The promised king of the abandoned world

Narrator POV:

"Mmmm~" Hestia leaned back against the side of the bathtub, a sigh of satisfaction leaving her lips. "I'd almost forgotten how comfortable it was to come to the purifying baths."

She was currently in a special facility within the commercial district, a sacred bath created especially for the goddesses. One that was run by the guild and maintained with a small fee the goddesses paid to use it.

After bidding farewell to the young man, she had come to this very facility, frequented by quite a few goddesses. Using some of her savings, she paid the bath fee, this was a preparation for later.

"Still..." She closed her eyes for a moment, remembering the dangers of the dungeon that she had heard from her best friend, Hephaestus. "I hope Mikhael doesn't risk himself too much."

A small smile appeared on her relaxed expression as she remembered the first member of her Familia. From her point of view, Mikhael was more than she could ask for as she was right now.

At first, she thought that he joined her Familia on Artemis' instructions. Such a thing was proven wrong after some time with him, his pride would not allow it.

That only meant that he joined her by his own will and judgment. Hestia did not know what he expected of her, after all, there were many Familias in better conditions to join, but she would make sure not to disappoint his expectations.

As for him joining purely by her body as other children wanted to do, did anyone seriously think that she could compete with Freya in beauty or Demeter in voluptuousness? She knew well that that was impossible.

With the young man's talents and skills, either of those two goddesses would welcome him with open arms, especially Freya herself, since she and Mikhael were fated to be together.

Unfortunately for Hestia, who was lost in her thoughts about her son's affairs, the sound of footsteps echoed until someone sat down near her.

"It's been a while since we last met, hasn't it, Hestia?" Hestia froze in place upon hearing the soft, melodious voice that brought her back to reality. "I was looking for you so I could find out the truth about a question I still have no answer to."

Rotating her neck stiffly, she saw that there she was sitting in front of her, the goddess of beauty, Freya. With her body covered in a towel, she watched with interest, her chin held by one of her delicate hands.

"Yes..." Hestia smiled stiffly, her voice trying to sound as natural as possible but failing spectacularly. "It's been a while Freya, how have you been these days?"

"As always, nothing in particular to mention..." Hestia was about to relax, that was if it weren't for her next words. "That was until today when I just met my beloved Odr."

Freya ignored the paralyzed expression of the goddess, she continued speaking. Her distant gaze was filled with longing and anticipation.

"He is truly wonderful, just seeing him made me feel like my life was complete. Almost as if I had finally found what I had been missing all this time, that emptiness in my heart was filled."

Good heavens... Hestia knew that fated love was something particularly strong and intense, she had heard about it in heaven when that phenomenon happened between some gods.

"Any feeling of urgency, loneliness or melancholy was erased by feeling the connection between our souls as if it were snow melting in the heat of the sun in the middle of summer."

But it was certainly an extremely strange sight to see the always dignified and majestic Freya brimming with unadulterated joy and delight as if she were just a simple and innocent maiden hopelessly in love talking about her love.

"Honestly, it is something beyond what mere words can describe." Freya smiled as she closed her eyes with a peace and fullness that was honestly very enviable.

"Anyway, I didn't come here to talk about that..." She said slowly, her expression returning to its normal calm, curiosity still present in her gaze. "Hestia, any attempt at deception is useless, I know about Mikhael's matter including Artemis."

"Freya..." Hestia spoke softly, almost trying to sound intimidating but only coming across as adorable. "I don't know what you're planning, but I'm not going to hand Mikhael over to you no matter what."

"Hmmm~" Freya smiled, a hint of amusement in her gaze at her hard frontage. "Love is truly wonderful, normally I would find your behavior laughable, but right now, I just find it endearing how you try to defend him like that."

"However, rest assured, I have no intentions of making him abandon your Familia, that was his choice after all. Forcing him against his will would only earn me his displeasure, which is the last thing I want right now."

"...So, why did you come here, why are you telling me all this exactly?..." Hestia asked more calmly, though suspicion was still present in her expression.

Freya didn't seem to be lying, at least, her especially keen divine intuition among the gods told her that she wasn't. That fact only left more doubts than it answered.

