilities, but it would heal her. Provided, she cursed as the kobold scored a hit on her upper arm, she damaged the enemy enough. Green lit up her shoulder. The feeling of her cuts closing was nearly distracting. More evenly matched, she had to recast the spell during battle. By the time she was done, she knew the trigger words were easy enough to call out even during battle, and all her wounds were gone. The only evidence was the dried blood on her skin and clothes.

Now Mortalitas… the dangerous one.

When two goblins appeared behind her, she waited until they were in range and cast the black aura, an ever-consuming darkness marking her forearm. She launched a wide sweep to keep them at bay, the tip of her sword just grazing the charging goblin's skin, and they turned to ashes before her eyes.

The very touch of death itself.

A feeling of weakness hit her, and she doubled over to combat the sudden dizziness. A headache installed itself between her eyes. In her shaking hands, the sword cracked, then the part of the blade closest to the tip broke off before her disbelieving eyes. She examined the broken tip and the edges. The sword had cracks and weaknesses running throughout, like it had aged and battled years in mere moments. Hurriedly, she took off her right bracer and examined her skin, but nothing had happened to her.

Unfortunately, it still left her with a broken sword in the middle of the dungeon.

***
A goddess stood on top of a desk, defiantly holding a leatherbound notebook out of the reach of her one and only follower. She had to, since she was so short.

"Fine, I promise I'll take potions next time." Really, there was no need. Korina knew the importance of potions.

"Magic potions too!" Insisted Hestia.

"Get a job first, o' goddess mine." Korina shot back.

Critical hit. Hestia deflated. She'd spent most of her day running around town talking to other gods. Despite being mostly a recluse back in heaven, she did like talking to people and had a lot of acquaintances and friendly relations. She'd even done a smart thing and copied her child by getting a list of familias in the city and their homes first. She'd been productive! She'd also gotten a good look at how hard it could be to prosper in the mortal realm.

Takemikazuhi worked at a food stall of all places. And he had several children!

Hestia had one. That was it. No capital, no assets, no reputation. Just one follower. Hephaestus' friendship was her one asset, but Korina had been dead certain that she was stretching how far it could go. Really, two months was nothing, right?

Anyway, Hestia had done most of her chores, filled most of her tables, gotten Hephaestus to agree to help her out with a few specifics (see leatherbound notebook as evidence), all of it in time to meet her child… and nearly faint at her state.

Korina wasn't very injured. Thanks to her magic, it amounted to nothing but scratches. Which meant that she'd been more seriously injured! Somehow, she'd broken her sword, so she had to resort to fistcuffs. The weretiger in question wasn't bothered, but Hestia very much was!

Korina sat down with the notebook and started by separating three columns on the second sheet. The first sheet was reserved for subject, dating and signatures. It was accounting time.

"The spells worked like we thought they would." She related as she prepared several pages of Hestia familia's first Ledger. "Red was much shorter than expected, but quite powerful. White was a bit longer. I think both of those will rise with my abilities. When I was coming back, they were weaker and shorter. We were also right about my skill. Now Black…"

She paused to scratch her chin with the quill, thinking. Hestia kept to herself how she was staining her skin, repressing a chuckle.

"First, Black works as advised. It works so well that not even magic stones were left."

Hestia frowned. "But then, you can't use it."

"It's the ultimate fall-back, but otherwise… unless I figure out how to control that?" She scratched her ears. "No sense in using it. Oh, and it does have another drawback. It works on some sort of post-activation cost? It consumed my mind only after it had killed the goblins, and the cost is much, much greater than Red or White. Red is cheapest, by the way. I get the distinct feeling that cost might be proportional to the monster? Again, too little data."

"Such a bothersome spell." Hestia echoed her thoughts.

"It really is a last ditch spell. It also has another drawback." The goddess sputtered at yet another negative. "The effect is so powerful it corrodes the weapon it is channeled through. Some sort of entropy effect aged my sword to the point it became fragile."

"That was how you broke it!?" Hestia gasped. "But then!"

"It doesn't affect me." Korina assured her. Or else she wouldn't have returned from the dungeon at all. "But it's something to take into account." She still had half a sword, but even that wasn't in the best conditions.

"How are you going to go into the dungeon without a sword? You can't fight with your bare hands!"

Korina averted her eyes. "Well, actually…"

"Kora, no!" Kora, yes.

"Hear me out!" She raised her hands placatingly. "For one, my training is mostly in hand-to-hand combat. I know how to use a sword, but just the basics. I'm fairly sure there are other adventurers that specialize in weaponless combat. And it will be just temporarily, until we have enough money to buy me another sword." And pay back the one she'd broken.

"I don't like it. No."

But Korina was stubborn too. She'd gotten the measure of the first floor's monsters and she was confident about her capabilities against them. With her magic, if she was more cautious than ambitious, she could handle it. And she still did have half a sword!

Unable to dissuade her, Hestia claimed her lap for herself in protest. Instead, they went over what the goddess had found out during the day. Things like where it was possible to train outside the dungeon, job offers for Hestia or even for herself, cheapest rents, how nice the marketplace had been…

Finally, Korina presented her gains of the day. She'd killed little under ten monsters to get an astonishing +110 vals. It made for a nice little contrast against the starting amount, the pitiful +25 vals she still had from her own savings, and the absolutely horrendous -8250 vals of her armor and -6000 vals thrown away into her sword. They both stared at the ledger, surrounded by the comparative luxury of Hephaestus' guest room.

"If we only eat the plainest potato puffs, we have enough money to feed us for three quarters of a day."

---

Spoiler

i considered a guild oc. didn't feel like it. plans to make a martial arts adventurer foiled by practicality. maybe.

 

[minuseven]

[3]
Getting established in Orario wasn't easy. It was one of the richest cities in the world, and prices reflected that. There were no slums in Orario, because the city's architecture didn't support that. Construction just outside the walls was forbidden for security reasons; beyond, several familias had claimed the closest terrains.

There was Daedalus Street. It would take more trouble than it was worth to clean up.

Hephaestus had known this, but evidently Hestia had not. And then she'd spent two entire months metaphorically drunk on the pleasures of the children's world. She sighed. Just thinking about it ticked her off. Luckily for Hestia, a child had been nearly dropped into her lap. A mortal with much less compunctions about kicking Hestia out of her comfortable nest, and canny enough to keep her occupied while she spent the day in the dungeon. Also a crazy enough mortal that one of her own had reported catching her strangling a goblin to death because she'd broken her sword.

She knocked on the door of the guest room.

"Coming!" Hestia opened the door and blue eyes sparkled at her. "Hephaestus!"

"Hey, I came to check how you were doing." In truth, Hestia gave her daily updates. Despite finally being tired after a long day at work, she was still full of energy and enthusiasm about her follower and her progress. About what she'd done that day,what she'd discovered, how Korina had gotten a drop item, about how it was unfair that she'd gotten scolded… Hephaestus had to give it to the weretiger. She was a professional Hestia wrangler.

"Lady Hephaestus." Said weretiger rose to bow from where she'd been sitting at the desk. The forgemaster's eyes immediately cataloged the damage and use of the mediocre armor she wore. It corroborated the idea she had of her fighting style. "We've been well."

"Indeed?"

"Advancement has been steady, but I understand it will start getting harder soon enough."

"Don't get discouraged yet." She told her, but her read on the mortal didn't indicate she would. "What about the familia, how is that going?"

Hestia winced and Korina scowled. A guilty silence pressed the goddess' lips together. The mortal ended up answering. "Well, everything is out of our range if we wanted to buy, aside from some properties that are so down run it would be impossible to get rid of later on. We were aiming to rent a small place that wasn't in the worst neighborhoods while I'm stuck on the first three floors, but somebody…" Hestia attempted to magically disappear from the room in vain. "...spent the money we'd saved for the down deposit on overpriced premium copies of street stall food."

Hephaestus had heard about that. The adventurer had truly lost her temper and ended up leaving before she'd even gotten her status updated. According to rumor, of course. Hestia had locked herself in her room.

The weretigress' tail was swishing angrily. "So we can't even afford to move out into a shitty single room apartment in a dark alley. Apologies for my language."

"No, no, I understand." Hephaestus waved it off. She did.

"I said I was sorry!" "And I said I'd be mad about it until you learned your lesson, my goddess!"

What a pair the two made.

The red-haired goddess cleared her throat, breaking up the brewing argument. "So, what are your plans now?" She wanted to hear them before she made her proposal.

Korina rubbed the bridge of her nose. Hestia had clambered over her and now sat on her legs. "Rebuild our tiny a– little cushion, there's not much more that can be done. I was planning on having, well, we need our own place before we can take the next steps. If my little goddess could get a job, it would be great, but I'm not very optimistic." One would not wonder why.

"What about that thing we just talked about?" Hestia interjected. "You thought it would be a safe way to gain more money and experience, right?"

Her child blinked at her, then shot Hephaestus a look and shook her head rapidly. "What, no? I mean, it was just a thought! We're already imposing far too much–"

Hestia took her turn, laying a hand over her mouth to quieten her. A quiet conversation was had just by facial expressions, and Korina lost, slumping her shoulders with a mild frown. But she offered no comment when Hestia jumped off her lap and faced Hephaestus. Her face was serious. It was the first time Hephaestus had seen the mortal submit to her goddess, although it had to have happened before. It was the third time she'd seen Hestia serious in the mortal world, and all of them had been in the past week.

"Hephaestus, I have a proposal. Although," here she allowed herself to smile a bit ruefully, "it's really more of a request. Would any of your level 1 parties be willing to take Korina on as a supporter?"

Hephaestus' visible eye widened minutely. Now, that was a proposal, not just between friends, but between two goddess with familias who acknowledged each other.

"Korina's great! She learns super quick, I swear and she has, huh, can I? Right, she even has a support spell, so she can help your children, so…" Hephaestus was barely listening to her friend's badly structured sales pitch, examining her instead.

Hestia really was changing a bit, was she not? Bit by tiny bit, and a mortal had to be the one to drag her along, but the mortal world was leaving its mark. This dizzying, fast-paced, powerless life; this was what the divine had left their cozy, boring heaven to experience. Hestia was only at the start of her own journey. Many trials still awaited her, for better or worse. How nostalgic.

But Hephaestus had her own familia to think about too. Even granting some slack to Hestia, would Korina be, perhaps not of benefit but not a burden, to any of her children? She hadn't taken any new level 1s recently. Not any that hadn't been integrated in existing parties already. Her level 1 parties, if she recalled correctly, all journeyed down to the middle floors regularly. They wouldn't want to slow down for potentially weeks for an adventurer from another familia. And the people she had who worked solo, or even in pairs… Well, those rare few were closer to Tsubaki in terms of strength. The less said about her captain, the better. She thought about all the blessings she had, counting them deep within herself.

Well, actually… she remembered one in particular. That problem child of hers, would he do? Was Korina even appropriate for him? She eyed the exhausted-looking woman. She was a shrewd one, but was she greedy? Hephaestus' intuition was nowhere as good as Hestia's, not for people, so she didn't know. This child, who'd chosen a goddess with nothing— after asking if she was a good person.

"Maybe. Maybe I do." She found herself saying. "Korina, have you met Welf Crozzo yet?"

No recognition. "I don't think so? What do they look like?"

Hephaestus smiled. "No matter then, I'll introduce you. After that, it'll be up to you to convince him to form a party." The goddess acknowledged the mortal's low bow with a dismissive wave. "But, on that topic, I also have a proposal for you…"

***
"It's… it's…" Hestia was trying really hard not to spit in Hephaestus generosity but…

"It's perfect!" Korina chuffed (chuffed!) at the dump Hephaestus had given them.

Hephaestus familia also possessed some properties that it couldn't sell without lowering their price beyond reasonable because they were too damaged and run down. One would think that a property like that would be exactly what Hestia and Korina were avoiding. The correction would be, they were avoiding properties within their price range that were that damaged. And that price range had always been painfully low. This was far beyond their price range, even in its state.

It was an old, abandoned temple with roots dating back to pre-Babel times, although the current building was much more recent. Decay, compounded by recent urban fighting damage in the last twenty years, made it unlivable and unfit for restoration that didn't involve razing it down. Nevertheless, it was a big property, theoretically three floors high, with enough garden and backyard space to pitch several war tents. That was just before Hephaestus had revealed the building had served as a safe-house during more troubled times. A secret passageway behind the altar led down to an insulated basement, where smiths in-hiding could rest and wait without worries. It was even furnished, with second-hand furniture, and had the basic magic stone appliances, outdated but functioning.

Hephaestus had agreed to sell it to Hestia familia at a very generous discount, with no interest, and leaving them to pay at their own pace. Truth be told, Korina had started getting nauseous at the original terms, and demanded that everybody sit down to work out a payment schedule.

Hestia just had no clue of how much this meant. Or she didn't, until concrete numbers started getting thrown around. By then, she was seriously considering getting a job after all.

"So you like it?" The forge goddess' voice came from behind them. She wasn't alone; a tall young man, with similarly coloured hair and lugging a box under his arm, walked beside her.

"It's almost too much." Korina bowed at the waist lower than she ever had. "I cannot express how great this favor is, Lady Hephaestus. I swear we will repay it."

"Yeah, anything you need, Heaphaestus, don't hesitate to ask!" Hestia pipped up.

"I'm glad. Now, I won't have a lazy goddess living in my best guest room." Hephaestus laughed. "Now before anything else, how about a housewarming gift?"

The man strode forward at her cue and extended the box towards Korina. "Hey, here." "Thanks." "Careful, it's heavy." "I– oof, whoa!"

The box wasn't heavy, it was borderline impossible to hold. The smith had to be much stronger than Korina. She carefully put it down, more for the benefit of her back than the box, and opened the lid. Packed in straw were several things that made her jaw drop.

In a pouch, a set of woodcarving tools. A few brushes. A measuring tape. A Hephaestus mentioned these were from those of her children that she had a good relationship with. From the guards she had greeted every day, to those with a soft-spot for Hestia. They were the most basic of basics, old, obsolete tools, or so cheap as to be inconsequential for them. For Korina, a poor novice, they were worth their weight in gold.

Most of the box was occupied by the anvil. A hunk of wrought iron without enchantments, it was functionally useless for anybody in her familia. Hephaestus had been honestly surprised there was one in storage, considering how she provided top-class workshops for all of her followers. Korina was almost crying at the sight of it. She ran her hands over it, ooh-ing and aah-ing.

Hestia leaned over with a mystified frown. Was that a purr?

Hephaestus was satisfied with how the weretigress' eyes were already darting between her new tools and the closest tree. The smith goddess reveled in the sight of a craftsman in their environment, even if it was one with training in an assortment of areas only adjacent to hers.

She stood with ears twitching in happiness. "I owe everybody many thanks."

"I'll pass them on." Hephaestus presented the human that had come with her. "Now about that other subject. This is Welf Crozzo, he said he's willing to hear you out. Hestia," she motioned to the other goddess, "let's leave the children to talk for a bit."

Human and weretiger stared at each other for a moment. Although visibly younger than her, he was about a whole hand taller and surely much stronger. "So you want to be my supporter?" He started.

"I proposed as much. Hephaestus familia is one of the few my goddess is in good standing with, aside from a few kibbles regarding her attitude. I cannot do much offensively, but I believe even pure supporter services would benefit a solo adventurer like you. To be honest, our familia is in dire need of money." She explained. "Even splitting things seven-to-three, eight-to-two, I will make more money than adventuring solo. I'm fairly sure you can't find supporters with those rates. I can't say this would be a long-term arrangement, nor every time. You're a smith, and I have plans regarding my own craft as well. But– well, yeah."

"Well, you really thought this through. Korina right?" She nodded, as straightforward as the rest of her speech. "I appreciate the honesty, so I'll be honest too. It's true that a supporter would be great, but you've only received your blessing a week ago. I can't take you past the sixth. I'd have to be protecting you all the time and even… Killer Ants are the worst."

Korina fought not to wince. "That's fair. How about I tell you my capabilities and then you decide? Also, if you ever need to farm materials around the fifth or sixth, I can do that."

Welf scratched his head. "Okay. Sure. I could do that. Tell me what you can do then."

"I've been down to the third, but only to see what it looks like. I'm familiar with all monsters down to the sixth. I can fight with swords or staff, but I'm trained in hand-to-hand. That's how I've been fighting. Also," she exhaled, "I obviously trust this doesn't go beyond us, but I have magic." Welf tilted his head, now interested. "Super short chant magic that can boost speed and power, and another that has healing properties. And I have one ability at H rank."

"Wait, should you even be telling me all of this?"

"Aside from the magic, it's all going to change rapidly." She shrugged. "I'm only a week old adventurer, my abilities still have a way to go before they start plateauing."

"Ah true, I forgot what it was like to be young." He joked.

"I'm thirty years old." Korina mentioned.

Welf choked. "Thirty!? Who starts adventuring at thirty?" He eyed her. "You did that on purpose. Eh. Those are some good points… How about, cast your magic on me so I can feel what it's like and then I'll decide."

Korina checked their surroundings. "Of course. Ready?" The smith assumed a ready position. She narrowed her eyes in concentration. She'd tested it with Hestia before, her runes treated whoever they were cast on as the user, but it took extra focus to change it from Korina to another, and more even if there wasn't physical combat. She could do it, tho. "Celeritas."

A red light washed over Welf, who opened and closed a fist. Frowning, he tested a few punches, hands moving at a blur through the air. When it faded, he smiled widely. "I can move faster with this too, right? It's not long, but there's a real increase. How much does it cost you to cast?"

"Not much at all. I can fire off a dozen without needing to rest, but then I need at least five, ten minutes if I don't want to risk a mind down." She waved a hand in a so-so manner. "I'd say my maximum, to exhaustion, casting back-to-back limit is around the high twenties. My other spell works much the same, but instead of making you stronger it makes your attacks vampiric."

Welf had listened to her explanation, but then said. "That sounds ridiculously useful honestly. But just one thing, that wasn't a super short chant, that was…"

"It was a suuuper short chant magic, Mr. Welf. Absolutely. You must not have heard the first part."

"Ahah! I like your style." She had more spunk than her demeanor would suggest. "I agree then. Let's party up from time to time."

They shook on it.

---

Strength ...I.33 Endurance ...I.53 Dexterity ...I.26 Agility ...I.22 Magic ...H.101

---

Spoiler

the old church is absolutely my favorite place. looking forward for a convo about magic swords being derailed at the very second sentences because of semantics. can't quite tell if i got welf right. his voice is weird, i keep mixing it up with loki's.

 

[minuseven]

[4]
It was a simple vegetable stew but it was delicious. A home-cooked meal certainly pertained to the domain of Hestia.

"So what are our plans for tomorrow?" The goddess herself asked as she took care of the plates.

Korina performed her nightly stretches on the floor, body bending forwards and backwards in smooth motions. Hestia had never seen her do it, as this would be the first night they spent together. It was a good feeling, even if their new place was so beneath her expectations.

"I'll meet up with Welf in two days for a shallow dive, but it's still the fifth or sixth floor. I'll spend my morning studying with my advisor. I'll probably be home late." She would have to make the most of it on the second and maybe third floors to compensate for lost time. "Ah, I'll have to set aside some money to buy a supporter backpack. Two-thousand minimum. We'll also have to start putting aside a percentage for the house payments, hmm…"

Hestia felt the crushing weight of finances as her child started thinking hard. "Please stop thinking about money…"

"No."

"Korinaaaa…" The short goddess whined. "Just tell me what my chores are for tomorrow!"

The weretigress chanced a look at her from the floor. "Don't you think it's unusual, me ordering you around?"

Hestia was silent for a moment, the sound of scrubbing earthenware filing the space. "I do. It's weird and annoying. Really, just leave me alone sometimes!" She pouted fiercely. "But… I don't know how to help you at all… And you're always so worried and so driven…" With the wound within her… What sort of divine was she, to let herself be so affected by the drive of a single mortal who was, by her own words, a lazy one? Also… she really didn't like when Korina was disappointed in her. "And I can do things! I'm proving that to you, aren't I?"

The adventurer laughed. "Guess you are, my goddess." She smirked. "Slowly."

How mean!

"Well, I think you should get to know the area and who lives around. They'll be our neighbors for a while. Also, if there's anybody dangerous, run. I know you are a divine, but there are always some crazies." Hephaestus wouldn't have gotten Hestia a place in a dangerous zone, but still. "Then, it would really be helpful if you found a way to supplement our income." A part-time job, was what she was saying. "Until I can reliably put food on the table. Then we can think about doing things another way."

Hestia dried her hands and sat down on the ratty old couch. "What about recruiting? You said I could continue when we got a base." And the old temple was a familia base alright.

But the disrepair the temple was in would scare away more people rather than attract them. In Korina's experience, only the desperate would accept Hestia's offer, and not everybody was more or less harmless like Korina. "I will trust your judgment of people's characters, Hestia. We can support another two or three people without having to rethink logistics."

There was one last thing to do before bed then. Korina took a simple branch she had picked from the ground earlier. The carving tools were set in front of her. Just one quick experiment.

First the bark was stripped from it. Then she chose a solid section and whittled it into as good a cylinder shape as she could. The rune was in her mind. She etched it lightly at first, letting inspiration not unlike instincts guide her. There wasn't a lot of space, and it was just a random branch of an unknown wood. Thoughts for later exploration. Around, she made many patterns as they would fit, to hold the power and diffuse it. Then it was a matter of turning the scratches into marks. Korina's hands slid a lot, but the end product wasn't horrible. The twine cord went around the two ends, carved to be better able to tie it around.

She straightened and frowned. Some of her mind had been expended in the making of the bracelet. Perhaps even more than the pithy she used to cast the spell. She turned around to tell Hestia, only to find her asleep on the couch. Korina took a glance at the old clock on the wall. Assuming it was still working well, she'd spent a good hour and such working. It was no wonder she felt sore. Her stretches seemed to have gone to waste.

With a huff, she put away her tools, leaving the bracelet on the table. Then she picked up her goddess and took them both to bed.

***
Eina Tulle dropped several books in front of Korina. She leaned forward and cracked one open to see what it entailed. Diagrams and drawings of monsters, monster parts, dissections; apparent accounts of several explorers and adventurers about those monsters; maps and geological studies… She nodded.

