2 Chapter 2 Commissioned by Adam

I think that I was already developing a bit of a habit... I raided a large trash can in the industrial district and I fused together all the thrown away slag they threw away into a bunch of leather so I got a thick hardy square duffel bag that hung on my side that I filled with garbage swords and daggers I made from more debris I got from the trash.

"Hmm, young man these blades metals, and craftwork are crude and rather unrefined... I can give you like five hundred Valis for the lot of them." The fucking gnome said trying to obviously cheat me out of money.

"Look you damned lawn ornament I literally saw the same makes of dagger and swords going for that damned price a piece for starter adventures. And this is fucking Orario if you cannot sell some decent swords to some fresh plucky would be adventurers then your shop wouldn't even exist." I retorted and the small spirit that was an archetype gnome with a long white beard, cone hat, and sweater with long pants, grinned.

"Aye that's true human, but you are selling in bulk, hence I get preferential prices." He said cheerfully and I pointed at the shitty swords at the side that he had marked for literally the same price as the bundle of my swords.

"Look just give me a fair deal, or I will just go sell these for scrap metal." I ended bluntly and he groaned before quoting me a fairer deal.

"Fine then." I said taking the money and as I went to take my bag off the counter, his hand grabbed the said bag with an iron grip that I couldn't shake despite being three times the gnome's size.

"Fifty Valis for the bag." He said grinning with pure white being shown and I just scowled at the damned greedy gnome.

"Nope, I am good. I need something to use as a pillow if I cannot find a place to sleep tonight." I said bluntly and he raised an eyebrow before sighing.

"Ahh... You just arrived in Orario and haven't found a Familia have you?" He asked letting go of the bag and I threw it over my shoulder.

"You could say that." I groused and the gnome snickered before humming in thought before smiling.

"Well, human I recommend going to the old temple district, back when Orario was founded a lot of the gods wanted to build temples so there is an entire sub-district of the city that's almost abandoned that you can squat in while you get your feet underneath you... Without some rat in knifing you between the ribs while you sleep in an alley." He advised me bluntly and I honestly after a moment of thought, nodded to his suggestion with myself turning around and leaving the shop.

Sleeping in some kind of alleyway or even spending most of my money on a hotel room or something while I was here made zero sense.

-

Arriving at the religious district and on both sides of the road were abandoned church's temples and other places of worship that obviously were used in the worship of the gods and goddesses when they descended to Gekai. But with how each and every one of them was clearly abanded I wouldn't be surprised if people just realized that the divines were assholes and didn't bother to worship them anymore.

"Rats, roachs, vermin, of my." I said dryly as I checked out the churches to find out a nicer one to squat in for a while and I realized that my fusing abilities were needed for the items to actually go into my internal space before I could fuse them... So while I could even fuse some furniture but a whole broken-down building?

Sitting on a fused bench I fixed up to sit on I looked around this nicer church I picked out and I realized I couldn't keep count of the rat wholes in the damned walls, and flooring. There were even birds hanging in the rafters of the church crying out loudly and I came to a realization.

"I am not going to fucking squat here." I said completely disgusted at the sight of all the filth around me and I realized that sure with my fusing abilities I could indeed make pretty potent weapons to sell and whatnot.

But in the end, I needed the resources to fuse into better weapons and I came from a first-world nation, in my previous life. I couldn't sleep with the thought of mice and other vermin crawling over my form as I slept.

"No choice really." I grunted as I stood up to my feet and I left the church going back towards the industrial district so I could put plan B into operation.

I was still scared that a god or goddess would see my cheat and fuck with it in order to mess with me. But in the end, I realized that trying to overturn Orario's whole structure in being a solo adventurer was a fool's dream as although yes my cheat was great. But it didn't make me some kind of powerhouse from the get-go.

A few minutes later after passing through the throngs of Orario's citizens I made my way across Orario and arrived at my plan B. Hephaestus's Familia mansion. A veritable castle to protect its many valuable weapons and of course keep would-be troublemakers out.

Seeing a stout dwarf standing in front of the gates of the Familia mansion I spoke to him. "Excuse me, is it possible that I could speak to Lady Hephaestus for some business I have for large quantities of ingots being brought in?" I asked taking out a small thin plate of steel that I made out of the coal, and iron I got out of the trash previously and the dwarf took the ingot and inspected it for a moment.

"Aye, the carbon content is fine enough and the steel isn't too hard or soft." He muttered as I saw the damned dwarf pinch the wrist-thick ingot in between his thick fingers and said ingot being compressed a good bit. "Not a bad bit of material for the newbies to work with and you said this a bulk order?" He confirmed and I nodded.

