Not even twenty minutes later our newly made stone house shell was being beaten upon by someone or something with all the grace of an angry bull in the center of an Apple store.
"Jake! Go look and see who it is." Seshat groaned as she reluctantly placed Sir Fluffykins the First atop my Wulfrim drone so the drone could fly the immobile sentry around.
"Nope it's Christmas time, we still have these goodie bags plus Loki and Freya's adventurers aren't even here, so I rather just not deal with whoever is out there," I said frankly earning an eye-roll from my goddess but then after a moment of introspection, as I pulled out the last two Slime King bags and the Desert Scourge bag, she nodded in understanding.
Deciding to say the hell with it I immediately just opened up the Desert Scourge bag and did a fist bump when I saw what I got... Well discarding the massive piles of shells and other things that were all but useless to me as Danmachi wasn't short of such things at all.
Every boss gave crafting supplies for their theme of items and Desert Scrouge as was its previous lore was a massive beach worm that got pushed into the desert because of how the ocean became super acidic somehow.
"Wow... you helped kill a massive monster worthy of allowing a trio of level ones or even a level two to level up and its reward is looking like you raided a beach? Do these shells and stuff even have mollusks we can cook or something?" Seshat teased and in response, I became the adult in the situation by grabbing the item I wanted Seshat was welcomed by a wave of sand impacting her and throwing her little swing backward into a flip.
"Call me High Priest Imhotep for I shall cover this world in endless sand!" I boasted as my new Desert Cloak gave me the ability to create an extremely dense screen of sand around me that I could control and among the sheer utility of summoning a strong enough sandstorm that could shear flesh from bone, but the storm aspect also made me faster and increased my life force regeneration somehow.
"Jake... I am a goddess of the desert but if you throw sand at my face again, I will smother you with a pillow in your sleep." Seshat said dryly as she moved the blanket, which she instinctively used to block out the impact of the weak wave of sand I sent at her.
"Alright alright," I said disarmingly as Sir Fluffykins the First waved a fist at me silently in fury at how it now had sand all over its once so luscious fur. "Well let's summon my new minion," I said taking the last whole item I got with it being the Seabound Staff.
Before Seshat could question what, I was going to summon I pushed my mana into the staff, and with the rattle of water rushing over the sand a knee-high tall sea star appeared and just fell to the ground with a wet slapping noise.
But after the large Sea Star landed on the ground its scaled body audibly and visibly hardened as it lost its more light-colored pigments and the jagged scales covering the Sea Star darkened as it became hard and as reflective as seashells.
For a moment I wanted to call it Staryu or something. But I shook that thought off, as Seshat and I heard an even louder series of banging on the stone walls surrounding the shop.
"Well let's go see who is there... They don't seem to be interested in walking away." Seshat muttered as she hopped off her perch and gracefully walked over to me and took my arm and thankfully, we learned that my meteor armor only burned that which had the intent to 'harm' me, so I didn't like burn everything I bumped into. This is why Seshat could hold my arm or hand when I escorted her places, but when she attempted to slap me that one time, she basically slapped the equivalent of a red hot, hotplate.
Once we reached the square of stone wall, I place four torches against the wall to kind of outline the exit as that was where the shop door was angled directly, I could hear muffled voices coming from the outside.
Taking out my pickaxe after Seshat got back a bit I quickly busted a hole into the wall and the voices came in loud and clear before someone yelled for them all to shut up.
"Excuse me, but can I assume that the person who knocked a hole into this eye sore of a building is the creator of the structure and if not the owner of the building that lays within this abomination?" I heard a snooty voice come through the hole I smashed open.
I looked to Seshat for permission to basically say yes this was my property and she swiftly nodded smiling as she knew I had some mischievous banter already prepared for whoever is out here.
"Yes, this is my property, now. Who is it and what do you want?" I questioned and the female voice paused as if she didn't expect to be so rudely asked two questions in return.
Then I felt through the stone the same presence that surrounded Seshat, Freya, and Loki, the lady outside was a goddess... Oh, joy.
"I am the goddess Aphrodite of the Aphrodite Familia! I run a sizable portion of the more respectable section of the Red-Light district as well as being the chairwoman of the Orario homeowner's association. This... The building is most certainly not up to code both in terms of aesthetics for being on one of the major roads in Orario and it obviously doesn't have municipal access." Aphrodite droned on and I shuddered at the thought that Orario had a damned homeowners association.
