Chapter 45

Ryu sat on the bed, her goddess standing behind her. They were alone, and she had taken off her shirt, to allow Astraea to update her falna, but her goddess hadn't done so yet. It felt like it was taking an aeon, for that droplet to land on her bare skin and mark her as touched by the divine ichor.

Her thoughts were still a jumble from... everything. From Astraea. Her fingers were wrapped around her thighs, the entire situation seeming otherworldly. She had assumed, believed, understood - no, it was better to say, perhaps, that the world she had lived in was one where her goddess had given up on her. But apparently that wasn't the world she lived in. "You're trembling," her goddess said, her voice soft and gentle and loving. Her fingers came to rest on Ryu's shoulder, gently touching her, reassuring her. Ryu swallowed. "Is it that cold?"

It wasn't that cold. Astraea knew that too. The question was just politeness. Or perhaps it wasn't - perhaps she really was confused. Ryu had so completely misunderstood her goddess, for so long... perhaps Ryu didn't know her as well as she thought. There was a pang of loneliness at that. Perhaps she didn't know anyone as well as she thought - Syr, Chloe, Anya, Lunoire, Mia... her lips twitched. "No. I am just... I still don't understand."

"What don't you understand?"

"Why," Ryu said, at last. "Why do you, a goddess of justice, still love me, a child you told to forsake justice?"

Astraea simply hummed in response to that. Her fingers ran up to Ryu's hair, gently running through it. Ryu let few people touch her, certainly not so intimately - that was simply elven culture, still in her even if she had largely rejected it. "If you had a child... and you are getting to be that age," she added, a certain playful note to her voice, making Ryu flush. "If you had a child, and you knew, this child loved you, and aspired to be like you, and wanted to be an adventurer, because you were one... but right then, at that moment - it would have destroyed them, to be an adventurer - wouldn't you tell them to let go of such an idea? If I had told you, Ryu, you cannot act in vengeance, you must follow justice even today... you may have lived, but I do not think you could ever have recovered. I had already lost Alise, Kaguya, Lyra, Neze, Iska, Maryuu, Noin, Asta, Ryana, and Celty. I could hardly bear to lose you, too."

"I thought- I thought you were rejecting me."

"I'm sorry," Astraea said. Those words made Ryu's heart clench in her chest. Made her feel guilty for even saying it. "I understand how you could have thought that - but I wasn't. Sometimes, we go different paths from the people we love. That's all. Shall I update your falna now, or do you have anything left to say? I understand if you're still upset with me."

Ryu let out a choked laugh at that. "For me to be the one upset with you... that would be absurd."

Astraea let out a light chuckle. "In that case," she said, and at last Ryu felt the pinprick of the divine, the ichor pressing against her bare skin, "would you like to return to my familia? We would be happy to have you, especially given you have apparently hit 999S in all your stats, and qualify for a Level Up."

It was only natural she would have reached such status, given all she had been through. Even after her great spree of vengeance, the one that left her enervated and dying in the street, she had still helped others at the Hostess, when she heard the tales of woes of common people taken advantage of by the powerful. She had practiced with Erza, Cassandra, and Julia, for months, learning and thriving in brutal practice sessions against them. But it still felt unreal. Level Five. Adventurers who were active constantly thought of their status and their Level, watched them rise as one might watch a pitcher of water fill. But she had hardly thought of it in years, and now, she had found she had reached an apex that thousands died striving for.

Astraea continued to speak. "Rezianal could certainly use a hero of your caliber, and after all you've been through - a quiet retirement here would not be so bad, no?"

Ryu found, strangely enough, that she didn't want to return to the Astraea familia. If Alise had been there - Kaguya, all the rest - then perhaps. But she had made new friends, at the Hostess. "I have been living a quiet retirement in Orario, and I have new friends. Some very close." Syr had believed in her, and pushed her to do this. She let out a small laugh as another thought came to mind. "I also owe Mia Grand 45 million valis."

