(General POV)
"Well, what names did they settle on for us?" Lyze asked as Loki came home. They were all in the lounging area among other Familia members. He and Ais had been patiently waiting there as they were quite excited to find out what their new aliases were, Ais more than Lyze because he was distracted with other things.
Namely his ruthless killing of the captain of the Soma Familia which was bound to be noticed sooner or later. Fortunately, Chaos left nothing behind to be found but Zanis's absence would create a power vacuum in the Soma Familia.
There were multiple benefits from this though. Zanis was the source of corruption in the Soma Familia and with his influence absent, the structure of their dirty dealings would fall apart and their misdeeds would come to light.
And he had little doubt that the man owed quite a few things to members of the black market and since he was no longer there to deliver, it would tempt some of the less intelligent ones to come out of their hiding place. And if any of them did so, the guild could use that connection to force their hands deeper into the dark part of society and root out other troublemakers.
But most importantly, under all the chaos that Soma would come under, Lili would be free to take from them without them ever finding out. Looking back, Lyze was beginning to wonder however if it was a wise ting to do. Because at the same time, other innocents could get hurt. Clipping things at the seed could make the whole tree come down on the heads of oblivious people sitting underneath.
Well, he'd done it now and there was no going back. Well, actually he could go back if he released Chaos again but he was too lazy.
"Well..." Loki said as everybody tensed for her answer. "...for Aisy-poo, they've dubbed you the 'Sword Princess'!".
Lyze raised a brow at that. While he was half expecting it to be the case, he'd been certain that Ais had not been given that alias until much later after the Great Conflict. Perhaps he'd been wrong.
"And what did they choose for me?" he asked.
Loki 'hmphed' and crossed her arms.
"I had this really smart idea. It tied in so well with your actual name as well."
"Oh really? Judging by your behaviour I'm assuming that none of the other deities liked it very well."
"Well...no, they didn't, they shot it down immediately."
'It must have been really bad.' he thought grimly. "Well, what was it?"
"Well there was this thing going around about how much I was bragging about you and everyone figured that you may as well be my joy and pride. I wanted to give you a name in a language back in heaven, the language I myself spoke in my part of it. So the word for pride is 'of', (pronounced 'ov'). And I am known as the Trickster, the word for which is Loiz. So put the together and the name was..."
"Loiz'of." Riveria said. Everybody collectively grimaced as Lyze gripped his fists tightly, the knuckles cracking in his deep cringe.
"Yeah." he croaked. "That really is bad."
"Hey! I thought it was cool. Lyzof, Loiz'of! Talk about coincidences, am I right?"
Lyze chopped her harshly on the head and she let out a yelp.
"That attempt was so poor, it almost made me throw up." He said firmly while everyone else, Ais most of all, nodded in agreement. "So what did they actually settle on?"
"Well." Loki said as she rubbed her head. "They still wanted to keep to the theme of 'Trickster's Pride', so we decided to change the word for trickster into something else."
"And that was?"
"We eventually settled on Skelmir'Of. Skelmir is another word for trickster. So we just replaced Loiz with it and everyone thought it was cool."
"Skelmir'Of." Finn said. "It rolls off the tongue quite nicely in my opinion."
"I agree." Gareth said. "There's something ominous about the way it's said too. Which kind of fits well with Lyze."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"Dude, seriously?" Raul asked. "You dress in black all the time, you barely say a word, you're always going around and scaring the other grunts. What part about you isn't ominous?"
"The part where I'm 'scaring' you off is because you lot keep trying pull stupid pranks on me. And they never work, in case you've forgotten."
"I think it's a cool name." Ais said quietly.
"You do?" Lyze asked, a little shocked.
"Mhm." Ais nodded her head.
Lyze scratched his head a little lost on what to do. Part of him said that the name was fine while another part of him said it sounded lame. He couldn't be sure. People in Danmachi generally didn't have a good naming sense (and neither did he but that was not the point) so anything that sounded cool to them usually was 'meh' in his opinion.
The name could have been worse and it was not like there was anything he could do about it now because no doubt it was official. Still though, 'Skelmir'Of'. He wasn't so sure.
