The back streets of Orario especially in the alleys were a hellhole of crime and desperation with the inhabitants that weren't worthy of joining a Familia congregated to be miserable and take said misery out on others.
"My fucking shoes... Really?" I asked flabbergasted as the damned midget/pallum held me at knife point. No, the dirty child-looking being held me at jagged glass point as the pallum had seemingly bound the jagged hunk of glass in some cloth to protect their hand from the large shard of glass.
When I landed in Danmachi I was so damned excited, I could meet some great waifus, I could join a Familia and become superhuman etc... But when I finally got to the guild from where I was randomly dropped in the middle of some small park and sleeping against a tree I was firmly reminded of how Orario was called the city of dreams.
And just like dreams, they were ephemeral things as the Guild said with the food shortage going on due to a Rakia invasion as well as the unrest from other events that all the Familia's within the Guild register were full of recruits and were no longer recruiting...
Sure some Familia's were eternally recruiting but I utterly refused to go anywhere near the meat grinder that was the entertainment district Familia's like Ishtar's.
So here I was being held up at knifepoint by a fucking dirty rip-off of a hobbit for my tennis shoes that it most certainly couldn't even wear.
"Look... I got denied at every turn by every Familia I tried talking to." I said and the child-like face sneered at my answer but then froze as I leaned closer and continued with a stone-cold face that I practiced from seeing Cartel and other psycho dudes on tv. "I am so very frustrated at this moment, so here is what is going to happen... You can and maybe will end up stabbing me with that hunk of dirty glass, but even if I bleed out like a stuck pig, I am going to grab your head by your greasy ass hair and then I am going to drown you in that rain barrel over there while your tiny legs kick in the air as your midget ass can't reach the ground... Do you still want to do this?" I asked bluntly, and the Pallum looked at the homemade knife and then slowly took a step back shaking their head.
"No, you aren't an easy mark... Not worth it." At their words, I blinked as it came out distinctively feminine but with the pallum's thick jacket and clothes, I previously couldn't tell what gender the pallum was though it made little difference to me.
"Then get out of here." I said tiredly as I leaned up against the wall of the alley and cupped my face as I tried to figure out what I was supposed to do.
"Are you new to Orario or something? This is Soma territory you should get out of here if you don't want to get shot by some junky with a bow so they can loot your corpse easily Hahaha." The Pallum said laughing at the thought as she slinked back deeper into the alley making me sigh and then after a moment of thought, I decided to just say fuck it.
'I was special enough to get Isekaied, I don't need to get my fucking hand held' I thought with mental fortitude and spite more than anything filling my heart and as I reached outwards I felt a heat within my chest and as my hand took up a wooden pole that probably belonged to a broom or rake making me realize what my cheat was.
"The sum of many is better than one combined to infinity," I muttered as I seemingly unlocked my cheat that did two things, being a small pocket space about three meters squared that allowed me to fuse the stuff within the pocket space with the objects being forcibly combined into something better than the sum of its parts.
Silently I pocketed a bunch of trash and debris in the alleyway and I mentally watched as almost like a gotcha game all the wood, and metal scrapes combined together into a spear that I tried to envision was about two meters long with a plain but sharp and thick spear blade atop the dense wooden handle.
But even as I held the spear I had some doubts... Like should I even share this secret to join a Familia and could those gods who bind my soul with their divine tramp stamp fuck with my cheat? At the thought of losing my cheat, the prospect of joining a Familia lost a lot of its draw.
The whole point of a cheat was to help someone reach their full potential and break the world over their knees and the simple possibility of one of the cruel gods fucking with it... Yeah, I rather not chance it for now I realized.
So with that decided to just make my own way until or even if I found a god or goddess trustworthy enough. Sure Hestia was a basic easy option but I didn't want to get dragged into Bell's shenanigans until I got my feet under me.
-
Another five minutes later I made my way across Orario to get back to the Tower of Babel and as I stared into the massive pit that led into the heart of the dungeon I took a deep breath with my spear at my side and I heard some guys chuckling at the sight of me who was obviously a rookie with how I was armed with such a basic spear and only a thick leather apron thing I tied around my chest and a collar to protect my neck.
"Dude, is it your first time or something?" A guy behind me wearing plate mail asked as I was walking down into the dungeon and between steps I said yes. "Huh, well in that case having a spear is a smart choice especially if you just stick to the first floor as the Goblins and Kobolds even if you just got your falna wont be an issue so long as you don't get ganged up on." The man said and then the rest of the walk was silent as although it was clear they were friendly people that obviously weren't going to babysit me or anything.
Coming into the first floor of the dungeon which consisted of rather thin tunnels that were like five meters wide and a bit taller with soft blue glowing lights dotting the walls I separated from the trail of adventures going deeper into the dungeon as I went into one of the side tunnels while marking on some paper the direction I was going so I didn't get lost.
