Chapter 13

Taking my charge blade in hand I prepared to use its fire creation ability because I doubted if we spilt them up, I would be able to cleanly take care of them and not be wounded but the only issue and the reason I didnt use the fire creation ability before against the prior orcs and other monsters is the warning of it using large amounts of mind with no comparison as to how much it would use.

In other words, against a dozen people of likely similar strength if not greater due to how deep we were it was likely I had no other choice and had to simply hope I was able to either kill enough to scare them off or finish them all off before I hit mind down.

"Why the hell are you guys doing this? Aren't you guys afraid that the Guild is going to have you all expelled from Orario or something?" I asked gloomily.

One of the shadows came out of the fog and the rest of them followed allowing us to see the hodgepodge-dressed thugs with only a single woman in their group but it was plain she was only half alive with how filthy she was and was obviously suffering from withdrawal from how she was shaking and twitching.

The man who announced their presence seemed to be their leader as he continued to speak "Some asshole shot Zanis in the face with a crossbow. Now Soma wants to take back control of his Familia as apparently none of us are trustworthy enough to continue supplying him his special ingredients for his wine peh." He spat "Fuckin gods shouldn't be so arrogant, so what if we need to drink his wine. What if we just break his legs and tie him to his vats heh."

Ok this guy is a psycho

He turned his back to me and Bell making us blink in confusion. "Yeah, that's what we should do to every god!" He roared throwing his hands in the air grandly and spinning slowly as he spoke grandly. "We shall subdue every deity in the land for they are nothing to us mortals in their mortal locked form! The gods will forge our weapons! Brew our Potion's! They will bow to the strength of mortals! Heh, and the goddesses will serve in their own ways... Hurk!!"

As the idiot wanna-be cult leader was screaming his nonsense I casually walked forward as quietly as I could to not get the attention of the mentally fried Soma addicts and right as he finished his sentence my Great Sword almost gently slid through his chest as there was no loud shatter of ribs. No, the only sound was him drowning in his blood as my oversized sword parted his lungs and crushed the surrounding organs as I wrenched it out of his chest leaving him to drop with a wet thud as even the dungeon went silent at the awkward scene.

I ignited the fire ability in my sword and shot a small lance of solidified fire as a test at the only person who seemed to be reacting he was carrying a large shield as he roared and charged me but he panicked and tried to block the solid fire lance.

The fire lance pierced halfway through his shield and stopped making him scream and drop his shield revealing although the lance didnt reach his body it mangled the arm holding his shield. "Kill the mage!" The man roared seemingly both too far in his adrenalin and mind fried by the Soma to realize how much pain he should be in.

Bell seemed to know my plan as I held my own shield in front of me and as Soma's men rushed for me, I put my back to a tree and tried to keep my shield covering my chest and face and as they started to smash my shield repeatedly with whatever weapons I kept my sword in front of legs that way they were safe as well and then Bell yelled: "Jake fire now!"

I grinned and imagined a five-meter width and height wall of fire and my mind was smothered in exhaustion as I came close to down as an explosion of fire burst from my shield's face scorching the closest half dozen men into a charred mess and leaving even the least burnt, a concussed mess from the force of the explosion because my will wasn't strong enough to keep the fire in a wall like I imagined it.

Bell having avoided all the fire and most of the heat only looked a little disoriented as he staggered at the downed enemies, and it was only after he slashed the throats of three of the survivors the last three managed to stagger to their feet and interestingly enough the woman almost looked cleaner with her face covered with soot but that didnt stop me from cleaving her almost in half from head to waist when I chopped my charge blade in its axe form straight down.

Shaking my head at the sight to clear any errant thoughts I staggered and kneeled in pure exhaustion as my sight faded and then I barely saw boots approach in the corner of my eye, but I was unable to move thankfully my worries were put to rest. "Hey, Jake with all these uhm 'lost' weapons? Think you could make such an awesome weapon for me!?" He gushed and even in my exhaustion I could hear how awkward he felt about literally looting these people just after killing them.

Thankfully as a proud Skyrim/Fallout player, I had zero compunctions at providing lost weapons and armor a new home, so I had to give Bell some sage advice. "Bell buddie see those poor weapons on the ground, cold and lonely? Do you want them to just rot here eternally? No, we shall adopt them and fuse them into our weapons so we can always carry them with us!"

Seeing Bell's incredulous face, I thought back for a second and groaned, and how fucking weird I sounded and personally, I blame the mind down as it's making me feel loopy.

