Chapter 10

Julia had explained to me that she'd been working on 'warming up' a girl for me for quite some time. Haruhime, apparently some kind of foxgirl, who was a timid thing forced into prostitution, whose goddess was planning on stabbing her with a magic item that would consume her soul - then breaking said item.

Part of me knew, just by hearing that story, that Julia had extremely malicious intent towards the goddess in question. She was probably going to kill her. I mentally ran through the possible consequences of it, even as Julia shifted from relaying the sob story to trying to give me dating advice, but honestly, I would have had to kill her to stop her from doing what she was going to do. I'd have to deal with the fallout no matter what, and presumably Julia would cover her tracks. "She's very sweet, but in canon, she had extreme androphobia that made her froth at the mouth when she saw even a man's collar bone. I don't actually know if that's the case here, goshujinsama."

"Wait, she's a prostitute, who gets sick from seeing men naked?"

"Well, she doesn't want to be a prostitute," Julia said, with a somewhat shy affect that said she knew the actual reason for my question.

"She's canonically a virgin, isn't she?" Fucking Japan.

"A girl's virginity is important, goshujinsama! I would have thought you, of all people, would know that," she added. "If you think it's not important, then I guess I can just go fuck whoever and lose it that way."

"You cannot," I said, without any heat or venom to my voice. Julia pouted at having failed to get me angry. "Is this Haruhime actually a virgin? Or is it different, since we're not in a Light Novel series?"

"Ah... I don't know, goshujinsama," she said. "It isn't like I could ask, and the canon Haruhime thought she had done things even though she hadn't." My sour look must have been showing on my face, because she clapped her hands sharply. "Let's focus, goshujinsama! Now that I've softened her up for you, you can talk to her yourself. I'll play your wing woman. If you successfully seduce her, then you can summon my soulmate and finally pop my cherry."

"I'd fuck your soulmate first." The girls were always summoned from very early in their respective stories, or even shortly before them, but I wasn't sure if Rei would be post-defloration or not. Canonically, she didn't even exist at the start of her story, and her getting fucked happened very close in time to her learning how great sex with men could be. I couldn't actually remember the chronology there. Oh well, I wasn't too particular. Her 'boyfriend' was a comical shithead to her in particular - literally gave a prostitute hundreds of dollars to become his exclusive girl, then treated Rei like a gofer. She hadn't even seen their relationship as really romantic, because, in short, she was a genderswapped clone of him and they fucked because they were horny teenaged idiots.

"Ah... would you do it right in front of me?" Julia licked her lips hungrily.

"I'd make you lick her clit as I fucked her," I told her, and Julia squirmed eagerly at the thought. "She's pretty much a pure dominant, too."

"Eh? You have a submissive side, goshujinsama?" Julia asked, blinking in surprise at that.

I enjoyed subbing when there was some element of unreality to it - like Noriko, who even when she was dominant was still cute as a button and easy to manhandle. If I knew I could turn the tables on the girl, it was fine. Otherwise, it kicked in my fight or flight. Bondage made me panic if I couldn't break free at will. "With other women," I said instead of all that.

"Oh, I see," Julia nodded, her eyes staring at me a couple seconds longer than strictly necessary. "You were willing to whore me out to beggars and day laborers, so if you want, I can-"

"I don't want you to be dominant with me," I interrupted. Julia was the type who I couldn't turn the tables on, if push came to shove, and it made her unappealing to me as a dominant. Well, maybe the 'lie back and let me do all the work' kind would be fine, but Julia was capable of that without the word dominant entering her vocabulary, and given the freaky stuff she was into, I doubted she'd interpret it that lightly. "I assume that, since you know the status of her virginity, there's some plot regarding her?"

"Oh, yes, goshujinsama," Julia said, her expression suddenly sharp and serious. "The Ishtar familia is planning to kill her in a way to put her soul in a stone, then shatter the stone. This has the expected result on her soul. We have some time, since Ais is still fifteen and canon only starts when she's sixteen." She then proceeded to further explain that the Ishtar familia had a Level Five serial rapist named Phryne among their number. For whatever reason, her stealth abilities seemed less effective against high level adventurers - they'd get the sense that someone was present. Presumably part of it was just a level difference, so in time she'd be able to catch up, but for the moment, she couldn't actually verify if Phryne was a rapist. Though, she did overhear some talk from some of the lower level members of the Ishtar familia that made it pretty clear they thought she was. "That isn't the same as being guilty, though, goshujinsama. Maybe it's just because she's ugly that they say cruel things like that."

