A.N. Before we begin this chapter, I have an announcement.
I've started another Danmachi fanfic which is a little different to his one. Go check it out and comment everywhere on it.
It's called 'Orario Records of Bastard Cheating Minecrafter'. I even have advanced chapters of it on my Patreon.
Have fun!
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(General POV)
Morning mists crept into the tent and dragged over the face of the two children, prompting the older one to wake up to attention from the chill. Glancing down, he found the little blonde girl tightly bundled up in his arms as she snuggled into his chest, breathing peacefully as she clutched his waist.
Smiling to himself, Lyze gently shook her off and sat up, instantly mourning the loss of warmth from their shared cuddle which caused the girl to stir too. Ais sat up alongside him and adorably rubbed one eye while yawning. She glanced over to him, blinking a few times as if to register what was happening before she yawned again.
"Good morning Lyze." She said quietly in her morning voice as she desperately tried to get rid of the yawns by exaggerating them.
"Good morning Ais." Lyze said as he patted her head, making her smile. That girl really loved head pats for some reason. "Am I to expect you in my bed again the next time we make camp?"
"I don't know." she replied as she began stretching. "If I feel like it."
"So I don't get a say, huh?" Lyze muttered fondly as he stood up and knocked the sheets off of him. "Oh well, can't complain. It was quite comfortable last night."
"Really?"
"Yep." Lyze wrapped on his blindfolds and faced her with a smile. "You're very warm Ais."
A hint of red appeared over her cheeks before she looked down awkwardly.
"Thank you." She said quietly.
"Right." Lyze nodded. "I'm going to go have a bath now. Once I'm done, I'll be back to pack up my stuff so don't stay in here, okay?"
"Hm." Ais nodded, making Lyze smile as he walked out of the tent barefoot and breathed in the fresh air. It was confusing to smell this kind of air down in the dungeon but this particular floor did have a lot of vegetation which meant a wonderful oxygen supply, plus the dungeon's excellent ventilation systems above. Lyze imagined though that the air would become more stale the deeper they all went.
"~Moooooorrrrrrrrning~" A voice chirped from beside him and his mood instantly soured.
He turned around to meet dark cat ears and frolicking tail as the she-devil in front of him grinned the most arrogant smirk he'd seen.
"What do you want?" He grumbled.
"Just wanted to ask you how your night was." She said, a sharp tooth sticking out of her upper lip. "You know I was quite shocked when Ais came and told me how you saved her like a dashing hero in the dungeon from a giant toad...and how you not only took her out harm's way but you also gave her a chaste kiss upon her forehead to convey your devotion and your feelings to her." Aki twirled in her position, her eyes having stars in them as the air around her became brighter. "The perfect beginning to a love story! An adventurer saving a beloved princess from the clutches of a hideous beast! How could I not possibly teach her the appropriate response for such a display of affection?! After all, how-"
Aki was cut off as the bright light she was emitting was suddenly sucked away by a dark miasma that began to pour out of Lyze's body. His palpable anger broiled, nearly pushing him to his demon form as he was confronted by this addled moggy.
Aki instantly began sweating from fear as her heckles raised instinctively, warning her of her impending doom. The sight of Lyze's clenched fists creaking as he squeezed them tight was the green light for her to get the hell out of there with her literal tail between her legs if possible.
"Um, I think I should gooooooo-"
But she was cut off as Lyze grabbed onto her tail and she mewled from shock. From sweating bullets, she began to create a puddle underneath her from the sweat as she shakingly looked behind her at the boy.
But even in her fear, she noticed something which she wasn't sure she was seeing right at first. The massive crystal lights hanging from the ceiling of the level they were on cast shadows upon the ground like a natural sun did. And of course, people had shadows too.
But what she saw beneath Lyze did not match the stature of the boy mercilessly restraining her. A great shadow three times bigger than the boy which looked heavily deformed with many horns and hair and thin spindly arms lay beneath where the boy's shadow should have been.
Stupid cat she was though, assumed it was her trepidation making her hallucinate as the boy's face came closer to hers.
"Why must you go so soon?" Lyze asked in a sickly sweet voice which far contrasted the aura he was giving off. "I'd love to chat with you more on the subject. You will forgive me if you find myself to be a little...'aggressive' in my questioning. I am after all passionately invested in the subject just as you are."
As he spoke, the shadows upon his face grew darker and darker.
If any adventurers were still asleep at this time, they were certainly shocked out of their sheets upon hearing a half-scream-half-mewl tear through the camp.