"There's one." I muttered seeing the singular goblin literally bending over to look imperceptibly down a different hallway I took a deep breath as I approached the goblin that was looking down the tunnel and when my feet naturally alerted the goblin it whirled around and I saw how the goblin had three small like bladed horns on its head and its lower body was covered with a thick fur and being a dungeon monster obviously had glowing red eyes showing its connection to the dungeon.
The goblin screeched at me and then sprinted at me with its thin-fingered hands raised as it leaped at me, with its short four-foot-tall frame with its hands closing to obviously go for my neck. But the goblin was to put bluntly stupid as fuck as even as it brainlessly charged at me with only the intent of killing me I just had to angle the spear so it would ram into its own chest into the spear.
I grunted as the goblin's rib cage resisted the spear point for a second before breaking and my spearing pushed all the way through the goblin's chest and going out the back of it but even as my spear went through the goblin's lungs the monster only vomited blood freezing for a moment before its mind clouded by the dungeon just went right back to trying to kill me. So it literally slid down the length of my spear coating the wooden handle in its blood as it tried to get to me.
But a cracking noise rang out as I smashed the brick I had in my pocket space into the goblin's face and I both heard and felt its nose give way under the weight of the brick with my the force of my hand added to it and then as the goblin reared back with its eyes blinded by tears at its smashed nose I held the brick by the sides and slammed it into the goblin's throat and once again I felt bones and cartilage give way under the blunt force of the brick.
Finally, I managed to pull out my spear as the goblin held its neck as it couldn't breathe with its windpipe smashed, and then with a grunt I stabbed the goblin straight through the eye making it flail for a second before dropping still with the occasional shudder as its monstrous brain kept it active for but a couple of moments before stilling.
For a whole minute, I just got my breath back as I realized how that goblin even being only like some four feet tall was strong for its size... No wonder they said that dungeon goblins could kill an adult that was caught unaware. It was as strong as a good-sized human teenager but with it having zero care for its health and had all of its strength, unlike a human body that naturally limits it. A simple goblin was actually as dangerous as a rabid wolf or something.
Then as I stared at the corpse of the monster and took in its bare form and ignored its genitalia, I took a breath as I was momentarily lost on what to do. Should I cut open the goblin for a monster stone worth damn near nothing. Or...
Wordlessly I dumped the corpse of the goblin into my pocket space with my spear and then with a thought I combined them and the spear came out with the head of the spear becoming a tri-pointed blade similar to a goblin's head along with the handle of the spear becoming covered in the dense fur that covered the lower body of the goblin and I realized that the rough fur gave the spear an even better grip.
That wasn't all, as I held the spear, similar to my little pocket space window I could see in my mind I got a little prompt mentally that read. [Goblin's Bane- A spear born and made of a lone goblin wanderer.- Does additional damage to goblins, sucking goblin's blood heavily and other monsters much less while the blade is with their body, and the spear can be directly upgraded via the corpse of an Orc being fused into a spear.- Hidden Upgrade-1 {They shall know fear}- Kill one thousand goblins with only using the spear to naturally grant the spear the ability to heal the user from the blood of monsters it has absorbed and grant a small portion of the slain monster's strength to the user.}
I blanked looking at the spear for a moment before I sighed and I facepalmed as I realized joining a Familia if word of my weapons got out was going to be fucking impossible if they couldn't protect me.
'But if my weapons could naturally strengthen my body and stuff from simply killing monsters do I even need to join a Familia and have to deal with the whims of a god or goddess?' I thought before sighing and shutting down those thoughts as I heard the scratching of feet padding across the rough stone floor of the dungeon.
And with a short glance, I saw from down the tunnel the goblin was previously looking down a goblin walking towards my turn, and as the goblin took the turn I held the spear close to the blade and then brought it down on the surprised goblin pushing it through its collar bone and into its chest making it gurgle on blood as the tri-pointed spear went directly into its heart before I wrenched out my spear and backpedaled as the goblin weakly swung its arm at me claw at me and once its arm passed I stepped forward and with a crunching noise, I rammed my spear through its chest again but lodged it into its spine making it go limp as it died.
Checking my spear after I fused that goblin corpse I realized the so-called 'hidden mission' was actually hidden so it showing itself was probably to just show me such upgrades were possible. But either way, the blade of the spear had barely thickened, with the fur covering the length of the spear feeling a bit more uniform like how a dog or animal had a grain to their coats that you were supposed to pet them according too otherwise it would force up their hair.
After a moment of thought, I realized that either I needed to actually save some monster stones for the local currency of Valis or I would need to fuse some shit weapons I could sell off at like a pawn store or something.
"Dammit, the life of always needing money never ends," I muttered as I backtracked through the dungeon. As I knew staying here without more preparation wasn't wise as I needed to make some armor and other stuff so I could actually stay within the dungeon for a long while to take advantage of my ability to fuse monsters in peace with how surprisingly quiet the first floor was.