"Thank you. Where should I start?"

The half-elf sighed. The adventurer in front of her was seemingly unflappable. On top of that, there was really no point over which she could criticize her. She had found a party member, and she was a quick study that hadn't neglected to seek out and inform Eina. "Review the Dungeon Lizard and then move to Frog Shooters. Then, War Shadows. We'll go over the dungeon layout then… is your partner going to provide maps?"

It was a fair question, since Korina didn't even have a map of the second floor. "Yes, Welf has his own maps and will lend them to me as we explore." While it was possible to copy off another adventurer's map, the Guild provided the best quality maps, down to the resistant parchment and ink they were made of.

"They're responsible then. Well, I'm not going to ask you to prepare a route, considering that will be up to mister Crozzo, but it never hurts to have an idea of the floor's layout. Then in the end I just want to go over the seventh floor monsters you might encounter." Since monsters spawning in one floor would often wander into neighboring floors. "There's Killer Ants I want to brief you on in particular, but also the start of monsters capable of flight and more exotic fighting like poisoning."

"Of course." Korina let Tulle return to her work as she settled down to cram as much information as she could. Besides information compiled by the Guild in a quick and easy to digest format, it was also unspeakably useful to read adventurer's accounts of their fights against certain monsters. The strategies that worked and potentially fatal mistakes were all there.

There were also all accounts of fighting against irregular monster variants and enhanced species, but today Korina didn't have time to delve deep into those fascinating stories. As a supporter, what interested her the most were the diagrams of monsters and the location of their stones. That and the drawings and descriptions of drop items for each monster.

Time was quick to pass, and Tulle would often pop in to shoot a pointed question at Korina.

"Well, I'd say you are minimally prepared. I would still not advise going any lower than the six, even with an experienced party member." Welf Crozzo, at least, had gone solo down to the tenth, a mark of his experience and strength. "You've only been an adventurer for little over a week."

Korina nodded. "Hm. When would you say I could start going down to the seventh and eighth? All the better drops begin there."

Eina raised an eyebrow. "Alone? Your abilities should average around G at the very least. With your partner… Most if not all of your abilities at H rank, but I would like you to have an ability at G to be safe."

Korina wasn't that far from having another ability at H rank. She would also see how partnering up with Welf would impact her growth. Despite not fighting, she would be gaining some excelia from stronger monsters. She tapped her thigh as she thought.

"Is something wrong?" Tulle asked as Korina's expression remained cloudy.

The weretigress sighed. "Not truly. I'm merely uncertain about something, and I'm not sure I should ask you. I'm not sure it would have been appropriate to ask, even if now it's a bit too late."

The advisor tilted her head, puzzled. "Well… I am here to help, not judge. Ask, and then I can give you my opinion about your question, too late or not."

"Thank you." Korina graved her with a tired smile. "Well, I wasn't sure because I didn't want to offend Lady Hephaestus' or her hospitality… so I didn't ask around about Welf. And I know the Guild only gives out publicly available information. But I wanted to know a bit more about him? I do feel like he's a good person from our meeting, so it's…quite awkward to ask about it now…"

Then Tulle hesitated. Her elfin ears twitched. "Well… it's not an unreasonable question at all, but it would be something you'd inform yourself of before, yes… However, if it's about Welf Crozzo, there's not a lot of people in Orario who don't know about it. Or any elf, for that matter…"

Now Korina was curious. "Is it bad?"

"I wouldn't say so. Actually, maybe it's better I tell you rather than have you base your assumptions on nasty rumors." She took a deep breath and started explaining. "The Crozzo family is well-known as a family of smiths from the Rakia Empire, and they were involved with the destruction of several elven forests…" Although the story itself wasn't long, the history was, and it led all the way to Welf Crozzo, child of Hephaestus.

Korina leaned back. "I see… Well, good thing I didn't pry." But ultimately, it didn't change anything.

***
The second floor had been just like the first, and the third wasn't much different. The fourth seemed to have a green tint. It was entirely possible it was just in Korina's head, prompted by her knowledge that the fifth floor had green walls. Her ears were swiveling back and forth.

"You've never been this down, right?" Welf said as he noticed her bearing. "Welcome to the fourth floor."

"Remind me to bring back a rock." She'd like to compare it to other dungeon rocks.

The way down had been smooth, so far. Welf Crozzo was strong. Goblins and kobolds simply weren't a great threat to him. Wielding a greatsword, he reaped through the lesser monsters at a speed Korina just wasn't quite capable of keeping up with. Rather, she did her best to learn his patterns, and how to fight within his range, but not close enough to get in the way.

The whole purpose of this dive was to verify their compatibility as adventurers, and her abilities as a supporter. Hestia had fussed over Korina like she was going to a job interview. Korina herself had prepared herself as well as she could. She carried a new backpack, seemingly overly large, her broken sword in its sheath, a potion she had splurged the last of their savings on, and had taken extra care while wrapping her hands. Even next to Welf, who wore forgemaster's protective clothes, she knew she looked shabby.

She begged for a moment to check the map before they set off for the fifth floor. That would be the true test of the day.

Welf signaled her as they walked. Three monsters ahead. And, true to his sharper senses, three kobolds awaited them past a bend in the tunnels.

With growling maws, they jumped at them. The smith met them halfway there, cleaving one mid-air and throwing another away with "Do you!?"

"Please leave it!" She stepped up, bringing her hands up.

Welf tripped the last kobold, letting the lupine humanoid stumbled into her reach. Korina was still getting used to the backpack, and had to account for its weight as she threw a straight punch that broke something in its snout. Not letting up. If there was one thing a bare-handed fighting style required, it was to capitalize the most possible from an opening. Her left hand shot out, grabbed the monster by its throat, before her right fist was brutalizing the kobold.

"Tch." They were tougher at this depth, so it took her more than usual to definitely kill it.

As soon as she was sure, she dropped to the ground, taking her dagger out, and opened its chest. As soon as it was ashes, she moved onto the two Welf had dispatched. No drop items this time.

"What do you think?" Welf asked as they resumed their path.

"I can handle it fine." Korina reassured him. "Solo, I would have some trouble if I got ganged up on." She didn't have to say it, but her offensive power was still lacking. "But if it's just holding them off, then there's no problems."

Alert as she was to every movement, she noticed Welf was side-eyeing her. She looked back at him and raised an eyebrow.

"Okay," he sighed, "I got to ask. Before we go any lower."

"Go ahead." Although she had an idea of what it might be.

"Are you really going to fight without a weapon? What's that about?" And there was a tone to this voice…

Korina sighed. "I heard Vanargand from Loki familia, Bete Loga, fights without weapons too. And I'm positive he's not the only one. Why's it so weird that I stick to my training and strengths and use martial arts?"

He was briefly taken aback. "Well, no…"

"This is about your sordid Crozzo backstory, isn't it? My advisor told me about it." She'd rather just cut to the heart of the matter as well. The kid, because Welf wasn't even eighteen, had understandable hang-ups but those were the last thing they needed in the dungeon.

Welf stopped, eyes narrowed. "Ain't it? My goddess vouched for you, but all people every want from me are those stupid magic swords."

His bitter tone stopped her as well, a couple of steps ahead. She turned back with a sigh, shaking her head before meeting his eyes with an impassive, disappointed face. "Kid, I'm gonna burst your bubble… But it's mighty arrogant of you to think I'd want your magic swords."

---

Spoiler

why yes i like crafting. also felt like this issue had to come up now, tho it'll reappear later.

 

[minuseven]

[5]
"Arrogant, eh?" A young man flopped lifelessly on his bed. It wasn't the first time he'd been called such. Arrogant, prideful, stubborn asshole and far worse things. Those that disparaged him as Korina had were usually his familia members, other craftsmen. But it was always about his lack of willingness to, as they said, use his full potential.

The way she had said 'your' magic swords wasn't like elves said it, the only other people he knew wouldn't take a magic sword from him. There was real hate there. Korina had just sounded annoyed, or maybe vaguely mocking.

"Just a level 1 kid. Look who's talking, she's just a rookie." No matter how old she was, did she have any right to look down on him? She was a craftsman too, and a wannabe at that. He hummed as that thought circled around. Maybe that was why she didn't want his abilities. There were many smiths in Hephaestus who wouldn't want to buy magic swords. They wanted to make their own. He supposed that would make her safe enough.

And even if he turned out to be wrong about her later, that didn't mean he couldn't use her as a supporter until then. He'd almost forgotten how much easier it was to go into the dungeon with somebody else. And Korina was taking less than a hired supporter too.

"Her equipment tho… argh, that bothers me."

***
KORINA Lv.1
Strength I.40…44 Endurance I.62…64 Dexterity I.34…37 Agility I.29…37 Magic H.117…126

"It isn't very different from your usual, twenty-four points in all." The distribution was. Although magic remained one of Korina's best abilities, endurance had accrued much less points, while agility had shot up. Naturally, since she was only injured the first time she had met a frog's ranged attack, and spent her time dodging rather than meeting monsters head on. Strength and dexterity still gained a few points but Korina had a feeling that wouldn't last.

"Welf was generous enough to let me kill the last stragglers or solo monsters." As a pure supporter, her job was not to fight, but to keep out of the way and use magic if necessary. "But it was profitable in many ways. And we didn't even go to the sixth floor." That would have been too much for their first team-up.

"When are you partying up again?" Hestia asked as she pulled down her shirt.

"Twice next week. I'll need to get some generic antidotes tho. Welf thinks that we could tip our toes on the seventh after all." That would increase revenue substantially. They'd made a total of a little over six thousand vals, meaning she'd taken home a bit over a thousand. Very good for a short dive and low drop item rates. Korina usually made half as much.

She picked up the familia ledger. Put a third off for short term food expenses, half of what remained into the Hephaestus debt fund, half of that half went for Hestia's expenses, and she still had… about enough to go to a restaurant. Or she could start paying off her debt to the Guild. Or, she grimaced as she took in the state of her sleeves, she could get a new shirt. At this point, the sleeves just stopped existing past her elbows.

And if she could repurpose the fabric of the old shirt…

Hestia gently knocked the side of her head. "You're thinking about making items again, aren't you Kori? You didn't hear a word I said!"

Korina chuckled. "Yeah, I'm sorry. What were you saying?"

Hestia bounced on the ratty couch and produced two vials of potion from behind her back. "Ta-da! Home-warming gift from our neighbors! I met Miach and his familia today, they run a pharmacy nearby, and he gave me these for you."

She blinked, accepting the potions with wide eyes. "He just… gave us these? He didn't want anything?"

Hestia shook her head. Indeed, she was good at taking a measure of a person's character. Miach would appreciate it if Korina visited the Blue Pharmacy, but this had just been a kind gesture. Hestia had never met him before, but she had the feeling that they would get along quite well. It was also a bit of a shock, seeing a god wearing such humble and ragged clothing. Penia did it, but Penia was her own kind of strange, and Takemikazuchi wore good, practical clothing beneath his uniform.

Well, Korina supposed she could pass by that place. She was going to need antidotes after all. Hestia also had other news. She'd finally tried using that little charm Korina had made.

It had worked. From Hestia's description of how it had broken, it seemed material really would limit Korina's craft at the beginning. Unless she could refine her technique… it was a good thing that wood, at least, was a cheap material.

Korina had been selling the few kobold and goblin drops she'd gotten to the Guild. The next time, she should keep one goblin fang and kobold nail to herself. As materials from monsters, their innate magic would undoubtedly be more stable than any kind of ordinary wood.

***
Having enough money to not worry about food for even two days really was a game changer.

The most basic dungeon-rated tunics or shirts started at a thousand vals. Knowing that her current fighting style involved getting in close and taking a few hits, and lacking proper armor, she didn't bother. After paying off her debt and getting at least some decent gauntlets, she'd think about it.

But it still meant the debts were starting to get paid, and the shadow looming over her shoulders lessened. It was good to return home from a long day and know things were slowly looking up.

The last two days, Hestia had somehow managed to source more branches and twine, old sewing needles, glass bottles and old rusted tools. Well, she'd probably been scrap picking. Korina was so proud. Initiative! Shamelessness! She was even going to try and get a part-time job today.

Korina was taking the day to test out a few things and, in the process, clean the temple's yard. Huffing and puffing, she carried the anvil up the stairs. Then down the stairs. And back up. Excelia also came from training, said popular wisdom. When she was on the verge of passing out, she left the heavy hunk of metal out in the yard.

She could more or less envision it. A fenced out yard with a smithy on the back, the walls fixed up, a few trees and a small garden for meditation. Perhaps she could build a small out-building on the terrain closer to the street and make a store out of it. The temple itself would need to be heavily rebuilt, the bell-tower turned into a watchtower or observatory, and those were merely her plans for the outside. The inside needed just as much work. Needless to say, the facilities wouldn't allow for a hygienic environment with more than three or four people. Korina was dreaming big, but how good it felt to have some hope for the future.

The emptiness in her heart seemed less present.

The yard was to be cleaned. First, removing the thorny thicket that had taken residence in the shaded corners. Or, she discovered the small green and red fruits, they could leave the blackberry bushes intact. She followed the stems as much as she could, scratching herself in the process. A fair few did have roots on their side of the terrain. After some consideration, she fenced in that part of the yard with half-rotten pews from the inside of the temple. While Korina was on that task, she separated the usable wood from the useless. The former could be carved, repurposed or even made into firewood, and was stacked on a dry corner. The latter was carried outside and broken, or used as temporary markers.

Morning come and gone, Korina ate a snack and returned to work.

Rubble that could be moved was picked up and used to shore up the property's outside walls. Perhaps it could be turned into proper stone walls with a bit of mortar, or even without. The problem were the boulder-sized pieces of buildings that had managed to fall within the temple's yard. They were impossible to move. Or at least, impossible for an adventurer of Korina's caliber, perhaps even of Welf's.

Korina wrapped her hand in the remains of her most ruined shirt. Between her fingers and over, winding over and over until her wrists were well supported. In front of a flat rock that had been a wall, once upon a time, she settled into a rigid stance. Low to the ground, she measured the distance with her off hand, letting her arm bend at the elbow.

"Strike without fear. You have known greater pains." But it was always different to strike knowing the real possibility of pain depended only on your own strength. So she closed her eyes.

She yelled as she launched a punch at full strength, rotating force transmitted from the ground, up to the hips and spiraling down her wrist. Covered knuckles met rock and lost. Korina slumped against the wall, cradling her hand. Pain reverberated up the bones of her arm. Away from the flush of battle, nothing existed to distract the body from the mistake it had made.

Korina took fifteen minutes to rest and regret.

She returned to the rock. One small mouthful of potion had been sacrificed to keep the pain away. What came next likely wouldn't hurt anyway. She settled into her stance again, half a pace to the side. Her first attack had removed some dirt at the point of contact, but the lowest rank of strength of a low class adventurer was hardly better than a normal soldier's. In some ways, even worse. Now, she tested her true attack power.

"Celeritas!" The spell rushed through her veins, determination and anger rising in her gut and flashing away as the red aura settled over her. The strike that followed moved an order of magnitude faster and struck with a sharp sound. The stone cracked underneath Korina's knuckles. She stepped away and examined the spot. The encrusted dirt was gone, and the stone itself had cracks and divots in the shape of her fist. The divots were barely there, but the cracks told a greater story.

The enhancement from Korina's first spell was nothing to scoff about. Perhaps it meant less to Welf, and high class adventurers likely wouldn't feel a difference. To a rookie like her, it was the difference between rattling a goblin or killing it in one strike. Unfortunately, Celeritas provided little to no defensive enhancements. Endurance wasn't her second highest ability for no reason. The aura spell dissipated and the throbbing in her hand returned full force. It was hard to say whether it hurt more or less than before. A strike did more damage for the same impact, but the speed increase also increased the impact.

Another fifteen minute pause was required.

Finally, she had one more thing to try out. "Mortalitas." Black almost darker than black washed over her. No great force was prepared, for it either worked or did not.

The stone broke like cheap ceramic under Korina's fist. Great cracks opened, radiating from the point she struck. The entire boulder fell into several pieces, and Korina followed, darkness taking over her vision as her mind went blank. Her insensate form laid on the debris for hours, until Hestia returned home full of cheer, quickly turning to horror.

When Korina woke up, it was to the stone ceiling of their living space underground. She was laying on their one bed. Hestia and Korina rotated their nights between the bed, the couch, and shared in cold nights. A headache pulsed between her eyebrows. As she reached to massage it, she realized her hands had been unwrapped.

"You went into mind-down." Hestia spoke from the side, sitting on their one chair and looking down at Korina with an expression the weretigress had never quite seen on her. "I was really scared."

"I apologize. I wasn't expecting that, but I was training outside of the dungeon for that very reason." A thought occurred to her. "How did you carry me down here?"

"I didn't." Hestia frowned, poked at her arm. "I wasn't sure what happened so I went to Miach, and he had his child carry you down."

That was the second or third time that god had come up. "Do we owe them anything for this?"

"No! Miach didn't– Can't you stop thinking about money for two seconds!" Hestia cried. "I–"

Korina cursed. Hesitating for a moment, Korina took the goddess' hand. "I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. I was being really insensitive, wasn't I? I didn't mean to scare you."

Hestia sniffed. Despite her red-rimmed eyes, she remained a beauty in human eyes. "Well, you did."

"Shall I buy you a nice meal? A candlelight dinner?" She joked.

"Hmm? That cheapskate child of mine wants to spend money?" Korina was not a cheapskate, she liked quality. "Fine, this miserly child of mine."

"Let's do it." Korina insisted. "Let me take you out for a nice dinner."

Hestia went very red and stammered, which required Korina to affirm, through her headache, that she did not and would ever be interested in a divine that way. Hestia, for some reason, still hesitated, although it was clear from her demeanor that she really wanted to go out to eat. "I thought we didn't have money to spend on frivolous activities."

"I'll have to dip into our debt-payments, but– I can regain that money later." She sighed against the dramatic gasp given by Hestia. "If you want to go on a drinking binge" T'was a critical hit. "then you'll have to use your own money. But the truth is, money's there to be used sooner or later, and one of them is self-care." Happiness could be bought. Good food, theater and plays, books and games. And happiness mattered.

Hestia softened, giggling. Her eyes sparkling. "Well, you better take me to a good dinner. You have to make up for scaring me like that!"

***
The Blue Pharmacy was a hole in the wall. It hadn't always been, from the way the two buildings bordering it, now boarded up or sporting different colors, shared construction elements. It was a storefront that wanted to give out a cheerful feeling in a cramped street, with its blue, hand-painted signage. But the paint was faded and scratched, the glasses were foggy and dark, and so it just looked a little sad.

Korina knocked before entering. At the counter, a dog-woman looked up and greeted her in monotone. The two beast-humans' eyes met, serious unemotional faces mirroring each other. This one, each thought, is a little bit like me.

"Good afternoon. I came to thank Lord Miach about yesterday and to inquire about antidotes and potions."

The chientrope nodded, the only sign of interest a slight lifting of one of her ears. "You're… Lady Hestia's child. Lord Miach isn't in right now, but I can pass on the message."

Korina wondered if this was the one who had carried yesterday, then she remembered Miach was a god with a single adventurer like Hestia. "I'd appreciate it. Also, thank you for yesterday."

She shrugged. "It wasn't anything much. Lady Hestia didn't buy any of our high potions…" Obviously, considering how eye-gouging expensive magic potions were. "About our products. Potions are 500 vals, standard. We have larger sizes available too. Antidotes… for basic poisons found in the upper floors, one standard bottle is 5000. We have a smaller, one-use bottle, for just… 3000 vals."

Korina was extremely poor. Absolutely everything was out of her price range. Even potions were eating into the money she was supposed to be saving. She looked at the shopkeeper's lazily wagging tail and mentally apologized.

"I'll come pick up a standard antidote and two potions in three days…"

---

Spoiler

starting to find their feet after a week and a bit of dungeoning. visible improvement. of course, first week everybody gets gains. then it's a pain. korina will be slowing down in a week, then raising her stats from H up the hard way.

 

[minuseven]

[6]
A thought for another day: Mortalitas' cost was retroactive and based on the target rather than the caster. Killing first floor goblins with that spell could be an efficient way to train her magic.

Today however, Korina wanted money. From equipment she had to buy, antidotes, potions, armor, clothing, soap… to debts she had to pay, to three separate parties and counting… if there was one thing she needed, it was several thousand vals. She descended straight to the third floor, following a path drawn on a map copied from Welf's. She was tracing a predetermined route, long enough for monsters to spawn and wander into. Of course, other adventurers' and parties could break that path, so she was ready to adjust her strategies.

Her broken sword rattled in its sheath. Today was about efficiency and endurance, so even a dull blade was useful. Korina's magic was not vast enough to fight an entire day, not yet. On the third floor, using Celeritas would turn her fists into certain death for several critical seconds. So she made it a point of dragging one or two monsters behind her until she found another small group, gathering up to six goblins or kobolds.

"Celeritas!" The world went red. Korina accelerated, right fist smashing into a monster's face. On her toes, she side-stepped then hit a moving one-two combo on the next monster. The movement had her do a full half-turn around it, and she took the quick opportunity to refresh her awareness of her foes. It took nary a moment, and then she was running. She'd lost count of Celeritas' time, but she was familiar enough with it to know she still had just enough. The two kobolds that had been following her threw themselves to meet her, nails first.

Kobolds were larger than goblins, generally slower, attacking mainly with their claws despite having a full muzzle of teeth. The shape of their faces made it necessary to change how she struck. Korina's first strike went low; she stepped into the first monster's non-existent guard and twisted her hips to deliver a powerful uppercut. The kobold died with a choked whimper, a smashed lower jaw and broken skull. She skipped back, away from the dead weight, and felt the starting signs her magic was fading.

The second kobold was already charging, having changed its course, both hands raised and ready to grab her. Using the last remnants of her speed, Korina intercepted the attack. Her wrapped hands shot forward, open. They hit the inside of the monster's arms and she grabbed the muscle and fur just above its elbows. Before the monster could think to use its bite, she snapped a knee up. The magic was gone from her movements. She struck again, harder, then pushed it off. The kobold went wheeling and she followed, tackling it with one arm, the other raising to rain down a flurry of blows until it stopped moving.

