Formalities

Room 15 was a medium-sized room that contained two sets of a simple bed, a wooden chair and a wooden desk each. The only differences between the two sets was that one of them was obviously in use: It was very messy. Many drop items and notes were haphazardly scattered all over the desk. The bedsheets weren't made at all.

Sharpening noises were the only sounds that could be heard in the room. They originated from the dangerously glinting dagger and maintenance tools in the hands of a youth sitting on the disheveled bed.

He looked as if he was barely 14 years old. A solemn and concentrated expression adorned his face, uncharacteristic for his age. His earthen brown eyes stared at his hands, fully focussed on his maintenance work. On top of his head, protruding from his tousled black hair that covered all the way over where human ears would normally be located, there was a pair of huge black rabbit ears.

The youth was a Hume Bunny, a race of people very similar to humans. The only differences were the bunny ears and tail which made it inconvenient to wear trousers made for humans.

But here in Orario, finding clothes made specifically for every race out there wasn't a problem.

A simple green shirt, black trousers with a hole in the back to fit the scut and matte, brown leather boots, that was what the youth was currently wearing. In addition to that, in a wooden crate next to the bed, there was a set of well-maintained light metal armour. It consisted of shin guards, arm guards, a breast plate and a plate to cover the upper back. The armour was stuffed next to a dark green gambeson.

Suddenly, a loud knock disturbed the perpetual sharpening noises. With a slightly peeved expression on his face because he had his work interrupted, the young Hume Bunny sheathed his dagger and reluctantly stood up from the bed. He walked towards the door and opened it, expecting to see one of his acquaintances.

What greeted him instead was a young man almost a head taller than him. He wore a white shirt, grey pants and blue-white shoes that looked totally out of place. Consequently, the Hume Bunny was confused. He had never seen this guy in the familia before. But with such a weird getup, he would have remembered him for sure.

Before he could ask him about what he was doing here, his eyes wandered to the two sides of the young man. And straight towards a golden haired beauty and a golden-yellow haired elf, both about as tall as himself. At first, the Hume Bunny youth just stared in shock, barely able to keep his facial expression in check. These were Ais Wallenstein, the Sword Princess, and Lefiya Viridis, Riveria's protégé! Even he, someone who mostly didn't participate in Loki Familia activities, couldn't help but know about them. What were they doing here with this weird young man with the calm smile? Who could this man be, for him to be escorted by the two of them?

Of course, the young man was Isaac.

And just how the young Hume Bunny had been sizing him up from head to toe, he did the same to the person who had just opened the door to his future dorm room.

When his eyes came across the pair of rabbit ears, he thought back to the ones he had seen when he was brought to Loki's study before. The ones he got to see now were definitely not the same. These ones were black, whereas the ones he had seen before were a shade of light brown.

Before everything got even more awkward because of the prolonged silence, he decided to introduce himself.

"Hi there. I'm Isaac Blackshaw and just joined the familia. Loki told me I'll be staying in this room from now on. You are probably my new roommate, right?"

The confusion in the eyes of the Hume Bunny youth seemed to lessen a bit. Still, he didn't seem to be too happy about having to share his room from now on. But after glancing at the two girls accompanying Isaac, he sighed and gave in. After all, there was no use in opposing someone with top tier connections.

"Yeah, I am. I'm Jakk Maytin. I advanced to Level 2 a few months ago. Come on in."

Without paying any further attention to the three people following behind him, Jakk sat down on his bed again and continued to work on his dagger.

After glancing over everything in the room for a bit, Isaac sat down on the unoccupied bed to test how comfortable it was. And as soon as he did, he couldn't help but be surprised. Contrary to what he expected from a medieval-ish fantasy world, the mattress was of top quality. It wasn't too hard or too soft. Additionally, it wasn't stuffed with straw or feathers. With only this cursory examination, he couldn't even tell what it was made of. Most importantly, he would definitely not have a problem with getting a good rest here.

Once Ais was sure that Isaac had checked out his new home sufficiently, she decided to ask a question.

"Do you want to get registered and get some equipment now, Isaac?"

Before he could reply, Lefiya already chimed in to add more information, happy about finally being able to break that awkward silence from before. She didn't really know Jakk well, so she wasn't that comfortable with initiating a conversation in his presence.

"Just so you know, everyone who joins the familia will be set up with a set of equipment that isn't too strong for their current Level."