"Eh, you stay here while I send a runner." He said and opened the gate and shouted at some guy carrying a couple of boxes into the main building. "Oi, Becksie, take this civvie to Lady Hephaestus for some business." The dwarf ordered and the guy's shoulder slumped before signing with a grudging nod.

"Well come on then, I got to deliver paperwork to the secretaries of the Familia. So its not too far out of the way." The man apparently named Becksie grunted as he led me into the Familia.

"So how long you been part of the Hephaestus Familia?" I asked and snorted and gave me a side eye before seeing I was asking seriously.

"Shit, you are really new to Orario huh. Yeah, top Familia's like Hephaestus don't normally recruit off the streets unless it's some physical monster like Ottar... Normally it's children of people already in the Familia and of course, people that switch Familia's when they outgrow theirs." The man continued with a shrug. "And for Hephaestus, if you aren't a smith you can't join the Familia without going through some lengthy tests as Lady Hephaestus already has more than five hundred members and that's a lot of Falna's to update once every week or two." He said wryly and I realized the man wasn't actually part of Hephaestus's familia even while working here.

"Alright thank you for the advice." I said wryly as a seed of doubt filled me at my hope of getting into the Familia even with my cheat. Like seriously, how shitty would it be if Hephaestus was just like 'Nah, I already got enough people that need me to stab my finger every day.'

"One sec let me talk to Lady Hephaestus first." He said knocking on a door and I muffledly heard a female voice speak out as he ducked his head in and spoke. "Lady Hephaestus there is a merchant here with samples for steel ingots of decent quality he is asking to sell." He spoke.

"Alright send him in." I heard Hephaestus say with a bit of tiredness in her voice and then the man moved out of the way while opening the door for me and as I came into the room I saw the goddess herself along with the captain of the Hephaestus Familia Tsubaki.

Hephaestus even with the large eye patch that covered almost half her face was still a vision of beauty with her short messy red hair and single red eye that stared up at me from her desk. Not to mention how her clothes fit so tightly to her voluptuous frame with the top two buttons on her white dress shirt being unbuttoned and showing some of her cleavage.

Tsubaki Collbrande also had a more voluptuous frame, and combined with her aesthetic being half amazon and supposedly dwarf her darker skin contrasted with Hephaestus's pale skin with their eye patches being on opposite sides of their faces.

"Let me see the sample ingot." Hephaestus said holding out a hand and I handed over another same ingot this one not squeezed and deformed and for a moment Hephaestus's eyebrows raised before her face went cool.

"Alchemy?" She asked looking at me with a frown and I nodded with her snorting. "You need to realize that using alchemy on materials will ruin it for the Blacksmithing ability in someone's Falna... For whatever reason the hints of divinity whenever someone uses their alchemy development ability will clash with the divinity that enhances someone with blacksmithing." She explained with a tired sigh as she dropped the ingot onto her desk. "Sure if you yourself had blacksmithing already you could use those ingots for your own works but-"

I cut her off softly with a raised hand. "Uhm, I have a special magic that's like alchemy I guess... But I don't even have a Falna yet. The guild said the Familia's were already swamped with recruits so no one was recruiting." I said wryly and her eye twitched and she snatched up the ingot of steel that I made.

"Tsubaki bend this." She ordered after a moment of inspection and she tossed the thumb-sized ingot over to her captain who caught it and without hesitation squeezed it between her fingers like fucking playdough making my eye twitch at the sight and apparently the same to Hephaestus as she gapped at the sight of the ingot that got squeezed out Tsubaki's hand.

"It's supposed to break down into dust and slag coming into contact with Tsubaki..." She whispered before her eyes lit up with a manic light as she literally vaulted over her desk. "Wait! You said this is congenital magic that you already had without a Falna and that no one has already claimed you yet!" She said excitedly as she grabbed my hands in her gloved ones and I blankly nodded with her grinning like a loon as she broke into cackling laughter.

"Hahaha, alchemy just like back in Tenkai that doesn't fuck with the materials by leaving shitty magical remnants that make the materials collapse when worked with! I can finally craft some better stuff Haha!" Hephaestus cackled and before I could react my face was smothered in Tsubaki's tits as she pinned my arms to my sides and picked me up.

"Good job Tsubaki, now hold him still while I put my Falna on him Hehehe." Hephaestus giggled apparently utterly ecstatic and I could faintly hear Tsubaki sigh as she held me still.

"Really though... Using that signal to force someone in the Familia... The guild is going to throw a fit if he makes a complaint." She said wryly as I felt my jacket get pulled up and then the very distinct feeling of Hephaestus's divine ichor landed on my back and I realized something.

I was literally getting press-ganged into a divine cult with my face being smothered in some fantastic tits... All because my cheat was more special than I understood.