I smiled a bit at that. More Julia's carefulness about murder than the possibility that the serial rapist was innocent. That didn't seem likely, since her metaknowledge had generally been proven well-founded thus far. "Still, I'd personally rather not find out by getting raped," I admitted. I could try using a Resplendent Destiny to get around in the Ishtar familia, maybe even help Julia investigate them, but from what she'd said, it seemed like Phryne selected her targets basically at random from hot guys, and I was now a hot guy (though, fortunately, I had not bought Love Spot).

"I don't think she..." Julia trailed off. "They do talk about her 'poaching' men... ah, but nobody would use the Ishtar familia if she ran around raping clients, would they?"

"They would," I said.

"They have forty percent of the income of the whole Entertainment District!" Julia protested. "How could people use them if they knew going there would get them raped?"

"From what you described, it sounds like they'd get raped anyway. Historically speaking, men of no woman are men of many women. How many adventurers are canonically happily married?"

Julia blinked a few times at that. "I... can't think of any," she admitted.

It was another anomaly regarding the subculture of the adventurers in this world, along with their lack of superstition - their lack of many romantic relationships. You could make excuses for any individual, but when people are constantly put into crisis situations, they tend to get married faster and earlier and easier. Better to get the living done while you still can, and all that. Yet, every adventurer I'd met so far was unmarried to the best of my knowledge. There were also plenty of female adventurers despite the job's extreme riskiness, so it wasn't like people were sex-segregated so they couldn't find such partners.

I could only come up with ridiculous explanations like, 'the falna reduces your sex drive in some abstract way' or... well, really, that was the best I had come up with. It was supposed to make you more like a god, and gods didn't reproduce, so maybe it reduced the drive to fuck? Just thinking the question over has me pointing out its myriad flaws - they use the Entertainment District, there are high-leveled rapists like Phryne (allegedly) so it can't just be a matter of level, maybe the Amazons are different for some reason, but they're just like the rest of us in that they need to reproduce to continue their species... you get the idea.

Somewhere in that mess of thoughts, the solution to the problem of how to get around Phryne came to me. "Oh. I can actually avoid getting raped by Phryne," I said, letting out a small sigh of relief.

"How, goshujinsama?"

"I'll show you. Close your eyes," I ordered, and Julia instantly did so, without the slightest hesitation. I took in a deep breath, and then created a Resplendent Destiny as a female member of the Ishtar familia. "Alright, open them," I said, and her expression was a frown as she heard my voice, turning into shock when she saw me.

"Why is a member of the Ishtar familia here?" She asked, glancing at the door. "We're in the Twilight Manor, you know. Did goshujinsama let you in? Ooo, has he mind controlled you? That would work well to get us in, but I don't think it's right to just mind control you freely, since you don't have much choice but to be part of the Ishtar familia, I bet."

"It's me, bitch. Drake." Julia squinted at that, and the illusion - at least for her - broke. She shook her head a couple times in realization, blinking rapidly. "It only breaks if I act out of character," I continued, shucking off the Resplendent Destiny entirely.

"Ah... that's an incredibly useful ability, goshujinsama. Can you become anything? I know of a lot of places that might be useful..."

"No, it's a pretty limited set." I didn't want her to know that I was fucking her as a wage laborer to satisfy her 'being whored out' kink. Plus I wasn't very interested in going with her on her death crusade against every villain in the entirety of Danmachi; I mostly just wanted to be strong enough to not be on the receiving end of the locals' bullshit. She could do that stuff on her own.

Julia just let out a sigh of disappointment.

* * *

I was in disguise as a female member of the Ishtar familia, and I mostly followed Julia's lead as she paid for some time with Haruhime. The amazons tittered a bit among themselves, seeming to believe that Julia was fucking Haruhime gauging by what I caught of their whispered conversations - lines like, "We have to serve that kind as well," or "She must do better with women than men," and so on. Technically the latter wasn't confirmation that Haruhime was a virgin. From what Julia had described, she canonically became physically ill when confronted with a naked (or partly naked) man - so maybe some guys kept on fucking her despite that.