"Thanks for explaining that, Lefiya. But where will we get the funds?"

Hearing Isaac's question, the cute elf was proud to be of help to a newcomer with her knowledge, so she answered immediately.

"We'll get them at the treasury."

Once he heard the word 'treasury', Jakk's ears perked up quite a bit and he hastily got up, uncharacteristically enthusiastic. Before Lefiya could offer to lead them to the treasury, he joined the group's conversation himself.

"I'd be a bad roommate if I didn't even show you to the treasury. Follow me, I'll lead you there."

Isaac was pretty amused by the sudden shift in tone but nodded in agreement, eager to find out what his new roommate was so excited about.

"Alright."

-----

Shortly after, the group of four arrived in another part of the Twilight Manor.

In front of a huge strongroom door, behind a desk filled with a huge amount of books, a pair of light brown rabbit ears caught Isaac's and Jakk's attention straight away.

For Isaac, this was because it was the pair of rabbit ears he had seen previously in the entrance hall. On the other hand, Jakk was genuinely excited to have a reason to go see the one the ears belonged to.

The owner of the rabbit ears was a Hume Bunny girl who looked to be around 16 years old. She wore a plain, white blouse, brown pants and black shoes. It was obvious she was trying to not stick out. Her hair was of the same light brown colour as her ears and she had red eyes that had previously been completely focussed on the book in her hands. As soon as the group entered the room she was in charge of, her ears twitched nervously and her eyes darted over to timidly observe the group while trying to hide behind the book.

While attempting to not be too conspicuous, Lefiya leaned over towards Isaac and whispered to him a little bit of information about this shy bunny girl.

"That's Rakta, a Level 3 adventurer. She doesn't usually go into the dungeon because she is too cautious. So Loki decided to have her guard the treasury instead. She isn't really comfortable with talking to people, so don't take offense with her, okay?"

After nodding towards Lefiya with a confident smile, trying to signal to her that he wouldn't make Rakta uncomfortable, Jakk's loud voice echoed through the room, boasting.

"Hey Rakta. I brought my new roommate here to get the funds for his starting equipment. I would be a bad roommate if he got lost, after all. But I'm definitely a great roommate, so I lead him here, mhm!"

Confusion spread on Ais' face, upon hearing this shameless bragging. She couldn't figure out why the previously reserved Hume Bunny youth was now trying to make himself seem like a magnanimous samaritan. Of course, it was very obvious that he failed miserably - anyone would be able to identify his words as the over-the-top vainglory that they were. Not to mention, his words sounded quite cringeworthy.

When she looked over to Lefiya and Isaac to see if they were just as puzzled as she was, she realized that she seemed to be the only one that didn't understand what was going on. Both Lefiya and Isaac showed a knowing smile. So Ais decided to ask the two about this later, after they separated from Jakk. It would be unbecoming of her to ask about his behaviour while he was still here, after all.

Hearing Jakk's words, Rakta shrank back a little bit, before finally lowering her book, observing the group in front of her head on. After taking a few breaths to calm herself down, she looked directly at the only person she didn't recognize. By process of elimination, this had to be the new roommate Jakk had just mentioned. Stutteringly, she inquired about some information she needed to know to get the young man the right amount of funds.

"L-Level?"

Seeing how socially awkward the bunny girl was behaving, a warm smile spread on Isaac's face. He had always felt quite safe around these kinds of people.

"I'm Isaac Blackshaw, Level 1. Nice to meet you, Rakta."

He decided to introduce himself while he was at it. It was quite likely that he would run across her again in the future and it would be awkward if they didn't even know each other's name.

Hearing the young man in front of her address her by her name, Rakta's ears perked up a bit and she hesitated for a while, finally deciding on responding with a nod and just getting the funds without further ado.

She turned around towards the strongroom door and placed her hand on it. At the same time, a green magic circle appeared and the mechanism recognized her. The massive metal door soundlessly opened and let her walk inside without obstruction. But to Isaac's surprise, he couldn't see anything beyond the door at all. It was as if the treasury itself was shrouded by a black veil, making it impossible to guess the amount of riches stored here.

After studying the magical veil for a bit, Rakta had already returned from inside and closed the door, leaving Isaac's observation unfinished.

Rakta bashfully walked over to Isaac with a small bag of coins grasped in her right hand. Before he could ask her anything about it, she already listed the contents.