---
"What are you doing up there exactly?" Finn asked as he watched the cat-girl swinging back and forth from the tree branch her tail had been tied around. Her eyes span in delirium as her hair was ruffled and her body was covered in scuff marks. At the very least, whatever pain she had been through did not seem to register with her as she was unconscious.
The Pallum was definitely not glad of that fact because he had just so happened to choose this tree to take a leak behind.
---
Of course Lyze could have cleaned himself up with the 'Clean' spell. But what was the point when you had multiple perfect water sources to bathe in? Lyze could understand why the Japanese loved baths so much. He did too, like a lot.
And it was even better when it was spring water. As for the source of this particular spring water itself, he surmised that it likely came from currents that came up from the Water Capital. That water did after all reach the surface, so why couldn't it come here?
He would probably be forced to use the spell when they entered the Deep Floors as water sources were few and far between. So he had to enjoy these springs while it lasted. Off came his garments without a hint of hesitation as he stood upon the banks and glanced down. He'd bathed in these before so it wasn't his first experience. However he did have grime all over him and the smell of monster guts from his massacre the day before.
Cold water wouldn't cut it. So little by little, he threw a few fireballs into the water to heat up the pool he stood over. Although much evaporated, it wasn't long before the entire pool began steaming from how hot it had become. Now it was a hot spring, for a short period of time at least. Gently sliding into the water feet first, Lyze let out a sigh of content as it engulfed him in warmth.
The feeling of just flopping into a hot bath was always a new sensation to him which he relished every single time. It was, in his opinion, one of life's most underrated pleasures...that and having painless and steady bowel movement when one went to defecate. The upside to this world was that there was no chemicals or anything within the food that you would normally find in processed stuff. From what he heard, pests were kept away with the use of magical items in the fields which also meant no pesticides as well.
All food was fresh and farmed/made with love. Which is why Lyze found that his stool was much more easier than when he had to take a dump back on Earth. It couldn't be coincidence. Or maybe he had a boosted immune system thanks to his absolute poison resistance? Whatever the case, he liked the former theory better.
Of course that was not to say he didn't have painful times whenever he had spicy food still but he was a typical Englishman that loved a good curry now and then and so the pleasure was well worth the pain.
In one end of the pool he scrubbed himself with some of the foliage he'd found as a make shift brush and once he was done, crossed over into a more open area of the pool to sit down and just soak it in as he breathed in the aroma of the plants and flowers that dotted the bank line. A few minutes passed before 'Thread' picked up on multiple movements and he heard multiple feet quickly approach his pool before a few consecutive splashes were heard.
Looking up he found that a few Amazons had cast aside their garments and were now happily splashing around in his hot spring along with a few human and beast girls. He upturned his eyebrows before a few more splashes beside him caught his attention and there was Bara to his left sitting beside him, bare with everything above her torso on display, uncaring as she partook in this luxury.
"I should beat the stuffing out of you for keeping something like this to yourself you know kid." Bara said casually as she leaned back.
"You never asked." He said back. "You know, for people that just barged into my personally intended bathing area, you could at least thank me for heating it up."
"Tch." Bara grunted before she put a hand over her mouth and called out to the giggling women. "Hey brats! Thank the little kid for sharing his spring with us!"
""THANK YOU LYZE!"" They all cheered and chorused as they waved at him happily. Seeing such energy brought a smile to his face as he felt their gratitude. He knew what baths meant to women so he could understand why they were so glad for hot water.
He wasn't going to be embarrassed of the situation he was in. He wasn't that pathetic and he'd already shared a bath with Freya, the most beautiful woman in Orario. Besides, it was quite common for adventurers to bathe together in the buff, male or female. They were one family so they did not care, except for known perverts.
Turned out that known lechers were purposefully tied down before the women had their bath. Otherwise they were alright sharing a unisex bath, but Lyze assumed it was his blindfolds plus his extremely young age that put them more at ease. Very few knew that he was perfectly capable of seeing.
Elves were nowhere in sight though which was to be expected. They were conservative even around their own kind of the same sex so they wouldn't even think to share a bath he was in. Rarely did it ever happen. Whatever, it didn't bother him. As a matter of fact, the less bloody elves he had to deal with the better.
"How did you even find this place?" Lyze asked. "I thought I picked a pool well away from the usual bathing areas."
"Not so hard to miss when there's a cloud of mist rising above the tree line. Even less to understand when we catch you chucking that weird fire of yours in here. After that it was just a question of tearing our clothes off and jumping in as fast as possible."