When we arrived at Haruhime's room, I waited a moment outside, checking up and down the hall to ensure nobody was watching, and shucked off my destiny before entering. Julia sat down next to me as Haruhime set up tea, her eyes briefly widening as she saw me, before calming down. Her hands trembled just the tiniest bit as she poured the tea, something I probably wouldn't have noticed without my new enhanced senses.

I had pushed Julia to help me seduce other women in a search for power, but now that I was confronted with the woman she considered the easiest - a meek girl who had been forced to become a sex slave for what appeared to be one of the worst familias in Orario, and also one of the most powerful - I felt a certain guilt about it. "This is goshujinsama, I keep telling you about him all the time," Julia said, leaning over to rest her cheek on my shoulder, wrapping her arms around mine, perhaps sensing my tension.

"You do," Haruhime agreed quietly. There wasn't anything more to what she said than that. Perhaps a trace of a melancholic smile as she met my eyes for a moment. "I do enjoy our conversations," she finally settled on, glancing over at Julia. "But I know that this moment was always going to come. Ah, my apologies. You may address this humble servant as Haruhime," she said, bowing her head as she offered me a cup of tea.

I took it, sipping at it. I didn't really appreciate the flavor, and the caffeine would screw up my sleep cycle if I drank more than a little, so I put the cup down after drinking enough to be polite. "I'm not here for sex," I said. Her head instantly tilted back up, blinking at the statement. "I wouldn't be comfortable having sex with you." Haruhime looked down at herself, at me, at Julia, clearly having no idea why not. "I understand that you have no choice but to..." I trailed off, not really knowing the courteous way of saying 'get raped over and over as the sex slave of the Ishtar familia.' "I don't think you're wearing that collar as a fashion accessory, and where I come from, slavery is illegal."

"See?" Julia chimed in, playing my wingwoman immediately. "Goshujinsama is so kind."

"I don't think it's that kind to not rape somebody. It's just normal."

"He's so humble, too," Julia added, playing up the statement in an exaggerated fashion, teasing me with her words.

"If it is not to enjoy the pleasure of the flesh, then why have you come here?" Haruhime asked, her brow slightly furrowed. "Ah, apologies, goshujinsama," she said, bowing her head. "That was too presumptuous a question of this humble servant."

"Please, call me Drake. B- my wife calls me goshujinsama because she likes it. I wouldn't ask her to call me it otherwise."

Julia pouted at that. "You do lots of things to me that I don't like, goshujinsama."

"I don't know how that is even possible," I replied, earning a small smile from Haruhime at our byplay.

"Ah... well, for example, I asked you to call me the Prettiest Princess, but instead you call me bitch," Julia said. Haruhime seemed startled at that, but remained quiet.

"Dearest," I began, sarcasm lacing my voice. "Aren't you supposed to be on good behavior in front of Haruhime?"

Julia's mouth worked for a second, and she shook her head, turning her attention to Haruhime. "I'm sorry, when it's me and goshujinsama I get like this. I like it when he calls me names, and when he punishes me, so I say things like that to make him punish me. He doesn't call his other wives strange names like that, or punish them when they're bad, like he does me."

"You have always spoken well of him in the past," Haruhime agreed.

I remembered that she'd asked a question and then rapidly let it drop in an effusive apology, so I spoke up. "My wife has mentioned that she thinks that your life might be in danger."

"Is not any woman of the night's life in danger?" Haruhime asked, her voice almost chilling in its docile acceptance of her reality.

"I suppose so."

"I am a Level One adventurer," she said. "I am safer than the vast majority of women selling their bodies."

As she spoke, I took out a small notepad that I had brought with me. Haruhime had passively accepted her condition here, but in part that was a kind of learned helplessness - she was powerless, so accepting that powerlessness provided a sort of psychological security. Or something to that effect. I wrote down on the notepad:

Are you going to be a human sacrifice, to create magic items?

She stared quietly at the notepad for a few seconds. Her expression was... distant. There was a faint trembling to her body language. "Why do you ask?"

I'm worried about you.

She smiled melancholically at that. "I'm a prostitute - I don't need your worries, goshujinsama."

"I told you to call me Drake. And I don't care that you're a prostitute - no, the fact that you're a prostitute makes me care more."

"What a curious thing to say."