"100.000 valis. In 1.000 valis coins."

After handing over the bag, Isaac was only barely able to thank her, before Rakta had already disappeared behind her mountain of books again. She seemingly paid the group no attention but it was quite obvious that she was waiting for them to leave before she was able to relax again.

Not wanting to disturb her any further, the group, led by the still enthusiastic Jakk totally oblivious about how horrible he was at boasting, left the room adjacent to the treasury and walked back towards the male dormitory.

Soon, they arrived at the entrance hall from the direction of the hallway Isaac had seen Rakta escape to before.

"I'll go to get registered with the Guild and buy my equipment now."

Having heard Isaac's explanation about what he planned to do now, Jakk just nodded and trod off back to their dorm room. He had already reverted back to his antisocial state and wasn't interested in sticking around for a pointless shopping trip. He only left behind a few words before disappearing from sight.

"See you later."

-----

While on the way to the Guild headquarters, called the Pantheon, Ais finally got the chance to ask the question she planned to ask before.

"Why did Jakk behave so weirdly?"

Isaac couldn't help but smile at Ais' naive and cute question. Subconsciously, he raised his right hand a bit, trying to pet her head. But before he could raise his hand for more than a few centimeters, he noticed what he was about to do. Just because he liked petting people's heads, that didn't mean he was allowed to do so without their permission. Thankfully, he was able to stop in time, before possibly offending Ais.

Of course, Ais noticed this weird, momentary hand motion but she didn't really know what to think about it. She decided to just ignore it and wait for him to answer her question.

"Jakk seems to like that girl, Rakta. So to look better in front of her, he purposefully boasted about himself. I don't know whether he feels simple admiration for her, or if he has a crush on her. Heck, he might just be trying to make friends. Still, if he is, he is really bad at it. Anyway, he did what he did to try to look better in her eyes."

After thinking about Isaac's words for a bit, Ais nodded. Then, she pulled Lefiya aside, walking just far enough away so that Isaac couldn't hear what they were talking about.

Lefiya was pretty confused by this behaviour but blushed a lot when she felt Ais' hand grasping hers, dragging her away. And after hearing Ais' question, her blushing intensified.

"How can I look better in front of Isaac?"

Lefiya couldn't help but feel dejected and jealous inside. Yes, she knew her idol and Isaac had a very close and special connection that she wasn't even able to understand. But still, she wanted to be close to Ais too!

Trying to calm down from the possible implications of Ais' question that were causing her imagination to run wild, she decided to categorize the feelings Ais had for Isaac as a simple liking, a simple interest. After all, Lefiya was quite sure that Ais didn't even fully comprehend what 'love' was. So she didn't have to go too crazy thinking about it.

Still, she couldn't really think of an answer to Ais' question. After all, she had never tried to appeal to a man before.

"I have no idea. I don't know what men like. Let's ask Riveria when we get back, okay?"

Although Isaac was wondering about what the two girls were whispering about in secret, he decided to just give them some space. He didn't need to know everything, after all. If it was something of importance that was related to him, they would surely tell him once it became relevant.

Soon, the majestic Pantheon came into view on the north-western main street. It was an enormous, three-floor-tall building whose front, which was the only part that could be seen from where he currently stood, was almost 100 meters in width. It was gigantic. Truly fitting for the most influential force in the city.

Without loitering around, Isaac lead the way.

The entrance hall of the building had many counters manned by guild staff which could deal with the adventurers' various requests. Currently, there were still barely any adventurers here as it was only the late afternoon. So a group with two famous Loki Familia members was spotted even quicker than it normally would be. As soon as they entered the building, a joyful voice welcomed them.

"Yo, Lefiya, Sword Princess! What can I help you with today?"

Right in front of the group stood a pink-haired young woman a little shorter than Lefiya and Ais. She wore the typical Guild uniform: A black suit coat without sleeves worn over a long-sleeved, white shirt, a grey-blue bowtie, black gloves, black suit trousers and black leather shoes. Isaac immediately recognized this bundle of energy to be Misha Flott, one of the few Guild employees mentioned in the Danmachi novels.

While he was observing her, she was, of course, also curiously assessing the weirdly clothed man accompanied by the two girls she was acquainted with. But besides the fact that he seemed to be a calm and collected, friendly individual, she wasn't able to discern anything else about him.

"Ah, Misha! We're here to register our new familia member as an adventurer."