* * *

"You owe forty five million vails?!?" The shout rang through the whole building, and Erza instantly snapped to her feet in response. It was Astraea yelling - did her friend truly owe that much money? It would be even more difficult to believe that another member of the Astraea familia had acquired such debts.

Ah! Rei would know! She had read about this world in a storybook, just as she had read about Erza's own in a comic! Her head swiveled over to Rei, her hand snapping around her co-wife's bicep and drawing her close. "Is that true?" She asked, her voice quiet. She did not want to shame Ryu any more than she had already been shamed.

"Uhh. Yeah. Well, it was originally fifty million valis, but I guess it's gone down in the three years since," Rei said.

Erza released her, her thoughts solemn as she clasped a hand close to her chest. For three tireless years, her friend had labored. But it had not been enough! In the eight months she had been in this world, Erza had made around fifteen million valis. But she had been conservative in her Dungeon diving, and also had given away a great deal of magic stones to her friend, Alipheese Fateburn the Sixteenth! She could save Ryu within a year, just on her lonesome, she was pretty sure - and with the help of Rei, it would be even faster! "Rei," she said, putting one hand on Rei's shoulder, her expression solemn. "We must save our friend, Ryu, from the grievous debts she suffers under."

"I, uh, don't know if it's quite like that," Rei said.

"Yeah. I think it's like, a fake debt," the other Rei chimed in. "You know, so she doesn't kill herself."

A fake debt to prevent suicide? A grievous debt of such scope would surely drive anyone to suicide! An absurdity. "Are you sure?" She asked, nonetheless - she did trust Rei, after all.

"Well, I mean, I don't know personally," Rei said.

"Then let's save her!" Erza declared, her hand drawn into a fist.

It was Drake who spoke next. "I think that you should ask Ryu whether she'd like the help before you do that."

Erza nodded, her expression solemn. Perhaps Ryu would simply feel grievously indebted to Erza, if she did such a thing. It was important not to make one's friends feel that way. She crossed her arms. On the other hand, receiving a surprise gift was very nice!

A few minutes later, Astraea emerged from the bedroom with Ryu. The stoic elf wore a wan smile on her lips. Astraea started to speak. "It's getting quite late," she noted. Indeed, a glance out the window revealed the sun had already set. "Perhaps you would care to stay the night?"

"We may be bottled up here in Rezianal," Drake said. "There were some fomoire that followed us, though they stopped a ways back. We might need to stay longer than just a night."

"That is quite alright. I would certainly like to meet Ryu's friends," she added, with a warm smile.

Cecil - the boyish brown-haired boy who had greeted them at the door - spoke up, at that point. "This whole thing is mostly lost on me, but it's good to talk with new people," he said, smiling. "As the Captain of the familia, though, I think it's my duty to make sure that our wayward member hasn't fallen in with a bad crowd. So, let me ask the four of you - what is justice?"

Erza could answer that with ease. "Justice is to stand by your friends, and what is right, to the bitter end, even if the whole world stands against you!"

"Uhh. That sounds good to me," Rei said, earning a frown from Cecil.

"Me too," the other Rei agreed, making his frown deepen.

There was a pause, him staring at the Reis, who just stared back at him implacably. At last, he turned his attention to Drake. "Well, as wonderful an answer as that was, I hope you're not going to repeat it, Drake?"

"I think that's a question that is far too vague to actually answer," Drake replied. "There is a thing that people try to approach, with the term justice, but sometimes they're approaching different things. Asking for the definitions of words is a bit silly, for that reason. If I asked you what love was, would you answer regarding romantic love? What about the love of a parent to a child, or between siblings, or comrades, or the love of beauty and art? Justice can mean a lot of different things. Restitution, rehabilitation, punishment... it can mean distributing goods and ills equitably, or increasing the supply of goods and reducing the presence of ills... it can just mean the law, as it is written, without exception or special pleading."

"Then which definition do you use?" Cecil asked.

"It depends on the context, just like any other word," Drake replied. "So you define it for me, in this context."

"Justice is that which we aspire to create in the world," Cecil declared, authoritatively.