"I wanted to know why he joined your Familia." It seemed that both goddesses had asked each other the same question. "But after thinking about it better, I think it was because of your way of being, which makes people trust you."

"I can only say: as expected of the goddess of the hearth." Freya raised her hands playfully as if giving up on that point. "I admit, I completely lost this time."

Hestia was dumbfounded, of all the things she expected from her mouth when Freya answered her, that certainly wasn't one of them. Did Mikhael join her for that reason?

Did he see her as someone... trustworthy? Hestia felt much more satisfied than she wanted to admit with that fact. Perhaps... he had already seen a future where he was by her side.

"Now that I think about it, do you know how to close the status?" Freya suddenly asked, still sitting on the edge of one of the bathtubs in the middle of the steamy landscape. "Since I don't want any rats to take a look at his Falna, it's fine to tell you."

"I'd appreciate it, I forgot to ask Miach about that earlier." Hestia scratched her head with a small nervous laugh. After Freya patiently taught her, she looked at her. "You're not a bad person after all, Freya."

"I'm glad we can get along, though..." Freya paused for a moment, her words freezing Hestia's expression. "I still plan to marry your son, Hestia."

Marry? The shameless woman in front of her said she wanted to marry her son? Wasn't she even a bit ashamed? To Hestia, who was still struggling with a simple date, Freya's certainty about getting married was enviable, cough, disconcerting.

"I love Mikhael, so it's only natural to hope for a life together with him." Freya placed her hand over her heart, a clear trace of sincerity in her expression. "I'll go out with him and when the time comes, I'll propose to him myself if necessary."

"You-you-you..." Hestia stuttered as she pointed at her with a trembling finger, her expression changing between annoyance and disbelief. "That's not love, that's just pure lust!!!

"Don't be rude, Hestia..." Freya smiled with the grace of a queen but there was a clear glint of shamelessness in her eyes. "It is just pure love." Standing up from the bathtub, she began to leave.

Behind her was what she said. "You need not worry, Hestia. I already know his ravenous essence just as it is natural for a king like him to be greedy. As long as he doesn't neglect me, I wouldn't mind turning a blind eye. Good luck, Hestia~"

Amidst the stone walls and pillars surrounding one of the sacred bathrooms, a bewildered Hestia stood watching the other goddess leave.

Unknown to her, Freya quickly left because she didn't want to miss Mikhael's first adventure in the dungeon. Still, a question echoed within Hestia.

Had she just been treated as just a mere lover of Mikhael by Freya? The audacity! The order of things was clearly upside down! If anything, Freya must be the lover!

***

"So, Ouranos..." The god Hermes was still standing in front of Ouranos after giving him some information, his annoying casual, and playful attitude still present even in front of a great god.

The being known as Hermes looked like a man in the prime of youth, along with orange-blond hair, orange eyes, and a somewhat feminine face, he had a certain charm.

"A cute little bird told me about a peculiar visitor you had..." Hermes brought up the topic when all business was finished, seemingly asking casually. "I'm very curious, who could this visitor be..."

The god's narrowed eyes looked directly into those of the old god sitting on the throne. Ouranos watched him with his neutral gaze for a moment before turning his head. "You may come in, Royman." The door opened after that.

"O-ouranos-sama...!" Royman, the current guild leader ran in with sweat on his forehead. He seemed so nervous that he didn't even notice the other god's presence until he looked right at him.

"Hermes-sama!"

Seeing the elf's hasty and clumsy greeting, "that" thought that in his 800 years of workikg in the guild to the point of being called a ghost, it was the first time such a leader had emerged.

At least, Royman was a hardworking person who put effort and sincerity into maintaining the superficial peace of Orario. Perhaps that was why Ouranos ignored his small thefts of funds from the guild.

"Don't worry about Hermes, speak," Ouranos ordered the elf upon noticing the hesitant gaze with he looked at the visitor who used to do business with Ouranos. Royman nodded and informed.

"It's about the adventurer you ordered me to keep an eye on as well as report any important details of him..." Royman explained under Hermes' increasingly interested gaze. "He left the guild after returning from his first trip to the dungeon and selling all the loot he got down there."

Was that the only reason the elf had come to report? What part of the important details had he not understood? It almost seemed as if his head was ruined from counting that gold for so long.

