Shift

"If I feel like it."

Isaac's nonchalant response baffled Hel, but she knew that she had no way to force him into doing her bidding anyway and the two hadn't known each other for too long. No matter what, Isaac's lackadaisical statement was the best she could hope for.

Because Isaac still blurred their existence on the way back to the Twilight Manor, it was entirely uneventful. Only shortly before they reached the magical formations protecting the Loki Familia's grounds did Isaac stop doing so.

His reasons for doing this were quite obvious. First of all, he didn't just want to smuggle someone into the familia's property without permission. Second of all, he wanted to see how Hel would be received by the formations. On the off chance that she had fooled him and was actually a known enemy, Loki would have surely taken appropriate precautions.

When the familiar manor grounds came into sight, Hel released a heavy sigh. She was almost about to stop walking, but after a brief moment of slowing down, she clenched her fists and continued onward.

The moment she stepped into the formation at the entrance… nothing happened.

While they were walking towards the main manor, though, a sudden, incredibly loud, surprised yelp could be heard coming from the building complex in question.

"My baby is back?!"

The sheer intensity of the words truly baffled Isaac. He wasn't in the least bit surprised about Loki having found out about Hel's arrival, as the formation had indubitably informed her about it. But did she have to be this loud? They were still more than 100 meters from the main manor and Loki was inside of the building. Sure, his hearing had increased a lot with the increase in his stats, but that was still… a remarkable volume. Thankfully, most familia members were used to Loki's strange antics by now, as she routinely made a ruckus whenever her favourite 'children' returned.

The moment she heard Loki's voice, Hel winced a little while showing a smile tinged with both happiness and a little bit of fear. Still, she had already come this far and told Isaac that she would return home with him. No matter what, she didn't want to go back on her words. With new-found resolve, she continued her advance towards the front door.

Barely a few seconds later, the aforementioned door was abruptly opened, before something akin to a red flash barreled towards the grey-haired, cloaked girl with an incredible speed.

Shortly before she would have crashed into her, however, Loki came to a sudden halt and looked at Hel with a face full of love and care. Her expression was so unbelievably gentle that Isaac almost doubted that she was actually Loki. After all, it felt so out of character. That was not to say that she didn't care about anyone, rather, she never showed it in such a way.

With a bright smile on her face, Loki walked towards the seemingly somewhat scared girl and wrapped her into an incredibly tender hug.

"Welcome home."

These words made Hel, who had still been incredibly nervous, finally relax completely. With a beautiful, elated smile playing across her lips, she reciprocated the hug and closed her eyes.

Isaac had to admit that the goddesses' reunion was like a beautiful picture. While Loki was barely a centimeter taller than the little Hel and usually did show quite the bratty attitude, she seemed to be the far more mature one out of the two right now. Seeing how happy they seemed to be to finally be reunited, he wordlessly stood at the side and gave them all the time in the world to enjoy this momen---

'Wait. Loki… what the hell are you doing?!'

Slowly but surely, without alerting her, Loki's hands were wandering down the cloaked Hel's back. Only after she had already reached her butt did the happy, delighted girl notice anything amiss. But it was already too late. Before Hel could get away, Loki had already grabbed her butt with a bit of force, a lecherous, perverted smile plastered all over her face.

A shrill shriek later, the previous fear and disgust had reappeared on the stalker goddess' face. Feeling completely helpless, with tears in her eyes, she looked at the speechless Isaac.

"Help!"

If he had ignored someone's plea when they were in such a situation, Isaac would have simply been a monster. Honestly, Hel hadn't even needed to say anything, as he had already been on his way to stop this.

Before Loki could get even more carried away with her actions, a painful flick to the forehead made her let go of the fearful goddess and stumble a few steps back.

"Ouch…"

A couple of tears escaped the corners of the trickster goddess' eyes as she rubbed her temple.

"Why do you always have to be like this?!"

The moment she had been freed, the shivering Hel had hastily hidden behind Isaac's back and only dared to peek at the repeat sex offender, Loki, from there with tears streaming down her cheeks. Every single time she started to trust Loki a little bit and gave her some leeway, the latter always took advantage of her almost immediately. Why did she, Hel, always have to suffer like this?

A somewhat guilty expression appeared on Loki's face but before she even had a chance to apologize, the grey-haired girl had already whispered a quiet "Thanks", started running towards the main manor and pulled up her hood, hiding herself from the trickster goddess' view. Seeing how Hel didn't escape towards the city, though, it seemed like she planned to stay here for a while.

