DanMachi 35

After arriving home, from the day-long dive of acquiring my shiny new skills, I prepared to fall down onto the bed and sleep for the whole day. Not even my stamina regeneration could compensate for all the mental fatigue I was feeling. I wasn't sure why, but the [Observational Learning] skill was exhausting me quite hard, or maybe it was just the fact that I learned 38 skills with it.

Just as I was preparing to pull off my top, loud footsteps could be heard from the stairs, quickly closing on my door, and that's when I realized the world won't let me take a break, as it had other plans for me.

Someone unceremoniously kicked the door off its hinges and ran into it. The dark curly haired beauty looked at my tired visage and started yelling.

"We need to go!" I groaned at Olive, not moving a muscle. "We were attacked, Haruhime is missing and Lili was hurt!" That statement made me raise an eyebrow.

The enchantments I gave them should hold even against something similar to my level, even then, they could have sent a distress signal, even if they didn't have it Olivia could have just contacted me through her ring.

"Is Lili okay?" I ask concerned.

"She's fine, I gave he a potion already, she's downstairs recovering."

"Okay, what happened? Why didn't you call me through the ring?" I ask, my tiredness forced to disappear in an instant.

Her eyes widen and her demeanor quickly shifts into that of a shy girl, she fidgets around and answers. "In the heat of the moment, I might have forgotten about the ring..."

I could only facepalm... Then sigh and add. "Okay explain what happened..."

She collects herself and starts explaining. "We were out shopping and then a group of eight attacked us. Four Pallums, two elves, one cat person, and a violent large guy that could transform into a beast. While I fought them and at the same time tried to defend Lili, the cat guy knocked out Haru then grabbed her and ran away."

"The fuck?" I start thinking, just from their races, I could only think of Freya, as her executives matched the ones mentioned. I focus on Haruhime's pendant and get a ping of her location and find it two rooms to the right.

"The fuck, she left her pendant at home?!" I ask out aloud in my utter amazement, then look at Olive.

"What did you expect?! It's too large just to run around with it all day."

"Fuck, I'll have to reshape it into something they can wear all the time. Okay, give me a sec." I close my eyes and cast [Celestial Eyes], spreading out a bubble of mana that washes over all of Orario, reaching all the way to the clouds. Filtering the data only took a moment, but the spell gives me the information I requested.

"She's on the top floor of the Tower." I say grimacing at that information. "We need to be quick."

"I'm ready when you are!" She says, grabbing my hand.

"We will appear in Freya's apartment, there are 4 people there, not counting Freya and Haruhime."

"Are we going to take them out?" She asks.

"Yea, take care of them quickly, I'll cast a shield on Haru."

I focus on the location and without any fanfare appear inside the apartment right next to Haruhime, a quick snap of my fingers creates a [Spatial Barrier] around her, shielding her from all damage. I rise my sword over my head, just in time to intercept a descending blade.

The shockwave created by the impacts shakes the foundation of the tower, creating large cracks all over the apartment, and blasting half of the ceiling off.

"Nice sword." I say genuinely impressed it didn't shatter from the impact with mine. To further my testing, I infuse a minimal amount of mana into my sword, and like a hot knife through butter, even without additional force, my sword starts cutting through Ottars.

Picking up on what's happening he swiftly pulls it back and halts his attacks.

"Nice welcoming ceremony." I say and giving a glance toward the corner of the room, looking at the invisible guy in the corner. Sorcerer's mana sense picks up his location straight up. For testing purposes, I activate [Observational Learning] and keep it running.

Allen Fromel, the vice-captain of the Freya familia exits the shadows and greets us with a bow.

"My sincere apologies, we needed to know if the rumors are true." He says, then look in the direction of Olive who has two heavily bleeding elves by her feet. "Our goddess would like to have a talk with you two."

"You realize that kidnapping one of our people is not the best way to call us over for a chat." I point out.