Drake just frowned at that. "So good art is justice?"

Cecil glowered briefly. "Fine. Justice is the moral good which we aspire to create in the world."

"Then I think that justice is to reduce suffering and increase happiness for all the people in the world," Drake said. "With perhaps some marginal exceptions for wicked people who need to be punished even if it doesn't reduce suffering or increase happiness. Though normally it does, since a man in a cell can't murder people, and he makes a good example to any other would-be murderers."

"He makes an even better example if you just kill him," Rei chimed in. Cecil, Astraea, Ryu, Drake, and Erza all turned to face her. "What? Where's the lie?"

* * *

Miles and miles away, I was wearing the Resplendent Destiny of a common prostitute, wandering the streets of Daedalus Street as the moon hung in the sky, the distinctive jingle of coins ringing out with each step as I played honey-trap to any thief in the whole neighborhood. Cass was laid up, and this was important to Cass, so I was doing it. Still, the conversation in Rezianal did leave me thinking about what I was doing. Not at that moment, but in general.

Since I had come to this world, I had been focused on my work - going into the Dungeon - my wives, and just staying safe. Julia and Cass were lovers of justice in their own ways, sure, but they didn't expect anything from anyone. Cass would stand between a bullet and an assassin actively trying to kill her; Julia wasn't quite so generous, but I know she canonically got together with Brighton/Rei, who was just about the closest you got to amorality without actually being a horrible person.

Talking about making the world a better place off in Rezianal, though... had I really done that? Sure, I guess my wives and I had made Haruhime and Setsuko's lives better. Probably the Ishtar familia as a whole's too. (They had wound up mostly joining the Rohini familia, supercharging what had once been a minor familia.) Beyond that, though - I had hardly even donated to charity, since arriving here. There wasn't exactly the Against Malaria Foundation in this world, but adventurers made absurd amounts of money. Some of that had to go back into the business, buying potions and equipment and so on, but the margin was still obscene. I was probably making the equivalent of a hundred thousand dollars a year. And I hadn't done anything with it.

"Girly," a man's voice said, and I turned to face him. He had a knife, of course, pointed in my direction. "Give me that money, and you don't have to get hurt."

The difference between a person with a falna and a person without one in combat is obscene. Especially when the person with the falna is a Level Two with mostly maxed out stats, and an Exaltation. I grabbed his wrist, and he had only enough time to widen his eyes and instinctively start to flinch back. I had the knife captured in my other hand before he could do anything else, and removed it from his hand so fast that it was clearly painful for him. "That's a crime," I told him, as he started desperately trying to escape from my grip. "So I'm going to take you to jail, for committing a crime," I told him.

"You- you Ishtar bitch," he got out, trying to punch me in the face with his free hand. I dodged it, easily. "Fucking- let us goddamn live our own lives, you fucking rich bitch adventurer tourist." He spat at me, and again, I dodged it, easily, twisting him around, forcing his hand up between his shoulder blades.

"Maybe you should let strangers live their own lives, too," I told him. I didn't know quite how effective the whole system of luring in criminals in Daedalus Street was. Probably not as effective as Cass's superhuman people reading powers letting her identify would-be criminals. But, from what I had gathered, Daedalus Street was now much, much safer to live in for normal people, and Cass being laid up had interrupted that.

It did leave me thinking about what else I could do for the people here. They were poor, but it wasn't the kind of vast gulf poverty that exists between a country like the USA and a country like Malawi, so financial charity probably wouldn't be that helpful. I could help arrest the would-be criminals, but once Cass was back to being Batgirl, the marginal value of that would collapse to approximately nothing. I'd probably ask Julia about it, once we were done with patrol. She was playing overwatch.

* * *

Johann stared down at the figure making her way through the streets. A prostitute who had instantly overpowered a would-be attacker, and was now frog-marching him through Daedalus Street, headed towards where the Ganesha familia maintained their cells. "She's not known," he said, of the tall, muscular woman. "But it's hard to believe some Ishtar familia member just so happened to take up vigilanteism at the same time Batgirl was injured. She probably knows where the Spectre is."

