Chapter 01

Chapter 01 - Stealing the Firebolt Grimoire.

Third Person POV -

"A book on magic?!" exclaimed a boy, not older than 15, with surprise and excitement in his voice.

"Yes, a customer left it here, so you can take it to learn a bit about the magic you've been wanting to understand! You've always complained about not increasing this type of stat; maybe this will help you. Just return it after reading, Bell-kun," said the beautiful gray-haired waitress, Syr Flova, as she handed over a peculiar book to the young adventurer with white hair.

"Really?! Sure, thank you very much, Miss Syr!" replied the boy, very excited. As he held the book in his hands, he seemed genuinely happy with the prospect of learning more about magic since he didn't have any spells at the moment, and he couldn't increase his status using Falna since he was still at zero.

"Maybe this will really help me!" he thought to himself while studying the book's cover for several seconds.

Bell then bid farewell to the waitress and began running back to the old abandoned church, where he and his goddess lived alone. Meanwhile, a girl in front of the famous bar, Hostess of Fertility, watched the adventurer running through the streets of Orario with a malicious glint in her amethyst-colored eyes. However, her expression quickly shifted when she heard an authoritative voice.

"SYR! Get back inside and start working! Customers are starting to arrive, and we're about to open!" a voice from inside the PUB shouted, causing the girl to lose her composure and rush inside in a fluster.

Meanwhile, Bell continued running with joyful thoughts, realizing that he had entered the Orario slums and was getting close to the abandoned church. However, while he was lost in his thoughts, he collided with someone without noticing. As an adventurer, he had a much stronger body than the other person, who seemed to be an ordinary civilian, causing the person to fall to the ground like a ragdoll.

"SORRY! NO!... I MEAN... I'M SORRY ABOUT THAT!" Bell quickly exclaimed, realizing that he had unintentionally knocked someone over, and rushed to help.

"Are you alright?" Bell asked, concerned, as he extended a hand to help the fallen person up.

Bell helped the man up, but he was still worried about this ordinary person. He had come to Orario with the goal of becoming a hero and didn't want to harm regular people.

Bell noticed that the man, who appeared to be in his early twenties like most of the waitresses he knew, got up with his assistance and brushed some dust off his clothes. He turned to Bell and gave a shy smile. Bell noticed that the man was dressed poorly and smelled rather unpleasant, but he was too preoccupied with the idea of hurting someone unintentionally to pay attention to these details.

"It was nothing, but I must admit, you're quite strong, young adventurer. Are you, by any chance, an adventurer?" the man asked without a hint of anger, and Bell was relieved by that. He had been blaming himself for the incident, but the man in front of him didn't sound angry, and he responded with enthusiasm.

"Yes, I am, at Level 1, but I'll reach new heights soon! Still, I apologize for that!" Bell bowed to the commoner.

"It's alright, young adventurer. Alright... I can continue on my way now. Thank you for your help, young adventurer," the man said in gratitude and started walking in the opposite direction.

"Goodbye, take care!"

Seeing that the man was fine as he walked through the slum streets, Bell bid farewell and continued to run towards the abandoned church.

Upon entering the church, he announced his presence as enthusiastically as possible.

"Goddess Hestia! Goddess Hestia!" he called out to his goddess multiple times, his voice filled with excitement.

"Hmm? What's going on, Bell-kun? Did something happen to make you so happy?" Hestia appeared in the hallway, narrowing her eyes at her Bell, who seemed so excited while calling out to her.

"Could it be that Bell did something to that Aiz Valllen-whatever-her-name-is?" she thought angrily. Hestia didn't want Bell getting close to the adventurer from the Loki Familia since he gained that strange ability. Bell was developing because of that girl without even realizing it, as he kept it a secret from his goddess.

"Goddess Hestia, I managed to borrow a book to learn about magic!" he said excitedly.

"A book? Let me see it, where is it?" she asked curiously about the book Bell had obtained.