"We tried contacting you in various ways, but your ability to appear and disappear makes it quite difficult to locate you." He says and Ottar grunts agreeing with him.

"Allan Dear, let me do the talking." Freya says walking into the ignoring the destruction and her downed followers.

The two remaining guys, walk up to her side, to serve as bodyguards. She was wearing a risqué dress, showing a lot of leg and cleavage. Each of her steps, gave a glimpse of her perfect tights, while the gap in the back of her skin-tight dress, gave a nice glimpse of her ass and back, she freezes in her step as she looks at me.

"Your soul is even more remarkable, now that I see it up close, bright as the sun, not a single spec of black." She mumbles, then collects herself. "Andrew Thompson it's a pleasure to finally met you." She says giving me a million-dollar smile, and at that moment my [Mind Arts] barrier shook like never before, giving me a light headache. She turns towards Olive and greets her as well.

"If you want to keep your head, stop using your charm." Spat Olive, with anger visible on her face.

"Yeah, I would appreciate it if you stopped doing that..." I comment and the expression on Freya's face just for a moment shifts to a grimace.

"Oh that's interesting, you are immune to my charm." She says moving towards the sofa which was covered with rubble. "Ottar dear, would you be a sweetheart and clean this up." Ottar grunts and swings his blade, lifting all of the rubble and disposing of the dust from it. "Thank you, dearie." She says before sitting down not quite the most modest way. She sits there, with her legs spread apart, while her top barely covers her chest. Her left-hand reaches for it, and slowly brushes a finger over the exposed part of her cleavage. She looks up at me and smiles brightly, just before I receive an elbow to the ribs, I turn to Olive, and notice her annoyed and angry glare. I give her an apologetic smile and turn back to the now visibly annoyed goddess.

"Yeah, sorry about that," I say waving at the whole scene. "but whatever you're attempting here, isn't happening." She clicks her tongue, then snaps her fingers. Making Otter shift his form and instantly move to engage us, but before he can even take two steps. Olive appears before Freya, holding a muscular and furry arm in her hands. She lets go of it and just as it impacts the ground, a loud thud was heard, not from the arm, but from a cat hitting the ground.

While everyone was occupied, I straight-up assassinated the assassin's ass. [Blink] deposited me right behind the cat guy, then a swift strike of my sword aimed at his neck, made the guy's head fly through the apartment, hitting the ground a few meters away. He was decapitated before he could even move a muscle. After that, for a good measure, I ended the lives of the other two elves laying on the ground, already half-dead.

[Cat Person (Level 6) slain 600 XP Received]

[Dark Elf (Level 6) slain 600 XP Received]

[Elf (Level 6) slain 600 XP Received]

Hmm, from the information the system gave, one of them was a dark elf, I touch the blood on the floor flowing out of the darker-skinned elf and focus a creating a race card.

[Dark Elf]

+2 DEX, +2 AGI, +3 PER, +1 VIT +1 CHAR per Global Level

- Skills, abilities, and spells, relying on shadow or darkness affinity, have their costs reduced by 3/4.

- Gain perfect vision in darkness.

- The user's lifespan is extended by 500 years.

I pull out a few strands of hair and deposit it into my inventory, maybe Olive would like this class. I shrug and look back at the events unfolding on the other side of the room.

Ottar, was on the floor, missing his right arm, his left hand squeezing the stump in an attempt to stop blood from leaking out. It seems Olivia has even cut his Achilles tendons, the poor guy was attempting, but couldn't stand up. Freya was shocked and with wide eyes looked at Olive who had a blade pressed against her neck. The goddess took a good look at the white blade radiating out waves of unimaginable power, then turned her eyes toward Olive.

"I was wondering what happened to Ishtar, but finally I have my answer." She says a cheeky smile on her face. She licks her lips and pulls off the side of her dress, and the dress just disintegrates, exposing her perfect body to the world. Making my [Mind Arts] shields vibrate from all the pressure. "All of this," she says in a slurry voice and waves her hand at her body. "could be just yours." I can feel her charm, or at least the thought of having her as my plaything affecting me, well at least my lower half. I look to the side in an attempt to break her spell, then I hear Olivia's annoyed grunt. I clear my throat and say.