"Yeah," Oliver agreed. "Grab her, interrogate her?" He suggested. "She looks to be very high Level Two, maybe very low Level Three. We can take her."

"We can," Johann agreed. "Keep an eye out for the Spectre - she hit you with that weapon of hers last time, after all."

"I will," Oliver agreed.

* * *

Just as the difference between somebody with a falna, and somebody without, is huge - the difference between Levels can also be huge. I only learned I was being stalked when somebody tried to grab me from behind, and I saw the strings of fate as they began to close around me, using Duck Fate to avoid the would-be attacker, swiveling around as he whiffed. There was only a brief moment's respite, the catfolk man pointing his dagger at me, before a second attack - this one from the side - coming for my stomach. I used Duck Fate again, a light sapphire glow surrounding me.

I could not keep up this fight just burning Essence to keep myself alive, and I also couldn't fight back, given the clear discrepancy in abilities. They were obviously moving like people of significantly higher Level or stats than me, probably the former. Given their descriptions, I could tell they were the two who had attacked Cass. Since they'd attacked me, was it not about Cass or Julia, specifically? Were they some kind of anti-do-gooder crew? It sounded moronic, but so did the descriptions of Evilus I'd picked up from the locals, and those were absolutely real.

I decided to try talking. My would-be criminal had started to scurry away, though the time he'd had to do so was pretty minimal. "What do you want?" I asked, one hand wrapping around the knife behind my back as the two men repositioned, putting themselves on either side of me.

"The Spectre," the catfolk with the two gleaming knives told me. "Where is she?"

Given that I was pretty damn sure that he had tried to stab his knife right into her brain, I wasn't going to tell him. The thought of using You and Yours Stance to try to stop them came to mind, then was instantly squashed - Freya could be watching, and I didn't want Freya to go any crazier than she already was. Avoiding the Truth Technique was the next idea, and seemed a lot better. Just tell the truth, but wrap it up as a lie. "I know where she is," I said, "she's invisible and right above us, probably just waiting for her moment." The tingle and press of Essence accompanied those words, like a soft exhalation, and the pair clearly didn't believe me. It turned what was the honest truth into what sounded like a silly, hollow threat.

"She doesn't know anything," the catfolk said, glancing at his comrade. I tried to take the chance, aiming a knifehand out at him, hoping to manage to hit him with Maw of Dripping Venom and incapacitate him, but without even looking, he took a half-dash backwards, knife coming up to defend himself smoothly. He didn't even glance my way as he continued to speak. "What should we do?"

"Same thing we did to the Batgirl, I think," the human male said from my other side. "maybe the Spectre will expose herself."

Both of my brains were running a mile a minute, trying to find a solution to this whole situation that didn't result in me getting my limbs broken. I even told the group in Rezianal what was going on, just to try to borrow their own ideas to escape, but I was rapidly running out of time. I stepped on a strand of Fate, Essence surging from me, making me glow as I hurriedly tried to step and staircase up into the sky, reaching out with one hand to snap a thread of Fate around an available surface and try to leverage myself up on it.

The gauntleted one lunged for me, and I desperately flicked out of the way with another application of Duck Fate. The feeling of beginning to exhaust your Essence is impossible to describe if you haven't experienced it - but I could feel it, like a burning in your lungs as you started to run out of breath. I desperately clambered up onto a rooftop, again having to Duck Fate to avoid a knife thrown by the catfolk, aimed at my ankle. The moment I was over, I rolled over the edge to comparative safety. Of course, they were soon jumping up the building's side, as I started to run, desperate energy animating me as I clambered further and further up into the sky, no doubt looking like a blue shooting star as I strode across empty air with desperate energy.

The gauntleted man lunged up for me, leaping through the air, and again, I had to Duck Fate, my reserves burning away to just the faintest remnant, like a revolver with just one shot left in it. I needed something, anything, to get myself further away or that little bit safer - I glanced back, throwing a hand out, managing to grab the catfolk's remaining knife. I couldn't yank it out of his hand, but as he threw it, I managed to send it swerving off course before it hit me, helping to preserve my dwindling supplies of energy.