"Here!" he said, holding his hands out in front of

his goddess, but it was at that moment that Bell noticed there was nothing in his hands.

"EHH?" Bell exclaimed in confusion, seeing only empty air where there should have been a book.

"EHHHHHH!?" an even louder and more alarmed scream escaped him, as the young adventurer realized that he had just discovered he had lost the borrowed book.

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A Certain Goddess's POV

At the top of Babel Tower.

"WHAT HAPPENED?!" a voice said angrily. A voice that was usually heard in a sensual tone, but it seemed to have lost all its composure at the moment.

"Goddess Freya? Did something happen? May I ask why you're so angry?" said a muscular man who entered the room as soon as he heard his goddess roar in anger.

It was a rare occurrence for something like this to happen since his goddess had welcomed him and he joined her family, something that had happened decades ago. Usually, his goddess had control over every situation, and seeing her like this left him equally furious. He would do anything to destroy anyone who put Freya in this state.

"Something isn't right here... I don't need your help yet, Ottar, but be prepared for when I call you," Freya warned with a bit more calmness in her tone, but her aura of anger still lingered in her voice.

"As you wish, Goddess Freya," he said, leaving the room.

Freya continued to observe the adventurer's despair as he searched for the lost book in his arms. This was the boy she had taken an interest in a week ago, and she wanted to see his development. His soul was pure white, with incredible potential, unlike any she had ever seen in her long mortal life.

However, the grimoire she had planned to give him to learn a spell had inexplicably disappeared while he was returning home. She always had control over everything, and this event had angered her more than anything had in the last decade.

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A Certain Grimoire Thief's POV

Elsewhere, a few kilometers from the same abandoned church, in an alley in the midst of Orario's slums.

A young man with short blond hair, apparently in his early twenties, with a star on his forehead, leaned against a wall out of sight of others. He was sitting down, reading a strange book.

This man was the same one who had collided with Bell some time ago. He intentionally pretended to fall so that Bell wouldn't notice when he stealthily took the grimoire. While the future "the rookie" helped him up, he secretly stole Bell's grimoire without his knowledge.

It's not that this young man enjoyed doing this, but it was necessary. Memories from another world had flooded his mind just over a week ago, and he had been living a miserable life as a result of some events. When the memories came, a system with a wretched mission appeared for him as soon as he became conscious, making his life even worse.

"I thought my arrival in this world would be peaceful... But that damn God must have done it on purpose. Not only do I remember my past life with only 21 years, the age I died on Earth, I was given the worst possible mission to start the system. It was a unique opportunity, and it made me live a miserable life..." He had been frustrated with these thoughts for days.

He no longer had any money and nowhere to sleep until now. Unfortunately, he looked like a complete beggar while sleeping in the streets of Orario. His clothes weren't torn, but they were covered in dirt.

While reading the book, the grimoire suddenly glowed, and all its contents disappeared, leaving the book with blank pages.

"It's just like in the anime, finally! HAHA," he exclaimed happily.

"One week! One week of living like a beggar in this place, doing whatever I could to get money and food, but in the end, I managed to grab the book as planned!" he thought, frustrated, as he looked at the screen that appeared in front of him.

[Spirit Mana System]

[Status: Locked, Reason: Complete the Initial Mission]

[Initial Mission: Learn a Spell without Interacting with Any Gods!]

[Reward: System Activation]

[Punishment: If you speak to any god during this time, the system will be locked forever.]

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My name is Lucius Drakenar, and in a way, I've been in this world with my memories for a week through the cycle of reincarnation. When I died in my previous life, on a world called Earth, I went to a cosmic place and met a higher being, something called a Creator. I was fortunate that he chose me to reincarnate into a world of his choice, in this case, a world I thought was just an entertainment story.

Upon learning which world I would be coming to for a second chance, I had the right to make only one wish. Without wasting any time, I chose to have infinite energy to use spells with a system to acquire new spells. With infinite mana in a magical world, I believed I could easily rise to the top. Or so I thought.