"Chin up Lyzie." Aki said as she patted his head which instantly annoyed him. "It's a good name, and it was one that the gods bestowed on you collectively, so I think you should be happy." Her smile looked genuine enough but a slight upturn of the corner of her mouth gave away her internal mocking of him. He zapped her rump with a small spark of electricity as she leapt up with mewling yelp.
"Well I guess it can't be helped." He sighed.
"Come on, even if it's not good as my first suggestion, it's still a good name!" Loki tried to reason. She folded her arms again and began muttering under her breath about ungrateful children.
"The important thing is that I'll live" Lyze said tiredly. "Still, though. I'm a swordsman as well so couldn't they have chosen something like 'Sword Prince'?"
"It was considered." Loki said. "But some, especially Freya, argued that naming you something like that would indicate that you plan on marrying Ais in the future." Lyze spluttered in slight outrage as that revelation hit him. Aki gave him a devious smirk. "Unless of course, you do have such plans in mind huh?" Loki leaned forwards giving him a questioning look.
Lyze looked towards Ais. The girl had her usual expressionless face as always but there was slight colouring above her nose and the top of her cheeks.
"N-No." Lyze said. "I don't. I don't have plans like that."
Raul gave him a cheeky smile and elbowed him.
"~Not yet~" The older boy sang.
He responded by stamping on the boy's foot, and an audible crack was heard as the older boy grabbed his foot and began hopping around as he tried to apply as much pressure as he could to his injured foot.
"I think I'll stick with the other name." Lyze concluded as his and Ais's face still burnt with embarrassment. 'I should feel wrong about that notion...so why don't I?'
"Speaking of Freya..." Loki said quietly so only he could hear as she lifted one leg over the other. "Folkvangr." Was all she said next.
Lyze nodded. He understood where he would have to go in the morning.
---
The next morning, he began setting off in the direction of Folkvangr. It was both a blessed and cursed journey. Blessed because he only needed to walk in one direction, cursed because it was right on the other side of the city.
Why was it that Chaos seemed to manifest itself like this every opportunity it got?
Literally, both residences had the same distance between them and city walls. Twilight Manor was in the North of the city, and Folkvangr was in the South. Riveria had told him not to fly around in the city too much as it could cause quite a bit of commotion.
Lyze took this opportunity to get to know the city even better since he would be right across its expanse to reach his destination. Gearing himself up, he headed onwards as trepidation pooled in his stomach.
It was unpredictable the way this 'meeting' would go. Loki seemed to have abandoned hope that he could stay, confident that Freya would accept no other outcome other than him joining her ranks.
The problem he was having with himself though...was that he didn't mind it. Because in the end, he aimed to leave this world and all he needed was to get stronger. And to get stronger, he needed the Dungeon. And to get access to the Dungeon, he need to be part of a Familia. And he would probably be transitioning from the second most powerful Familia into the most powerful of all. From an objective perspective, that would be the right way to go about things.
But it just felt...wrong.
When he thought about not getting to see Ais, Riveria, Gareth, Finn, Loki, Raul and yes even Aki as much as he usually would, he couldn't help but feel like a piece of scum for leaving them behind.
They had taken him in, on his own merits, and had treated him with nothing but kindness. This new Familia would only receive him horribly. And while he liked Ottar to an extent, he doubted Freya would help him with his goals if she found out what they were. She was the obsessive type, so she would do everything she could to keep him to herself. And yet if he tried to get out of it by rejecting her, and Freya acted up, it would attract the attention of Ouranos whom Loki believed would try to wipe him off the face of Genkai.
What was he supposed to do?
As the gates of Folkvangr loomed in the distance, the sinking feeling grew worse. Oddly enough, there were no guards on duty, and the gates were wide open for him to step through. An immediate red flag and so he kept his guards up real high.
And a good thing he did because he came to know the reason why they were open. A raging battle was going on between many, many adventurers on the grounds of the Freya Familia home base. People from all races and all walks of life were tearing into each other, drawing blood gleefully as they competed with each other to prove who was better.
With this many adventurers on deck, there would be no need for any guards.
They stopped heir fighting though as he approached. He held his head high in defiance, trying to drive home that he was not scared. And truly he wasn't. Releasing Chaos last night reminded him how invincible he could really be if he wanted. These maggots would be scratched out if he merely wished it to be so.