As I wrote, I paused for a moment to speak. "Prostitution is, for most women, a degrading, unpleasant, exhausting, terrible thing that is suffered through out of necessity." The amazons apparently mostly found it perfectly pleasant, and of course Julia was a completely off-the-rails masochistic sub so she liked being prostituted too. "If you suffer in one way, all the more reason to save you from suffering in others."

The destruction of a soul is the evilest thing possible - if this will happen to you, that's extremely bad, and I will go to any lengths I can to save you.

She blinked at the note more than at my words. Not a blink of shock or surprise, but of trying to rid her eyes of tears. "I appreciate your concern, but, a hero shouldn't concern himself with a prostitute. We are the ruin of heroes."

"That's bullshit. If you were sold into slavery here, and made to toil in the Dungeon or the mines instead of the brothel, would you be my ruin?" Haruhime quietly shook her head. "I'm not doing this because you're a woman. I know that my wife has been talking me up, probably suggesting seduction, whatever. She's like that. I'm worried about you because..." I trailed off like I didn't know what to do, and tapped with my pen at the destruction of a soul is the evilest thing possible.

She sniffled at that. "Thank you for your concern. I don't know of anything that will put my life at risk in the immediate future." In other words, she didn't think they had the killing stone yet. It must have been hard to acquire. Though, Julia had mentioned that she'd gotten a replacement from Hermes quite quickly? Perhaps her first purchase wasn't from Hermes, though, and instead a less competent, more discreet middleman.

I started writing again, while Julia shifted to hug the other girl, just wrapping her in a tight hug as I wrote out something quite long.

I'm from the Loki familia. I'm told that Ishtar plans to use the byproduct of your death to overthrow the Freya familia - obviously, the Loki familia doesn't want a familia stronger than Freya's to come onto the scene. I may be able to use that fact to help you, when the time comes.

"If anything does happen, tell Julia, immediately," I told her. I couldn't do much more for her now - I was a Level One. But we were leveling quickly, and we might be upwards of an entire year before Danmachi canon - and by extension, before Haruhime's scheduled execution. I let out a long breath. If this made Haruhime fall in love with me, fine, good, with the way my abilities worked, it would help us. If it didn't, also fine.

"May I see that?" She asked, pointing towards the notepad. She wrote in beautiful flowing strokes, in contrast to my kitchen scratch of somebody still trying to get used to writing the local alphabet properly (it was a one-to-one cipher with English, with similar characters, but different enough).

Are you worried for my life purely on behalf of your familia?

"No," I told her, taking the notepad back and writing quickly.

They're just another tool I have to save you, and I will do everything I can to do so.

She smiled, just this trace of a thing. I needed to go. "Could you turn around for a few seconds, Haruhime? I have to go."

She seemed confused by that, but diligently turned around. I wreathed myself in the cloak of an Ishtar familia member and left her and Julia alone. By a look up and down the hall, nobody seemed to be looking. Maybe I could just go find and kill Ishtar? That would save Haruhime, and with the timing... but killing her might break my Resplendent Destiny, and reveal me. Was I going to waste time and abandon her to immortal death to save my own skin? No, obviously not, but the actual safest way to save her soul would be to go back into that room and kill her myself, sending her soul straight on to the local afterlife, blameless. I wasn't going to do that, either.

I just left. Julia was more the self-sacrificing sort than me anyway, and didn't restrain herself for the sake of niceties - if she thought that just killing Ishtar would work, she probably would already have done so. She could turn invisible, too.

* * *

Ryu was washing the dishes when Syr approached her from one side, leaning around her to get a better look at her face. Ryu gave a dispassionate glance over at her friend. "I had a question," Syr said, once their eyes met. "You train with Erza and Cass, don't you?"

"I do," Ryu agreed. "And the nameless girl, as well."

Syr looked a tad sour at the mention of her, but didn't comment. "How strong are they?"

"Cass is an incredible fighter for a Level One. The nameless girl is too, and harder to deal with. Cass fights as though she knew your every move before you made it. The nameless girl fights with an array of bizarre weapons she summons at will, and they're hard to predict as a consequence." Syr hummed at that, her lips pursing. "I have great difficulty believing that Erza is a Level One."

"Oh?" Syr asked, some interest in her gaze.

"If I had to guess - I would have thought a Level Four, like myself."

Syr blinked a few times at that, her eyes widening. "That's very strong." There was a moment where she hummed thoughtfully, glancing down at Ryu's hands doing the dishes.