"Her knowing about it is going to bring some trouble, additionally, the explosion at the start of this..." I rise my hands and make an air quote gesture "... 'meeting.' Was noticed by a lot of people. There are fifty guards coming this way."

"So what should I do?" Asks Olive giving me an awkward look.

"I say fuck it, let's end them both and rush through the dungeon as fast as we can, then leave this world. People will find out we were behind all of this, you guys were 100 percent seen by someone before you ran home."

"WAIT!" yells out Freya in fear and in shock that her attempt to tempt me has failed. "I'll keep my mouth shut! Just don't take this away from me!" She adds fake tears that start running down the side of her cheeks, while she begs us to let her go.

"Yeah, fat chance." I say before I cut off, the still floored giant's head, who was just moments away to spring into action, but his full attention was pulled away by Freya's body. His transformation ended about ten seconds ago, and the fatigue caused by it set in, which caused him to react a millisecond too late. I bend down and rip out some of his hair, then place it in my inventory, I don't have time to create a race card right now.

[Boaz (Level 7) slain 700 XP Received]

I turn to Olive and give her a nod, no words are spoken between us, before she brought down her blade on the begging goddess of sex. Separating her head from the rest of her body.

Divine energy started violently reacting in our surroundings, sending waves of raging energy outwards, lightning arched from her body going through anything it touched, dematerializing furniture, destroying the apartment and even attempting to eradicate us. I grab onto Olive, [Blink] us under the shield, that surprisingly still held strong. The fully aware Haruhime watching the events unfold, almost from the moment we arrived, I grab her shoulder and together with Olive, [Blink] us quickly to our home's backyard.

Just as we appear in our garden, an earsplitting explosion shook the town. All three of us look in the direction of the tower and find the top three floors missing. That wasn't the only surprise, three additional rays of divinity shoot up straight into the heavens. Notifying everyone in town that three more gods have died.

"Shit, this is going to be big." I say and turn to Olive. "Get into the kitchen and grab a few days' worths of food." She nods and runs into the house. I turn to Haruhime. "Tell Hestia, we will come back as soon as we hit the next level. We probably won't be staying home, from this point on." I say and I pet her head. "If people find out it was us, tell them everything you saw, don't lie to them. Okay?"

A tear travels down her cheek, and she nods, but otherwise stays quiet. Olive fully equipped for the dungeon dive runs out of the house.

Checking my UC amount I take out Valis in the equivalent of 90 UC and place it in front of the fox. "Some living expenses for the time being. Share it with the others." I pat the head of the little fox again. "We'll head out now. See you later Dancing Fox." I say with a smile and hear a giggle escape from her lips.

Olivia gives a hug to the poor girl and then joins my side, and after a quick blink, we quickly appear at the safety point on the 72h floor.

"Can't we do something so they don't find out about us?" Asks Olive turning to me.

"We could mentally manipulate people, remove their memories, but that won't work, because there are too many people that know you guys had a scuffle with the Freya familia." I say. "Plus people will start wondering where Freya disappeared and what happened in the Tower."

Olive sighs. "Don't you find it funny, how we took out two gods who were in charge of the red light district?"

"Hah!" I let a laugh escape not even realizing it. "Yeah, people will start wondering if someone is targeting the ones in charge of it. That might pull their attention and buy us some much-needed time."

She sighs and but her expression quickly changes. "So I guess, I'll get that vacation quicker?" I can't help but allow a light laugh to escape my mouth.

"Yeah, we get to level ten quickly and I'll take you to a world I know you'll enjoy." I pull her into a one-handed hug and pat her head. With all that out of the way, I check the three blinking notifications I've been ignoring.

[Skill: [Strong Body] unlocked.]

[Skill: [Hidden Shadow] unlocked.]