I ran right for the tower at the center of Orario, the cyclopean building looking like salvation, as the pair leapt and ran along the rooftops beneath me. It felt so far away as I ran, but my brain was still desperately calculating, as the pair of men rushed after me - and a hurtling rock, thrown without giving me time to notice or grab it in the air, burned away the last of my Essence, leaving me guttered out and desperate. A second hit would down me, I knew. I was at the end of my rope.

I let myself drop down in desperation. Simply took a half-step to the right, gravity serving to send me hurtling down towards the ground. The movement seemed sudden enough that the pair were no longer trying to throw shit at me, pausing for a moment in confusion, and I threw out a hand, lassoing around an outcropping, transitioning my speed from downward to forwards a moment later, hurling myself desperately towards the tower.

I didn't reach, but I hit the ground, managing to 'run' something like you might if you were suddenly forced to dismount a bicycle, losing speed with every footfall against the solid stone beneath me. The tower was still far away, and the men were closing fast. I tried one more desperate move: "Help! Help! Fuck, I'm being chased!" I screamed as loud as I could, not caring if I woke up the whole neighborhood. People poked their heads through windows and doorways, then realized that we were adventurers and quickly pulled their heads back. I kept screaming, and then I got impacted from behind, skidding across the ground. Strangely enough, that wasn't as painful as you'd expect - I guess that a falna's Endurance helped with that kind of scrape.

"Gods above," the human man breathed above me, as he pinned me to the ground. "You are just the most troublesome bitch, aren't you?" He asked, just grabbing me by the head and slamming me face first into the stone beneath me, making it crack beneath my forehead. "Shut the fuck up," he grunted out, glancing up to see the faces peering out through various portals - and what few had remained, quickly closed and shuttered. "I was going to make this easy on you," he said, slamming me into the ground again, sending my head spinning - though fortunately, I had a second brain elsewhere that could still try to rationally process what was going on. "Keep an eye out for her, Black Claw," he said, to his comrade, who dutifully looked around. "Are you friends with Spectre?" He asked me. "It's hard for me to imagine-" he slammed me into the ground, again, "- that you aren't."

By that point, I could feel blood gushing from my mouth and nose from the repeated slams. I tried to speak, to at least offer him something - maybe even to confess to where Spectre was, it's hard to really express in text what a great motivator pain is, and the way it can start rationalizing things for you once it's present in sufficient quantities - but all I got out was blubbering, really. "Ahng, kuhh," I slurred around the blood in my mouth, my head still spinning. I probably wouldn't have been able to really think at that point, if I hadn't had a second brain in a second body, miles and miles away.

"She doesn't know," the catfolk pointed out, glancing around. In the sapphire glow of my anima and the head that had been damaged, every inch of his face seemed particularly sharp, eyes hollowed out like a pair of black holes in a skull, pale skin cast in blues. Dark daggers stuck out like a pair of shadows from either hand.

"She probably knows how to find her," the human responded, still holding onto my hair.

"Maybe. Let her get her head together." A serpentine movement suddenly snapped behind him, making me flinch, until I realized I was seeing his tail, not a dangerous snake.

"If you tell me how to find the Spectre," the human said, as my brain slowly began to pull itself together, "I won't hurt you any more. That's all you have to do. Sorry about getting a bit violent, there. You did make us go through a lot, when we aren't even really after you."

The catfolk squatted, making eye contact with me. Cool grey eyes resolved, then, perfectly normal as my brain finished restarting, finished remembering how to turn sensory data into meaningful images rather than horror-show versions of the same. "Just answer the question."

I wasn't going to tell him how to find Julia. I took a deep breath, pretending like I was about to talk, and - maybe luckily - a bit of blood got in my throat, giving me an excuse to hack and cough, splattering it out on the ground again as the pair gave me a moment. "All I need is the Spectre," the man behind me said. "You're not who I'm interested in." So it wasn't anti-vigilanteism? It was Julia, specifically?