"If you want to help, you may feel free to," Ryu offered, making Syr take a quick step back.

"No, that's fine. I was just wondering - don't adventurers need a challenge to level up? Won't Erza hold back Cass?"

Ryu frowned at that, staring into the middle distance as she contemplated the question. It was the truth. Adventuring parties tended to be close together in level, because any mission that a Level Four was necessary for, a Level One was chaff for, and any mission a Level One would get any excelia from, a Level Four would curbstomp trivially. "I suppose she might."

"They are new to adventuring. Maybe they just don't realize," Syr said mildly, before considering their conversation done and prancing away before she could be made to help with the dishes. Ryu just quietly shook her head and returned her attention to her work.

* * *

Erza drew in heavy breaths as she knelt before Ryu, the stick-thin elf girl standing quietly in front of her. The Prettiest Princess had already been taken out of the fight, and Cassandra was behind her, gripping her side from a blow that Ryu dealt. Ryu's expression was blank, analyzing her, preparing for the next moment of the fight - Erza was deciding whether to continue the training session or not.

She decided to keep going, turning her kneeling position into a lunge, her own sword being deflected by Ryu's wooden blade, both shattering from the sheer force of their shudder, sharp movement. Ryu brought a foot round to kick at her face as wood splinters flew across the room, and she narrowly avoided the swift strike, reaching out for her other leg to grab it and hopefully knock Ryu off balance. Instead, Ryu twisted her body around, catching Erza's head in between her calves and twisting, flipping her body upside down and sending Erza hurtling through the air in the process. She slammed unceremoniously into the wall, and decided that that was quite enough. "I yield," she said, rising to her feet, her breathing a tad haggard. "You are a wonderful dueling partner, as always, Ryu."

"Thank you. You three make for excellent training partners, and I am glad to have the chance to polish my skills with you." She paused for a moment, still and silent. "Do you know why adventurers generally party only with others of the same level?"

"Because a group of friends fight and struggle alongside one another, resulting in their levels rising at a similar pace," Erza said. That was the obvious conclusion, after all.

Ryu blinked at that. "No. It is because one gains excelia in proportion to the difficulty of the tasks in front of one, relative to one's own ability. Someone of higher level is meant to fight greater things, and will only hold themselves back, fighting alongside those of lower level. You fight on the same level as me. I think that going into the Dungeon alongside Cass, Drake, and the nameless girl, you weaken all of your growth. But," she added, "perhaps it is better to spend time with your friends, than to level quickly." She idly considered the broken wooden sword in her hand at that thought.

"I see." Erza considered the question, but in truth, she had no real idea. She was used to training being a simple matter of throwing oneself wholeheartedly into the labor! The strange ways the falna were unintuitive to her, but more importantly - this was a question she should not consider alone. "Thank you for your advice, Ryu. You are a good friend." Ryu's eyes flicked up to Erza's, and there was a temporary twinge of a smile on her lips before it was banished.

"I wonder how true that really is," she said, idly. Erza, of course, did not let it end at that.

* * *

I was waiting outside the Dungeon, the trio's training session having gone long. I was considering spending some time on the first few floors with Noriko before they showed up. "I am sorry, Drake," she said. "It is my fault that we are late. Please, hit me!" She raised one hand in a clasped fist to her chest and lowered her head a few degrees. "I knew that I had a duty to arrive in a timely manner, but Ryu needed reassurance that her friendship was valuable. Nevertheless, it is my fault for remaining too long."

"Ah... goshujinsama, all your wives will be asking for punishment soon enough," Julia said.

"Erza, it's fine," I said. "I don't mind waiting a bit for you."

"I also do not mind waiting, as it meant that I was able to spend time alone with Drake, which is one of my favorite things to do." I patted Noriko's head - she barely came up to my pecs, since I was so tall and she was so short. She didn't respond other than to glance up at me with some curiosity in her owlish eyes.

"There is a matter I wished to speak with you - with all of you! - about." She explained to me what Ryu had told her, about how leveling up would go slower if the people were uneven in power. Those who were too strong would hold back the rest by dealing with problems for them, and those who were too weak would hold back their betters by forcing them to remain on lower levels. "I do not relish the thought of being separated from my friends, but, if it is necessary to become stronger..." Her lips quivered on her face in an extremely cute fashion as she lowered her head.