She shook herself. Her eyes darted around, checking the walls, the other corpses, but nothing moved.

That last move had been risky, Korina chidded herself, she should have struck with simple strikes. The third floor was no place to try out new techniques or practice fighting, not yet. Already twice today she had been surprised by dungeon lizards, those affectionately named dunzards or more appropriately, newbie killers. Goblins and kobolds didn't kill new adventurers, provided they weren't hopeless civilians thrown into the gullet alone. Numbers did, exhaustion did, overconfidence did. But in the first floors, the deadliest monster by itself was the dungeon lizard. It was silent and climbed walls, perfectly positioning itself to strike from where least expected.

Awareness was perhaps the most important skill an adventurer could have, and Korina found herself quickly developing it. Even just that last second thought that something was off was enough to save one's life. That and Pabulum were what was keeping her upright today.

She counted her findings. A fair amount of crystals, enough that they made tinkling noises against each other rather than her backpack's fabric, and three lucky drops. She'd snacked on some prepared food several hours ago by now. In between her last task and returning to the surface, it should be just enough.

"Right." Her tail lashed out in irritation and she futilely tried to make her ears return to a normal, upright position. "Let's check out the fire."

From the third floor on, one dungeon feature appeared that might be useful to Korina later on, and that was the pantry. A place where monsters gathered to eat in mass. It was a dangerous place, and going into it was akin to subjecting oneself to an extra large monster parade. But, like extremely dangerous fishes in a barrel, it also meant it was a target rich environment. It wasn't uncommon for parties with a good enough mage to deliberately seek out pantries in weaker floors and unleash the might of magic for easy enough rewards. Somewhat out of the way, but profitable enough if one could kill monsters en masse.

Korina wasn't that kind of mage. Her magic was more akin to the kind magic swordsmen used; short, quick, more immediately useful but also more limited. What she was instead was a craftswoman in need of materials. Her practice on wood and bits of ceramic was going steadily, and she believed she could start making her first true magic items out of monster drops. The pantry was worth considering, especially when taking Mortalitas' little quirks into account.

She approached the pantry's location cautiously. All she needed was a peek. She would accelerate herself out of danger at the first hint of trouble. She also needed to double back and find ways away from several parties. The corridors around the pantry, already few and distant from the stairs, were popular spots to stick to and wait for monsters to come at you.

Blue-green light seemed to beckon at the end of a corridor. Korina approached on cat's feet, ears straining. Around the curve of the rock, a massive room stretched out in an oval shape. A pillar of rocky crystal speared it through, leaking a milky liquid like sap and even dungeon plant life appeared in the form of otherworldly flowers and grasses. Monsters flourished there, entire packs of kobolds and bands of goblins, lizards crawling everywhere… and at the corner of her vision, a golden glimmer flit through bunches of vegetation.

A tiny gasp escaped Korina. She was quick to cover her mouth. Still, she couldn't believe she had seen one of the rarest monsters in the dungeon. A golden Jack Bird.

If only she could kill it… No. It was greed speaking over common sense. Perhaps Celeritas could make her fast enough, but it was already a wild gamble. And with this many monsters around, on a floor for which she had not memorized the floor plan? It was a deadly prospect. Tulle had indeed called the Jack Bird one of the dungeon's most insidious traps. She watched as the golden bird left through another tunnel as if spooked by her intent.

Still, she thought as she turned her back on the pantry, it was something to remember for later.

***
Hestia had managed to find a part-time job! It was… well, if Takemikazuchi could support his familia by working at a jagamarukun stall selling delicious potato puffs, so could she!

Well, for now she was a trainee, but Hestia was sure to get her own posting soon enough.

And this was fairly embarrassing. Already five children had decided she was just 'too cute' and petted her head. Hestia was cute, but she was not that short and, as a goddess, she should not be treated like that! Righteous indignation seemed to do nothing but either get her smiles or be scolded by the manager, so she reigned herself in. Most of the time.

This was for the good of her familia, she reiterated to herself. Once Korina got the hang of adventuring, Hestia could stop and do other, better things, befitting the head of a familia. Of which she had slowly compiled a list. (It had one item: taxes.)

"Twenty plain jagamarukun please." A beautiful girl asked amidst a quieting of the surroundings. Oh, this one, Hestia knew. Golden hair and golden eyes, suspiciously beautiful, she was one of Loki's.

Hestia didn't want to serve any of Loki's children. But this one… Hestia had a feeling she should. Also, she looked a bit like a puppy and Hestia was weak. Plus, the manager lady would kill her, deity or not. So she smiled her best smile, a work in progress, and chirped a customer appropriate rendition of "Right away! That will be…"

Twenty!?

Did she plan on feeding her whole familia? Uncomprehending blue eyes met eager golden eyes. No. This glutton wanted twenty potato puffs all to herself.

"S-six hundred vals…"

A golden coin was immediately produced. A thousand vals just given away like it was pocket change. Hestia was starting to get an idea of prices, ever since she'd gotten her own share of the money from Korina. She'd never held one of these coins before.

The manager appeared next to her with a full bag. "Here you go, your change and your jagamarukun…" She elbowed Hestia. "P-please come again!?"

The girl nodded. One potato puff was already between her teeth. Actually, the bag looked a bit less full than before, didn't it?

A familiar tiger-colored head watched the other adventurer leave. "Well, that was interesting. Probably a good thing that I waited, hm…" Korina's cat eyes returned to look down at her goddess. "Afternoon Hestia."

"Kori! Good afternoon! Look, I'm at my job!" Hestia puffed out her chest and pointed at her themed headband.

Korina reached out to flick one of the puff-antenas. "I see that. Congratulations." Someone in line grumbled for her to hurry up. "Well, I'm just here to say the day was productive, so we can eat out tonight. I need to check some things, but I'll meet you at home?"

Hestia beamed. "Yes! I'm counting on you!"

Korina nodded with a brief smile, the sort she flashed at people when she was content and wanted you to know it, before leaving at a brisk pace. The pallum that had been in the line behind her raised an eyebrow suggestively.

Gck! No!

***
Sunset stretched its rays obliquely over Orario's walls. The city's magic stone torches were lighting up, either manually or in response to the lack of sunlight. Hestia and Korina walked down West Main, both wearing their best clothes. So, Korina realized, her one unripped tunic. Hestia's outfits, at least, had yet to suffer significant wear and tear. Almost a full week had passed since she'd left Hepahestus' home.

Korina had indeed made a good deal of money in the dungeon. The higher risks had paid off and she'd gathered even more than Welf had paid her. With it she could… would take Hestia out for a nice dinner.

"I asked around about the best places to eat. It does seem like anything on the main streets will have a good offering tho." She gestured quietly to the various establishments open and thriving around them. "If we were looking for a quieter place however, we'll have to go further in. Regretfully, everything here of that genre requires reservations." And not an insignificant portion would also bar their entry on account of their appearance.

Korina didn't want to be racist, but this afternoon had involved more elves giving her a condescending side-eye than usual.

Hestia pouted, somewhat disappointed. "I guess we'll have to do with a pub then…"

Several such establishments existed, but most tended to look rougher than Korina would like her tiny goddess to frequent.

"Ooh, look there." Hestia pointed at a pub with open-air seating and a warm-looking atmosphere. "That one looks nice." A goddess' intuition, perhaps? They wandered closer.

"The Hostess? Let's see." Korina approached to see the menu. She blinked, feeling like her wallet was being sized up for a good looting. Reluctantly, she admitted it wasn't out of her price range tonight… and only tonight. She took a look through the windows. It was full of adventurers, but not too rowdy.

"What do you think?" Asked Hestia.

"A bit too full." Korina scratched her head. "Let's have another look around?"

An employee, dressed in a green maid-adjacent uniform greeted them as they turned, but was politely declined. Korina had grabbed Hestia's hand and was pulling her along. The goddess waited until they were further away to ask, "Too many people?" Korina nodded. "Okay, come on then. I think I know some places! Hephaestus did take me out too, you know!"

The situation reversed. The goddess pulled along the child closer to Babel. Eventually, they settled on a smaller restaurant run by a dwarven couple. It didn't look like much from the outside, but Hestia did have an instinct or something of the sort. A nice atmosphere and low conversations dominated along with the scent of pipe-smoke.

It tugged at vague notions and memories from the deepest recesses of Korina's mind.

Naturally, the food ordered came with a generous flask of beer. Korina slid hers to Hestia. It was a match made in heaven, the goddess thought, that her child did not drink, because Hestia did!

"So you think we can start getting over a thousand vals per day! That's great!" She cheered.

"If this is hitting my stride, then we can expect at least a thousand per day minimum on my part. With luck, drop items to turn into more money if needed, or for me to work with." Korina explained. "That doesn't mean we get to have this lifestyle every day, my goddess."

"I know, I know…" Hestia slumped across the table. They still had several outstanding debts. But she was hopeful that meant that in a week or two they could eat out nicely like this twice or even thrice a week!

Korina was thinking more along the lines that she needed new everything, from clothes to a haircut. It would be good to be able to take care of it though. A steady income from her solo dungeoning, plus more experience, and hopefully just about as much money, from when she partied up with Welf. A good foundation, so she could start building herself into an adventurer that would break into high class.

And from there, get back what this world had taken from her.

Hestia laughed, a little too happy. Korina sighed. And build Hestia familia for this goddess as well.

---

Spoiler

stride has been hit, now complications can arise. thought it was too soon to introduce too many characters especially when theyll likely remain background. at this point, endurance has risen to H and dexterity is not too far behind, followed by strength, magic has naturally started to stall in the mid Hs.

 

[minuseven]

[7]
Hestia was swaying side to side in a way that made it obvious she was feeling guilty about something. "So, this is going to sound bad…" She started, and Korina preemptively dropped her head into her hands with a groan. She was too tired for whatever it was. "But today I did some purchases, wth just my money! And, hm, then I went to work and… things happened and… well…"

"Please, put me out of my misery Hestia." Korina whimpered. "What happened and who do I need to pay off."

"... I accidentally broke the stall's fryer."

"How?" "Ah…" "Actually, it doesn't matter. How much is it?"

Hestia winced, but her child didn't see it. Korina had her head lowered and had her eyebrows scrunched in that way she had when making mental calculations. Her tail hung limply.

"Nothing." Hestia said. Korina opened one eye and looked at her suspiciously. "Nothing, they'll take it out from my salary until I've paid it all off."

An ear rose cautiously. "That… that's good?" The mental calculations returned. "No, you work part time at thirty per hour and a fryer, that's a magic stone machine, that has to cost several thousands…" It was, actually.

Hestia grabbed Korina's hands and put her package in them. The weretigress was confused for a moment, opening her mouth only for the goddess to cover it with her hands. "No. I'm a goddess. This was my mistake… somehow… so I'll take care of it! You're my adventurer, so you don't have to worry about that!" Even if it would be very convenient if Korina could accelerate the proc– no! "Here! My gift to you! Open it!" The goddess pushed Korina's face with a scowl on her face.

The mortal stared at her, dumbfounded. Hestia pouted. The mortal realized her mistakes and set to correcting them, focusing instead on the brown-wrapped package she'd been bestowed with.

It was a sewing kit. Needlecase and threader, scissors, thimble and bodkin, with a couple of differently colored linen threads as well. Nothing ornate, just something Hestia had managed to find in a shop. "Oh."

"You were talking about stitching your runes on your clothing…" Hestia couldn't help but smile sympathetically at the pure joy that had overtaken her child's face. "One day, I'll even get you that spirit-spun wool you were obsessing about."

***
Welf and Korina's second dive had gone deeper, down to the sixth. They'd even stepped on the seventh and fought one single pair of Killer Ants for her to have an idea of how strong they were. Welf had to do the fighting, because even enhanced, Korina's blows weren't capable of significantly damaging their carapace.

Still, they stuck to the sixth quite comfortably. Welf felt little challenge against Frog Shooters of War Shadows, but the speed at which a duo could gather magic stones and drops made up for it, and so did the comforting thought that one wasn't alone in the deadliest place in the world. Welf could admit he was booking forward to advancing in the dungeon with somebody watching his back. Perhaps another week and Korina would be experienced enough to safely follow him to the seventh. There, fighting hordes of ants and rabbits, they would be able to gather much more useful drops and gain some experience. For now, Korina was a pure supporter at those levels but if within the year she got to an acceptable level, three or so months with luck… he could gain an actual partner to work towards level 2 with. Sooner even, if they found another party member.

It would help, he knew, if the woman invested in actual equipment. Her abilities weren't those of a complete rookie and her magic was very useful in a pinch. She was only lacking in experience, but he saw she was improving every time they met. The big thing holding her back was the complete and absolute shit state of her equipment.

So it was that, two days later, as they split the loot, Welf asked for her to wait a minute. "Your armor is really starting to bother me. We can't do any deeper with you wearing those scraps." He said it as it was. Korina's close-quarters style was literally eating at the metal making up her guild-issue armor. "And you also need at least a backup weapon. I asked around and even Vanargand and Amazon and the like use weapons along with their fists."

Korina sighed, but it was a quick exhalation that conveyed an awareness of this topic. "Okay, that's fair." It wasn't Welf's business to know, but with the nearly two thousand she'd made that day, she was going to pay off the debt relating to her first armor. A hard two weeks of counting every valis were over. The rest of her debts were easier to pay and thus less mentally taxing. "I can replace the worst off of my armor until we meet next week, if we do the same again."

"Actually, how 'bout you come to my workshop and we can talk options for you." Welf proposed.

Korina hesitated, looking him in the eyes. Welf met her stare stubbornly. "...are you sure?" They'd been avoiding talking about smiting or his business. Korina had assumed it was his preference, given that the one time they'd even touched the issue it had immediately hit his triggers about the forbidden topic.

"It's got nothing to do with magic swords and it's going to remain that way." The kid huffed aggressively. "I'm a smith. I do normal weapons and I do damn good armors too. You're offending my professional sensibilities looking like that."

Her ears flicked and she gave him a small smile. "Well, okay then. But you've got to be aware that money is tight for me. You're going to have to sell me your cheap products."

"Oh, don't think partying up with me will entitle you to any discounts." He warned, a dangerous smile on his face. "But I think you can afford some of what I make. I'll be using you as a walking advertisement for Welf Crozzo's armors and weapons!"

"And practice, I assume?" "Ah, now who's the arrogant one?"

The red-haired smith took them north-east, the opposite way from Hestia's homebase, and into districts that Korina hadn't explored much. She'd walked down all the eight roads that divided Orario like a pie, but what she knew more or less well were the western and southwestern areas. She'd resided there in the cheapest places, even before the temple had been given to them. North and east held a much more industrialized architecture. Magic stone factories were further north, Welf explained, Daedalus' maze bordering East Main. Hephaestus had a workshop for every single one of her members, the great majority in between those two landmarks. Korina had been around before, since Hestia had lived in the other goddess' home, but she'd never felt comfortable exploring, because the temptation to try and see smiths at work was too great.

Welf's workshop was luxurious, Korina thought with envy. What she'd give to have a fully equipped workshop of her own, a building on its own… At the moment, she had a sad shack made from old pews and rope, containing one anvil. She couldn't even keep what little tools she had in it, because it had no door. Welf's place was… everything. The tools, the furnace, the quenching oils, grindstones…

"Stop looking at my forge with bedroom eyes!" Welf laughed. "It really is true you tried to join my familia, uh?"

"I know better than to believe myself at Hephaestus' standards. But I was very curious." Korina told him over her shoulder. Aside from what was necessary for a smith, Welf also had a variety of weapons and pieces of armor laying around against one wall. Korina cast an assessing glance at them. Swords and bladed weapons dominated, but there was a bit of everything, all of it looking professional. Good to know. "Okay, what do you need from me?"

Welf blinked from where he'd been observing her. "Well, first let me see what you have. I'm going to need your measurements, yeah, but for somebody who doesn't have a very developed fighting style, your current armor will tell me what you need more."

Korina set about unbuckling her armor and presenting it to him. As always, seeing it away from her body really drove home what she'd been putting it through. It also stopped concealing the many, many dried bloodstains on her under-armor and clothing.

"This is almost painful." Welf commented as he checked the padding inside her chestplate. The medium armor was actually the least damaged, both due to its inherent durability and the fact that it covered the spots least likely to get hit. Nevertheless, there were several dent and scratches in the metal, particularly in the back. The padding was dirty, but serviceable.

The torso was, unfortunately, the only part of Korina's armor that didn't need urgent replacement.

Greaves and vambraces, both lighter armor that didn't match the chestplate, were half-way to destroyed. Well, he supposed the greaves weren't too bad. But guild-issue greaves were notoriously flimsy in Welf's opinion. They weren't meant to take hits, since the first four floors had very few monsters that went for the legs, unlike frog shooters or killer ants further down. By then, an adventurer was wearing better armor. His supporter didn't take many hits, but she occasionally used kicks, and she was adventuring deeper than she should on an armor like this.

Vanargand had the Flosvirt, made by Welf's own captain… maybe… Welf stopped himself from getting too many ideas. Korina was just a level 1.

And the bracers… Welf allowed himself a prayer. Well, the straps had already been repaired several times. In fact, he had noticed Korina protected them by wrapping cloth around the armor… but now he knew those were also extra support. And the metal… the steel had been used as a chew toy for goblins and kobolds by the dozens. Korina guarded with her forearms. Parrying and hitting too. It was full of holes, dented in the good places, scratched and straight up missing a corner.

Welf wordlessly waved the left armguard at Korina. The weretigress shrugged. Shrugged!

"Yeah, this is garbage." He threw the piece over his shoulder to clatter into a hopefully forgotten corner. It could join the rest of the clutter and garbage he should probably clean up, sometime in the future. "The rest is passable, but this is unforgivable."

Korina watched the armor go, then looked down at her wrapped hands with a face like 'you'll have to do then'. As if.

A box was shoved in her direction. "Try that on." A full set of light-looking white coloured armor was inside. Welf had gone and picked it up from his familia's store the day before. "Tell me how it feels and if you can move comfortably in something like that." He said while he looked for his tape measurer and a piece of paper to write on.

Korina obliged. It was very light and provided good coverage. It was definitely an upgrade, but not exactly what she was looking for. Welf spied the look on her face. He needed her to be honest about it.

"It doesn't quite fit how I fight? If, well when, I was going to buy an armor, greaves like these are nice, but the chestplate… well I'm small up here," she gestured at her chest, "but you clearly didn't design this thinking about girls."

Welf was suddenly very red-faced. "Ah, hu… crap. Now I feel like an idiot. Like, the padding can be replaced for women but… yeah. That part should have been in the box." Adventuring did not discriminate by gender. Welf had just assumed that a full set of armor would be sought out by men. He was feeling quite foolish.

Korina chuffed. "Well, for future reference. Anyway, my main problem are the arms. I was going to look for gauntlets that helped me fight." She jabbed in the air. "And these don't protect me past the wrist."

Welf hummed. "I can do something like that. Weight is good though?"

They continued sharing impressions as Welf measured Korina and sketched out a pair of gauntlets that would protect her hands and forearms. Korina needed to be able to wrap her hands beneath the armor as well. The human had noticed that her usual wraps had symbols stitched across their length.

Payment was also touched on. Wef was almost incensed at the price she was owing the guild for an armor she'd wrecked within a couple of weeks. The whole set he'd brought for demonstration purposes was only about three thousand more expensive, even with the reduced prices his works got saddled with. He trusted her to be able to pay him within the week. Just gauntlets wouldn't be too much. Not much more than an antidote, for example.

"Okay. I'll have these ready by tomorrow morning, so just pass by before going into the dungeon. I'm sleeping in the shop tonight." He caught her suddenly low-energy response. "What? Something wrong?"

Korina waved it off. "No, no, just me being silly." He raised a questioning eyebrow and she laughed. "I mean it, it's something really petty. I wanted to wear armor I would have made with my own hands, that's all."

"Oh, right." The weretigress was an artisan like himself. It was almost easy to forget it, but then again, Welf had never seen any of her work. "I get that, to be honest. It's not silly."

"It is for somebody who's never really worked at a forge." She shook her head. "This is me being arrogant. Eventually I'll learn the craft, I suppose, but for now it's just fanciful dreams."

***
Scritch, the line was made. She looked over the ledger's page. They were still in the metaphorical red. They did not possess the means to buy actual red ink, she huffed at the irony. But besides their home's payments and their individual debts, Hestia familia's finances were now stable. Ah, healing magic really did save money on potions, how lucky.

She closed the book and tapped its cover. Next week, she told herself, next week she'd start carving her runes on proper materials. Then it would just be a matter of testing out her items, and she could start selling them. She'd have to check out the free market near the wall…

Her goddess was puttering about the kitchen, peeling potatoes and boiling a pair of eggs. No meat tonight. If Korina wasn't an adventurer, she knew her nutrition would be severely lacking. Content with the picture in front of her, she got up to store the ledger in its secure place.

Upon returning, she picked up her goddess' gift and moved to the couch. Symbols in chalk had been sketched on the table. The rune of speed and power, red magic incarnate, tangled with rune-like patterns that did not possess inherent power. They would, however, convey it better. Stabilize it. Prevent too much loss. Korina kept experimenting with the patterns. It was mostly instinct, but she was starting to see a basic pattern. More study and practice would deepen her understanding of runecraft, and runic enchanting with it.

Plain linen thread was sufficient for what she was doing: reinforcing and cleaning up the edges of her wrist wraps. They used to be old clothing, after all.

Colored linen thread made the patterns she was stitching in more visible. They did not have to be, strictly speaking. A cross-stitch pattern, forming the rune by texture over color, would also do the job, but the efficiency would likely depend on the textural difference.

The problem with making her runes with normal threads was that they possessed no inherent power. She had to trigger them. She could charge them as she made them, priming the item for use, but the item quickly lost power, and overcharging would damage the materials. Or she could use them as supports for her spells, but then only she could use the item. It also did not resolve the issue of material degradation and destruction.

Fortunately for stitched runes, it didn't affect the base material much, if at all. The wear and tear came from re-stitching the runes over and over again, not to mention it was a time consuming process.