Off in Rezianal, Rei suggested lying. Send him after somebody too tough for him to handle? The only bigger fish was the Freya familia. Well, no, there were other high-Level adventurers, maybe -

I got my head slammed into the ground for taking too long to answer, my head spinning again. "Just answer the question," he said, his voice firm. "I don't want to torture you. I just want information. I'm sorry I got upset earlier - you're just slippery, and I need to know what you know. Where is the Spectre?"

I almost believed him, about not wanting to torture me - but Julia was my wife. I definitely wasn't going to send him after her, even if he smashed this body's brains into paste. I did have a second one, and Julia was on an express train for oblivion if she died, so I wasn't handing her over. "I don't know," I croaked out, earning another slam of the head into the ground.

"I know you do," he said. "I'm not stupid." He spoke with an absurd degree of firmness, I was left wondering how he knew. Especially given I was in disguise in a Resplendent Destiny-

Another slam of my head into the ground, the pain of it sending my thoughts reeling again. "Don't be too rough," the catfolk said.

For a dazed moment, I wondered if they were playing good cop/bad cop with me on purpose. Then the hand on the back of my head let go, its owner snapping back suddenly, leaving me lying on the ground. The catfolk also dashed backwards, the pair separating, and I caught the sound of a third set of footsteps, turning my head - woozily - to see a blue-haired woman rushing down the street, a spear in hand as she gave chase to the man who had just been torturing me.

The catfolk man seemed to realize that he wasn't being chased, pausing his own rush away. I spared a glance back his way, and he hurled a knife - not at me, but at the blue-haired woman's back. I heard a clang, and it sounded like it was completely ineffectual, the man hesitating for a second. Then he dodged back, as a crow dove right towards where he had been a moment before, an ogre appearing where it had hit the ground a second later. Rei. "Daedalus Street's too damn confusing," came a gravelly voice - and the catfolk man began to run, Rei loping after him.

Leaving me lying there on the ground. I slowly pulled myself up off my stomach, blood still pouring from my nose and mouth, my hand going to my face as I settled down into a seated position on the ground. The blood on my hand appeared violet-red as sapphire light shimmered off it. My guttered-out Essence was still slowly recovering, as I sat there, my anima pulsing brightly. I was definitely hypervigilant, my eyes flicking towards the human man's retreating back, then back over towards the catfolk's, and back again. They did seem to be fleeing, at least.

They had soon enough pretty firmly disappeared from sight, leaving me to just sit there in the street. The bleeding from my nose and mouth seemed to have stopped, and I wiped my hand off on my jeans, though plenty of blood remained crusted and caked against my bare skin even after doing so. "Goshujinsama," Julia said, suddenly appearing in front of me, making me jerk in surprise. "I'm sorry for not personally helping you, goshujinsama. I thought you wanted me to stay back, so I went to get Shakti. I'm sorry if this stupid bitch failed you because she didn't understand your desires properly," she noted, clonking her head with her knuckles as if to demonstrate it was empty.

"No," I reassured her. I stood up, then found my feet unsteady beneath me - I probably would have fallen, but Julia managed to snap forward, grabbing me and helping me keep upright, though she quickly directed me to sit back down. "You did the right thing. They want you dead, I'm pretty sure," I told her.

"Ah... it's nostalgic," Julia said, glancing in the direction that Shakti had run off in. "But that was so brave, goshujinsama!" She declared. "You withstood torture for me, and now you're all injured... this needy bitch will do anything you want to reward you for protecting her, goshujinsama, even though she's just a lowly bitch onahole." Her normally brilliant blue eyes seemed all the more otherworldly, both from the naked (intense) lust, and the whites turning a faint cerulean from my anima. The last time I'd seen her this horny was probably after she'd killed Ted. Maybe not even then. She actually sucked, drawing in some saliva from her mouth.

"I'll think about it," I told her, and she nodded. "Not really that horny myself," I told her.