[Skill: [Charm] unlocked.]

[Strong Body LVL: 1/120]

- Increases Strength, Vitality, P. Res, and M. Res stats by 1 for every two levels of this skill.

[Hidden Shadow LVL: 1/100]

- Allows the user to merge with the shadows making him invisible to the naked eye.

[Charm LVL: 1/100]

- Allows the user to always sounds reasonable, trustworthy, and easily persuade entities around him.

- Chances of success 0.1%*(Charisma).

"Holy shit!" I say out loud.

"What?" She looks up at me in confusion.

"You know I have a skill, that allows me to learn other skills by watching them in action?" She nods. "Well, I picked up three of them while we were at Freya." I say with a wide smile. "It seems even development abilities can be learned this way." She rises her eyebrow and checks my status on her own.

"You do have quite a few skills now." She says giving me a deadpan look.

"Yeah, but I do plan on combining a few of them using the Skill Merger System we will buy after exiting the world."

"Oh, you didn't mention that one." She tilts her head to the side. "I get that it allows you to merge skills, but what does it precisely do?"

"It allows us to merge multiple skills into one, but only if they are compatible. For example, you can't merge a Sound skill with a let's say Space related one, but you might be able to merge ice and fire skills, as both control temperature, but I'm not sure how it works, I'll have to experiment with it." I shrug. "When two or more skills merge, the new skills level is reset to 1, and the experience required to level them is increased by the number of skills invested. So let's say you merge two level 20 normal skills, the new one becomes level 1 and the experience needed to level it up becomes twice the normal."

"So what if you merge two already merged skills?"

"I don't know, from the description I remember, it doesn't say, but knowing the system it probably adds their experience cost together." I shrug and take a breath then continue. "There is no risk involved in merging, and the rewards are too great to ignore it. There could only be two results, adding the description of one skill to the other, or a creation of a totally new skill way stronger than the original one was." She rises her eyebrow.

"So what if all of your skills are max level already? Won't you lose too much progress by merging them?" She asks.

"You don't merge them. There is another system I've been eyeing. The Skill Evolution System. It allows the evolution of selected maxed-out skills. Both of them are part of the [Skill Management System]"

"Okay, and what does that mean." She asks looking confused.

"Well from what I understand it might add a new effect to the skill, or change it completely." She perks up to that.

"Great, you might be able to lose that [Breed] skill." She says while swaying on her feet. "Not like I don't want to have a child, but I don't really wanna get pregnant every time we do it..."

"Or accidentally enhance its effects," I say with a laugh, and receive a light punch to my shoulder.

I look at the pouting Olive and roll my eyes. "No love, I do not want you to get pregnant every time we do it."

She sighs and pats me on my head, a rare gesture from her, but a welcome one. "So what are our plans?" She asks.

"We'll be cheating, no more running around, trying to find the next staircase. I'll be [Blink]ing us around quite heavily, we will be targeting monsters and descending the dungeon fast. When we're ready, we get to wherever Hestia is, have her update our status, and get back to work. You still have the tent in your inventory?" I ask and receive a nod. "Good, we will be camping on the safe floors, especially the 72nd. Alright?"

"And what, leave this world straight after reaching level ten?" She asks.

"Yeah." I say with a shrug.

"It does sound tempting. I was getting pretty bored when we were not diving, and we spent here almost three months already. The first month was interesting, I explored the new place, but now I've seen most of the stuff the place has to offer, and I'd like to leave." She says honestly.

"What about going out with your girlfriends?" I ask.

"Meh, they are too childish." She says rolling her eyes. "And there is nothing in common with us. Most of the time they tend to talk about their dives, but none of them has a real life outside of their familia or dungeon." She stops and looks at me with determination in her eyes. "But let's move, there is a dungeon we need to conquer!" She says and her gloomy mood quickly disappears and a wide smile blooms on her face.

"Yea but first let's sleep, I'm dead on my feet." I say feeling my tiredness reach the extremes.