Better materials, that was what she needed. Monster drops even better, formed from monster magic and a power source on their own. She had a lot of ideas.

For now, she sew. Runes for speed and power in her hands, the edge of her boots, along the seams of her clothing. Runes for healing and sympathy speckled on her undertunic. She let death burn in her mind, waiting for the inevitable moment it would be needed.

KORINA Lv.1
Strength …I.84 Endurance …H.102 Dexterity …I.95 Agility …I.62 Magic …H.157

---

Spoiler

look, if omori was right about something, it was smiths. craftsmen are awesome. stats are for 3 weeks of adventuring and are decent, but slowing down, also, as korina gets better at fighting, she starts gaining str and dex over endurance. trying to get to plot points without making them happen all at the same time.

 

[minuseven]

[8]
"Oooohhh!" Hestia gasped as she took in Korina's new armor. "Definitely from Hephaestus' child, it looks so good!"

Korina agreed. It looked good. It also worked very, very well. She'd not realized how much she was handicapping herself by fighting with substandard equipment. Monsters that used to take two or three blows to kill with certainty now were defeated in one. Her efficiency rose through the roof. It was her turn to feel quite foolish. Investing in better equipment paid off, practically and monetarily.

Welf had done an impressive job indeed. It likely helped that he was excited to make a piece commissioned to him instead of just forging for the sake of selling anything. He'd put in all his effort and the way he'd been smiling, eyebags from working through the night, when he presented them to Korina that morning said more than anything.

Made of darkened metal and leather, because with Korina's yellow tiger coloring light metal clashed horribly, they protected her hands, first knuckles, and all the way to her elbows. A leather glove and bracer as a base, thinner at the hand, where articulated metal plates covered the parts Korina used to strike. The wrist was flexible, and lacked armor attached directly to it. The rest of her forearms were well protected by a classic, solid construction. The part she liked the most were the ridged plates that protected the back of her hand, because the front edges were shaped to protrude outwards in hardened points slightly above her knuckles.

Those points weren't very sharp, nor very long, only about a celch and a half. But they became deadly nonetheless, adding penetrative power to all of her punches.

Now she did not have to rely on her magic to kill for certain. She would go down to the fifth floor tomorrow. She would be able to use her magic more often, and to bring home more value. At this point, her solo winnings were matching or outpacing what she made as Welf's supporter. But their party was also an investment. She learned and improved in many different ways when she could descend to the sixth or seventh, not to mention she could always trade magic stones for drops that she could not acquire on her own. Having a party at all was a benefit, in many different ways, and Welf was aware of that as well.

"It is a great piece. I'll be having Welf do the rest of my armor, if this is the quality to be expected." The boy had gained a client. Everybody benefited. "With the way things are going, we'll be cleared of all outstanding debts by the end of the month and then our familia's work can really start."

"You haven't been adding to the daily and weekly chore lists." Said Hestia, hanging around her shoulders.

"Much too worried about money." Korina scoffed, ears sideways. "This is why I hate debts. Can't focus on improving myself when I have that sword hanging over my head."

"Well, you said it: we're clearing those debts before the month is out! How about we go out to celebrate that?" The goddess proposed, bouncing on the couch. Once more, and amplified by the knowledge that soon she'd be able to fix it, Korina mused that she had to get her goddess better clothes with more support. Any support.

"That would be lovely." A wistful smile crossed her lips. "It would be great if we could make it something regular, like a monthly outing. To relax after paying our taxes…" She laughed.

Hestia tapped her chin, thoughtful. "... leave that to me. I'll get somewhere for us to celebrate."

"I can…" "Aah! Let your goddess do her job properly, you stuffy mortal!" Hestia reared back in consternation. "I have plans!" "Oh, so you can make plans if it's about partying?"

Such a meanie! Well, Hestia was going to make her swallow her words!

***
The fifth floor. Korina set foot on it, alone, as her fourth week as an adventurer started. Strictly speaking, according to the Guild, she wasn't quite at the level required to explore it. Her magic wasn't at G rank yet, and it was her highest ability.

Several factors mitigated the risk. She'd been here several times before, with Welf. She knew the monsters and their basic attack patterns. Her equipment had been recently upgraded and could deal the damage required. Beyond all that, there was the fact that the Guild's recommendations were both conservative, and could not measure other factors beyond abilities. Korina had battle magic, a force and survival multiplier, and a skill that strengthened her when not ascending.

It didn't mean she could take risks, but she was confident she could face this floor.

She took a long corridor to the left, a circuitous route that followed passageways in an area that branched off but never went very far from the stairs. She knew, from Welf's stories, that sometimes the dungeon seemed to compensate by spawning far more monsters than usual. And the fifth already had an increased spawn rate from the upper four floors. Korina had anticipated that and was prepared.

Rock cracked and four monsters were born. Twice as many as they ever did above. Korina didn't wait. Initiative was key. She ran towards the one closest to her.

The principle of battle against multiple opponents was to not get surrounded. To rattle, if not outright neutralize, those isolated. To bait away single foes from the protection of the group. These things, she'd learned watching as a supporter.

"Ah, but it really is much harder on this floor." She was already sweating. On her first day, she'd made good work out of the goblins that had jumped her on the first floor. It was a misleading floor, the first. The strength of the monsters there felt almost purposefully lacking. On the third and fourth, even the second, monsters became individual threats to those adventuring alone. On the fifth, although the monsters weren't much stronger, the numbers changed the game. And the sixth below was a completely different game.

The Upper Floors were divided into three rough areas: first to fourth, the Rookie Floors; fifth to eighth, Mid Upper Floors; and ninth to twelfth, the Low Upper Floors. As the saying went: first for rookies, then to winnow out the chaff, and then to feed the low classes. So, she'd just entered the milling stone upon which the dungeon started crushing those that would love to plunder it.

Korina advanced carefully. Her ears were raised, capturing all sounds, and her tail unfurled behind her, balancing each step.

She heard it first. A noise that didn't seem to belong. A rasp of metal on metal, on stone, a clatter. Her footsteps slowed but she didn't attempt stealth. She was not going to surprise any monster here, and she did not want to surprise any adventurer. The irregular noise came again, then disappeared as she collected the crystals from a pair of lizards that couldn't surprise her. She looked into every path at crossroads even as she followed her route.

Until she found the source. At the end of a small corridor to the right, there was a room. Nothing different about it, except for the form crumpled on the ground. Korina froze. At this distance, and with the green coloring of the floor and walls, she couldn't tell if there was blood or not. But she already knew.

She clenched and unclenched her fists. What should she do? Her chest hurt and she had to make an effort to keep herself steady. She could walk away, but it wouldn't be correct. She would always look back at this moment and wonder…

She pulled out the twine chord she had under her armor and wrapped it around her fist. Steady steps took her forward until she could see the dead adventurer, laying over a dead kobold. The details were obscured by the way they had fallen, but the blood staining the floor and the smell didn't lie. Tiger eyes scanned the room as she paused on its threshold. They jumped from shadow to rock and back.

"I see you." She whispered very softly to herself.

Eight steps to the corpse. On the fourth, she almost skipped. On the fifth, she spoke harshly.

"Celeritas." A red glow sprung forth, eyes tinged and little ethereal flames danced over her right arm. "Mark."

The adventurer's shadow unfolded and lept towards Korina, six daggers extended for her face. Red sparks met it as Korina ducked beneath it, moving like lightning compared to before, and into the War Shadow's guard. A gauntlet's points sunk into its body, force pushing it back, another's followed without rest. Four blows hammered into it, a sound like a beast coming from her throat.

The monster scratched at her, flailing fingers as it bent its outstretched arms to reach the weretiger nearly hugging it. Blood flew as Korina stamped her foot for the final blow, the blades catching her shoulders and face, but she was already in motion. The monster's face broke under fist, and it crumpled down, dripping blackish blood.

In the sudden silence, her ragged pants were loud. She gasped a breath in. The aura she'd clad herself in was still up, so fast the exchange had been.

Korina swallowed. She'd done it. She didn't have any time to lose.

She kneeled and shoved the monster's corpse off, trying to be gentle as she turned the dead adventurer so she could assess the damage. She could hear cracks and she didn't know even those were the product of her mind or something real. She didn't have time to think about that.

The man, an elf, was sort of intact. Its guts weren't spilling out. No heavy armor. Celeritas sputtered and she recast it immediately. She fished her knife from her belt and cut the straps of his backpack. With a heave, she threw the corpse over her shoulder. He was lighter than expected. In the same movement, she'd gotten up and turned. She spotted movement ahead.

If she turned around, she'd get lost.

If she got lost, she was a dead woman walking.

Rune of speed burning across her skin, she ran. Half a dozen monsters awaited her in the intersection and surroundings. With a yelled command, white mixed with red and she plowed through the first one. Her cuts stung as they healed. The dead weighed on her body. Korina roared.

The rune engraved claws bound to twine splintered as the tigress called upon their power. Her shape blurred as she ran, spell and enchantment and boost propelling her, a burning furnace of power.

She only slowed down halfway up the stairs back to the fourth. Sweat dripped off her, mixing with liquids she didn't want to name, and her legs trembled. She looked down the stairs, where they disappeared into darkness. The corpse pulled her down. Gravity called and the chip in her deadened heart felt like a sucking chest wound.

"No. Not today." She turned her back at the laughing darkness and climbed with leaden feet.

***
Eina Tulle met her in the grand lobby of Babel. Drinking from a canteen, Korina gave her a half-hearted wave. She sat against a wall and the body laid, covered, not too far away.

She'd crossed a couple of adventurers on the third, who'd escorted her through the floor. Similarly, an elf on the second had taken her back up to the surface, where Ganesha members had taken the body from her and sent word. The other elf, the living one, had thanked her for bringing one of their own back to the sun, before she dove into the dungeon.

"Makes you think." Korina told her advisor after retelling her the events. "Something's wrong with people like us."

"Some people might think that, yes." The half-elf sighed. She was used to this, and her first thought when she'd arrived, had shamefully been that she was happy it wasn't the adventurer she was responsible for. "You did a good thing."

The weretigress chuffed. "Hm. Thought you were going to say I did a stupid, reckless thing."

"That's! I would not!" Eina admonished her. She was silent for a moment. "As an adventurer, maybe it wasn't the right thing to do, to risk yourself for a corpse. It was a very dangerous situation. You should have… returned and informed Ganesha familia. But I'm sure many people will be glad you did."

Korina sighed and closed her eyes. The half-elf went to talk to the guards, and returned many minutes after. Korina opened her eyes from where she'd let her exhausted body lull her into a half-sleep. Eina had a dismayed expression on her face. "What is it? Who was he?"

"Mylus Ergail from Modi familia." She shook her head. "I'm… also an advisor of a member of that familia."

"Ah. Well." Korina scratched her head and straightened up. "Should I stay?"

"There's no need. You've already given your testimony. The Guild can handle things from here." Eina said. The adventurer wasn't under suspicion. There were no animosities between familias registered, and she hadn't taken the other's possessions. "If anything comes up, you'll get called in, but I doubt it. Go rest and get those cleaned up. But, I want to see you tomorrow before anything."

Korina was older and independent, not the type to check in and update her every day, or even every couple of days. She'd have to verify exactly how she was progressing.

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea." She wanted to see her goddess. Had felt that way ever since she found herself climbing stairs with congealed blood squelching every step, and the fine blonde hair of a kid who was dead brushing her throat. It was that or finding her way back down and crushing every thing that moved. "I'll see you tomorrow."

She was still breathing after all.

---

Spoiler

i don't have a good image of what the gauntlets look like, because i cannot find what i want online. everything has knobs at the knuckles... or 300% more spikes than necessary. please, cmon! just... pick a modern martial artist glove as a base and make it simple fantasy... but with spiked tiger claws like miniature wolverine

 

[minuseven]

[9]
Her child appeared from the side, joining her behind the stall. The manager shot her a look but didn't comment. Hestia's heart somersaulted in her chest. A heavy tiredness pulled down Korina's shoulders and tail. Her armor was stained.

She begged off a minute after serving the latest costumer and hurried to her. "Korina, what happened to you?"

Distant eyes refocused on her. "To me? Nothing?" Up close, there were dark flakes clinging to her hair, smudged near her throat, entrenched into the grooves of her gauntlets. Killing monsters had to be a dirty job, but the weretigress took care to thoroughly remove all traces of violence she could before returning home. Today, the scent of death lingered faintly over her.

"But–" Hestia's hands immediately found the taller woman's face and hovered over semi-healed slashes.

She shook her head. "I stumbled across a body down there. I brought him home, but that's it for me today." She brought a hand to rub at her eyes and nose. "Can I just… hang around for a while?"

Oh, thought Hestia. She stepped closer to hug her one and only child. "Of course. Sit down somewhere." She knew the weretiger didn't have any compuctions about sitting down on the floor when she was really tired, but she preferred having permission.

With a thankful tail wag, the adventurer found the wall directly behind the stall and lid down, sprawling next to the supply crates. The old lady manager raised a furious eyebrow at Hestia, but she silently begged her to stay her wrath. For a mortal, it was indeed an impressive wrath! Hestia had learned her lesson. Still, she asked in hushed tones for a reduced work day. Yes, she knew she wasn't going to get paid, but it was an emergency. She'd compensate with a double shift tomorrow!

"Fine. I'll make sure you work your worth tomorrow, or else." The manager huffed but added more gently. "You take care of that surly partner of yours then. I've seen my share of foolish adventurers brought down low by their losses." It was almost easy to forget that as an old mortal, she had seen far more of this world than Hestia, descended not quite three months before.

As she finished her turn, Hestia mulled on how to comfort Korina. She knew she wouldn't be able to cheer her up. The demi-human didn't quite work like that. But she could be distracted and, if everything else failed, getting her wrapped up in the comfiest blankets they had was sure to work. Those were the only times Hestia believe Korina when she said she was lazy. There was little else one could say about such a blanket-hedgehog.

By the time she was freed from her slavish work, Hestia had a barebones idea. She crouched down next to Korina, who was catnapping and had attracted a few looks. "Kora, wake up." A golden eye peered up at her. She pulled her up. "Okay, you are going to go home and take a bath while I take care of a few things. You'll feel better. Also, snack on this." She handed her a bittersweet-flavored jagamarukun, her favorite flavor. "Wait for me, and then I'll take you somewhere."

The weretigress nodded. She set southwards, plodding towards their home with a parting wave and a grateful smile.

Hestia sighed. Well, now it was her turn.

***
Being clean felt like such a luxury sometimes. Korina hated the cold, but today submerging herself in the cold water of their tub was cleansing. Like diving in a pool. She scrubbed at her hair vigorously, cursing at the water that had gotten into her ears. She shook her head like a dog, splashing water everywhere. Fortunately, they'd warded off the area with a hanging curtain.

She settled against the sides of the old wooden tub. This had been used to wash clothes, once upon a time. Still was, to be honest. Her eyes were raised to the ceiling. She could almost count the bricks in the wall where the plaster was gone.

"That's a bad idea. I might see a centipede." An involuntary shudder made all of her fur stand up. Spiders, fine. Worms, ok. Centipedes? Earwigs!? Just absolutely not. Devil's spawn!

"Uh. Killer Ants are known to eat adventurers alive. Ah." She blinked. "This isn't working."

Korina inhaled deeply, dove under the water, and screamed her lungs away. Screamed all the horror and fear until she had no more breath to give them. She broke the water's surface with a gasp and panted.

She did feel better.

Lingering on feelings and events was going to make her spiral. She tended to do so easily when she felt unfairness. It was just better for everyone if she distracted herself before she decided to start digging holes. Hestia must have sensed that, she mused as she stepped away from the bath.

She wrung out her tail and ears, and started toweling her hair. There was a brush, several in fact. Korina had carved them to practice her woodworking skills. None were pretty or particularly fine, but all worked well enough for her and Hestia. Many utensils in the house were the same. Forks, knives, spoons, handleless cups… a very rough chess set with a board made out of cloth scraps.

"Almost a month here. Really, it was about time." She complained to herself. "I know the statistics."

Korina brushed her best tunic flat. She updated the ledger. She brought out her gauntlets, as well as the rest of her armor, onto the little table and started cleaning them piece by piece. The thoughtless maintenance routine slowed her restless spirit. Her goddess had been right to send her home. Fur that she hadn't realized was standing up settled down. Hestia returned home to see her carefully sharpening the broken edges of her sword.

"Are you feeling better?"

"Quite a bit. Thank you."

The goddess smirked, bouncing on her heels. "Don't thank me yet! Are you ready to go?"

Korina let Hestia lead the way. The goddess didn't let her go, entangling her fingers and pulling her along with a pout when the taller mortal pulled back. So of course Korina had to pretend to fight her. Hestia was adorable.

"Here?" Korina blinked. This was… not what she expected.

"Yep!" Hestia crowed. "Miss waitress, we're here for our reservation!"

The restaurant on the main street they'd opted not to go into last week was much less full at this time of the day. The Hostess of Fertility, a name that only worked in koine, was a spacious, warm establishment filled with tables and places to sit. Waitresses, a full female complement, wore long green dresses and aprons, and seemed to be setting up the majority of the seats for later at night. In the middle of the afternoon, the bar only had a few customers, most of them outside in the terrace. It seemed her goddess had really liked the air of this place, if she was insisting.

Hestia dragged her to the bar counter itself and pushed a menu into her hands. It had different plates than what she'd seen before, a bit less variety. The prices, she sighed to herself, were still quite high. Still, from the way her goddess was looking at her, it wouldn't do to scrimp.

If Korina was honest, she also felt like stuffing herself on good food after the day she'd had.

Not to mention, aside from breakfast and one potato puff, she hadn't eaten all day. The scents coming from the kitchen were mouth-watering. Carbs it was then. "I'll have… a triple ham omelet with sausage and apple juice. Oh, and if it's not too much, salad without lettuce?"

Hestia wanted a much smaller dish, if the way she'd goggled at her was any indication. It was her own fault for wanting to treat a famished adventurer. As their food was being readied, Hestia kept up a stream of conversation. She had anecdotes about her job, everybody she served, how they kept patting her head (a tempting target), idiotic gods… but she also told her about the familias she'd found about, or what rumours adventurers spouted. Korina would never be able to get that much information. She wasn't very good at people.

"Here, your triple and your salad." A normal and a gigantic plate were put in front of them. "Enjoy your meal." The woman at the counter, the biggest and buffest dwarf Korina had ever had the pleasure of meeting, smiled with satisfaction at their faces.

A beer was dropped in front of her as their meal wound down. The bartender? Gave her a look. "Here, an ale for your troubles."

"Sorry, I don't drink." Korina pushed it away with a small shake of her head. The dwarf woman smiled sardonically. Eyeing the very nice amounts of muscles in those arms, Korina decided not to utter her true feelings about the taste of fermented beverages. "Beer… It does not spark joy."

The older woman laughed. "Doesn't spark joy." She said to herself. "Well said. What does then?"

"Good food. Fruit juice. Sweet desserts. Nice music." Korina tapped her plate with an appreciative nod. "My compliments to the chef by the way."

"Nah, that girl doesn't need any more ego strokin'. What she needs is to keep working!" An eep was heard from the general area behind the owner, apparently.

Hestia snickered next to Korina, and she couldn't help it. "Glass roofs, my goddess?" "Gah!"

The owner took their empty plates, the beer, and returned with a dessert menu. Since it was an indulgence either way, Korina and Hestia decided not to worry about the money and just asked for cake. As they waited, the owner of the establishment decided to talk to them. Korina's intuition about her was correct, because she didn't beat around the bush and just asked what had happened in the dungeon that had spooked her.

"Dead kid. Elf that couldn't be older than me, relatively or otherwise." Korina sighed. "Couldn't leave him there."

"Hm." The dwarf narrowed her eyes. "First time meeting death in the dungeon?" Korina gave her a bitter smile but didn't answer. "No shame 'bout it. Don't think that's what'll stop you from returning."

Wasn't that true. "If I let fear root, I'll never advance. And that's unacceptable." She drummed her fingers on the countertop. "Hey, ever felt… like the dungeon was laughing at you?"

There was an almost distant look in the owner's eyes. "Aye. That it did."

"What did you do?"

The answering smile was a savage baring of teeth.

***
Life, death. Fear and laughter. Why did man bare its teeth when they were happy?

An assembly of torn burlap sacks, a burlap nesting doll, had been filled with dirt and detritus and hung from a branch. Fwap-fwap, Korina's fists jabbed at it relentlessly.

It wasn't that Korina wasn't aware of the dangers of her profession. Much of the fear inherent to facing battles against monsters had been offset by her acquisition of magic. It was normal to be scared of rabid dogs as a normal person, knowing the damage their teeth could cause. But facing a rabid dog with a sword on hand… with the red power igniting her skin… it changed the perspective.

And Korina knew that she wasn't invincible. She had taken too many hits and bled too much from monsters to think that. Pabulum healed her, but before that she was wounded. No, the weretigress had known the danger inherent to a kobold's claws on her second day. Cocky, fighting unharmed on the second floor for the first time, she'd taken a solid hit to her side. The pain had chased her for the rest of the day, and the only reprieve had been bashing monsters to death. Fear, rage, and healing magic.

So could it really be said that today's incident had been a wake up call? Or a scare?

She paused. It hadn't felt personal until today. Monsters were monsters. Humanoid or not, they behaved like animals, beasts… no thought behind them, just the strategy inborn of instinct. Although she knew of the dungeon's tactics, monster parties, ambushes and the like, she hadn't experienced them before.

Empathy for the dead combined with a lack of rage left only fear and despair. Who could she blame for the dead? Which injustice could she point out?

Monsters were monsters. An adventurer was a person who had made their choice.
She could hardly blame the dungeon any more than she could blame a hurricane or an earthquake. It felt like a great, unreachable entity, a god, luck itself, wanted her harm.

How did one fight against that? Everything, it seemed, painted a premonition like a promise.

A kick sent the improvised punching bag swaying heavily. Korina grabbed it with both hands and leaned her forehead against the ropes. She did have a personal stake in this. There was a reason why she didn't stay above ground and worked strictly as a craftsman.

