A ‘Warm’ Welcome

The next morning, the group continued their journey while being strangely quiet. A few hours later, they went through a long and wide ravine, before reaching the area where the Ruin of Elsus was situated.

As they got off the steep rocks, a silent and decaying forest came into their views, "What happened here?", muttered Hestia.

Instead of green, the leaves of the trees were in a deep shade of purple with some of them even blackened, while the branches and trunks were dried up.

"The forest... It's dead." Yoruichi replied to Hestia.

Hearing the words, Artemis explained to them, "This is Antares' handiwork." She then pointed towards a certain direction and said, "And that is the Ruin of Elsus."

The group looked towards the direction she was pointing in and saw some stone buildings with a narrow tower in the middle of it.

However, at that moment, a super high-pitched sound rang into everyone's ears and Artemis suddenly clutched her chest in pain, "Artemis-sama?" Kisuke checked on her but couldn't find anything wrong in that instant.

The next second, Kisuke and Yoruichi suddenly felt some strange energy gathering above their heads and both of them looked up in a hurry before shouting, "Incoming attack!"

Streams of light manifested on top of them and started to drop down, "N-no way..." Hestia shuddered at the sight of those lights, as a certain possibility solidified in her mind. Thanks to Kisuke and Yoruichi's awareness, they were able to dodge the attack. However, despite getting an early warning, Hermes failed to control his wyvern in time and was caught up.

Kisuke and Yoruichi hurriedly followed the crashing wyvern and disembarked near it, "Hermes-sama~! You alive~?"

"S-somehow..." Hermes replied, although his wyvern took a hit and wouldn't be able to fly.

"And? What was that light?", asked Yoruichi. Her question was intended for Artemis and Hestia.

Hestia only stayed silent while Artemis replied but didn't really answer the question, "I think it was me... No, it's the spear that it wanted."

"So it's Antares' attack?" muttered Kisuke as he pulled out his sword to prepare for the growing number of monsters, which were surrounding them, "It's the same kind of monster, but they're evolved? Now that's something."

Different from what they encountered yesterday, the scorpion monsters now had larger bodies and grew a single eye in front, which probably served as Antares' eyes.

Hermes panicked and hurriedly joined everyone as he couldn't fight. However, he suddenly saw how Kisuke and Yoruichi took their weapon back, "What are you doing?"

Kisuke and Yoruichi didn't reply to him but he still got his answer a second later, "Come, wandering wind, the wandering traveler. Cross the sky and run through the wilderness, run faster than anything else. Imbue the light of stardust and destroy the enemy."

A green silhouette then went above the group and released green glowing orbs towards the monsters surrounding them, "Luminous Wind!"

The glowing orbs consisted of compressed air and exploded on contact. They annihilated the monsters around them, saving Kisuke and Yoruichi from the further effort of killing them.

The green silhouette landed and turned to them, "Are you alright?... Hmm? Urahara-san."

"Yo~. Fancy meeting you here, Lion-san~." Kisuke greeted her.

Ryuu approached the group and continued, "I didn't expect to meet you here. My assistance must have been useless."

Kisuke shook his head, "Please don't say that. Thank you for helping us." Kisuke then faced a certain direction where few more people were coming, "So the Hermes Familia hired you?"

Ryuu nodded and confirmed it, "Yes. I've been asked to accompany them in this troublesome quest." She turned in the same direction as Kisuke, "They are also here with me."

Beyond the dead trees, several members of the Hermes Familia, led by Asfi, appeared. But instead of greeting the group, Asfi gritted her teeth towards Hermes as she approached him, "...Hermes-sama..."

Hermes, who was about to escape, stopped his attempt when he heard his name. He turned towards her and said, "H-hey Asfi. Good to see ya!"

But Asfi wasn't buying any of that, "You're such a blockhead!" She yelled to his face, "You went back to Orario, leaving us all behind in this ruin!"

While raising both of his hands in surrender, Hermes tried to explain himself, "R-relax, Asfi. I needed to find the chosen hero for the spear."

"That doesn't justify your actions!" Asfi retorted. Ever since Hermes left, she had been worried about him, since he didn't bring any bodyguard along.

Coming to his rescue, Artemis spoke up, "Please let Hermes go for that one, Asfi."

Hermes sighed in relief as Asfi left him alone and turned to Artemis, "Artemis-sama..."

It was then, that she finally noticed who Hermes brought with him from Orario and who the chosen hero was, "I-it can't be... Kisuke Urahara... You're the one who pulled out the spear?"

"It's nice to see you again, Andromeda-san~." Kisuke greeted her.

Asfi hoped that someone who could pull the spear out would be from a strong Familia, so that it would be easier for them. However, she rather prefered an obscure and weak Familia to pull it out than Kisuke, since it was already guaranteed by both Hermes and Artemis that whoever could wield the spear should be able to defeat Antares. Although Kisuke was strong, probably stronger than she imagined, Asfi didn't like Kisuke very much. In fact, she was scared of him.

After the incident on the 18th floor, Hermes immediately brought them to this ruin, after having a meeting with the Guild, as an additional penalty for bringing a Deity into the Dungeon. But while they were traveling, Asfi dedicated some of their members to investigate the origin of the Hestia Familia.

However, the outcome was less than satisfactory. Kisuke's group came to Orario not long ago and because their group was eye-catching, it should be easy to trace where they came from. But the truth was far from that. Every village nearby Orario where they could have stayed or resupplied was investigated, but not one of them witnessed Kisuke's group. From this result, it would appear that Kisuke's group suddenly surfaced in Orario without any sort of origin.

Given the fact that Kisuke and his group really were just Level 2's, according to the Guild, yet could sneak up and intimidate a Level 4 like her, it scared her more than those who were actually stronger than her.