"What do you want specifically?" I replied again shortly and this time I heard Aphrodite huff and stamp her feet at how uncooperative I was being.
"Well, obviously I, and the rest of the acting members of the Orario Homeowners Association will be putting together a referendum on whether to demolish this abomination in the next day or two! But if you actually take some time to fix this building up, using the obviously magical manner in which you built it to a level that appeals to my level of beauty, I will bless this building to stand here in Orario forever more without HOA taxes Haha!" Aphrodite proudly.
Before I could just tell her to fuck off, I felt Seshat smack me with a wooden board that visibly blackened and smoked at the impact with my armor, and when I looked at her, I saw her pointing at Aphrodite's voice's direction and franticly nodding for me to accept the deal.
"Why!" I hissed as making a nice house was cool and all, but I needed to get back into the Dungeon as I bet Freya and Loki were going to keep a level three or something on me, so I had a decent little safety net.
"Jake, this building and the surrounding property I bought is centrally located and each year we have to pay like five hundred thousand Valis! Take the damned deal!" She hissed and I nodded as being able to skip paying my property taxes was worth wasting a couple of days messing with the whole building aspect of my Terrarian powers.
"Fine Lady Aphrodite I will make the building nicer looking! But I do have an engagement in a couple of hours so I may very well not finish until tomorrow afternoon is that fair?" Although Aphrodite here in Danmachi was... Annoying but she was nowhere near the thot the myths would portray her as. Hell, she, Hestia, Demeter, and Hephaestus all cried together when they came together, as the news of Artemis's death became wide news in Danmemo.
But the main problem was my last little interaction with her Familia members... Thankfully there was no way for gods or Goddesses to find out who kills their Familia members remotely.
"Good! I shall peer upon your work in the coming days then. Don't disappoint me!" Aphrodite called proudly as she probably began to walk away but at that point, I had patched back and closed the hole I made, which also ended up silencing the Familia members Aphrodite brought with her.
Wordlessly I looked to Seshat and she patted me on my head as I didn't like wearing the helmet if I wasn't going to be fighting. "It's ok Jake, with your building speed and my guiding hand we can easily make this into something more than just a box and a pyramid on top... Maybe a true pyramid with a large bust of the divine self hanging over the entranceway? Or maybe we could even terraform the surroundings and make a little self-contained river surrounding our property with an authentic villa sitting in the middle of the river... Ah, that would be just like back home at Tenkai!" Seshat rambled on and my eyes dulled at the sheer amount of work it would be for me to terraform the chunk of land Seshat had bought out.
"Seshat... Can't we just make an easy castle or something?" I asked weakly and my goddess looked at me like I asked her to push aside her skirt and bend over or something.
"Ach! Absolutely not Jake Barris! If we are to build something that isn't a mere stopgap, then it must be something grand and worthy in the eyes of a goddess of architecture and another with the domain of beauty!" Seshat said excitedly and seeing my normally lounging around goddess so excited to do something that wasn't going to a restaurant gave me the motivation to do all this.
Plus having a bigger area, I can actually use for my store rather than using a little corner of Seshat's cramped store would be for the best.
"Alright, Seshat. We will be building something that will stand out." I said softly as I began threading my fingers through my goddess's ebony hair and instantly attacked her weak points behind her leopard ears making the Egyptian goddess lean against me weakly with all her strength melting and her eyes going cross-eyed. The only other major weak point she had that would mess with her was at the base of her tail...
"Well either way let's get going to the Hostess of Fertility, we can discuss what we should make on the way," I said slowing down the ear scratches so Seshat could regather her mind.
"Nyah ok..." Seshat nodded and then she headbutted me a bit seemingly wanting the more intense head scratches, but I just let go of her earning a pout.
"Come on. So much affection plays with this poor mortal's heart!" I teased earning a chuckle and mild blush from Seshat.
"Bah, you are the tease who makes it difficult for me to stand... Anyone let's get changed seeing as this is likely to come as close to a formal dinner as it gets." Seshat reminded me as although the late lunch/dinner was to be taking place at the Hostess, it was going to be the private little party with Loki and Freya renting out Mia's restaurant for the night.
"So, armor is no good?" I questioned grimacing as I didn't really even have any dress clothes and Seshat recalling my outsider nature to the world remembered I only bought a few different sets of underclothes to go under my armor.
Seshat sighed then took my arm. "Here let's put you together an outfit." She said and then took me into her private bedroom for the first time ever.