"I won't stop." She hissed into the night's air, tail lashing like a whip behind her. "You have something that's mine. I will take it back."

The answer was to become stronger than nature. To wade into a firestorm, to shatter cliffs, to split the ocean in twin, to blow a hurricane away. As great as legends.

"Celeritas!" Red burned, her exposed tattoos glowing like molten rock. "Pabulum!" White shone, solid and grasping. Korina flew into a flurry of blows against the inanimate target.

She was still brimming with nervous energy. She hadn't spent a fraction of the magic she usually did. Even on normal days, she let her enchantments run to the edge of her mind capacity. Just when a headache threatened, she laid down for the night. Korina had to train her magic, her most powerful tool, whenever she had the chance. There was never enough time in the day to get things done. Never enough money, enough food, enough energy, enough power. Her list of tasks and desires grew in leaps and bounds. Ideas were crammed into pages of a notebook because she feared running out of paper.

And when she just thought she was going to stop living on the edge, the dungeon cut her down to size!

Wrapped knuckles sunk into compact dirt and broken stone with minimal resistance. The bag swayed slowly in her vision as she repositioned and kept hammering it. Spells refreshed nearly instantly after running their course, her sense of her own magic honed by experience. Her guard didn't drop.

The final blow nearly tore the bag from the branch. Beneath the moonlight, the weretiger panted. She looked up. The moon was nearly full.

---

Spoiler

corrected several instances of the white spell being mislabeled as green. Pabulum/Rune of Sustenance is W not G.
slightly less slice of life, but not too heavy, i hope. a hard chapter because i was stuck on the hostess interactions for no good reason. aint a place that will appear much, since there's no reason to.

 

[minuseven]

[10]
"Tulle, good morning." Korina stepped up to the counter in the Pantheon. It was quite early in the morning. Eina wasn't alone. A tall blonde elf in good quality leathers, a bow affixed upon his back, stood next to her with his arms crossed.

"Good morning Korina." The half-elf gave her a professional smile. "Let me introduce you. This is Luvis Lilix of Modi familia."

Korina couldn't help the slight raising of her eyebrows. Still, the elf did not appear much more constipated than most elves did. "Ah. I see. How can I be of service?"

"You've already been of great help to our familia." The elf replied seriously. "In the name of God Modi and our familia, I wish to thank you for returning our comrade to us." He bowed just a bit at the waist.

She wasn't sure what to answer. You are welcome? So she kept silent and nodded.

"We went to the fifth to recover our comrade's belongings." Lilix took an object wrapped in cloth and gave it towards Korina. "Here, this belongs to you."

Gently, the weretiger pushed aside the cloth to reveal a War Shadow's finger-blade, a drop item from the very monster she had defeated the day before. "The shadow I killed didn't drop anything…"

The elf gave her an appraising look. "Consider it a token of our thanks. Not many adventurers would bring back a dead man. You didn't even take Mylus' magic stones, Ganesha found his pack undisturbed."

Korina sighed. The whole thing had weird feelings for her, because, situation permitting otherwise, she might have taken a stone or two. She was no saint, and hurting for money on most days. It just happened that recovering Mylus' body in a monster-infested region at the edge of her abilities took priority over anything else. So, she just said, "I'm in no position to refuse. I'm glad I could give you closure, regardless."

They exchanged a few more formalities, before the other adventurer left.

"Did he just ask you out?" Korina turned to Eina, who was wearing a ceramic smile. Her advisor's only response was a deep, tired sigh. "Right. Shall we?"

Inside, sitting rather than standing, Eina returned to her normal professionalism and started grilling her adventurer for updates. Korina wasn't bothered to share. If anything, Tulle could be counted on to not gossip. Her ears had caught several snippets that considered her quite the 'hard-ass'.

"You're unusually distracted." The half-elf said.

"Apologies." Korina gave her a helpless smile. " It's the first of these I've been able to hold on to, rather than sell."

"Are you not going to sell it? It's going for around… a little bit over a thousand nowadays. It's not an inconsequential sum." Drop items were precious. Blades like these didn't even compare to rarer and more precious items with alchemical properties.

"Honestly, it feels a bit wrong to just sell it. If it was monetarily that they wanted to compensate me, they would have just paid me in valis." She turned the blade over her hands. The shadow's fingers were all blades, straight and sharp on both ends. Like a dagger that had no hilt. Yet. "And I am in need of a new knife…"

"Are you giving it to Mr. Crozzo to turn into a weapon?"

"No. I think this one is simple enough that I can handle it myself." She had… almost all the tools she would need. For a small item like this, she knew how to build a makeshift forge. The more she thought about it, the more ideas she had. "Actually, would you mind terribly holding onto this for me? Just until I return from the dungeon."

The advisor blinked. "Well, I suppose it's not a problem if it's just this one thing… We have lockers available at Babel, you realize?"

Korina couldn't afford those, for all that they were secure. "Just this once. I'll return earlier than usual."

Eina frowned. "I thought you were going to take it easy today? The psychological impact of yesterday isn't to be taken that lightly."

Korina thought back to the status update Hestia had given her that morning.

Strength I.94…H.105 Endurance H.107…111 Dexterity H.105…112 Agility I.72…79 Magic H.169…186

"My abilities had a large jump, it will be fine down to the fourth. I'll be eager to return as well, so don't worry too much." She put down the drop item and slid it towards her advisor. "Got to go now tho. I'll see you later!"

***
Hestia returned to a fire in the backyard. The scent of fuel burning, the wood dust in the air and the harsh sounds of metal hitting metal. A forge was just a different type of hearth in the end. How nostalgic! It had been a while since she had seen a forge at work, for all that she'd resided with the goddess of smiths herself.

A pep in her step, she wandered out back to see what her child was up to now.

Korina had constructed her own little pit forge. A hole in the ground, limited by broken masonry, upon which charcoal had been dumped into and ignited. "Bought an old bellows to keep it going." She said as she pumped the rusty and loud tool. "Bought a lot of stuff actually." Tongs, a chisel, resin… "Sorry, you're gonna have to dig into the savings for today's food. I'll repay the bank tomorrow."

"That's fine!" Hestia waved it off. "Come on, tell me what you're making!"

Korina told her of the morning's encounter. "War Shadow's Blades are sharp enough on their own. If I was a better smith, heck, a smith at all, I'd do something better with them, maybe. I'm just gonna turn the last mmm third of the blade into a tang. Unedge it, there's a name for it…. Shape it back into a square-ish thing, then draw it out. It'll be a thinner thang than the blade, but it'll let me keep a better blade length."

She showed Hestia a sketch she'd made. The full drop item fit into her hand, but left only four to five fingers of cutting edge. After shaping the tang, she would make a handle out of a nice wooden dowel. If everything was fit properly, then the last remaining bit of the tang would be peened in.

"And voilá. A knife. Won't even have to do the hard part of shaping the blade."

"You've got more than one thing on the forge tho." Hestia had remarked.

"Practice pieces from those old rusty things you got me." Korina smiled at her wide and bright, showing her usually hidden canines. "Need to get a feel about hitting the metal. It is the first time I've done this. Books alone won't tell me how to do it."

"That's right, you learned smithing by reading… dork." The goddess teased.

"Learned is– huff" Korina pulled out one of her practice pieces with the tongs. "An overestimation. I learned about it, just. Plus," she spoke around the clinking of the hammer on metal, "I'm an adventurer now. Having H-rank strength and endurance changes completely how my body can handle things. I'm not even wearing gloves." She was, in fact, only wearing a sleeveless threadbare undershirt. "Oh, dexterity too now that I think about it."

Hestia tilted her head, observing her child. She compared her to the thin weretiger whose expression was always shuttered. Well-defined arms held the hammer as the weretiger worked on the yellow-hot metal in front of her. A hint of smile curled her lips despite the focussed frown on her face. "I'm glad you're doing better Korina."

"Hm, whaddaya mean?" Was her distracted reply.

She hadn't even noticed she had rambled about metal and runes and plans for ten full minutes, had she? "Nothing. I'll take care of dinner then. See you in a bit!"

"Hmr…" Korina gave a parting grunt.

She'd spent a good portion of her afternoon running between places to buy tools, places to buy materials, and bookstores. Hestia had scouted them out beforehand. It had been one of her familia chores. Skimming over books, without buying them, had only doubled her assessment that she had only a barebones knowledge of the forge. This first work of hers was likely going to be barely usable. For one, she wasn't going to heat-treat it.

Drop-items from dungeon monsters contained rare mineral and organic elements. At least partly magic, the strange structure of kobold nails and goblin fangs she had already worked with was an example of organic materials. War shadow blades, usually hidden beneath the monsters' dark liquid-like body, were of the mineral variety, incorporating minuscule amounts of adamantite in their makeup. Of course, this made what little knowledge Korina had of heat-treatment useless, as she had only studied iron and steel.

She was betting on the material's natural properties to not only shine without additional work, but to also resist the manipulations she was subjecting the blade to. She only had one try to boot.

She worked through the evening. As she waited for the charcoal fire to heat the bit of the blade to the desired color, she worked and experimented with the bits of iron and steel Hestia had scavenged for her. Rough shapes were formed beneath her hammer. Scales broke off and sparks flew into her hands.

Forging her blade's tang was a much more careful process. Patiently, she killed the edge at one third of its full length and drew the metal into a longer, rectangular shape. She compared it to her hand, until she was satisfied, and to the fire it returned. The next step would require it to be orange-hot. The handle had already been roughly formed. She shaved a bit of its length, chiseled in the center hole and grabbed her gloves. She'd seen this done before, it couldn't be too hard to ram a tang through a bit of wood.

Korina slipped and cut herself. A blade and a handle christened with a good amount of blood.

Fitting, she supposed. Before she joined the pieces completely, the burned hole traversing the wood, she had the runework to do. The surface of the tang was filed flat and there, she sketched in her mind the runes her blade would incorporate. No magic would be used. This wasn't a weapon that would use her spell, like a proper so-called magic sword. She wanted to enhance its properties, although if the spell itself was ever channeled through this blade, she was sure it would hold up much better than a regular object.

The blade was made for Black. For taking, for killing, for ambushing and for bleeding.

No magic could be used. Mortalitas was too strong and too capricious.

Carefully, slowly, bent over an anvil, she chiseled in the straight lines of power.

The forge was almost cold when she finished. The bellows pumped again, the coals glowed red-hot again. The resin she'd bought into the handle. The tang back into the fire.

"Something's missing…" She eyed the blade, dead to her limited senses. "No life… of course. Sacrifice."

In the haze of making, she discarded the tongs to the ground and grabbed the blade with her bare hands. The edge cut into the flash of her palm. Blood flowed down the burning metal, into grooves meant to fix magic, and none dripped to the ground.

***
Four weeks an adventurer. It was how long it had taken Korina to repay the Guild for her starting equipment. She hummed to herself as she considered herself. Only the chestplate and greaves remained; on her waist, half of a sword was kept inside its sheath. Still, she mused as she cut open a giant frog, she would say that she finally felt settled as an adventurer proper.

Standing nearby, Welf guarded their flanks. She was sure he had noticed by now that she tired more easily as they climbed back to the surface. He had yet to say anything about it. "Done." She climbed to her feet and they resumed their way home.

Together, they walked to the Guild to trade in their stones and drops. This week had been a money gathering week for Korina. She had the feeling the last week of most months would be like that. She didn't like leaving things for last minute, but it seemed that the tendency to feel the deadlines did improve her concentration. Taxes were coming up, a dinner out, materials for next month… it hurt the creative spirit.

"We're getting an average day's worth now," Welf said, counting the ten-thousand vals they'd been paid. Even taking just a fifth, Korina wasn't losing her time's worth. "Our party's finally getting good. I think that we could go down to the Eighth next week."

Korina nodded. "I'll trust your judgment, but maybe on the second day. I'd like to be prepared." Her ears perked up. "By the way, my goddess might have already talked to yours, but we were seeing if it would be possible to eat out together tomorrow."

"Hu, really?" The smith scratched his neck. "I guess I keep forgettin' that Lady Hestia is friends with Lady Hephaestus…"

"We'd be included to." Korina shook her head, ignoring Welf's sudden sputtering. "Either you or whoever your goddess would rather take."

"Ghh, gotta be kiddin' me! Your familia's small so you get to have your goddess all for yourself, but Hephaestus' is big! My goddess' not going to take me e-eating out, n-not me of all people."

The weretigress side-eyed the flustered smith. She rolled her eyes. "Who knows." "I'm telling you, it's not gonna happen!" "Well, we don't even know if it's going to pan out. It's pretty short notice."

They chatted only a bit more before parting. Tomorrow was the last day of the month. Only five days since carrying her first dead body. Welf had agreed to reschedule their days together, so she would work with him the following day as well. She had to prepare, pass by the Blue Pharmacy, re-check all of her equipment… that and see if her and Hestia still had enough time to buy themselves some clothes.

Still, she felt… pleased. With a chuff, she went off.

---

Spoiler

took me so long to just find something to finish the chapter with. good knife, will come up. had fun doing research, where do i sign up for blacksmithing classes now...

 

[minuseven]

[11]
Hestia was waiting for her on their street. The temple, their home, loomed in the quickly darkening sky. Korina's gauntlets got a quick pass with a wet cloth, but she was never too covered in blood when she returned from the dungeon as a supporter. Extraneous equipment left inside the stairway, they hurried to join the rapidly growing crowds on West Main.

From there, they walked outwards and turned on the Western-Down Street. The large way traveled south from West Main, until it ended in the main waterway that crossed Orario. The city's trading center was built on the southwestern quarter, where respectable rivers traversed through the walls, bringing with it goods and commerce. And occasionally, monsters. Here, warehouses and markets dominated. The trade was outwardly focused. Selling to outsiders, eager to resell Orario's riches far away. Or bringing goods that couldn't be found in the dungeon, from spices and foods of distant lands to crafts and knowledge refined elsewhere.

It also tended to be cheaper. Orario's shops sold to adventurers. They used materials from the dungeon. In short, if one wanted normal things, this was the place.

"So." "So." The goddess and her child nodded as one. "Shopping." "Shopping!"

A hand fell on Hestia's shoulder, heavy with responsibility. Half-lidded cat eyes stared deep into hers as the mortal bent down, just so her intent could be truly felt. Hestia whined. Fine. Yes, they were poor, yes, she had to restrain herself, yes, practicality was king… she knew that! It didn't mean her child had to be such a spoilsport about it.

Priorities. Korina needed… clothes. Just, a whole outfit for when she needed to look presentable and not a stray cat. Hestia needed hair-ties, instead of using twine. A new dress would also be very helpful. The weretigress tapped her fingers on her arm as they settled that. "I was wondering…" She looked down at Hestia's barely-there sandals. "Is it a divine… thing, going nearly barefoot? Don't you get hurt, walking around like that?"

The goddess blinked, shifting back and forth on her old, ratty sandals. "Well, I did go around barefoot half the time back in the Upper Realms, but no? Oh, and gods don't get hurt like m-mrr?" Her face twisted as she thought about it. Actually, after a couple of weeks working at the stall, standing on her feet the entire day, she did get home feeling like her feet had been tenderized. She put them up and rested before Korina got home. "We don't… All those minor inconveniences disappear pretty fast, ahah."

"So it does bother you." "Not that much!" "And I'm betting you don't even gain calluses for your troubles." "Urghk!"

So, priorities: shoes.

"It's something my mother always told me." Korina told Hestia, patting her head. "It's worth spending good money on quality clothing, because it will last longer. And doubly so for two things: footwear and jackets."

The goddess shot a look at the mortal. As a rule, Korina didn't talk about her family. Not after that first day, when she'd shared her entire life story. She felt almost a burning need to ask her if she didn't miss them, but she knew this wasn't an appropriate setting. Something to return to later tonight, her intuition told her.

Hestia did prefer sandals. They found a stall at the market, where a middle-aged woman and her son presented gladiator-style sandals with thicker leather soles and straps that crossed over foot and ankle. Made from cow leather, they were much less expensive than the boots made from Orc hide that Korina wore to the dungeon. The sandal maker took their measurements and half up front. Picking up their shoes; Korina added the chore to Hestia's list. As an aside, she bought three cheaply woven fiber sandals for the goddess. Backups, light and breathable for things like cleaning.

"We haven't cleaned the house like-" "Please do not remind me." "The floors can't even-" "Please, Hestia." Sometimes, Hestia's child was really transparent about her previous lifestyle.

A bit over a third of their money gone, for a good cause Korina kept muttering, they went looking for clothes. Hestia dreamed of the white Almiraj fur dress she'd seen in a shop on North Main. Far from their price range today, but Korina wagered that by saving a little, in the next couple of months it wasn't out of the question. Instead, Hestia found herself a knee-length dress in a dark shade of green that managed to compliment her eyes, and a short jacket in cream. The wool was thin and soft to the touch. More, she also got ribbons to tie around her waist and for her hair.

She didn't miss how Korina rubbed her thumbs on them, a calculating look in her eyes. Already, she could tell, the adventurer was thinking of how small she'd have to make her stitches. Hestia smiled fondly. It was nice how the adventurer worried.

So Hestia dragged her to a store. It was her turn! Getting her miserly child to buy things for herself? Surprisingly easy today. Getting her to buy more than one outfit? Impossible. To accessorize? About as simple as getting Hephaestus to let anybody else forge a hammer for her.

Korina preferred pants, she'd noticed. To fit with her newly acquired sandals, she got bullied into buying a pair of lighter, mid-calf pants, black. And a nice red tunic on top. And a similar one in yellow. Unfortunately, they had no money left for a good jacket, and her child was serious about getting quality jackets.

By the time the sun was setting, they were down to 165 vals. Just enough for groceries. Hestia was getting kind of good at this whole budgeting thing!

***
Hestia and her child met Hephaestus and her own child at the restaurant the goddess of the hearth had chosen. The fare was substantially lower than what she could afford, but Hephaestus wasn't picky about that sort of thing. Money didn't always ensure quality after all. She trusted Hestia to choose a good place, and Korina to make sure she didn't bankrupt herself on the way.

She looked over the pair. She immediately noticed the weretiger no longer wore ragged clothing. Her serious and calm countenance used to offset the fact that she looked a bit like a stray, mangy cat. Her friend, too, looked well. She was pleased to see that she seemed to be taking care of herself.

The smith's eyes were immediately attracted to the dagger at the adventurer's waist, and the ribbons Hestia wore. She waved to the child that was keeping guard tonight, leaving her to eat at a nearby table.

"Lady Hephaestus. Welf." Korina greeted her, and her party member.

The red-haired smith crossed his arms. "Fine, you were right."

She allowed herself a trace of a smirk, more expression than the goddess had seen on the adventurer on most interactions. "I'm glad. We do form a party." She turned to Hephaestus. "Lady Hephaestus, before we eat: I will leave the month's payment at your home tomorrow."

She nodded. "Of course. You don't have to worry too much. Your familia's still starting out, we discussed that." She wasn't expecting Hestia to be able to pay the 25 millions with just Korina. If it hadn't been for her insistence, she would have basically given it away for free. But maybe having a debt hanging over her head was doing good for Hestia's non-existent work ethic.

Welf turned to his partner, questioningly, and the children engaged in their own conversation.

"It's been a while since we've had a meal together." Said her friend.

"At least this time I'm not footing the bill." "Grrk, wait, we aren't splitting it?" Hephaestus laughed and reassured her friend. "Still, how have you been? A job and everything, finally?"

Hestia stopped her pouting and sighed. "It's haaard…" Well, she wasn't getting any pity from Hephaestus, that was certain. "Also… I might have broken a thing, or two. So, I'm not even getting paid in full."

"Isn't that your own fault, in the end?"

"Hephaestus!" Critical hit.

The conversation continued after they ordered their food. Her child and Hestia's were planning the next month, and the rest of Korina's armor. Hephaestus listened with one ear, refraining from offering her input. On the other hand, Hestia had quite a few tales and grievances to air. Most about being mocked, on purpose or not, by the children. Hephaestus could not empathize, because she'd never been anything but minimally respected in the mortal world. Of course, she'd also arrived at Orario with an established familia and good smiths to her name.

On top of that, Hestia was hampered by, well, her size. And her general attitude. None would dare not take the goddess of the hearth seriously if she actually acted as she could. (truthfully, that particular facet of Hestia wasn't one Hepheatus was eager to see again) But sometimes, even Hestia seemed capable of being serious about life in the lower world.

Hestia was worrying her lips, chin rested on one fist. "Hephaestus, could I ask you some advice about familia matters?"

"For advice, you can always come to me." She was her friend, after all. "Just not for some other things."

She had the decency to look vaguely chastised. "Well, we were just wondering what's the, hmm, functional differences between an exploration and a business familia? Like… urgh, taxes."

Hephaestus blinked. "Well, either way at I Rank your familia will never have to pay that much. If anything at all." To be frank, Hephaestus had never been that low-ranked, and the red-haired goddess just did not remember the tax table she had seen back then. One other thing. "Are you going to change your familia's type? The Guild will penalize you if your familia doesn't match what you've declared."

"Well…" Hestia glanced sideways at her child. "I'm planning for the future?"

Hephaestus raised a skeptical brow. Hestia sweated in the silence and reached for the beer. Korina grabbed said beer, replaced it with her own glass of juice and offered her gains to Welf. Welf blinked.

Hestia hissed at the tigress, who returned a meaningful half-lidded stare. The goddess pouted and accepted the juice instead.

Hephaestus laughed. "I must congratulate you on the fantastic job you've been doing, Korina."

"What just happened?" Welf asked his teammate, who replied, "If my goddess wants to get drunk, she can do so with her own time and money." "...Harsh?"

Hephaestus decided to explain how it worked for her familia, at the request of her friend. Theoretically, Hesphaestus' smiths were all adventurers, but only a portion of them sourced most of their materials from the dungeon, and only a part of those delved regularly. Most of her smiths partied with other familias, or partied together to achieve certain objectives. Her captain was… well, Tsubaki was Tsubaki.

For a long time, her familia had been a mixed Exploration and Business type. But nowadays, whatever money her smiths made from the dungeon was a tiny percentage of Hephaestus Familia's income. And really, that was what the Guild was mainly interested in: money. Taxes. The missions the Guild required of Orario's familias, expeditions for exploration familias, a certain of number works from smith familias, or products from other business types, were merely a way to incentivize economic growth and combat stagnation on all levels.