Lefiya's explanation confirmed what Misha had already suspected. Indeed, the Sword Princess wouldn't just walk around town with a man for no reason at all. Showing an understanding, enthusiastic smile, Misha nodded and lead them to a counter manned by a youthful amazoness Guild employee.

The amazoness had the dark skin inherent to her race, long brown hair and blue eyes inquisitively sizing up the approaching group. She wore her Guild uniform a lot more loosely than Misha. The sleeves of her white shirt were folded back and only reached above her elbow. Instead of a grey-blue bowtie, she wore a black necktie that was barely tied at all. The top two buttons of her shirt were open and she was leaning back in her seat relaxedly. If it hadn't been against Guild regulations, she would definitely have put her feet on the counter in front of her.

"Yolanda, I have a new Loki Familia member who wants to register as an adventurer here. I'll leave him to you."

Right after saying that, Misha waved at Lefiya and walked off, back towards her post near the entrance, ready to welcome more adventurers.

"Heyo, I'm Yolanda Filura and I'll be ya dungeon advisor in the future. What's ya name?"

After grasping the outstretched hand of the friendly amazoness and giving a short introduction, Yolanda handed him a form to fill out, literally titled 'Adventurer Registration'.

"Ya'll only need to write down some basic information on here. We just need ya name, the name of ya familia and ya Level. Nothing personal like ya status or anything, so don't worry, 'kay?"

Isaac carefully read through the form she gave him but found no small print or anything that differed from what she just said. This took him aback slightly as he expected Ouranos, the god who was the head of the Guild, to sneak in something to put hidden restrictions on adventurers. But there was nothing suspicious whatsoever.

So, while listening to Yolanda explain a few things, he filled out the form, writing in the common language of this continent of the Danmachi world, Koine, for the first time. Of course, there were no problems thanks to the automatic translation feature of the system.

"Just report back to me if ya run into any problem in the dungeon, I'll give ya some tips that might help ya."

Even though she was saying this with a bright smile on her face, deep inside, Yolanda knew she probably wouldn't be of much help to the young man in front of her. After all, the Loki Familia taught their members a lot of strategies and knowledge about the dungeon in-house. Still, she would do her best to give him good counsel. The less adventurers died, the better for the Guild, after all. Also, it was never a pleasant experience to know that someone she had interacted with for some time had died without her being able to do anything.

And as her whole reason for being a Guild employee was to find a strong adventurer to settle down with, she wanted the ones she was in charge of to survive for as long as possible. So even though Isaac hadn't stared at her purposefully slightly exposed cleavage at all and was therefore quite unlikely to be the kind of simpleton she was looking for, she would still support him, as that was her job.

Seeing Isaac agree to her request with a nod, she informed him about yet another thing.

"If there are any important changes, for example, if ya Level or familia changes, let me know. The Guild wants to keep an up-to-date database on all registered adventurers, ya understand?"

Yet again, Isaac was surprised with how out-in-the-open the Guild operated. He had expected Ouranous to keep his actions of keeping such a database a relative secret. But here, this well-meaning amazoness was just telling him about it up-front. He couldn't help but chuckle.

"Sure, I'll let you know. Here you go."

With these words, he handed her the filled-out form and turned towards Ais and Lefiya.

"Let's go buy the equipment now, shall we?"

Both girls happily agreed, so after saying goodbye to Isaac's new dungeon advisor Yolanda for now, the group of three walked off towards Babel. It really wasn't hard to find the way. All the main streets lead there in a straight line.

-----

On Babel's sixth floor, Isaac stepped off a magical elevator, closely followed by Ais and an unhappily pouting Lefiya.

Compared to when Lefiya first used these elevators and was scared out of her wits, Isaac wasn't even the least bit surprised by them. She had been excited for Isaac's reaction to these magical devices the entire way to Babel, so she was quite disappointed when nothing like what she expected happened.

The fourth to eighth floors of Babel were rented by the Hephaestus Familia, a familia of blacksmiths and crafters of all sorts. Of course, they were mainly focussed on blacksmithing, because their god was the Goddess of Smithing. Still, there were a fair few members focussing on other crafting professions in the familia as well.

While the prices on the fourth and fifth floor were in the millions of valis, from the sixth floor onwards, the less expensive products of the familia were showcased. Pretty much any kind of armour, cloth or metal, and weapon could be found on this floor. They wouldn't be of the highest quality needed by first or second class adventurers, but third class adventurers like the Level 1 Isaac would be able to make good use of them.