For a few moments, Isaac and Loki, who had been left behind, just wordlessly stared at each other, before Loki showed a somewhat sheepish but mischievous smile.

"Welcome back to you as well, Isaac."

At the moment, however, Isaac was a little bit too mentally distracted to respond. He had been thinking about all the times in the DanMachi novels that Loki had tried to take advantage of Ais. The only reason she failed was that Ais was more than strong enough to protect herself. However, that meant that she probably hadn't always escaped the lecherous goddess' hands while she was still weaker…

[ The host's current mental state has been analyzed.

Unlocking 'Achievements' subsection, 'Herculean Tasks'... ]

[ Herculean Task One: Make Loki change her sex offender ways. ]

While Isaac had indeed been thinking about doing just that, the classification of it as a Herculean Task was what baffled him. After all, some of his current 'normal' potential achievements were 'Destroy a continent.' and 'Save a race from extinction.', just to name a few. Honestly, both of those sounded plenty difficult for now but they didn't even warrant their own subsection. Instead, what triggered the Herculean Tasks was his desire to reform a stray goddess…

Even more than that, the task didn't even list any rewards for completing it. Were there even any? This started to sound more and more like a Sisyphean Task instead of a Herculean one.

Using Isaac's distracted state as an opportunity, the mischievous goddess had already walked up to him and given him a tight hug out of the bluel. To be honest, she was only trying to play a prank on him. After he had witnessed what had happened to Hel, she fully expected him to escape her grasp in a heartbeat. Teasing him a little would be a lot of fun and she would be able to lord his escape from her over him for a time.

Because of these thoughts and expectations, when Isaac wrapped his arms around her in response, Loki was completely taken aback. With a somewhat evil smile on his face, Isaac didn't give the goddess any chance to react, then picked her up and slung her over his shoulder.

"W-What are you doing?!"

Loki was completely flabbergasted, but no matter how hard she tried to escape, she couldn't do anything. As she was quite physically weak, she was completely at Isaac's mercy. When she saw the way they were heading after entering the manor, she finally came to a realization and paled a little.

"Is this really necessary?"

Instead of replying, Isaac simply hastened his steps. In less than a minute, he found himself in front of a certain study and unhurriedly knocked on the door.

"Please! Anything but that!"

Loki's pleas had become progressively more panicked, yet Isaac still ignored her. A moment later, a familiar, stern High Elf opened the door.

When Riveria saw the somewhat inappropriate scene in front of her, she was a bit speechless. Instead of immediately reprimanding the young man for his blasphemous actions towards a goddess, however, she wasn't naive enough to believe that Loki couldn't truly deserve such a treatment. Therefore, rather than making ignorant assumptions, it was better to get to the bottom of this.

"What's going on?"

A bright and innocent smile played across Isaac's lips.

"I'd like to report an instance of sexual harassment. An innocent girl has come to harm."

As soon as she heard this, Riveria's expression changed drastically and there was even a little bit of killing intent in her gaze. No matter what, she had always despised the way Loki treated some of the more gullible children. As Elves usually shunned almost all forms of physical intimacy, seeing Loki behave in such ways was simply outrageous. Needless to say, Loki had only tried such a stunt on her once.

When Isaac had sufficiently reported Loki's crimes, he learned that Riveria seemed to be one of the few people here at the Twilight Manor that knew Hel. Still, he honestly had no time to bother with the details right now, so after the mother hen dragged the struggling Loki into her study, Isaac hurriedly headed off to take a quick shower. After all, he had been out and about for a while, it would definitely be better to clean up again. Once he had done so, he made his way over to Ais' room.

A knock later, the breathtakingly beautiful, golden-haired girl wearing little more than a nightgown opened the door. The moment she saw that Isaac had finally arrived, Ais flashed him a beaming smile, then gestured for him to enter.

"Come on in."

Although Isaac had planned to just take a seat on the chair, Ais didn't give him a chance to do so. Instead, after closing the door again, she sat down on her bed and repeatedly patted her thighs while looking at him with eyes full of anticipation.

A somewhat awkward smile appeared on Isaac's face, mixed with a little bit of guilt. It seemed like Ais was a lot more jealous of Tiona giving him a lap pillow than she had let on before.

"Please…?"

Because of his momentary delay, Ais had started to pout a little, trying to regain his full attention.