"Effectively, there are only two kinds of familia in Orario: exploration types and business types. The later can be divided into several categories depending on what kind of business is their specialty. Because our revenue is overwhelmingly driven by the products we sell, we are a business familia. And since I only have smiths, a smith familia. When the percentage of income generated from raw dungeoneering is between a certain percentage range, a familia is a mixed type."

"Those kind of details are best asked at the Guild, I assume?" "Yes. I believe that's involved with the calculation of familia rank, and I just don't remember those sort of details off the cuff."

The dinner was winding to a close. The four of them were satisfied, good food and drink lifting their spirits.

"By the way Korina, Hestia mentioned you forged your first weapon?" Hephaestus asked.

Korina almost winced, and Hestia beamed, before catching up with her child's behavior.

Welf leaned forward. "Really? How'd that go?"

The weretigress sighed. "Forging is an overestimation of what I did. I just took a War Shadow's blade and added a hilt to it. Hardly anything special. It's not like I know enough blacksmithing to do more than improvise."

"Many smiths of the ancient times started like that." Hephaestus smiled. "May I see it? Your blade." She had to admit she was curious. Aside from that, it would be a favor she would be doing to one of her oldest friends.

Korina sighed, deep and long, hanging her head back. "Why not, at this point? Still, I would ask for your discretion, Lady Heaphaestus."

"You will have it." She had only to see how nervous Hestia had gotten all of a sudden.

The adventurer reached for the dagger at her waist, carefully laying the sheathed blade in the middle of the table. Welf leaned over, curious.

Hephaestus didn't need to carefully examine the blade to tell it was of amateurish quality. A good amateur, but one nonetheless. It was all over the details, the tightness of the binding leather and sinew, the marks on the wooden sheath, the slight crookedness of the hilt. She reached for it and paused the moment her skin touched the hilt.

She had been curious about Korina's work for some time now. It was not hard, when Hestia walked around with woven bracelets, little trinket necklaces and patterns stitched in her dress that tickled that instinct within the goddess. She hadn't been expecting the warmth of magic beneath her hand.

Carefully, she unsheathed the blade. It was effectively unworked on, as Korina had said, but there was something about it. Too sharp, Hephaestus thought. This blade looks too deadly, and it's from whatever magic was woven in its creation. An enchantment of some sort, and done by a novice at that.

She balanced the blade, badly, on her fingers. "It's not terrible for a first attempt." She returned the weapon to its owner, who thanked her. "Although Hestia… well, now I'm slightly mad at you."

The goddess of the hearth wilted beneath her knowing gaze, before she straightened her spine and crossed her arms. "Korina's mine."

Welf Crozzo, completely unaware of what she'd sensed, looked askance at his partner. Hephaestus nodded. "Fair enough. Well, I'm interested to see what you'll be able to make with more experience at the forge."

If she was right, a rare gem had found its way to Hestia's hands. Rough and unpolished, which only meant it could grow into the real thing with some time and a developmental ability or two.

---

Spoiler

back into the groove. orario building.
feels like i've failed hephaestus' voice here tbh. and welf is just kinda there

 

[minuseven]

[12]
As Korina's first month in Orario wound down to a close, she spent her afternoon in checks and plans. After an early start and a morning blitz through the fourth floor, she returned to the surface to eat and went back home.

And it was a home. Remarkably quickly, she had come to think of the ruined temple as her place. Hers and Hestia's, and potentially the place of other people as well. She stood on the other side of the street, taking a wide-lensed view of their living situation. Of course, it looked dire. Really dire. From a certain angle, the building next door wasn't just tilted, but tilted precariously over the temple.

A while ago, Korina had cleaned up the inside of the temple's nave, or their foyer. At the time, she'd had some ideas of what she wanted to do with the whole thing. Anyway, due to her recklessness, she'd ended up not having time to fully explore the rest of the rooms, undoubtedly full of more rotting wood, water damage and scores upon scores of bugs. And on top of that there was still the exterior to clean up, minimally, and the boulders in the yard.

Hephaestus had guaranteed the building's structural integrity and Korina didn't doubt her. Despite looking quite ratty, her preliminary check-up had revealed that the walls were brick-backed stone, and well made ones at that. The mortar used was also of great quality. To be truthful, Hestia had been the one to thoroughly investigate that. She'd also chatted up some builders about it. Korina had bowed to her expertise. So the building would not fall. But if the interior masonry was good, a great deal of the exterior masonry was damaged.

That was one of the day's main goals: to do an inspection of the temple's exterior and note down her findings.

Korina drummed her fingers on her notebook, pencil twirling. She was ready.

***
"So in effect, these are the stones that urgently need an intervention, so the ones in critical spots that look really bad; these are the ones that should get replaced but are in an inconvenient spot, usually on the lower level; and these are the ones that we don't need to worry about within the year. If they fall, it'll probably not matter. Unless they fall on somebody, but that's a different problem."

Hestia hummed deeply, looking over Korina's findings. "I thought so. It really isn't in that bad of a state, now is it?"

"Ah, I seem to recall my goddess' initial enthusiasm to be–" An elbow cut her off.

"Kori!"

The were-tigress nodded slowly, eyes half-lidded. "Of course, of course, I would never imply my goddess did not like her best friend's gift."

"That is cheating, and you know it." Hestia said. "Now, I suppose that means we'll spend less on repairs…" The goddess thought back to the numbers she'd been given off-handedly. "Well, I suppose we'll manage to convince somebody to give these worst spots some… reinforcement." The worst spots were the worst because they would involve dismantling big parts of the building to get at them. They could be temporarily patched by shoving in cement, but that was really only a temporary fix that could make things work if done improperly.

Korina continued. "So, that took most of the day, because I had to build myself a ladder and harness to get to the roof."

"You were careful?"

"I was careful. Got a scare at seeing the tiles, which is our next point: the roof. Actually, back to the walls." She flipped a page and pointed out a much smaller number. "This is what I could find on the inside. A few cracked bricks on the worst corner, otherwise we're practically golden. The second-floor open, hm…"

"Mezzanine." Hestia raised one smug finger.

"Thank you, milady architect, the second floor mezzanine. Or rather, there used to be a mezzanine. Now there's only the remains of the…?"

"The joists." Hestia crossed her arms. "Yes, I noticed before. It looks like most of them rotted and were removed. But the supporting rims are in stone, so that will help if we decide to rebuild the second floor. I'd get a second opinion on whether those rims can support an entire second-floor."

Korina nodded. "Yeah. The mezzanine was probably only used for services… getting to the bell-tower for one. Anyway, visually from down here, it looks like there's more damage on the roof level, but I can't be sure. Anyway, the longer we have a leaky roof and missing tiles, the more damage will be done to the wood framing beneath. And the roof isn't in great shape. I mean, I didn't count tiles, but we have at least three big holes and a lot of displaced tiles that will let rain in."

Hestia sank deeper into their ratty coach. "Nooo… like this we'll constantly be doing little repairs here and then there and we'll ever get anything done."

"Ah, my goddess has learned the ways of the money. Huff." Another pointed elbow to the ribs.

"Why don't you continue then, Master Planner Kora?" Hestia glared, pouting.

"Well, my conclusion is… we're screwed until we get more income." "I knew it!" "Anyway, about the roof, I can try to patch the worse holes with our spare materials, at least when the weather worsens."

Thankfully, the worst of winter was past them. Both goddess and adventuress agreed that a professional should take a look at the worst areas and, with a sigh, marked it down into as expected future expenses.

"So, final details before we move onto better things." Korina tapped her notebook. "The bell looks to be in perfect condition. I'll get up there tomorrow and see if I can get it down because first, it's a very nice bell, and second, it gives me anxiety to think it could fall on our heads one day." The bell was good, but she did not trust what it was attached to. "Since I'll be going into the belltower, I'll also try and get the decoration it has on top out. It's not doing anything there."

"It is kind of ugly." "More scrap metal for me."

As agreed, such was marked down.

"Okay!" Hestia threw up her arms. "The good things now!" She'd honestly been expecting a lot worse news.

Korina turned a page. "Cleared out the side rooms of the temple, that's done. Also removed all the broken glass from the windows, it's no longer a major hazard. We don't have a rat infestation, because there's a lot of cats in the neighborhood. You verified we were indeed connected to the city's sewer system, which was a relief."

"Argh…" Hestia wilted just thinking about the bureaucratic nightmare that had been to verify. It was only a basic connection that could be expanded, but the newly money-aware goddess had shied from it like a mouse from a lion.

"And our chimney is tip-top." The weretiger gave her a thumbs up. "So in conclusion, our home is in an okay shape for short-term living, bad shape for anything long-term. The repair costs are likely to be astronomical, but we don't have anything too urgent on that list." Barring any sudden magic device malfunctions. "Rebuilding would be the best, safest option but, well…" The price was scary to think about.

A contemplative silence stretched for a few moments as both of them ruminated all that information.

Hestia opened one eye. "So does that mean we can't show the future plans then?"

"No way, I had too much fun thinking about this." Her child opened her notebook to a section full of scribbles and sketches, tail tip wagging predatorily.

Hestia drew a roll of papers from behind her back. "Bow before the expertise of a goddess of architecture!"

The fun part about knowing how bad their living space was, was thinking of how much better it could be in the future. Both of them had several ideas. Korina was in favor of keeping the original structure of the temple, but Hestia was adamant on widening the nave with a couple of aisles, and maybe add a third floor. Hestia didn't particularly care about the belltower but Korina was certain that it should be converted into a watchtower. Ideas for the yard were as numerous as weeds in both their heads.

After much compromise, their desired space looked something like so: Rather than extending the building sideways, it would extend towards the back.

The entrance and nave would remain an open space, for meals, gathering around and receiving guests. Small and large tables, couches and recreational bookcases all over. Some beams rising from the floor would help support a larger mezzanine on the second floor, if anybody wanted a quieter environment. The belltower would ideally be expanded upwards and reinforced, leaving it as the best place with a view, or as an emergency watchtower. Perhaps the bell could be set over the open floor space, and serve as a rallying call. It wasn't like they'd tested what the bell sounded like, yet.

The space currently occupied with the altar would be turned into a hearth, bookending the entrance. Korina was mullish about that point. A goddess of the hearth required a good hearth. Hestia did not cry, absolutely not. At that point, where the temple currently had a couple of side rooms, and the entrance into their underground secure space, a door on each side would lead into hee new building. Three floors would be good, rising higher than the existing construction but not too much. It would be larger as well. Using the existing chimney, the kitchens would be located behind the hearth. A simple floor plan with two hallways that met at the back, a staircase at each end of the building. Rooms with windows for habitation along the hallways, and between them spaces like offices, bathrooms, armories, libraries… A basement floor for storage. The safe room should be maintained as was, refurbished.

Outside, a good training yard, a smithy and useful gardens. All the buildings around them were derelict, so there was space for expansion.

It was a good dream.

***
"Let's review things." Eina Tulle sat down with a huff after a tiring day. She did not have to meet with the adventurers she advised after her work-hours were done. Korina appreciated it nonetheless, although she had made it clear she could have this meeting another day. But Eina was also a stubborn woman.

So Korina didn't protest too much. She'd also had a long day learning all sorts of lessons about physics, namely gravity and inertia. She'd gotten bigger bruises than most days she went to the dungeon. To be fair, the dungeon had yet to throw heights at her. The weretigress had avoided broken bones by virtue of forethought, her harness having saved her from falling from the roof several times. Instead, she just had a few large contusions and rope-burns.

A bronze bell was carefully packed away in their room, and a solid brass ornament was awaiting dismantling in her makeshift forge. A better bounty than she had expected, but also one that had torn a hole through the roof and broken part of the stone flooring.

"I brought graphs." The adventurer brandished a notebook with a small smile.

Tulle ignored her.

"Korina, you've been an adventurer for one month now. Maximum floor reach is the lower seventh with your party, and the lower fifth on your own." An irritated sigh escaped the half-elf's lips. "Fortunately, that was a one time occasion and you haven't gone deeper than the lower fourth alone. How is it with Mr. Crozzo?"

"We usually work on the seventh now. For about a week, I'd say." Korina consulted her notes. "That's right. We've been getting used to the seventh. Next week we'll test out the path to the Eighth first, then we'll establish a short route through that floor." The lower eighth floor was deep enough that travel times to and from the surface had to start being seriously taken into account.

"Well, I suppose it's alright since your party leader is stuck on the ninth…" Eina muttered to herself before giving her an ultimatum. "But no lower than the eighth. You'll get my permission before going deeper."

Korina raised an eyebrow and shrugged in half-agreement. "Well, for the next month, Welf and I want to get used to going regularly to the eighth floor. And for me to start seriously taking on the fifth. We'll be building up for that. The plan is to get the rest of my armor done and then evaluating our chances."

Eina hummed. "Ah, that leaves me minimally comfortable. I was going to ask about the situation with your equipment. Remember to always carry potions and antidotes with you. Even if you have healing magic." She insisted, brow furrowed.

"I will. Both of us, don't worry." "That's impossible."

"Anyway, I'll give you the references for monsters between the fifth and ninth. I expect you'll study them diligently?" She seemed satisfied at Korina's confirmation. "I will be testing that. Now, I don't want to press, but since you've been forthcoming about your abilities, could I know where you stand? It will help to give me an idea of your capabilities and what you might need to be more careful about." Having lower endurance or lower agility impacted what an adventurers would need to be more wary of depending on the foes encountered. Past goblins and kobolds, this sort of strategizing was also a fundamental part of preparing for the dungeon.

The weretigress had no issues. Truth be told, her skills were much more important to keep secret than her basic abilities. "I have all abilities at H rank, except for agility which is around 80. And magic is around 190, so I'm expecting to raise it to G rank within the next week." She would be disappointed if she didn't, considering half her fighting style revolved around her spells.

Eina's jaw had dropped the barest amount and her eyes were wide. Her mind rapidly calculated what that meant. At least six hundred points in one month! Even if she was older for an adventurer and a recent level 1, both characteristics more prone to a rapid growth, these were the kinds of stats that elite adventurers boasted to have started with. Such an even distribution was rare too. She wondered if she could consult the files of adventurers like the Sword Princess or such others to compare their initial times as well… She shook her head.

She hadn't thought Korina was that talented. Rather, she thought the weretiger had been pushing it, relying on her more experienced partner. But that strategy wouldn't have earned her this much excelia. She believed Korina nevertheless, the adventurer having been incredibly open with Eina.

"Is something wrong?" Korina had taken notice of her deepening frown.

"No, no… It's good. I will be expecting you to start slowing down soon, but still… it's remarkable."

Korina had sort of expected that. She also thought she would take a bit longer to hit the wall. The fact seemed to be that using items she had made herself to fight seemed to impact her gains less than using somebody else's items would have. It made sense, because they were part of her achievements.

That wasn't something that she was ready to reveal any time soon, in any way, shape or form. Tilting her head, she considered her advisor for a long moment. "Well. I suppose I can tell you about my skill if this information does not appear anywhere."

Eina straightened her back, hands raised as if to ward her off. "No, that will not be necessary! I'm not trying to get that sort of information, I swear." As a Guild worker, she had to be very careful about such things. This adventurer of hers was already a little bit too open with her. Her progress, both in the dungeon and of her status, was at Eina's disposal. With graphs. She even had a minimal idea of the weretiger's magic.

"No, I've decided it's probably for the best." Korina shook her head. She opened her notebook to write down a condensed version of Wound. The important part was the practical effect.

Eina sighed nervously and cleaned her glasses reflexively. When Korina presented the paper for her to read, her eyebrows jumped up then down, a hand coming down to cover her mouth. "Oh. Oh… That skill is…" Her experience with the dungeon, despite being all external, told her more than enough about both the usefulness and danger of this skill. The advisor took a deep breath. "How… strong is the effect?"

As a professional, her duty was to use this information to personalize the help she gave her assigned adventurer.

Korina shook her head. "Don't think I can measure it, it's… variable. But I was keeping up with Welf better and better the deeper we went." Other factors seemed to be her mental state. The Wound was a wound, after all.

---

Going to stop having author notes in spoilers. (nobody reads this thread anyway)​

I had a looot of fun researching for the church plan. Also, the old church is such a wasted part of the setting. Seriously, the Hearth Mansion is... boring. Architecturally and storywise, it's really, really, really boring. Compared with the Twilight Manor and it's towers. Hestia familia is boooring. Such a goddamned waste.​

 

[minuseven]

Chapter One!
Reborn somewhere I should probably remember!​

"Hmmm." The white-eyed ninja said as he scrutinized my 'chakra pathways' with his 'all-seeing eyes'. "I see."

He saw. He saw… "What? What's wrong with my chakra?"

The ninja didn't move a single inch, his eyes unmoving, as he spoke to the ninja doctor and the ninja teacher that were accompanying me in the hospital. I wasn't hurt. However, somebody had finally realized that my failure to do the simplest of chakra exercises right might mean there was an underlying problem with my body. Not that I was being lazy or slow.

I very much doubted I was slow or lazy, because secretly, I was a twenty-something person who'd been reborn in another world!

It'd all started a lifetime ago. Well, when that life ended abruptly and painfully. I remembered I was on vacations with my recently obtained money from my first job. I went somewhere and then… then the building collapsed. My guess was that an earthquake must have hit us and then, logically, a lot of people had died because the buildings weren't up to code.

I wasn't fond of remembering this part of the story. But it should have ended there.

Eight years ago, the Kyuubi no Youko attacked Konohagakure no Sato… a nine-tailed demon fox attacked the leaf village. Many people died trying to stop the fox, until the Fourth Hokage managed to banish it. And… many people died, ninjas and villagers alike. In the aftermath, they managed to retrieve a baby from a collapsed building, bleeding from a single wound on her forehead. Her mother had protected her six-month old daughter with her body and life, and her father was later identified amidst those lost in the attack.

She was called Haruno Sakura.

And whatever future she had, it was co-opted by my incomplete memories. Now if only I could figure out why there was such a nagging sense of familiarity about my story…

"The chakra pathways are… out of place." Back in the present, the Hyuuga described my problem. His clan, apparently, were the only ones with these special eyes that could see the chakra pathways. "I've never seen anything like this. Her tenketsu are not where they should be, and the pathways themselves are misaligned."

"That's not possible." The medic-nin beside me was bewildered. "Everybody has a natural variance in their pathways, are you sure…?"

"Yes, I am sure." The white-eyed ninja released his doujutsu and turned to the doctor. "This is no mere variance. Even the Eight Gates are not where they should be! The classical map of chakra pathways they teach you medics is entirely useless."

"Hm." I raised my hand. The adults quieted down and looked at me. "Is that bad for my body and doctors? It sounds bad for my body and doctors."

He shook his head. "No, most healing… well, medical ninjutsu doesn't need your chakra pathways to be in a specific place, that shouldn't be a problem." Even as he said that, I noticed that the doctor was writing down notes on my files. "However, this is why you cannot use normal jutsu, Haruno-kun. Normal jutsu and handseals are made for chakra pathways that follow a certain… type of map. Your pathways follow a completely different type of map, so you can't do what the teachers tell you to because their explanations don't work for you."

The doctor muttered something too low for me to hear, but I had the distinct feeling that it was something like 'probably'.

It was best not to dwell on that. "Does that mean I can't be a ninja?" Because that would suck.

The adults exchanged looks among themselves. "Well… no?" The white-eyed man sounded uncertain. "Her chakra is there, she just can't mold it the way we can."

"I have a boy in the year above her that can't use ninjutsu or genjutsu." The teacher that had come with me spoke up. This was new information to me.

My head swiveled back and forth as the adults discussed my situation. I was an orphan, daughter of ninjas, therefore I had been enrolled at the Academy. To their credit, they'd asked a five year old child if she'd like to be a ninja like her parents had been. I'd said yes after only a moment of thought.

I hadn't been reborn, or gained memories of my past, or whatever sorcery had put me in Konoha, without being blessed with strange and unknowable powers. It would be counterintuitive to not pursue a career path that would let me use them. Also, magical ninjas mercenaries.

My consultation ended with me more or less where I'd been before. I was still going to go to school at the Academy. Now they were just expecting me to work extra hard, and the teachers were left with vague instructions to 'let me figure out jutsu my own way'.

On the way home, following next to my tired teacher, I looked up at the four faces carved into the mountain that overlooked the village. The Hokage was the strongest ninja in Konoha, and much like a president, they got their faces sculpted so everybody could look up at them. They said the Hokages looked out for us like this. Every now and then, a ninja bounded over the rooftops, moving at incredible speeds to and fro. I couldn't lie, I yearned for that. Being able to be that free, and to be that strong.

I'd tried their way. My power had obviously interfered in some way. It was time to try it my way.

---

18.Apr.2023: timeline edit, all references to Sakura being 7 y.o. changed to 8 y.o.
All things start with SIs then transition to SI-OCs. First time I do a Sakura fic. Or a fic set in Naruto, by the way.
This power was intended for a worm SI that never went anywhere. I reused bits of it for Monsterability. This is the parred down, original version which... doesn't even feature in this chapter. Lovely.​

 

[minuseven]

Chapter Two!
The mysterious power wants my piggybank!​

Home was a sort of orphanage-slash-way-house where I and several other children lived. I'd gotten moved here after leaving the orphanage, which was for really small children. From my observations of the other kids around, in two or three years I would be leaving this place too. If not sooner. Some children got scouted into apprenticeships, like weaving or blacksmithing or carpentry, and they left to live with their masters. If I did manage to graduate as a ninja, I would also be considered emancipated, or adult, and would also leave.

The house had two floors. The upper floor was taken up by everybody's rooms, one for the boys, one for the girls, and one for the adults. One shared bathroom for us all and one for the adults, who opened it up for the older kids to use after them. This way, a bloodbath was avoided every morning. The ground floor had a big kitchen and a big living room. So long as you followed the rules the woman in charge laid down, it was an okay place. A bit stifling. I had to try really hard to keep my knees from bouncing or my foot from tapping at dinner time. Otherwise I could go hungry for a bit.