"The impressive thing wasn't that...!" Royman waved his hands as he noticed those looks that seemed to ask him if he was stupid. "On his first day, he reached the 8th floor completely by himself! With only basic and free equipment, without any support!"

Hearing the elf's words, the others finally showed surprise to the satisfaction of the guild leader. Reaching floor 8 in one day? A young man from a new Familia? Unheard of.

"The 8th floor in one day..." Hermes whispered to himself, his smile widening with even more interest. "That" couldn't blame him, reaching the 8th floor in about a year was already very impressive for new Families, and what the young man did was absurd.

"Is what you say true, Royman?" Ouranos questioned his gaze without any surprise unlike Hermes and "that". "That" even had the feeling that he expected such a thing.

"It's true, I swear, he even brought dozens of magic stones from the war shadows of the 8th floor, though..." Royman explained excitedly, hesitating at the end before explaining. "Some had strange marks engraved on them... as if... they had been hit with just... bare fists..."

...My goodness! It seemed that this young man was much more violent than he let on beneath his seemingly peaceful appearance. Now "that" could understand a little why this young man caught Ouranos' attention.

"Did he... leave a specific message or request for the guild?" Ouranos closed his eyes, waiting for the elf's response, who quickly nodded with some hesitation. "His exact words were something like..."

"I plan to level up in about two weeks, maybe less, I would appreciate it if the guild would help me with the possible repercussions of announcing my level up then."

Arrogant.

The impression those words left on them was one of unparalleled self-confidence. As if what for other adventurers still at Lv.1 was just a piece of cake for him, a step he would inevitably take without a doubt.

"Well, well... it seems our peculiar visitor's ego went through the roof due to recent success..." Hermes shook his head, shrugging at that words.

Putting aside the still burning interest in his eyes, "that" thought such a reaction was normal. Even someone as talented as the sword princess of the Loki Familia took around a year to cross that level threshold.

"I understand, Royman, by then you must try to mitigate the conflicts with the adventurers as much as possible and ensure through the guild the legitimacy of his leveling up."

"Ouranos?!" Hermes opened his eyes in surprise, letting out his voice at the certainty in the old god's words. The same happened to both "that" and the guild leader.

That the great god, who also lived through the era of monsters from the Zeus and Hera Families, indirectly admitted that the young man could achieve what he said was just...shocking.

"Royman, if that's all, you may now leave." Ouranos opened his eyes, watching as the elf quickly left after respectfully bidding farewell to both gods present in the room.

"Hermes," Ouranos spoke with that almost perpetual calm before the bewildered god could ask anything. "That young man is not only the one chosen by Artemis' arrow..."

Some understanding arose in the god's eyes at the old god's words, before those same eyes trembled fiercely involuntarily upon hearing his next words.

"But he is also very possibly the king who was promised to the abandoned world." Bewilderment filled "that" upon seeing the intense reaction of the god who opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. "That... that wasn't just a total failure?..."

"That" knew what was "the abandoned world", these were the ruins of what was once the largest country of the continent. That was a country that was destroyed 21 years ago by one of the three great quests.

Back then, the monstrosity known as the one-eyed black dragon suddenly appeared after hundreds of years of sleeping in the north and destroyed for some reason that prosperous place in just one short night.

It was an event that shook the world and its repercussions reached Orario, who had to hunt down those three great quests: The Black Dragon, the Leviathan, and the Behemoth.

The screams of the leaders of the countries or kingdoms hurried the adventurers to finally deal with those monsters that escaped from the dungeon 1000 years ago, which caused the crusade of those monsters and then the fall of Hera and Zeus Families.

Since then, the ruins of that country became nothing but wastelands where monsters abounded and roamed. That was the reason that place was called "the abandoned world."

True to its name, mysteriously almost no nation tried to find out what happened to that country, its people, or its royalty. It was a country that was truly abandoned by the world itself.

"Pfft... hahahahaha" The god Hermes suddenly began to laugh out loud as if he found something very hilarious in the matter. "So those fools in the end really made it!!!"

Amidst laughter, admiration and excitement flashed across the god's eyes. "No wonder why he caught your eye..." He shook his head with shock in his expression.