I reached into my bag's side pocket and brought out a metal canteen and took a drink of the Tears of the Sky elixir I made that in turn helped make such great memories.

After a few moments of rest, I could already feel my mana regenerating so I turned to Bell. "Bell, can you please clean up the battlefield while I recover my mind."

"I can do it for you guys..." A voice whispered from behind our tree making me roll off it and come up with my shield in front of me and low and behold when it rains it pours as Lili reflexively brought up her crossbow at me but lowered it after a second.

I then realized she must have seen our whole battle if she was so scared of me just raising up my shield. "Hey Lili, you have been pretty busy huh," I said sarcastically as I could already put together why a low-level one supporter would be hiding this deep in the dungeon. She was the one who killed Zanis but were those adventurers down here to loot us like I thought or were they hunting down Lili the person who killed the captain of her own Familia and made their God cut off the juice...

"How do you know my name..." She said suddenly on alert.

Ugh, time to bullshit I guess "That douche earlier yesterday called you by that name as he was dying. Oh, and he also called you traitorous whore as well." I threw in remembering how scummy he was and Liliruca slowly nodded in agreement I could see her clothes were even more torn up and she was missing her oversized gray robe/jacket she would wear in the dungeon leaving her with only her short shirt that only came halfway past her ribs and a short skirt, showing she must have spent the night here dodging both monsters and adventurers.

I could see me calling her that didnt affect her at all as she looked almost dead on her feet and it wasn't just exhaustion more, she was about to mentally/emotionally collapse and Bell seemed to be more interested in cleaning the battlefield rapidly as I clearly seemed to know her even if it looked, I was somewhat on guard.

"I have no Familia now. Soma released me after I killed Zanis and begged for mercy." She said blandly suddenly, and I realized, holy shit she has been down here with no falna for a whole day, and she is still alive and in one piece.

Bell cut in excitedly as he finished loading up the loot in my big bag I left on the ground during the fight. "Lili why don't you join our Familia you both seem to be friends!" Even though Bell's Shonen speech may have worked before all this happened and brought Lili into our Familia now...

I sighed then sealed my weapons into the great axe form and stabbed it into the ground and left it as I approached Lili basically unarmed. Lili was shaking her head depressingly as she was clearly going to deny Bell's invitation but the sound of my axe breaking the ground stopped her and as she slowly turned towards me, I already closed in and then knowing Lili was going to spout some defeatist nonsense about how her life is ruined and she shouldn't drag us down blah blah. I picked her up and threw her over my shoulder.

"Bell, I got us a supporter let's go home and get Hestia to give her a tramp stamp so she can't escape..."

Bell just gaped at my actions before grinning and throwing a thumbs up an picked up our bags seeing as my arms were now filled up with a struggling Pallum cursing me out and my weapon in my other hand.

"I knew I shouldn't have approached you pervert! Let me down I can walk myself!" She shouted and knowing Lili needed a firm hand I swatted the bum hanging over my shoulder "Crack" The sound almost was like my boots broke some shale or something as my leather glove clapped her cheeks making her gasp in shock and squirm from the pain.

'Hmm this is a grade A butt.' I thought idly as I gently massaged the cheek, I laid the proverbial hand of God on making her sigh in relaxation and it literally only took a couple moment for her to regather herself and whisper submissively. "Can you just carry me in your arms I am getting dizzy bouncing on your shoulder."

Wait did I just become Lili's Daddy...

I turned to Bell "Hey let's trade weapons for a minute so I can carry Lili better." Bell couldn't seem to be more excited as he gleefully handed over his saber for to strap to my side in the case of a monster getting past Bell.

Bell on the other hand gleefully started switching modes of my weapon having seem me do it repeatedly and obviously paying very close attention to my movements and actions.

It was halfway through the Dungeon that I realized as I was carrying Lili in a princess carry she had her face buried into my chest and was obviously comforted by my scent as she was dozing off and I didnt have a single damn chance to fight as Bell became the Beyblade of his destiny literally cosplaying both Darius and Garen in how he was repeatedly spinning around in a circle swinging the huge axe in a circle forming a three meter ring of death around him nothing could approach.

Granted the Guild gave us a bit of trouble seeing us carry out a half-dressed child but when they saw her curves when she staggered to her feet, they realized she was a Pallum just for whatever reason she was running around with animal ears and a tail.

"Finally, we are back!" Bell cheered as we staggered into the church and frankly, I couldn't agree more because despite the fact that Lili weighed less than eighty pounds holding a dead weight for an hour is never comfortable.