Lyze looked around and saw that indeed, there were several shawls, skirts, shirts and even undergarments strewn around on the bushes and low hanging tree branches along with ankle-bracelets and generic jewellery.
Perhaps he'd underestimated women's desperation if they were that careless with their things.
"So, mind elaborating what happened with Big-Loud-and-Ugly up there?" Bara asked as she glanced over to him.
"I told you, I just activated one of my skills that affects damage when I cut the bastard. Nothing more, nothing less." Lyze shrugged. "What can I say, I'm way stronger than I was the last time you fought me."
"Think you can beat me now kid?"
"Oh definitely." Lyze said. "You have no idea the kind of boost in strength that I have now. Last time I nearly fractured your skull. What do you think I can do now?"
"How about you come and try?" Bara said as she rose out of the water. A grin was plastered over her face. "And we'll do it the best way, no clothes restricting us at all. We can both go all out!"
Lyze was aware that Amazons fought naked sometimes. It was the case even back on Earth but then again a lot of the ancient Greeks were just naked freaks anyway.
He too rose to the challenge uncaring of his current state. Flexing his muscles and tightening his fists, he grinned like a savage beast.
"Bring it on!" He growled.
Just as they were about to rush each other, a splash of water hit them both accompanied by several giggles and war cries.
"WATER FIGHT!" A girl shouted as she targeted Lyze this time with a splash of water. Both he and Bara exchanged looks before setting their vengeful gazes upon the group of girls that had come with a challenge of their own.
A shiver ran down each of their spines as Lyze used his water magic to make two colossal waves form in the pond, towering above them menacingly. And like he were a water bender, he began firing pellets and blobs of cold water at them to make them shriek and gasp at the shock of cold water in a hot bath. Bara began wrestling with five other Amazons in the water as she held her ground against all of them in the water.
All the while Ais stood at the side of the pool watching this transpire, wondering how much fun it looked and how she wanted to join. But upon looking again at the water, the idea of stepping into it made certain traumas resurface and she turned away from the pool with a pout.
To this day she hadn't recovered from that horrible experience with Riveria...and she wasn't sure she ever would.
---
"You wanted to see me Captain?" Lyze asked as he walked over to the Pallum, who was standing over a rocky ledge that looked out over the expanse of the 18th floor.
"Yes Lyze." Finn said, not turning to greet the boy as he instead pointed his finger over at a familiar part of the forest. "You wouldn't happen to know what that is all about would you?"
Following the finger, Lyze looked to see a part of the forest that had been cleared of its trees and looked little more than a burnt, ashy wasteland.
"Ah." Lyze said as he scratched the back of his head. "You see, as you know I was down here with Ottaaaaaar..."
"Yes?"
"And I may have used an exceptionally powerful fire spell on him that also had a great area of effect."
"Mhm." Finn raised a brow. "And did it do more damage to him or to the forest?"
"...I'd say the forest wasn't let off as easy Captain."
"I see." Finn said. "Well, was he hurt or not?"
"What?"
"Was he hurt by the spell or did he completely resist it?"
"...It burned his hands."
"...Did it also cause that big scar on his face?" Finn asked.
Lyze straightened seeing how serious this had become.
"No, that was a different fire." Lyze took his demon form before Finn. The Pallum's eyes only widened for a moment before settling as a black flame appeared in Lyze's palm. All of a sudden, the sickly sinister feeling Finn had gotten from Ottar's scar returned but a dozen times worse. His instincts screamed at him to back away from this fire as far as possible.
...He very nearly gave in, if it wasn't for the fact he knew who was holding this flame.
"I need to ask you something Lyze."
"Yeah?" Lyze said as he closed his palm making the fire disappear and the Darkness covering his skin faded away.
"I don't know exactly how much more powerful that sinister form of yours makes you." Finn turned away from Lyze as he continued talking while staring at the desecrated area. "But I ask that you use such a power in only the gravest of situations. The aura it emits will sow discourse in our ranks and more than that...it may make you overconfident during monster attacks."
"I understand. I barely use it anyway." Lyze shrugged.
"Take this seriously Lyze." Finn turned again and sighed. "Look, the truth is that I and the other executives believe that even at the stage you are now, the rest of the Middle floors and Lower Floors may not be much of a challenge for you, judging by the absurd skills you've gained and being armed with both an art for sword fighting and powerful magic to boost. But the Deep Floors are something else altogether. I believe it is there you will meet your true matches. There you will improve and you will learn to not take that extra ace for granted. " Finn looked out over the beautiful forest. "Power exists to teach us lessons. They have more purpose than just being used to win fights. You have a remarkable gift. My point is to not rush headlong into situations down there like you do up here because of all these powers you have in reserve. Even the bravest and most prepared of adventurers have found themselves victim to the monsters that lie there. So I recommend to watch yourself and be on guard."