"Fine, fine."

Isaac hadn't been hesitating because he didn't want to be graced by a lap pillow from the girl of his dreams, no. Rather, he was simply embarrassed about the prospect. While he was normally nearly immune to all kinds of charms and most of the embarrassment he usually showed was anything but genuine, Ais always managed to break down his defenses instantly, without even trying.

As he would hate himself if he let such a godsend slip away, he obediently took off his shoes, laid down on the bed and rested his head on Ais' thighs. His cheeks turned a progressively deeper shade of red the longer he stayed in that position, however. It only got worse when Ais started to gently stroke his head and play with his hair. Sure, he had experienced such a situation before, but this time, it was Ais doing this. The difference between someone he had feelings for treating him like this compared to someone else was incredibly massive.

"Just relax."

With a happy smile, Ais looked down at Isaac's bright-red face, a small blush creeping up on her cheeks as well. Because she had leaned forward while doing this, though, Ais'... assets became Isaac's central focus almost instantly.

In an attempt to calm himself down and to actually relax, as was the true goal of the heavenly privilege, the lap pillow, Isaac closed his eyes. Obviously, this was also to avoid staring at Ais' chest for longer than would be appropriate. Even though the view did excite him quite a bit, he didn't want Ais' pure intentions to be tainted by thoughts like these. At least not now.

The moment he closed his eyes, he was nearly overwhelmed by the feeling of comfort he felt, instantly washing away any somewhat perverted thoughts he might have harboured in the back of his mind. None of those felt like they were of any importance any longer, as from deep within his soul, Isaac felt something he was almost entirely unfamiliar with: security. This, paired with the feeling of having his head stroked so incredibly tenderly, made him truly relish what he was currently experiencing.

Also, Ais thighs were simply… perfect. Even though he was sure he was just imagining most of this, it felt like he was relaxing on a sea of clouds instead of a human body. Nonetheless, at the same time, he could still feel Ais' body warmth and the smoothness of her skin against his neck.

Before Isaac could completely lose himself in this sensation, however, a very familiar, melodic voice entered his ears.

"How is it?"

In response to Ais' question, a pleased sigh escaped Isaac's lips.

"Divine."

This was honestly the only word he could think of that could describe what he was feeling.

A couple of minutes of pure bliss later, while still enjoying the lap pillow, Isaac opened his eyes again, this time not as affected by Ais' irresistible charm as before. It was finally time they focused on the elephant in the room.

Thankfully, Isaac had already explained everything that had happened between him and Tiona previously, so Ais was fully in the know.

"What should I do? She doesn't want to give up…"

After putting on a thoughtful expression for a while, Ais replied with a question of her own.

"Is reciprocating her feelings out of the question?"

Very slightly, Isaac shook his head. Any more than that and he might have gotten distracted by how great Ais' thighs felt…

"I simply don't love her. Besides that, if you wanted to be with someone else as well, I know I wouldn't be able to stand it."

Thinking about the implications of Isaac's words, Ais' blush deepened a little. Still, she didn't get too distracted and focused on the matter at hand.

"Isn't it natural for males to be surrounded by multiple females? As far as I know, it's a commonplace thing. If I were to use your old world's words… it's a part of evolution, right?"

These words made Isaac pause a little. He knew that she had spoken the truth. He was fully aware of it. After all, like she said, it was entirely natural. From a biological perspective, any other arrangement didn't make much sense. Even in his old world, especially in the past, these things had been basically the status quo. And here in the DanMachi world, it was incredibly wide-spread as well.

But still. Maybe it was the time period he grew up in which influenced him or just his wholly personal feelings on the matter, Isaac simply felt like he didn't want to enter such an arrangement. He didn't want a 'harem'.

"That's true. But it would be unfair to you. I'd be a hypocrite if I had multiple partners myself while not agreeing to you doing the same as well."

A somewhat exasperated look surfaced on Ais' face. From all she had ever experienced or heard of, any guy would jump at the opportunity she had presented Isaac with. It wasn't like she was actually unhappy about his refusal, though. No, she was extremely elated about it. But there was a reason why she had brought it up in the first place.

"She is one of my best friends. I'd be okay with it."