We talked for a bit, and I was the one who ultimately suggested what we wound up doing - a one-off experiment in it, to see if it would result in us leveling faster. Normally, I gained maybe five to ten stat points per day, so I had a pretty good idea of how quickly my stats should be rising in the Dungeon. If I gained more, then it was worth thinking about seriously - if I didn't, then it wasn't.

I also suggested that Erza could perhaps invite Ryu into the Dungeon to act as her partner, so she didn't have to adventure alone - the moment we were done talking, she charged off to the Hostess of Fertility on her lonesome.

* * *

I was shirtless in Loki's room again, her ichor dripping on my back for a moment. She let out a low whistle. "Had a productive day in the Dungeon, huh?" She asked, pressing the paper to my back then peeling it off. before presenting the results to me.

Strength: G294 → F306

Endurance: G258 → G268

Dexterity: F342 → F358

Agility: F393 → E414

Magic: I0 → I0

Essence: H → H

Skills:

Duck Fate

Favorable Inflection Procedure

Avoiding the Truth Technique

Unnatural Many-Stepped Stride

Maw of Dripping Venom

The stat increases were higher than usual, by a longshot. The smallest was ten points, for Endurance, my worst stat - the highest was over twenty, a number I had literally never achieved before. I'd also grabbed a new skill. It wasn't as if we had been particularly at risk, either.

"Was it something bad?" Loki asked, groping my pecs as I looked at the sheet, perhaps detecting my melancholy.

"We separated from Erza." I needed to level up quickly, and we hadn't found ourselves in any particular danger. That meant that we would probably be adventuring separately from Erza for the near future, at least.

"Oh, you'd better send her down here to get a status update too, see if she got a boost in status from that," Loki said, sounding excited for it. "But - what's Maw of Dripping Venom?" She frowned slightly as she glanced down at my back. "Kind of annoying none of your Skills seem to ever have descriptions."

"Oh. It's a barehanded strike that poisons the target," I explained. I'd been practicing the rudimentaries of the March of Spiders style, and apparently I had managed to piece enough of it together in my brain to actually do it. I had been thinking over it, sure, but I hadn't been sure the technique I had actually worked, since I wasn't particularly enthused to use it.

It did more than just poison people, after all. It sends them in a coma you can eat their soul in. I didn't mention that to Loki for many, many reasons.

Loki's fingers trailed along my naked chest, her chin perching on my shoulder. It was a strange parody of intimacy, the way she curled against my back like that. "I'm curious how far down Erza got without you - maybe I can pair her off with some higher level members," she said. "I'm sorry you won't be spending as much time down with Erza. You'll just have to comfort yourself with your harem of four beautiful women that love you and don't get jealous."

"Have to deal with a lot of jealousy among your women?" I teased.

She scoffed at that. "I'm a god, mortal. Remember that. It's only natural that I would have a vast harem. One might say that the entire familia is my harem."

"Only if one was interested in telling absurd lies." I rose from the bed, stretching for a moment, letting Loki enjoy an eyeful. I grabbed my shirt and pulled it on, stepping out of the room to find Erza waiting patiently - and Julia too. That was odd. She didn't come down to get her status updated that often.

"Ah, goshujinsama, since we probably leveled faster, did you finally develop that special new sex technique?" She asked, her expression lighting up with interest. I rolled my eyes. Of course that was why she was actually here.

"No," I replied. "Unless you want me to have sex with your unconscious body while you're in a days-long coma." Julia seemed to genuinely consider the question, and I just shook my head and moved on. As we walked through the halls, I noticed Ais staring at me when we passed her. I paused for a moment, making Julia just thump right into my back. "Something the matter?"

Ais was quiet for a few seconds, her eyes staring into my sternum for a few seconds. "No."

I didn't want to be accusatory. Despite Julia talking her up as a sexy knight of justice, she seemed... dim, if I was being honest. This way of just going off in her own little world, it made her come off as ditzy. "You seem interested in me somehow?"

"I was wondering..." she trailed off. "Would you like to train?"

"I just got back from the Dungeon," I said. Also, I was pretty sure that she was a training maniac like Cass, and I was willing to spend hours in the Dungeon, not getting beat up by Level Fives. "I need to rest."

"Oh. I see. Have a nice rest."

"I'll do that," I said, giving her as warm a smile as I could manage.