"Hey, scar-head! Did they kick you out of the Academy?"

Oh, and then there was the general name-calling and judging that was typical from humans at this age. I didn't even bother responding, but I did wish I had earphones. Music of any sort. Only three other children were in the Academy with me, and they weren't in my year.

When they'd dug me out of the rubble that fateful day, I'd been injured. I didn't remember that day very well, since I'd been six months old. It was, on the other hand, my first clear memory from after my first life. There was pain, panic and I'd cried a lot. Enough that the ninjas had been able to locate me quickly. But not quickly enough to avoid getting a scar right in the middle of my forehead. Head wound, it bled a lot but wasn't too serious, and the on the spot healing I'd received had left a very noticeable scar.

Scars were badass. I stood by that principle. I looked like an anime character twice over. Not only was my hair naturally pink like my namesake, I also had really bright green. A cross-shaped scar, like that anti-hero from an anime long ago, was the cherry on top.

I climbed up the stairs to our rooms. Since I was a quiet, well-behaved kid that just had a bit too much energy, I was allowed that. I threw myself on my bed, grabbed my one plushie, and crawled under the covers so I could think better. Being comfortable was key.

Regarding my power: I'd always had this feeling that there was something inside of me, in my head, that hadn't been there in my life before. Like a metaphysical itch. First I thought it was just the same chakra that everybody had here. But then I got taught how to check my own chakra and it definitely wasn't that. Chakra was extra energy you felt inside yourself, almost weighing inside the stomach, and was really tricky to get a hold of. Supposedly, a ninja could fan their chakra engine and get more chakra. But my power was entirely mental. There was no physical component at all.

It had gotten much clearer in my head after I'd started understanding chakra. The meditation exercises they taught at the Academy worked for something, at least. Perhaps it had to do with the spiritual energy that made up half of all chakra. Or maybe it was my eight-year old brain that was getting better at thinking. Now that I had a better sense of the power, I could tell it was composed of two parts. The first felt empty. It had space. The second was the itchy one. That one wanted me to do something about it.

So I poked at it. Like carefully going around, scratching with the tip of my nail. It kept slipping, like an edge you just couldn't pry open. It was really, really, really frustrating!

"Shah! Work damn it!" And then it did.

I stared at the ceiling. I had done it? I had! Finally! My power presented itself to me, fuzzy but clearing up piece by piece. It felt like a spark, a warm, wild spark that…

"Wait."

The spark laughed at me from a distance. Gimme, it seemed to say. I shook my head. A headache was building, my nose was itching and–

"Achoo!"

Something snapped into place and an image crystalized in my head. A panel, advertising the power and abilities of the monsters I'd known best in the world before. Pokemon. Unreal… and it just cost… it cost. One thousand ryou. Each random, blind, little bit of power. Just the price of… I didn't even know. A whole set of brand new kunai and shuriken? A meal at a high-end restaurant?

I stared. Twitched. Blinked.

But no. My power was still telling me the same thing. If I wanted nifty little gifts, I was going to have to play the game. A gacha game.

Me. The state-sustained orphan who didn't even have an allowance yet.

Well, I guess I had an excuse to be crying at dinner tonight after all.

---

18.Apr.2023: timeline edit, all references to Sakura being 7 y.o. changed to 8 y.o.
Ryo to Yen to Euro conversions are an exercise in futility. For simplicity's sake, a ryo is 10 cents. So each pull requires 100€. Yes, it's a lot, but I discovered that D-rank missions pay from 5000 to 50000. Even if you split it by three genin, that's 160€ minimum. And 1600€ max.
It's got to be something about the ninja efficiency or it would not make sense. D-ranks will henceforth be boring, non-combat, shinobi using jutsu for civil construction kind of deals.​

 

[minuseven]

Chapter Three!
The result of hard work is too strange!​

"There. It's done." I saluted to Kanetake-san, the kind old man who'd hired me. "Your garden has been cleaned and the garbage is outside."

"Practicing to be a ninja so early." He laughed. "Well, you've earned it with your efforts. Here's your payment." A generous bill was placed in my eagerly cupped hands. For an eight year old, fifty ryou was a small fortune. To me, it was just five percent of what I needed.

Today I received the last fifty ryou I needed to finally use my power. Six months had passed since I discovered my power's greatest limitation. The year was coming to a close. After realizing I was going to have to move it, I started to look around for odd jobs. Little chores that people would be willing to pay a pittance to a kid that needed pocket money. It was a slow process.

One, in the neighborhood, there weren't a lot of people willing to pay. Then, those that were had tasks that were too much for my small body and assigned age.

Two, since my problems with chakra were discovered, the Academy required more of my time. I had to have good grades, and everything was in a language that had two alphabets. One of which had thousands of different characters. My brain didn't like it. The only educational silver lining was that I was fully immersed in the language and didn't have a choice about it. On top of that, I was expected to really focus on taijutsu or hand-to-hand combat like the boy Rock Lee in the year above me. I had to spend extra time exercising and practicing katas.

A few times per week, I got paid a few dozen ryou. Enough for candy if I was a normal child. Saving up had been the hard part. I didn't want people to start asking weird questions about where I spent so much money, so I couldn't ask the matron to hold it for me. Places in the house weren't safe either, and I'd lost several hundred ryou to somebody's sticky hands. That was the one time I got into a fight, but Takeru deserved it. Even the punishment was worth it, especially since people knew he was a dirty thief who'd taken the money from a hard-working, forward-thinking little girl.

The solution was to just carry the money in my pouch everywhere. Nobody robbed a seven year old, most other kids didn't even imagine the amount of money I lugged around, and I spent a few here and there to give the illusion that I wasn't saving up. I just had to be careful to trade my coin excess for bills so that I wasn't clanking around like a piggy bank.

I felt like cackling. Months of work, more than one setback, and finally, it was time. Unlimited power awaited me!

Bowing to Kanetake-san, who had back pains and had turned into a regular client, I dashed off to the open fields near the Academy. The ones for my age, which I could enter without weird looks, were effectively big, mostly empty playgrounds. I found a tree on the edge and sat down cross-legged.

Hands shoved in my pouch, I looked for the now familiar mental spark. It was greedy and wanted my money. "You're in luck today. Take my money!"

My pouch was suddenly lighter. A ringing like a coin twirling on the ground filled my head. The empty space inside was no longer empty, a familiar creature slotting itself in a mental shelf. A white seal with a horn. Seel, the Sea Lion. Or, the way my brain insisted, Pawou.

I blinked. "Huh, okay? That's not bad but what can I do with you?" Could I summon Pawou now?

I eyed the empty grounds. The sun was setting and the temperature was quickly dropping. Nobody was watching. Nobody was at the windows of the nearby building. Nobody was traveling through the rooftops that I could see. It would have to do. I got up, dusted the back of my trousers. Got to be careful with clothes.

I thought for a moment before I squared my feet and formed the handseal of confrontation. It was the basic handseal to rouse chakra, among other things, and the only one I knew sort of worked for me. It was a concentration mnemonic too, one I used every day. Then I closed my eyes and focussed on the image of Pawou in my head, hard.

It felt much more natural than the few chakra exercises we'd been taught. Almost second nature.

"Pawoooouuu!?"

And then, with a pop, I was a Pawou. Tail, fangs, flippers, whiskers and all. I literally flopped on the ground. I twisted around, belly up, and pulled my tail up so I could see it. "Awou??"

What. Henge?! How? Why? Why not? … Now what?

There was enough time for me to blink stupidly before another pop, leaving my regular human self sprawled on the ground, legs and arms pointed at the sky. I let my limbs fall.

A moment of silence while I processed. I rubbed my eyes, blinked again, counted my fingers then sat up to count my toes. "Yeah, okay… That was… a thing."

---

18.Apr.2023: timeline edit, all references to Sakura being 7 y.o. changed to 8 y.o.
The power in question. Because it's Naruto, I feel like there should be a measurable quantity of gratuitous japanese mixed in. Hence, Sakura's brain wants her to use the japanese names for everything.
The little hustler is making awesome money for a kid. She's also currently discount Rock Lee, which obviously has implications for her friendships at the Academy, aside from the personality changes.​

 

[minuseven]

Chapter Four!
The decision to be the strongest!​

"I want to stay at the Academy and become a ninja." I remembered insisting another time. "I know it will be hard but still."

Haruno Sakura had turned nine in March, just after the school year ended. My birthday was always during the vacation weeks before the Academy reopened. I was always one of the oldest kids in class. The fourth year, they'd said, things started getting really hard, and much harder to quit. That day, I was being encouraged to give it up. Hints had already been dropping throughout the year.

The chuunin teacher visiting the house had rubbed the bridge of his nose. "You are a hard-worker, Sakura. You can find another path to pursue. You've proven to be good at things like gardening and taking care of animals. You could choose to apprentice under a gardener or to study to become a veterinary."

"That's because I want to buy my own stuff, not because I don't want to be a ninja." Also, I would have to put myself in debt, or contract, to afford that kind of education. They hadn't told me that, of course.

I liked learning the ninja craft, even with the undeniable fact that we were junior soldiers. There was no war and I liked pushing myself and fighting. In the end, they'd quit and gone back. I was remembering that day because, for the first time, something had shaken my conviction.

A massacre.

I twirled a ryou coin between my fingers. We were all forbidden from leaving the house for now. It'd been two days since that had happened. Nobody had told us children anything, but the adults couldn't stop talking about it themselves and it naturally trickled down to our ears. Among the kids of the house, it was a poorly hidden gossip topic. They were still children, civilians at that, and couldn't grasp what those words really meant.

A massacre. It wasn't a word used for a normal killing. It was a brutal, systematic extermination. It sent shivers down my spine, and the context of it only made me sick. A prodigy of the Uchiha Clan had… snapped… and killed his family. His entire clan, elders to toddlers. Genocidal in his madness. There were rumors of a sole survivor.

A ninja had done that. A ninja had been so affected, so traumatized by his job, that he'd snapped seemingly out of nowhere. He'd been ANBU, which people weren't really meant to think too hard about, and that meant not just elite bodyguards and. It meant assassinations too. It was in the name, a so-propagandized legacy.

That had been the result of being a Konoha shinobi. Of course, Uchiha Itachi could have just been a secret psychopath all along, but still, it made you think.

Soldiers are cool and all, but they're the ones that go overseas with dreams and return with PTSD.

Was it worth being a ninja, a shinobi? I wasn't sure.

But there was another thing that scared me. People were strong here. Hideously so. When the books said First Hokage had made a forest sprout for the village in a matter of minutes, they were being literal. I lived in this world. A world where a single man had decimated his clan, which included almost the entirety of the police forces of Konoha. A world where there were other ninja villages and rivals and even enemies, who were certainly smelling the blood in the water.

The world that had turned, in one single night, suddenly unsafe.

Unless I was strong. The strongest.

It wasn't impossible. My power was Pokemon. Creatures that could fly, go through walls, live under the ocean, manipulate the elements, read minds, teleport, heal, reshape continents. Three generations of power were within reach.

I was weak now, because I was poor. But I knew how my power worked after a few months of experimenting with it and crucially, I knew its limits. I could transform into pokemon and I could use their moves as a human. Each time I got a pokemon, they went from non-existent to level five. Then ten, and so forth. The higher the level, the more I could do it and the stronger I was. At level five, I could transform for six seconds a day, and using a move was only doable once per hour.

I could be very strong, if I dared. If I put my nose to the grinder and spent all my money, I'd eventually get there. It would take me millions, a tightrope budget, and a good amount of luck, but it was possible.

Did I dare, rather than vanish into an obscure, seemingly safe civilian life?

I felt the money clutched in my hand disappear, those coins and bills I'd been painstakingly saving up. My third use of my power.

I did.

"Pffft. Oh come on." My hand met my face. Making such a bold declaration and this was what I got? This?

---

18.Apr.2023: timeline edit, all references to Sakura being 8 y.o. changed to 9 y.o. The Uchiha Massacre occurs when Sasuke is 8 1/2 y.o.
The massacre was going to need to be addressed, especially from a pov that doesn't know what happened. It serves as a good motivation turning point. Sasuke is stated to be 7 when the massacre occurs but there's some wiggly room for him to be eight. Sakura's birthday made hell out of the timeline calculations because of the japanese school calendar.
By the by, she got Spoink. ~spoink~! And her second was Chimecho. As one can see, nothing too impressive looking in the face of Uchiha Itachi's deeds.​

 

[minuseven]

Chapter Five!
Forehead, Scarhead, girls can't leave it alone!​

Ninja education introduced, during the fourth year, a class I hadn't been expecting. Kunoichi class.

Womanly-girl-ninja studies.

If we were older, I'm sure it would have things like seduction or something distasteful like that. Because we were nine at our oldest, it was about paying attention without looking like we were paying attention and artisan or homemaking skills that would have us go by undetected and underestimated. To civilians and to most lower ranked ninjas, that was.

Our teacher had given us a good example. She'd asked us to try and remember the face of the last woman with a stroller that we'd seen. Naturally, we couldn't. I, like many others, couldn't remember the last time I'd seen a stroller. Then she'd used Henge no Jutsu and turned into a very familiar woman. We'd been struck dumb. It had been the best lesson we could have had on awareness.

Suzume-sensei was kind of awesome like that, even if I disliked her classes. I did not like having to play into the sexism inherent in society.

To be fair to Suzume-sensei, she'd also never singled me out, neither for my behavior, nor for my appearance. She'd occasionally talked to me in the halls to encourage me to try harder in her class, but I think she'd realized that my focus on taijutsu to compensate for my deficiency was my priority. I couldn't say the same thing about the students.

Girl on girl fighting had become very common. Perhaps it was the start of puppy crushes and the sudden crunch in our numbers. It definitely had something to do with Uchiha Sasuke.

The kid, the only survivor, had returned to school with a blank face and even more drive. He was traumatized and surely angling for either revenge or survival. And, in the eyes of nine year olds, he was very, very cool. Good-looking, strong, mature for his age and, I believe, some part of most girls saw him and went 'I can fix him'.

I was already kind of bullied in a quiet way, just nasty comments here and there. I didn't care or have time to care, so it mostly went over my head. But now, when everybody was looking to eliminate the competition… Puberty was going to be so not fun.

Which brought me to today and Suzume-sensei's very useful class on makeup. The usual suspects weren't even bothering to pipe down in front of the teacher.

"Can't hide a forehead that big." "It's not like she'd be useful, anyway." "Muscle-head." "Target-face." "Ugly."

Chicks dig scars, I felt like telling them. Especially shounen-protagonist type scars. I showed it off to the world, since I liked having my hair out of my face, and rarely had it untied. The name-calling would probably hurt if, you know, I didn't have most of the maturity of a twenty-something person in this tiny body. It was just very, very annoying.

"Fuki, do you have anything you want to say to the rest of the class?" Suzume-sensei's voice rose above the usual chatter, killing it dead.

I suppressed the urge to sigh.

Put on the spotlight, Fuki tried bravely to defend herself. "W-well, Sensei, we, I was just wondering how Sakura would manage to disguise herself since she has that huge scar!"

Suzume-sensei was expressionless as she motioned for me to approach her. I resisted the urge to plod as I made my way to the front of the class and sat in front of her. She winked at me, then told me to close my eyes. The pass of the brush was soft as she expertly applied and worked the pigments onto my face. Her hands were steady but strangely, not very calloused. Ah, I thought, maybe that was one of the things that could give away a kunoichi.

"There, done." She said and turned me around to face the class. Oohs and aahs broke out. I didn't need a mirror to tell me that my scar had probably vanished as if by magic. I reached for a mirror anyway. My face was smooth but otherwise entirely unchanged. The cross-shaped starburst that made shallow divots over my eyebrows was gone. I couldn't see how she'd done it. Makeup magic. "A skilled kunoichi doesn't need genjutsu. Makeup is just as effective a tool as a shuriken."

"That almost makes me want to be good at these things like you, Sensei." I told her. She shook her head at me. "Can I have my face back, this is a bit weird." I'd never seen my forehead unmarked in this body. It was really weird.

It seemed to quell the idiots in the room, so I counted that as a win.

"Sakura looked so happy, she was going to cry." "Maybe she thought somebody would finally find her pretty." "Don't joke around, who'd kiss a scary face like hers anyway?"

For about five minutes past the bell. Okay, that was enough, the lesson clearly wasn't sticking. I stopped, marched over to the four girls snipping and crossed my arms, saying. "Do you have a problem with my face?"

Fuki and Ami seemed taken aback. Kasumi rallied. "Yeah, I do. Your mug is just too ugly. How about you quit and go running home?" Then she smirked, pleased with herself, and crossed the line. "Not like you have a mama to go cry to."

I blinked. Orphan jokes. Of all the things. My jaw worked as they laughed. Several insults came to mind, but I was just a bit too shocked they'd actually dared. I didn't have any strong feelings about being an orphan. I'd grieved my past family years ago. But Haruno Sakura… she deserved better. Mebuki and Kizashi deserved to be missed.

"Oh yeah, I have a problem with your face too, you round-shit, pug-faced, onigiri-head. Fart-hair." I improvised. "How about you look in the mirror sometimes, huh? Guess the mirror is just going to tell you to fuck off before you break it with your uglyness in your heart. You bitch … cow."

I wasn't good at improvising. But I knew more swears then all of these kids combined.

"You, you…" Kasumi had actually taken a step back. Her face colored red. Everybody in hearing range was gasping.

I put my middle fingers up. "How about you go cry to mommy, fuckface."

---

18.Apr.2023: timeline edit, all references to Sakura being 8 y.o. changed to 9 y.o.
I don't even know, it was a fun segue to Sakura getting into a fight. Somehow both my SIOC pokemon crosses have a kid cursing at other kids. To be fair, most of this is canon to Naruto.​

 

[minuseven]

Chapter Six!
Playground showdown, beginning of the Hard-Headed Demon legend!​

We almost starting brawling then and there. I managed to throw down the gauntlet. "You and me, or are you too much of a coward? Chicken, chicken, bawk, bawk!"

We headed out to the closest training field, just outside the classrooms. The rest of the class was encouraging us in turns. Bloodthirsty little tykes. We were in the middle of a makeshift ring.

Kasumi probably knew I was better than her in taijutsu. She was just too angry to make that judgment call. To be fair, I'd also gotten angry and failed the judgment call to not start a fight. I could beat Kasumi, or Fuki, or Ami. All of them at once, not likely.

I grinned and made a come hither motion before the seal of confrontation. It didn't really apply to the situation but well, force of habit.

Kasumi responded curtly before launching an all-out attack. I hopped sideways, guard up. She was taller than me, which made her a bit stronger. I swayed playfully. But I was quicker and more skilled. I jabbed at her guard, testing it. I could probably use a move… Seel and Headbutt, Chimecho and Wrap, Spink and Splash. Wrap?

She kicked, breaking my distracted stance. I retreated. "Come here you coward!"

"Bitch, I ain't gone nowhere!" One of my jabs slipped through and snatched some of her hairs.

"Ow!"

I laughed. It was kind of fun when she was this mad. If she got me tho… well, I didn't want that.

I'd thought about Wrap but that was a bad idea. I still wanted to use a move. To finish her and have them know that I was strong. Splash was useless, of course. But my first move was strong and terribly appropriate.

I planted my feet and raised my arms in a bastardized boxing stance. Blinded by rage, Kasumi didn't see the trap for what it was and charged. I waited until the very last moment. Nômaru-ton… Reeled back, aimed and smashed my head into hers.

"Zutsuki no Waza!"

My forehead impacted the crown of her head with a loud crack. Kasumi crashed down like a rock, face-first into the ground.

I straightened up slowly. My marked forehead glinted, immaculate, not even red. A move that should have ended on a double-knockout left only one standing. Kasumi was out. I was the winner.

Cheers and yells broke out.

Headbutt was Seel's only known move. Powerful and, unlike Head Smash, I didn't take any recoil damage. This much let me walk out unscathed.

Kasumi however… Headbutt was a power 70 move. I kneeled down. She was completely unconscious.

I… might have overdone it.

"Hey, one of you call a teacher! Kasumi needs the nurse!" Or a doctor. The adrenaline was fading and I got more and more worried that I'd seriously hurt her. I hoped I hadn't given her…

"...a cracked skull." The nurse informed me in the office. Suzume-sensei and Mizuki-sensei were present.

Crap.

I'd messed up. I told my story, word for word, and apologized. Several people corroborated it. Since it was my first offense, and the bullying had already been pointed out, I got away with a slap on the wrist. Just staying after school to help out, and writing graded essays about what I'd done wrong.

Kasumi's mother wanted my head on a stick. That worked out in my favor since Kasumi actually dropped out. A cracked skull and a resounding defeat were too harsh of a shock to her system. And the ninjas in charge wouldn't do anything to me for a student who'd quit over that. It went against the hard work ethic that the Academy prided itself in.

I made enemies. Maybe gotten some minor credibility. And I'd definitely got a reputation. Monday I returned to classes and was greeted by the excited whispers of eight and nine year olds that had just discovered a new wrestling move or whatever.

The Pink-Haired, Steel-Headed, Foul-Mouthed, Scarred/Scary Demon Girl of the Fourth Year. Lovely.

---

Yeah, I am doing japanese names of jutsu because this is self-indulgent and I wanna cry naruto technique names in my head as I write this. 0 regrets.​

IE: Nômaru-ton: Zutsushi no Waza = Normal Release: Headbutt Move/Technique!​

 

[minuseven]

Chapter Seven!
Fourth Year sees some progress!​

Yamanaka Ino was the kind of girl that, in my past life, I would have had an embarrassingly huge crush on. Not at nine, but at eleven, twelve… until the fifth grade I'd been too busy climbing trees and playing ball with the boys to realize I could hang out and spend time with girls. Ino was popular but nice. Outspoken, full of energy, talented and always willing to help out and talk to people. If she grew her hair out, she would be the kind of girl I would have swooned and sighed over.

I was nine for now, but trying to account for my past-life maturity made whatever future romantic prospects I could have… awkward. Anyways.