Because Ais now knew just how amazing of a feeling love, romantical attraction, was, she didn't want Tiona to suffer in this regard. After all, if her own feelings hadn't been reciprocated at all, Ais didn't know how painful it would have been. It would have been a kind of pain she had never felt before. This made her heavily empathize with the chipper Amazoness, maybe more than she should, and caused her to recommend this kind of arrangement in the first place. After all, if she could ensure her friend's happiness by slighting herself a little, Ais would be more than fine with that.

A small frown stole itself on Isaac's face, before he began to understand Ais' thought process. When he finally did, a gentle smile spread across his lips. Yet again, she had made him realize what an extremely caring girl she was. He reached up with his right hand and gently stroked her cheek, looking deep into her eyes.

"But I simply don't love her. No need to worry, though. I'm positively sure that there is someone out there for her. I even know who it is. But it will still take some time for them to meet, so I won't tell you more about it for now…"

Hearing this, while grasping the hand that was stroking her cheek gently, Ais finally relented and nodded. She knew that Isaac had some - sometimes vague, sometimes very specific - knowledge about this world and the people in it. While this should have probably creeped her out a little, instead, she didn't mind it at all. It might just be because of the security she felt in his presence or because of all the years she had spent observing his younger self. There was one thing she knew for sure, though: He would never harm her.

Now, it seemed like she didn't need to worry too much over her friend's future love life. Tiona might have to suffer a little in the short term, but the happiness she would achieve following that would be all her own. It seemed like it would be smartest for Isaac to just continue to reject her.

While Ais was rejoicing over this, a heavily guilty expression appeared on Isaac's face when he thought about the boy Tiona would most likely fall in love with, Bell Cranel. In the DanMachi novels, Bell and Ais might not have had any kind of romantic connection from Ais' side. After all, considering the past they most likely shared, any kind of romantic relationship would have been highly improper. Still, Isaac felt bad about 'stealing' the initial target of Bell's affection and shattering whatever kind of future the boy and Ais could have potentially had. Of course, he didn't care about Bell or his feelings at all. But how could he treat such an act as treating Ais fairly?

"I'm such a hypocrite…"

Although he had only whispered it under his breath, with Ais' ridiculously good hearing, how could she possibly miss it? Without any care about how close this brought Isaac's face to her chest, she leaned down considerably until only about twenty centimeters or so separated their faces. With as gentle a smile as she could muster, she whispered back.

"But you're my hypocrite."

The combination of having almost his entire field of view taken up by Ais' picturesque face and hair, having her chest touch his left cheek and the anything but subtle implications of her words left Isaac speechless for a moment.

A moment later, he finally completely relaxed and laughed happily.

It was as if some kind of mental blockage had just disappeared and, even more than before, he was clear on what he wanted to do.

Yes, he wasn't a good person. He had stopped being that a long time ago, so there was no point in trying to hold himself back by trying to be one. Even more than that, there was no good and evil to begin with, so this had been an entirely self-imposed and pointless endeavour anyway.

From now on, no matter what kind of situation he found himself in, he would do exactly one thing: What he wanted to do. So what if he happened to do some things that would make him a hypocrite in the future? It didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was whether he wanted to do those things or not.

Well, there was also something - or rather, someone - else that mattered: Ais. With her at his side, he didn't need to care about anything else.

From an outside perspective, it might seem like Isaac and Ais hadn't known each other for very long. This couldn't be further from the truth, however. As far as Isaac was concerned, he had known about Ais for quite a few years now. She, as well, had spent many, many years watching his younger self's development. In total, she had spent even more time with him and learning about him than she had with the Loki Familia - and that would only significantly increase in the future.

Even though Isaac was sure that Ais was very well aware of this already, he felt like it was the perfect time to spell it out. With the most genuinely happy smile he had ever shown, the following words left Isaac's lips.

"Ais, I love you."

To be honest, all his life, Isaac didn't understand love at all. Previously, he had managed to rationalize attraction and sexual urges quite easily. But love? Love was something entirely different. When he arrived in this world, he was quite sure that while he did feel extreme attraction for this simply otherworldly beauty in front of him, he didn't actually love her. They did have a special connection and compatibility, yes, but not more than that.

Love seemed like it could only either begin to develop when people spent time together or in mentally especially impactful moments.

After the shift in his mentality a few moments ago, Ais' previous words had sent a feeling of unprecedented warmth and happiness throughout Isaac's entire being. Never before had he felt anything remotely like it. He had no problem with openly admitting that he didn't fully understand it. But there was one thing he instinctively knew: That feeling, it was love.