A few minutes later, Isaac found himself in front of a mirror in a changing room of an armour store. He contentedly observed his new equipment and stretched a bit, to see whether or not he was uncomfortable anywhere. Thankfully, everything seemed to fit perfectly.

He was wearing a short black gambeson almost reminiscent of a shirt. Over that, he wore light metal armour similar to the set he had seen in Jakk's crate. The only difference with that set was that over his left arm guard, he wore a black vambrace. He decided on this instead of a less wieldy shield. He also wore padded black trousers and short, matte, black leather boots.

Overall, he couldn't help but admit that his outfit was quite similar to the one the protagonist of Danmachi had chosen at one point. Of course, his gambeson and padded trousers offered a lot more protection than what he had seen Bell choose in the novels, but the look was oddly similar.

A sigh couldn't help but escape his lips. Isaac had always thought that a head on collision of forces was the worst way to battle, so he couldn't help but choose this more mobile, dodging- and force-redirection-focussed equipment. So, without even trying to, just by choosing the colour black because it made blood stains stand out less, he had ripped off Bell.

While shaking his head to get these self-deprecating thoughts out of his head, his gaze couldn't help but land on a pile of clothes on the chair in the changing room. His clothes.

Admittedly, he could just change back into them but he would then still be sized up by pretty much every passerby because of his unusual fashion. Just like on his previous walks through Orario. So it was probably a better idea to keep this equipment on while he was walking around the city, to have people pay less attention to him. Still, that left one problem: He didn't want to carry his clothes around.

'System, how can I put something into my inventory?'

[ Think about adding the object to your inventory while being in physical contact with it, Isaac. ]

Wasting no time, Isaac grabbed his shirt, trousers and shoes and thought about putting them into his inventory. Of course, he hadn't known about the existence of the inventory before this. But honestly: Would he have forgotten to implement such a convenient feature? Of course not!

Right after the clothes in his hands had disappeared into thin air, a window popped up in Isaac's field of view. It was made up of many grids symbolizing space for different objects: the inventory. Contrary to the inventories he had used in the games of his previous world, he didn't seem to have an upper limit on his storage capacity. Additionally, he was able to create sub-inventories and use filters to make navigation and storage more convenient.

A confident smile flashed across Isaac's face for a moment. Was that the feeling other people got when they got to appreciate what they had created?

After observing his inventory for a while longer, he closed the window in his field of view and walked out of the changing room.

What greeted him were the gazes of his two female companions. Ais gave him an approving nod, obviously quite happy with his equipment choice. Lefiya also couldn't help but praise him.

"It looks really fitting."

Of course, even these simple words made the adorable elf blush a bit. She had never complimented a man on their choice of clothes or equipment before, so she was quite embarrassed doing so now.

A simple word of thanks and a cheerful smile later, Isaac walked towards the desk the shop clerk was sitting at. Once he was there, he pointed at all the equipment he was currently wearing.

"I'd like to buy all of this."

Once the surprise about how his customer seemingly decided to walk out of his store in full equipment had faded, the clerk just ignored it as it wasn't a particularly weird request and added up the cost of all the armour pieces.

"That'll be 49.000 valis."

Another ten minutes later, the group of three had left a weapon store directly opposite of the armour store they had been to before. In there, Isaac had bought a sword for 40.000 valis. With this, he still had 11.000 valis left, which he intended to return in full. He would earn his own money soon enough, after all. There was no need to be a penny pincher.

Now, a simple black sheath was strapped to the left side of Isaac's waist. The length of the contained sword was somewhere between a longsword and a shortsword. It was the most basic kind of sword Isaac could find in the store. What made him decide on buying it was that it felt natural when holding it in his hand. The sword's hilt was a little bit too short to properly be wielded with two hands but just perfect for one-handed use.

Isaac spent a few moments admiring the weapon now at his disposal, particularly happy with the non-ornamental pommel that was as basic as it could get. Functionality was the most important aspect of a weapon, after all. If a weapon had eye-catching ornaments, its quality was often a lot worse than it could have been. Once he finished praising himself for his choice of weapon in his mind, he turned around to Ais and Lefiya who had followed him outside of the store and excitedly asked them a question.

"Can we go to the dungeon for a bit?"