* * *

Riveria was enjoying some truly well-brewed tea in her office, drinking in the scent before taking a long sip. She noticed Ais enter the doorway, the quiet gaze that she was getting from the girl she'd known from her childhood - and then Ais spoke. "I want to learn how to love a man."

Riveria choked and sputtered at the same time, the tea flying out of her mouth at the absolutely horrific question. Ais was far too innocent to be asking questions like that already - she was only fifteen! She had to keep her cool, though. She calmed herself down. She had to find out who had corrupted Ais. Was it Loki? No, Loki would never share... "What are you asking about that for, Ais?"

"I have a man I want to love."

She'd fallen for someone? Riveria hadn't seen her hanging around with any new men. It couldn't be Finn, could it? No, no. Maybe Bete? It had better not be. "I see," Riveria responded, shifting her weight in her chair, leaning forward and lacing her fingers together, doing her best to look like the stern mother figure that she knew she was to Ais. "And what man would this be?"

"Drake Holt."

"That!" Riveria sputtered for a moment, before shaking her head and gathering her senses. "He only just joined the familia, and he has four women already! What could possibly attract you to him?!" She was standing up, now, her weight half balanced by her palms slamming down against her desk. This was outrageous. That man - he had plenty enough women! He didn't need to seduce any more!

"He and his wives have already been to the fifth floor."

Riveria blinked at that, then straightened up, crossing her arms. Loki hadn't mentioned that to her - did she not know? Not consider it important? Worry that she'd get overprotective of the new familia members like she had once tried to protect a young Ais? Ais had been seven. This man - this cad - he was twenty-nine by his own accounting, he could go die for all Riveria cared, especially now that he was corrupting her Ais. "You can be impressed all you like without loving him."

"They're leveling up so quickly because they love him," Ais explained. "I also want to level up more quickly."

"I..." Riveria squinted at Ais. Sometimes Ais was bad at conversations. A lot of the time, actually. She was bad at keeping in mind what other people knew or thought about. "Explain it better."

Ais related a whole story about her training with Cass, what Cass had told her, about how her love for Drake made her and her co-wives gain excelia more quickly than normal. Riveria increasingly understood the reason for Ais's bizarre question and understood perfectly well that she was in no actual danger of being seduced, simply being her usual oblivious self.

"Ais..." Riveria sat back down, the tension leaving her body. "Just because someone says something like that, doesn't make it true. People talk about true love conquering all constantly, but I'd sooner trust a Level Seven to conquer all than a pair of lovers. Love helps, in that it makes your team tighter, but that's it. Since you're stronger than them, it wouldn't benefit you at all."

"She seemed to believe it was a special thing," Ais told her.

"Everyone believes their love is special. Forget about it and focus on your training instead, trust me. You won't gain any benefit from that man. In fact, you'll gain quite a lot of detriment!"

Ais hesitated a moment, then nodded. "Alright."

When she left, Riveria let out a sigh of relief and went back to her tea. That girl... she did worry about her. Still, she'd see soon enough that whatever benefits that group had, weren't some mystical thing, but circumstance and luck. It was just easier to gain excelia when you were a tight-knit team of people who knew each other and cared for one another - that was true whether you were a Level One or a Level Six.

It wasn't as if you'd get the same benefits adventuring independently.

* * *

At the top of the Babel Tower, the whole of Orario was visible. So long as one wasn't shadowed beneath an awning or indoors, one could be seen from there, at least so long as the viewer's eyes were sharp enough to make one out. Freya could have surveyed the whole rotten teeming mass of Orario from there, but she instead focused on the beautiful, entrancing soul that had captured her attention so fervently. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

She idly played with her hair, rolling it around and around her fingers as she peered down at the duo engaged in their training together, one fighting the other. A golden pyre of a soul, clashing with the inferior combatant - but that inferior combatant was the one who she was truly interested in. That pure soul seemed to have come polished to a shine, a transcendent beauty to it that was hard to describe, translucent in the way it took in everything around it. Accepting. Caring. Loving.

Her lips squirmed unpleasantly on her face as she remembered her encounters with that soul's owner. The wineglass in her hand trembled, but she calmed herself. It had not gone well, but she would find a way into that closed-off heart in time.

She toyed with the name for the hundredth time, saying it aloud yet again. "Cassandra Cain."