"I understand, goshujinsama," she told me. "This bitch onahole exists for you to slake your lusts on, so don't hesitate to use her when you do get horny - even if it's right in the middle of the public square, right in the Hostess of Fertility, in front of her own mother and father."

"I get it, Bitch," I told her, and she shut up at that point.

"Here's a few potions, goshujinsama. They should make you feel better," she noted, a bright smile on her lips. I took them, uncorking them and practically bathing my face in them. I could feel the pain recede in my forehead, the stuffiness in my smashed-in nose fade. I actually swallowed a quick chug of potion to deal with the cloying feeling in my mouth and throat, and as it did so, I felt almost like I hadn't been injured at all. Julia pouted, just a little, seeing me getting better - then she walked around behind me and vanished altogether. I couldn't even hear her footsteps.

I stood up, doing so slowly, not wanting to fall again. A woman practically appeared in front of me. She was beautiful, with short blue hair and an elegant spear in one hand. She was clearly an adventurer, and a high Level one at that. "My apologies, ma'am," she said, reminding me that I still had my Resplendent Destiny up. "I couldn't catch the man - he managed to lose me. Do you know who he was?"

"No," I told her, which was the honest truth. "He was asking about the Spectre," I offered.

"Hm." She glanced towards Daedalus Street. "That's the name taken by a swordswoman who has been arresting criminals in Daedalus Street, alongside Batgirl." There was a frown on her lips. "The fact that she's being targeted is concerning." She turned her attention back to me. "Are you alright, ma'am?"

"I'm fine," I reassured her. "I'm recovered. Used some potions," I told her.

She frowned at that, more confused than anything else. "I see. Well, you should probably get home. Sleep it off."

"Yeah, probably," I agreed. Especially if those guys were going to come after anybody who tried to clean up the streets of Daedalus - we'd have to figure something better out, to deal with them.

* * *

Rei #12 had listened to every bit of Drake talking about what was happening on Orario, and as the story came to a proper end, she sighed. "Soooo lame. Hopefully the ogre-me managed to eat that jackass's buddy. Cool that I'm so smart I worked out I had a new form without talking, though," she noted, with pride.

"Why did you not adopt the form of a Goliath?" Erza asked. "It would make you much stronger."

"Uhh, probably because it's the middle of the city? And a Goliath is huge and would destroy everything?" Rei #12 responded. Erza sure could be dense sometimes.

"I see," Erza said, nodding respectfully.

"If the story you told is the truth-" Cecil said, and obviously Astraea nodded, because obviously it was the truth, since Drake had no reason to lie in front of a divine lie detector, "-then Ryu is surely in good hands, with friends like you."

"Oh, uh, thanks, but I'm pretty sure she's talking about her coworkers," Drake said.

"Perhaps it won't be too long before I can return to Orario," Astraea said, a genteel smile on her lips. Honestly, thinking about it, it was kinda weird that Astraea had a dude in her familia now, right? She'd had eleven familia members, all female. That couldn't be random chance, and since they were dead, it couldn't be like they were haremettes for Bell, so...? "It would be nice to meet your friends, Ryu," Astraea said.

"Erza is my friend," Ryu said. "I do not know Drake that well, I am afraid."

"Wha- what about me? I come over all the time!" Rei #13 said, echoing Rei #12's own thoughts. What the hell? How could Ryu say something like that! Rei was putting in a bit of effort to seduce the slim elven beauty! Sure, she wasn't as strong as Erza or anything, but come on!

Ryu simply quietly stared at Rei #13 for a long second, her eyes piercing. "You are a customer," she said, before turning her attention to Astraea.

A customer?! A customer?!?! How rude! Rei was more than a customer, she was a badass overpowered self-insert who was going to bang every lesbian or bi girl or straight girl who didn't know what she was missing, in the entire Danmachi canon, plus a few girls from other universes who were bi!

Rei #12 caught Rei #13's eye, and the look they exchanged made it obvious they were both thinking the same (100% true) thing. She nodded in a solemn promise to herself. She would seduce Ryu into her harem.