Ino was in the other class, but we shared kunoichi class. Boys and girls from both classes would have lessons together. While girls had Suzume-sensei, the boys would have Mizuki-sensei teach them how to notice stuff and counter some of the tactics and techniques we learned. Or just use it as a free-practice period. Mizuki-sensei was easy-going like that.

I was very surprised when Ino sat down next to me in our next kunoichi class. I wasn't the only one.

"Hi, I'm Ino." "I know?" That made her laugh. "What do you think today's class is about?" "Looks like sewing. That's useful…" "Oh, I guess so. It's easy tho, I liked last class better." "...ugh." "Hey, how did you manage to use your head like that against Kasumi? You should have gotten a huge bump!" "I hit a training log like everybody else." "With your head?" "I started with a padded log…"

I wouldn't say we were friends, but we were friendly. That was almost as good for fourth graders. Beating people up worked wonders for friendship when you look like a shounen character.

The fight had made my guardian forbid me from making money for the first two weeks of summer vacation. Unpaid labor only. That was a real punishment. Without close friends, I spent summer like I hadn't in years.

Wandering, exploring the city, playing make-believe and exercising for fun. How novel-nostalgic chic.

In the second semester, we were taught proper ninjutsu: Bushin no Jutsu and Henge no Jutsu. Ninjutsu classes had already been composed of handseal practice and chakra control exercises for me. Admittedly, those were very important skills I was somewhat behind on. My control and awareness was hindered by how completely different my chakra behaved within my body. The instructions given to the rest of the class only worked at the most general level. I had a hunch my chakra had seventeen types, for no particular reason… Handseals were a similar topic. The twelve handseals had been standardized since ninja villages noticed they needed a core curriculum, derived from the teaching of the Sage of Six Paths. They worked because humans all had similar chakra pathways. Except for me.

The teachers couldn't help me even if they wanted to. Ninjutsu class was half theory, half self-practice. It was trial and error for me, like the very first ninjas. I needed to figure out where my chakra flowed and how. Only repetition and time could help me. On top of that, I was going to have to invent my own handseals. I could use the half-seal that was commonly called the seal of confrontation as a basis, even if my version had a slightly different finger positioning. So if I wasn't practicing the standard handseals to increase my finger coordination and flexibility, I was contorting my fingers in weird ways in the vague hope I'd figure out something new.

Sometimes it was disheartening. Those days, I enjoyed a good sealion self-cuddle. Seels are very, very soft, and squishy. Only six seconds, but six seconds to heal the soul.

"Off to work again?" Ino asked as I packed up my things. It was December already and the sky was threatening snow. "It's not fair Dad doesn't pay me when I work at the shop…"

"Your Dad pays you in food and clothing and loads of other things." I mentioned distractedly, winding up my scarf around my neck. I was eager to go. "See you next week and have a nice weekend."

She winced a little bit. "Sorry, sorry… Bye! Work hard!"

I dashed out of the Academy. I'd secured a gig chopping wood recently. It paid less per hour, but it was steady work. I wouldn't have trusted most nine year olds with even a mid-sized axe, but being a responsible fourth year Academy student gave me some credibility.

I was almost up to a thousand ryou again, and I couldn't wait to pull for the fourth time. I had high hopes! Until now, all my pulls had been two-star pokemon, or Uncommon rank. Meditating on my power had revealed to me that the gacha rate was something like 5-10-35-50, from Ultra Rare to Common. I had about one in ten chances of something good, and this time, for sure–

Common. I hit my head against the tree I was sitting against. "Way to jinx it, Sakura." I only had myself to blame. "It's not a bad pull. Magmag, or Slugma… That's a nasty close-quarters surprise." Seeing as I would be made out of magma. I would also stop needing a flint to light the campfire. Maybe Slugma started with a fire-type move, but my hopes weren't great.

A second later I was sitting up with the biggest grin on my face. Slugma didn't know fire moves. But it did know both Yawn and Smog. A status-effect normal move and a damage-dealing poison move. It was the first move not of the normal type. A milestone I needed to start better understanding my chakra, for sure, and a useful move on top!

Suzuki no Waza was basically identical to a normal headbutt, but Sumoggu no Waza was not going to be confused with anything other than a proper ninjutsu! Unless they thought I used poisonous ninja tools of some sort.

… And if I use either of my new moves, I was locking the other out for a full hour.

"This requires… experimentation."

---

Finally pulled something with a bit of a heft! Altho, Sakura is the kind of person that doesn't enjoy rocking the boat too much, so she'll be keeping stuff under wraps for now. Despite everything, the Ninja Academy does teach that they are ninjas in a ninja village of secrets.​

 

[minuseven]

Chapter Eight!
Meeting with the boy that couldn't use jutsu!​

I climbed the tallest post. The training ground had a file of ten thick tree trunks, some still padded, others not. I was scratched and bruised, but so was this post. Not that I was going to hit it. I had a better plan.

My hands formed what I called the Normal Seal. It wasn't quite there yet, but I believed the final form of this handseal was almost in my reach.

"Nômaru-ton: Haneru no Waza."

And I let myself fall. The technique spread almost instinctively within me. I hit the ground and– plopff– bounced off, my momentum cancelled. I'd done it!

Then I hit the ground again. "Ghu–fff."

Haneru no Waza, the Splash Move. The most infamous Pokemon move, on the account of being completely useless in-game. I'd tried it out because I could and because I was also curious about it. All I did was… flop around like a fish out of water. It was a good move to test out the differences between automatically using moves as part of my innate power and using moves as deliberate ninja-like techniques. So I'd ended up discovering a few interesting things while testing it out. For one, I didn't get hurt. Even tho it made my body drop down and pretend half of me was a spring.

Now, using moves as they were in my head was quick and powerful. They wouldn't fail. But I could only use them as the pokemon would. That was fine with Seel's Headbutt, but had been a problem with Chimecho's Wrap. Chimecho used its tail. I did not have a tail. It ended up tripping me up before my body realized my legs were the closest thing I was going to get.

Spoink's Splash had me bounce on my butt. Not dignified.

The solution was to use my chakra-energy. It offered greater flexibility in how I used the moves, but it required me to use at least one handseal to concentrate. As I'd used and gotten used to a Normal move and a Poison move, I'd started honing in on the handseals for those type releases. Because I was still figuring out which handseals would work for the rest of the technique, it took me some time to concentrate and mold my chakra before I used my moves outside their predefined patterns.

Thus, Splash practice. More specifically, practice in using Splash as a fall-breaking technique.

All things considered, it was going quite well. I still needed some time to concentrate, but Haneru no Waza was simple and wouldn't have a lot of handseals. All it did was convert what little momentum I had into a harmful flopping motion. I still hadn't managed to keep it going for more than a couple of bounces. I could sort of use it as a bouncy-hopping motion while standing in place which… did nothing. As advertised. The goal was to be able to hit the ground in any position and bounce harmlessly.

"We're getting there." I told myself. I sat up and rubbed my jaw. "Okay then, time for the other ones."

This one I could do much better.

Normal Seal. "Zutsuki no Waza!"

My head hit the training post with a loud crack. If the birds in Konoha weren't entirely used to ninjas, they'd have flown off.

"Excuse me!"

I startled and wiped out a kunai at a kid, standing several meters behind me. Black-haired, strong eyebrow and square-jawed, he couldn't be much older than me.

"Pardon. I was wondering if I could also use this field, but I saw you train. What style of taijutsu is that? I've never seen anything like it!"

I blinked. "Errr…"

He seemed to falter, but it was hard to tell, because his face seemed perpetually stuck into a determined expression. "Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to be nosy. I was just curious. Please forgive me." And he gave me a polite little bow.

"It's fine." I shook myself. "You just startled me. It's… hm." Well, I didn't know if I actually wanted to answer that question. I was still working out how to remind the Academy teachers of the tiny print in my medical file that said yes, I could use jutsu. "It's something I'm working on. I'm sorry, but who are you?"

This time, a small blush rose on the boy's face. "My name is Rock Lee! Fifth year, Class 1! It's nice to meet you."

"Haruno Sakura, fourth-two…" Was his surname Lee…? "Wait. I know you, you're the kid that's like me!"

"Like you?"

"You can't use ninjutsu or genjutsu, right?" He nodded. "I can't, well, I can't use ninjutsu or genjutsu like a normal person either."

"Really!? I did not know that there was somebody else trying to be a ninja using just taijutsu." He was excited.

I felt a little bad about making my problems with chakra look like his. "I's not like I won't ever be able to use ninjutsu… My chakra pathways are all messed up, so I have to discover entire new jutsu for myself." I explained. "Our situation isn't exactly the same… sorry."

But Lee just brushed it off. "It's still amazing! You are a very strong person, Haruno-san! Trying to graduate without ninjutsu is hard, don't diminish your hard work! You can do it!"

I found myself laughing. His praise felt good and made me blush. Wow, had it really been that long wince admiration had been turned my way? "By that logic, aren't you also amazing and strong?"

Rock Lee stopped, his brain tripping over itself. A deep blush turned his cheeks red. "Ah? Ahah?! Wa-ha, no, I just… I want to prove I can become a strong ninja. Ahahah…"

"That's cool." I ran my eyes over his body with more attention. His outfit was scuffed and showed signs of great use. For a kid, he was obviously in great shape. And his hands and shins had callouses like I'd never seen on an Academy student. "I'm sure you'll succeed. I'm going to practice some taijutsu myself. You're free to use the other posts."

"Yosh!"

And that was how I met Rock Lee, a complete taijutsu maniac.

---

Introducing Lee! Had to happen sooner or later. Boy is gonna have a crush as soon as he figures out what crushes are.​

Also making use of Splash as a move. To visualie moves I've ben going a lot over the anime depictions of it. Interestingly, Splash translates as Hop and Growl as Cry.​

 

[minuseven]

Chapter Nine!
Don't forget those that loved this girl!​

Just after I finished the year, the Academy's fourth out of seven, I was called up to discuss my situation. For once, not my ninja situation. It had been accepted that I was going to be a ninja, half-assed or not. It was about my stay at the way-house.

I was having my tenth birthday in under two weeks. I was already one of the oldest children at the house.

The matron and a social-worker, I believed, sat down with me.

"A whole apartment?" I questioned. "I can't pay for that."

The older man nodded, adjusting his glasses. "Of course, the village will support the greater part of your living costs. Academy students without parents are often emancipated around your age. After graduation, you'd be an adult in most respects anyway, so it's customary to ease students into independent living."

"Okay, that's a relief."

"Beyond that, it's been withheld because you were a child under the care of Konoha, but your parents' assets will become available to you as well."

I blinked. "My parents had assets?" The question was stupid. Of course they did, even if just some money in the bank. They'd been ninjas, no matter how low-ranked. I'd never connected those dots. "Oh."

They were talking about controlled access and supervision and regular check-ups. I paid as much attention as I could. The world was opening into an array of choices and opportunities that I'd never thought I would have. Not so soon.

I really owed the Harunos. What a curious feeling… it made my eyes water.

With the help of the village's child services, I found a tiny apartment in a good-enough zone. It was in a better neighborhood than where I'd been, and only it's size cut down on the price. The kitchen and bedroom were separated by a folding screen, but the appliances were okay and the plumbing was good. There was a single window in the kitchen area.

My vacations were spent getting a hold of how my life was changing and scouring second-hand shops for furniture.

Not sharing my living space with other children was a game changer. I had privacy? I could have my own things without fear they'd be damaged or 'lost'. I cut a hole in a celebratory cookie tie to make a piggy bank, now that I didn't have to carry everything in my pouch. I had to get an alarm clock because I no longer woke up with the noise of the water running.

Budgeting was going to be a struggle, I thought as my eyes devoured the paper representing my outstanding balance. There was more than expected. For the first month, I took only enough to top up what I needed for the next pull.

Fittingly, a golden rare star lit up in my mind. A starter, Kimori, better known as Treecko. Helpfully, both Leer and Pound became available, a status move and another physical move easily incorporated in my taijutsu.

I let myself sprawl on the floor of my new, own home. As I grew up, things started looking up. Or maybe that was just the increased agency. The walls of the apartment were nearly bare. The few photos that had survived my parents were carefully tucked into a drawer until I found a place to make copies of them. The mini-fridge was stocked, there was instant ramen in my cupboards. My Academy books occupied half a shelf and my weapons were in a straw basket missing a handle.

I imagined a mirror on the ceiling, and contemplated Sakura.

Chewing gum pink hair, straight and neat, was pulled back into a short ponytail. I supposed I could choose my own haircut now that the matron wasn't the one to take the scissors to it. Were there cheap saloons nearby? Standard dark blue ninja sandals, open-toed, along with comfortable blue pants that tightened around my ankles. They lacked pockets, but I always carried my things in my holster or my pouches. Today was loose white t-shirt day. It was always loose t-shirt day, but I had a few colors to choose from. My winter hoodies, the only two hoodies I had, were hanging in my new closet along with my one and favorite sleeveless vest. Likewise my usual hand wraps were drying, since I did not train today.

I had money to actually buy clothes that I wanted now. I could have a style instead of the mishmash of colors that were handed down to me or on sale. I could get those cool robes and some proper fingerless gloves.

It was almost overwhelming.

"I guess… yeah. Thanks. Mom… Dad."

I'd never called them that before, not to myself. I spent the rest of the afternoon imagining what Sakura's life could have been like in a kinder world. I decided to visit the memorial before the Academy started up again.

---

This one was easy to write. Between Sakura's emotions regarding the parents she never met and apartment building, the hard part was the conversation with the... social worker? Those always trip me up.​

This one also marks the hacceleration of this gacha-user into a whale... since disposable income becomes a thing. RIP, piggy bank.​

 

[minuseven]

Chapter Ten!
I don't think it's strange that I have friends!​

I felt a familiar dismay as Lee dodged my glowing fist. I knew what came next. I tensed up in preparation, and managed to withstand the kick that sent me down with only an average level of pain. "O-okay, I yield. That's enough."

"Are you sure?" I could hear the 'already?' in Lee's voice.

"Yeah, I need to rest up before my job." The hustle never slept.

"Oh, of course." … "You can keep training Lee, you know that I don't mind." "Yosh. Thank you for your consideration, Sakura-san!" "Ye-ye…"

The sound of fists hitting wood filled the training ground as I regained my breath. The fall's colder temperatures had the proud leaves of the trees around us yellowing and falling. We weren't in the one near the Academy. Lee knew more than a few training spots, and he'd introduced me to this one. We used it for our regularly scheduled joint taijutsu training, the only training we could do together.

"Hey Lee, mind if I think out loud to you?"

"Not, 33. At all, 34."

"Hm, thanks. Anyway, you know I've recently gotten a handle of a few more ninjutsu." Now that I had more money, I could regularly pull once every three or so months. Since the year had started, Aerodactyl and Houndour had joined my arsenal. "I've even gotten a fire type jutsu." Ember from Houndour.

"That's right, 46!" And Lee would know, we spared together once a week.

"Hm, yeah, and I'm getting better with my handseals, but I still can't use my moves consecutively." A noise of understanding. "So I'm thinking that unless I manage to get that hurdle down 'til the end of the year, I'm not going to tell the teachers for now."

Well, I could use Leer, Niramitsukeru no Waza, twice per hour. However, since that would block either Hinoko no Waza or Hataku no Waza. And those were the attacking moves I used the most. So I could, in theory, use a genjutsu and prove it wasn't a fluke.

"Why not? 71! Your grades would, 72! Surely improve, 73!" I knew a straight-laced kid like him would question my decision.

"Because my progress is too slow. It'll look like I stall a lot," And I sort of did. "My consistency will always be called into question, so I wanna get things to a better level first. This sort of perception trick is part of being a ninja, so I think it's fair game."

"Underneath, 99! The underneath, 100!" Lee paused, breathing deeply. "That's smart, Sakura-san! Alright, another 200 kicks!"

I smirked. "Glad you think so, Lee-san!" I was going to get him to stop with that pronoun one day. "Anyway, I know I've made progress, and not just in jutsu. You know what I think has been my greatest achievement so far? Having you and Ino as friends."

Lee missed his kick, unbalancing and falling backwards with a yelp. "Sa-sakura-san!" He was red as a tomato.

"Anyway, when's your birthday?" "N-next month, November 27th? Why?"

"Ino invited me to her birthday party a few days ago. It was nice." I said. "I'd like to at least give you a happy birthday when the day comes."

I wasn't being farcical or exaggerating in any way. Ino's birthday party was the place where I suddenly realized that I had two actual friends. It blew my mind. I'd been always distant from kids my supposed age, which was natural. Plus I was an orphan with very few means, I was always working and all I did at the Academy was study. I had a bad reputation. They called me the Greedy Demon at the way house, because I wanted money. Whatever.

That had been the first birthday party I'd been invited to. Ino had rallied when she learnt that, and she made sure I was having fun, even tho the party was for her. Her father was taking pictures… I'd asked for a copy, since, well, it would be the second picture of me to ever exist. I had a picture of my mother, pregnant, and my Academy file surely had one but me? Just a normal picture?

Not until then. I wanted to have a lot more pictures. I was here. I was alive and I was living well. I wanted some sort of proof that I existed, maybe. I wondered if Lee's mother would take a picture for us…

---

Behold, Sakura no longer being a weird recluse child worker! Lee and Ino have been doing wonders for her, she's even questioning her life and wanting photographs!! *legasp* Photos are gonna be one of the ways Sakura keeps herself grounded to people.
It helps a lot that she's acclimatized to Konoha after years and, well, that she's finally surrounded by kids in their double digits. At long last.​

 

[minuseven]

Chapter Eleven!
Graduation time is here, but not for me!​

We faced each other in a clearing without snow. Our referee stood over us on top of the training post. "Ready?" Ino raised her hand. "Go!"

I… turned to wiggle my butt at my opponent, blowing a raspberry at him. Lee skidded. "Wh-what? Wait!" Too late, Nômaru-ton: Shippo o Furu had been a success. I couldn't let up. I wiggled more with a cute little giggle.

"I will not be cowed, Sakura!" He resumed his attack and… fast! I managed to squeeze out a single seal before I dropped limp, dodging the first of his attacks. Haneru no Waza! One hand on the ground, I pivoted quickly and cried out my own attack.

"Zutsuki no Waza!" My head collided with Lee's block, but it was weakened and I managed to gain some space. I had to keep it that way. My hands flashed through seals, the few I needed, as I brought my ninjutsu to bear. All the while, I ran back, keeping my distance the best I could.

Mushi-ton: Ito o Haku no Waza! Niramitsukeru no Waza! Nakigoe no Waza! Niramitsukeru no Waza!

"You cannot dodge forever!" The boy crashed a kick against a hastily raised block.

"True! Akubi no Waza!" I yawned.

Lee's eyes widened, familiar with the genjutsu, but it was too late. He pushed me away and tried slapping himself to drive back the drowsiness. I had to capitalize on it. Strings dangled from body and he was already rattled from the constant Leers and Growls. I had one chance.

I wound up my fist in a completely telegraphed move, hand starting to shine. Every syllable left my mouth like a promise. "Hataku!" And I clocked Lee in the jaw.

I'd done it… Lee's eyes snapped open. Or not, or not! Too close, I had to go for a Wrap–

Shin filled my vision, then the sky was down before I crashed painfully into the ground. I'd done a backflip courtesy of Rock Lee, who now sat on my back and applied a submission hold. "Do you yield, Sakura?"

I managed to weakly tap his arm.

"Winner: Rock Lee!" Ino crowed to the non-existent crowd!

"YOSH! Ah! Let me help you up!" "P-please…" "Wow, you have no mercy at all, do you Lee-kun?"

Ino joined us on the ground-level as Lee helped me become less of a defeated smear on the pavement. The year was ending. Specifically, the civil year that marked the end of three-quarters of our sixth school year. Well, for me and Ino.

"Ow, my face… You definitely have nothing to fear. Lee, you're going to ace your graduation exam."

Lee, one year older, was on the seventh and last year. His final exams were coming up, and his performance on the only category they could grade him on, taijutsu, would determine whether or not he got to wear the Konoha headband. As an official genin. And he could try to hide it, but Lee was definitely nervous.

Ino and I, but mostly me, had generously dispensed some of our winter vacations to help him out. Studying and sparing, which meant Ino got to lecture him and I… got my ass kicked.

"Fighting Sakura is as hard as ever." He commented as he stretched his shoulders. "I need to do three times more effort than normal, your genjutsu is truly amazing!"

And yet he'd still taken me out in one blow. "Well, that's the only strategy that works on somebody that much stronger than me. If hadn't, you'd just shrug me off." Lee was going to be a beast. Whittling him down with status moves was more efficient than trying to overpower him with attack moves. Because he'd just dodge.

Been there, done that, lesson learnt.

Time was passing so quickly, between my efforts and the Academy pushing me to prove myself. I'd settled into something of a routine, broken only by the now regular uses of my power. My arsenal was growing! I was getting closer to pulling any pokemon, just one, please, another time. Level 10 haunted me. I desperately wanted the power boost and the ability to transform for more than a measly six seconds. I had to be able to at least pretend to do something like one of the three basic jutsus, and Henge no Jutsu was right there!

Ditto would do too, but that was an exception.

My capabilities had been revealed in increments to both Lee and Ino. Lee and I had a partnership of sorts and we helped each other get better. We'd just spared with no transformations, but that was because I had already spent most of them before. Incorporating them into my style was a hundred percent only possible because he helped. Ino was just a friend that liked watching us train more than she liked training with us. She did find some of my transformations cute and cuddly. Somehow, I'd been coerced into providing her with a Ponyta ride when I got better at being a horse.

I had a couple of aces in the holes. Aerodactyl to fly off, Absol as the fastest even at level five, and two fish pokemon transformations that would let me breathe underwater for twelve seconds. I liked my chances a lot better now that my capabilities had expanded, but still. Still.

Well, I had another two months and another pull before I had to worry about my grades.

---

Massive timeskip of about... 1 year and a couple of months. Previous Lee had been 10 going on 11 (the mentioned birthday) and now he's just recently celebrated 12yo. 6 new pokemon are in Sakura's arsenal. Should I do a post just to track her pulls?
Also, an example of a fight without transformations. The moves used are, in order: Tail Whip, Splash, Headbutt, String Shot, Leer, Growl, Yawn and Pound.​