Hermes covered his face with one hand, almost completely incomprehensible murmurs, that "that" could not hear, coming from his hidden lips.

"The fated hero of the gods, the avenger beloved by the spirits as well as the promised king of mortals fighting together against the apostle of the dungeon...that sounds wonderful..."

"That" finally watched after a few moments as Hermes removed his hand from his face before shrugging casually. "Anyway, it's time for me to go, Ouranos, I have a date set up with a certain cute little bird."

That's how relaxed the god was on the surface as he began to leave, probably on his way to meet up with one of the employees who saw the young man pass by inside the guild.

"Hermes..." Ouranos looked at the back of the god who stopped at the call. "Be careful with your plans with that young man." Before Hermes could shrug again, he shuddered fiercely at the next thing the god said to him. "He got Freya's full attention, you know how she is."

"That" watched in amusement as the god left who seemed to have lingering fear of something. Probably something awful that one of the two current queens of Orario did to him.

"Ouranos..." After Hermes left, "that" manifested in the room. It was a figure covered in black robes that covered any features of it. "Is it okay to just tell the god Hermes about that young man?"

"It's okay, Fels, it will be a test for him." Ouranos looked at his subordinate who emerged to ask his doubts. "Hermes won't go too far, he knows how irritable Freya can be sometimes."

Fels, as "that" was called, simply nodded slowly with some hesitation. He hadn't been able to hear what Hermes was muttering, but he did see the intensity of his interest.

"How was the task I gave you?" Ouranos asked with some curiosity about the subject, after all, it was related to that race. "It was... Good? One of the Xenos made a preliminary contact with him, just a glance from afar..."

Fels kept the opinion of the Xeno who had bright eyes remembering the young man, praising his skill as a warrior. Ouranos nodded at that. "It's better that way, with something like that gradual contact we can find out his reaction about the Xenos."

It seemed the great god wanted to test the young man's character through different angles. One was with Hermes, another with the Xenos. But for now, Fels wanted to ask something different.

"Ouranos... Exactly...what happened to the abandoned world and what is the relationship of that with the young man?"

"They..." Ouranos was silent for a moment, his gaze strangely showing something complicated, unlike his normal neutrality. "Those mortal mortals tried to meddle with a force beyond themselves."

"Thanks to the help of some gods, fools who used their Arcanum out of kindness, they succeeded...they interfered with the agreement made with the dungeon, which earned them the wrath of that dragon."

The old eyes of the god seemed to have a certain admiration and pity when talking about the past of that country. Fels felt deeply surprised at the existence of such a secret.

"I originally thought it was useless, even if fate changed slightly with a new possibility, there would never be anyone who would bear that fate or be fit for that sword that only kills those who are not suitable for it."

One secret that was about mortals who did not accept the natural status quo nor the idea of ​​leaving their fates in the hands of most of the gods who saw them as puppets in a great play.

"But just as the Xenos were a mistake in the dungeon's plans, a new hope for co-existence, the existence of that young man is also a mistake in the gods' plans..."

"Whether it's the people of that country, the skilled blacksmith who forged the sword, or the gods who helped them..." Fels just watched intently in silence at the god's rare display of emotion. "I can tell you that their sacrifices were not in vain, not at all. Those who created a new hope for the world..."

The words that did not reach their intended addresses rang out in the chamber, but the god did not doubt that several of those survivors as well as the sword's guardian already knew by now the existence of that young man, their promised king.

"...You all can be proud of your achievement."

***

(Author's note: In case anyone is curious about the topic and to avoid possible questions, that abandoned world actually does exist in the canon lore/story of Danmachi universe.

It is indeed a country that was destroyed by the black dragon 21 years before the canon, it was introduced in the light novel "Familia Chronicles" in the past of Allen Fromel and his sister, Anya Fromel, who came from that same country.

Nothing was ever said about why it was destroyed or any lore about the matter aside from "the flying lizard woke up in a bad mood one day and destroyed that very country, why? I don't even know, it just looked cool.", so I'm borrowing that backstory and changing it a bit here for this.

The truth is that I felt a little weird about that Orion and Odr had their lore while Völsunga King was just there, so I mixed everything up a bit and it ended up like this, pretty good I believe...Anyway, I wish you a good day or night, my dear readers.)