Of course, he didn't want to grant me the system and the condition because he claimed it was two wishes, something I managed to persuade him to agree to after five minutes.

When I finally found myself in this world with my memories, I discovered I was in the body of a man the same age and with the same name I had in my past life. Receiving his memories, I was furious about my current situation. In the world of Danmachi, he or another version of him without memories was born into a family of a god in the city, a mid-sized family with a Level 4 Captain as its highest-ranking member, while the family's average level was 2. However, Lucius from this world had never progressed much since joining the family, even after two years. His status points had never exceeded Rank I.

This made him the laughingstock of his entire family, the weakest and most useless among them. He even had a relationship, which ended even before he was expelled, with another half-elf adventurer from the same family who was Level 2. After that, it didn't take long for his own god to send him away since he no longer saw much hope in Lucius and deemed him a waste of resources. Not to mention that he had become a joke among the close-knit circle of other gods.

Lucius had been thinking about this for a year, never understanding why his talent was so poor or why his stats remained so close to that of an adventurer who had just picked up the Falna. He had spent his life striving harder than anyone in the family, risking his life and spending entire nights on the first floors of the dungeon to try to increase his strength. But all his efforts had been in vain so far.

It was a painful memory to be scorned by everyone and hear them talk about how useless he was—a bitter feeling that still lingered in his mind. However, losing his Falna was even worse because something like this rarely happened in the city. But when it did, it was a death sentence for any adventurer's career.

Dissolving a family was one thing, but being expelled from one was something else entirely. No god would have confidence in an adventurer who had been kicked out of his previous family. No divine being would accept him anymore. So

on the day of his expulsion, he felt depressed at first and was ready to leave the city. But his memories of life on Earth finally merged with the Lucius who was born in Danmachi.

With the two sets of memories now fused, he found that Lucius Drakenar from Earth and Lucius Drakenar from Danmachi were not different people—they were the same person. The only difference was that his current appearance was different from the one in his previous life. At this moment, he looked identical to Julius Novachrono, the Magic Emperor of Black Clover, but he still had the same personality he had in his previous life.

However, with these memories, he also discovered that with his wish for infinite energy without being able to enter Mind Zero, the system had blocked his potential growth until he reached the age at which he died on Earth. When he realized this, he awakened his old life, and the memories he had lived until now finally merged, something that had happened a week ago.

When the memories merged, Lucius became even more frustrated with his situation. He couldn't have a Falna because he was marked with the Falna of another god who had expelled him from the family. But when he was sinking into depression and sadness about his luck, knowing that having infinite mana/mental energy was useless without a Falna that would allow him to grow, a system screen suddenly appeared in the midst of his tears and curses, presenting an initial mission.

He quickly perked up, but when he saw that the initial mission challenged him to learn a spell without interacting with any gods in the city, he became somewhat frustrated, imagining the difficulty. This would limit him severely in a place like Orario, where more gods resided among mortals than anywhere else in the world. Moreover, he had to learn a spell in this time frame, and speaking to any other adventurer could draw his god's attention. He needed a freaking grimoire, something entirely beyond his reality.

He spent the entire week without money since he couldn't access banks due to the presence of gods, and he couldn't approach wealthy people and ask for money because that would lead him to encounter gods in the city's wealthiest area. So he did everything he could to eat and avoid gods.

Then Lucius planned to steal the grimoire that would give Bell the Firebolt spell. When he discovered Bell's timeline, taking Bell's grimoire would be the best way to learn a spell, and it gave him hope.

Even without knowing what would happen and having nowhere to return to, as his family lived in an empire on the other side of the sea, he did everything to survive during this time alone and complete the mission.

"But I finally did it! It was a risk for Freya to have seen me taking the grimoire, but it worked out in the end. I promise to reward you someday, Bell! I swear!" Lucius said happily.

While he celebrated, recalling his difficult time of hunger and sleeping in the alleyways of the slums, a screen appeared in front of him.

[Initial Mission: Learn a Spell without Interacting with a God, Completed!