"Yes, sir." Lyze replied. Nothing Finn was saying was wrong for sure. But something told Lyze that the Pallum was overthinking stuff.
"On another note." Finn said as he turned around this time with a smile on his face. "I've consulted the others and we have decided to include you in our attacks against Amphisbaena."
"Really?" Lyze asked excitedly, eager to face down with the knock-off Kaiju monster.
"Yes. If you're capable of casting powerful spells like that..." Finn pointed to the destroyed area, "... wordlessly, then I don't see a need why we have to keep you in the back with the other mages. Plus that move you made against Goliath could come to use against it as well." Finn gave him a side-eye. "Depending on how you perform, we might consider adding you to the efforts with Udaeus as well."
"...It must be my lucky day. And Balor?"
"No." Finn said curtly. "That one is far too dangerous to think about now. Just stick to the plan and we'll see how things go."
"Fine by me." Lyze waved his hands. He then walked closer to the Pallum and whispered by his ear. "By the way, I heard there are a few hide-outs for some Black-and-Tans in Rivira. Are we going to raid them?"
"Why are you calling them that?" Finn asked unimpressed. "I thought it was just a song from last night."
"No, that's literally what they are. They are black cloak wearing bastards who are also for the most part impoverished indoctrinated dipshits that wear tanned leather armour. So I've decided that's what I call them from now on."
"Language." Finn chided. "And Evilus is much more simple, no?"
"No, Black-and-Tans." Lyze smiled.
"Never change Lyze." Finn muttered before looking down at camp. "Alright Loki Familia, pack up and move out. We're heading to Rivira!
""AYE!""
---
(Rivira, a typical shady, candle-lit room)
"And please may we welcome another fellow brother, Gurm, a disgraced member of the pathetic Ganesha Familia now allied with us in our noble cause." A cat-man said with a cruel smile.
"Did you have to point out the disgraced part?" Gurm asked dryly as he stood at the table.
"Take a joke, tiny." The cat-man sneered. "It was you that came snivelling around here begging for a place in the Rudra Familia. It's only because you enticed our great god with revenge on a member of the Loki Familia that you were allowed in."
Another member of the dark Familia spat on the floor.
"Any chance at getting at one of those false gods is a plus in my book. They are nothing like our great Lord Rudra. They think themselves so high and mighty because of their adventurers and yet they pale before the magnificence of our masters who are all truly united in one glorious belief rather than at odds with one another."
"Yeah." A thin, bald man with a black tooth grinned as he licked the end of his knife. "And any chance to put an entitled adventurer in their place is as welcome to me as one of Ishtar's 'servants' any time, any where. It's always so much more satisfying when they're children as well, haha."
"We stick to the plan." A big burly man leaning in a corner gruffed. "You can settle your shitty little disputes afterwards. Just focus on getting the goods out of the city as fast and as discreet as you can. Already that bastard Bors and his goons have wrecked several of our bases and our clients are getting impatient. Once we're done with that, I don't care what you do."
"Always a stickler to the rules and your duties you are big guy." One of his associates said. "Why don't you lighten up a little? Have a bit of fun? I hear the entertainment district in this city is way more...'carefree' than it is compared to the regulations up there."
"Get the job done." The big man grit his teeth. He then looked down at Gurm. "You had better not cause any trouble for us while we're down here. Because if you do..." Mato, which was the name of the burly man grabbed Gurm by the throat and hoisted him up, holding him there. Gurm's eyes threatened to pop out as he was subjected to a familiar humiliation. "...I'll rip your balls out the moment it happens and then I'll let you bleed out into your whore mother's mouth, you understand?!"
Without waiting for an answer, Mato flung Gurm aside and marched out. The others began to laugh at his predicament while Gurm just scowled spitefully at the retreating man. He'd just been manhandled the same way that...brat did! The little blighter that got him kicked out of the Ganesha Familia.
But Gurm had connections from his illicit activities. It didn't take him long to find a group petty enough to help him with his revenge mission. The only person in the way was Mato...but it wouldn't stay that way for long. Once Gurm was able to lick the blood of that boy off his cold corpse, then he would go for Mato's head...and make him pay for ever daring to touch him.
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