Walking right into the middle of them, he passed in and out of them as he made way to the stairs of the residence. He could feel their eyes burning into him, their negative feelings already quite palpable as he neared the home of their Lady.
Just as he was about to reach the last step, a human got in his way with a spear. The pointed end was tipped right to his face as the man bellowed out in anger.
"What business do you have here boy!?"
"I have come to meet with Lady Freya." Lyze replied as he vaguely sensed the adventurers he'd passed approach him and surround any ways of backing out.
"For what purpose?" Another questioned him, this time appearing to be a female elf.
"That remains to be seen." Lyze responded. "Either make way for me, or send a messenger to her and inform her of my arrival."
"Fuck off little boy!" Spat a dwarf. "Do not try and pull any fast ones with lies or demands. If you had any business with our Goddess, she herself would have told us about your arrival. Why are you really here?"
"Exactly why I said I was here."
A sharp point prodded his back and Lyze raised his hackles.
"Do you know the price for trespassing on our holy grounds?" asked the human from before.
"I don't particularly care but I'm sure you're going to tell me."
"Insolence! Death, boy, death! Your blood will be a tribute to Lady Freya."
"Just how much has her charm made you lot so stupid?" He muttered. "Can't even have a simple and civil conversation. Nor are you bothered to take the easy way and actually send someone to her to verify."
"Huh?!"
"Nothing." Lyze said as he took his hands out of his cloak. "Let's not dance around with words. You can thank your buddy there for sticking his weapon into my back." Lyze turned to see a beast-man holding a sword to him. "Because of him, this will now count as self-defence."
"What will?" The human asked.
Lyze opened his palm which was hung by his side and fired a fireball at the beastman holding the sword. The man was smothered in blue flames as the explosion sent him flying off his feet and into the back of the crowd. Every single person there was instantly on alert as they lowered their weapons.
"Let's be honest, I interrupted your fighting and you're pissed." Lyze said. "You want to continue fighting, and so you now want to fight me. It's simple math for addled fools like you." Excalibur materialised in his hands. The sudden appearance of a weapon made the high tensions around him spike very sharply.
"Let the carnage begin."
---
"Was it a good idea to do this, Lady Freya?" Ottar asked as he narrowed his eyes while watching the scene from a balcony.
"Not informing them all that he was coming? No, but I wanted to see just how much stronger he's gotten. And since you and I know how much he thrives under pressure like this, here's to being hopeful that it will serve some sort of good." Freya said from her seat as she sipped from a chalice.
"With this many adventurers around him though?"
"He's able to fight with the prowess of a level five even at the stage he is now Ottar." Freya swirled the liquid in her glass. "And perhaps he'll be inclined to show a little more."
"Why is that?"
"Because Ottar dear, so far he's been fighting monsters and his own Familia members. The only other people he's fought are a bunch of weaklings from no name Familia that have challenged him in the dungeon and yourself. With you he had to be careful in how he moved so the chance of you killing him was reduced. He knew that he had no hope of defeating you." Freya took another sip.
"And what would be the difference here My Lady?"
"The difference here is that he is surrounded by level fours and below. More than that, they are all hostiles, and so he doesn't have to pull his punches." Freya smiled delightfully as she saw the silver flame begin to burn bright again, a sign she'd come to know as Lyze preparing for battle. "It is here, he will cut loose as you children say on his bloodlust. It is here on my soil that he will be able to perform his full capabilities."
"I'm not so certain that they will appreciate you finally coming back to Folkvangr only to make them bait for that boy to bare his fangs at."
"Inconsequential." She replied. "After all..." She murmured. "...I have fallen in love with one soul and one soul alone now."
"I have told the others to hold back from interfering as you commanded, Lady Freya."
"Thank you Ottar." She smiled at him before getting comfortable in her chair. The grounds of Folkvangr were very big, and so was the perfect stage for a battle. Her sentiment was confirmed by the silver flame down there becoming as bright as a star as the first explosion went off. "I should hope that this little exercise will help him stir up a big appetite for what's to come later."
Freya giggled a little as she thought ahead on how she'd mapped out this particular day. Oh was it going to be exciting. For now, she would be a goddess of War and appreciate the show that her children and her guest were putting on for her.
Love and Abundance would come later.
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