"You preferred to have someone else pulling out that spear, right?" Kisuke suddenly broke her line of thought.

Asfi shuddered and Hermes came to her rescue, "Now, now, Kisuke-kun. Please don't bully Asfi-chan too much." He then turned to Asfi, "You too, Asfi. Don't be too nervous. We're here for Antares."

Everyone from the Hermes Familia was confused at Asfi's reaction, but they couldn't ask about it now. Instead, they greeted Yoruichi since they were familiar with her as the one who saved them on the 24th floor against Olivas Act.

"So, Asfi. What's the situation?", asked Hermes.

Asfi nodded at him and answered, "It's getting progressively worse. Decay is spreading in the forest and the monsters' numbers are only increasing. All villages in the area were attacked and razed."

"How about the strike plan?"

"All plans ended in failure before the gate.", explained Asfi.

"Gate?", asked Kisuke.

"Yes. It's blocking the path towards Antares." Ryuu answered.

"You cannot open it?"

Ryuu shook her head, "We're not enough."

"Then what's the plan?"

"I can open it." Artemis suddenly answered.

Everyone looked at her, but before anyone could ask any question, Hermes clapped his hands to gather everyone's attention and said, "Alright. Before anything else, let's go to camp. There, we rest and plan our next steps in greater detail."

The Hermes Familia then led the group through the forest. As they went through the dead trees, Kisuke examined them in detail and figured that not just the Mana, but also the Ki was absorbed, 'A monster that is capable of utilizing Ki, huh...'

Along the way, Hestia called out to Artemis and brought her away from the group, so that no one would be able to hear what they were about to talk about.

Kisuke saw them going away and Hermes approached him, "Are you going to listen in this time?"

Kisuke watched how Hestia confronted Artemis before replying, "No need. I can already guess what they're talking about."

"Then you're already aware of what we're asking you to do?", asked Hermes again.

"Well, after all those clues, it was pretty easy to guess."

"Hey, even with all those clues, it should still be hard to come up with the correct answer!", exclaimed Hermes before asking, "So? What's the giveaway?"

"The fact, that the welcoming attack, which we received, had the same aura as the arrow and Antares' apparent interest in it, solidified the possibility in my mind."

Hermes sighed at his answer, "I never thought that you could sense that much. That's a Divine Weapon, you know? It should be almost impossible to sense its aura by those from the Lower World."

Kisuke grinned at him, "It's as you've said, it's almost impossible. Too bad, I'm not included in that 'almost'."

Hermes then turned around to follow Asfi towards the camp, "Either way, there's nothing else we can do. But don't mistake this as killing a Deity. In any normal situation, if you were to do that, you'd be punished."

Kisuke didn't say anything when Hermes left. Yoruichi approached him a few seconds later with a question, "Are you going to do it?"

With a smile, Kisuke replied, "Yep~, but not the way he's expecting it~."

"Just keep in mind that you'll be revealing your real abilities to him."

"No worries. I don't plan on showing him anything. He can guess, but he wouldn't have any evidence. That's the reason I asked for his favor."

"I see. Planning from the start, huh. Well, I'll take care of Hestia-sama's safety so you can keep your mind off that."

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Editors:

28th00: This time you poofed 80% through it! Hestia and Artemis are gonna have some emotionally charged talks right now I assume. All I know is that lots of patting will happen in this arc, for Phis-chama is on the horizon and she is the QUEEN OF THE LAP(even if it doesn't really apply to an asexual entity)!

Alexander: Ahahaha #sweat dropping#. I'm currently sitting with my family. Because it is so freaking hot, we are eating our dinner in the evening. Before you complain that dinner is always in the evening, what I mean to say is that the main meal of the day is normally at midday. At least for germans.

28th00: Psst, comment on Phis-chama… I was just gonna edit this in reply to that. Oh well, time for a messy editor corner thingy again!

Alexander: Don't bother to do it. It is a part of our fun after all. Though I do wonder, when comes the day, that the editor corner becomes even longer than the actual chapter.

As for Phis-chama, I don't care whether or not she has a gender. She's cute, so it's fine.

28th00: Agreed, she's cute, so it's fine. I feel like that'd happen if any of my talks with g0yya were documented in the corner… They've gone on for like 4 hours at a time before. We still don't have a "Phis-chama's Wonderful Delicacies" chapter segment though. It's sad, truly, that we don't have our gratuitous Japanese cooking sections where Japan is #1 that is standard in Isekai series', truly. It'd be like 3 paragraphs of her analysing and reacting to a cookie, then her saying "Crunchy." or something like that…

Alexander: Sounds like a good theme for some bonus chapters. Also, how about a reaction chapter for Ais and Riveria about fast food. They would be mind blown.

28th00: I've already been told directly that "I'd love to do that, but there's no way in hell I can come up with enough descriptions to fill out multiple paragraphs on Ophis eating a cookie." I kinda wanna see Riveria's reaction, since Ais would become a vacuum if her eating her bodyweight in Potato Puff's is truly a thing she does daily… Riveria has to watch her waistline, definitely, totally.

Alexander: Well, I dare say that we've read enough of that stuff to help him with describing the sweets from Phis-chama's point of view. He just has to write "(Please insert here your, at least 100 words long, description)".

28th00: I would never do that. That's far too much effort. I'm done with this chapter and this is almost a full page of the corner, wait… It absolutely is a full page. Oh no. Remember when we were told "Keep it 1 line or less"? Yeah, me neither.

Alexander: Uupps, my bad (muahaha). Well, see you in the next chapter. Most likely tomorrow. My regards to author-san.

Goyya: You people...