Max
He woke up to the morning sun roaring through the glass windows, flooding the suite with an ungodly amount of light. Groaning, Max threw an arm over his eyes to block the glare. His internal clock felt completely scrambled. He remembered pushing through the fatigue last night just long enough to take a hot bath and drag himself into fresh clothes, but the exact moment consciousness left him was a total blank; his exhausted brain had simply shut down the second his head hit the silk pillows.
As the haze of sleep receded, the chaotic events of the marathon dive came rushing back to him—the Goliath, the descent through the lower floors, the adventure in the Water Capital. And with those memories came a sudden, sharp spike of panic.
The Green Dragon.
Kairu had been so furious, so frustrated by his inability to solo the mobile beast. Max's head snapped to the side, suddenly terrified that his stubbornly proud familiar might have snuck back out and teleported into the dungeon in the middle of the night just to set things right.
He let out a long, heavy sigh of relief seeing Kairu sleeping beside him in a flattened, motionless puddle. Between acting as an anti-gravity water slide, battling a dragon, and gobbling up a small army's worth of monsters, the slime must be tapped out. Reassured, Max lowered his arm and squinted at the clock on the wall. It read 11:00 AM.
Extremely late by my usual standards, Max mused, slowly sitting up and stretching a spine that popped in three different places. But considering I spent yesterday carving through twenty-eight floors and soloing a Monster Rex, I think I've earned a pass.
Moving with deliberate, silent care so as not to wake his familiar, Max went through his morning rituals. A quick splash of cold water at the basin washed away the last of his grogginess, leaving him feeling surprisingly light. He took a moment to focus inward. The influx of Excelia from the Goliath was already humming just beneath his skin, but the sensation was distinctly different from the chaotic overflow he had experienced after his first official dive. The sheer volume felt similar, carrying an immense, physical weight, but the texture of the energy was different—sharper, denser, and far more refined.
It makes sense, Max realized, drying his face with a towel. My first run was a pure numbers game—slaughtering thousands of low-level grunts across the Upper Floors and a few in middle floors. But yesterday, I was operating exclusively in the Middle and Lower Floors.
He had bypassed the trash mobs entirely, spending his time harvesting Deadly Hornets and Mad Beetles, and a Level 4 Monster Rex. The resulting excelia wasn't just a matter of volume; it was a testament to the pure, concentrated quality of the kills.
Satisfied with his assessment and matching the lighter mood, he bypassed his combat gear and dressed in comfortable, casual clothes—a crisp white shirt and dark trousers. Today was a day for updates and discussions, not combat.
Right on cue, his stomach let out a rumbling growl that sounded dangerously close to a Minotaur.
Slipping out of the suite, Max made his way down to the kitchens. The cooks, used to feeding an army of ravenous battle junkies, didn't bat an eye when he requested a small mountain of roasted meats and heavy breads. He ate his fill, savoring the taste of actual, cooked food after a day of dry dungeon rations. Before leaving, he procured a large, deep bowl filled with prime cuts of raw meat and sauces, quietly carrying it back up to his room. He set the bowl on the table so Kairu would have breakfast waiting the moment he woke up.
With his familiar cared for, Max turned his attention upward. It was time to meet Freya.
He wasn't entirely sure if she would be here in Folkvangr or at her sanctum in Babel, given that it was the middle of the day. But as he climbed the spiral staircase, his question was answered. Standing before the heavy, mahogany double doors was the towering, immovable silhouette of Ottar.
As Max reached the entrance, the Boaz didn't step into his path or demand his business. Instead, the Warlord simply looked down at him and offered a single, slow nod. It wasn't the dismissive gesture of a superior to a rookie; it was a genuine acknowledgment.
Max paused for a second, feeling slightly weirded out by the sudden display of respect from the stoic giant. Did Freya tell him? Max wondered, his mind quickly running the possibilities. There was no way Ottar knew about the Goliath yet, so the Goddess must have shared the news of his recent Level Up. Hitting Level 2 in a single week was a historic anomaly, after all. It made sense that breaking a record like that would finally earn him a nod from the city's strongest adventurer.
Holding the giant's gaze, a confident smirk touched Max's lips as he returned the nod, remembering the vow he had made to himself after Ottar's challenge.
Without a word, Max pushed open the heavy doors and stepped inside.
The suite was bathed in brilliant sunlight. Standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows and looking out over the sprawling expanse of Orario, was Freya in all her usual glory. Hearing the soft click of the door, she turned from the glass, lowering a crystal goblet of dark wine to the small table beside her.
As her eyes locked onto him, she froze. A sudden, unmistakable flicker of genuine shock widened her gaze, her breath hitching ever so slightly. For a second, the untouchable Queen of Orario looked completely caught off guard. But before Max could fully dissect the anomaly, the micro-expression was ruthlessly buried. It was instantly replaced by a slow, beautiful smile.
"Good morning, Lady Freya," Max greeted, a genuine, warm smile spreading across his face, seamlessly glossing over the momentary lapse in her composure. "I'm glad to finally see you."
"Hello, Max," she replied, her voice smooth and resonant, carrying a melody that could have brought the city below to its knees. She stepped away from the window, her silver hair catching the light like liquid mercury. "I am delighted to see you as well. How have you been?"
She gestured gracefully to the pair of velvet armchairs arranged at the edge of the room, bathing in the sun. Max walked over and sank into one, feeling the plush material yield to his weight. Freya settled into the chair opposite him, sitting face-to-face as her eyes washed over him with intense, undivided attention.
"I'm well, my Lady," Max replied, leaning back comfortably. He couldn't hide the edge of victorious pride in his voice. "Too well, if I'm honest with you. I was quite successful in my pursuit to slay the Goliath."
He watched her face closely, expecting a flash of shock, or at least wide-eyed surprise. Instead, Freya simply offered a pleased smile. There was no shock. No disbelief. She looked exactly like a woman who had bet her entire fortune on a winning horse and was now casually collecting her ticket.
She already knew, Max observed, his analytical mind ticking. Either Hogni came running back here in the middle of the night to give a panicked debrief, or she expected nothing less from me.
"That is very delightful to hear," Freya purred, leaning forward slightly, the anticipation clear in the slight parting of her lips. "Would you like me to update your Falna?"
Any other adventurer would have been tearing their shirt off the moment the offer was made, desperate to see their new level and stats. But Max simply shook his head.
"Not yet," Max said, his tone shifting into something slightly more intimate and purposeful. "I have a few things I want to discuss first."
Freya blinked, genuinely surprised by his restraint. She watched with keen curiosity as Max reached into the pocket of his shirt.
"And before we get to business," Max said, his smile softening as his hand emerged from his pocket, "I brought you something."
He reached across the space between them, presenting the item in the palm of his hand.
-◈ -
Freya
As they moved to settle face-to-face at the ornate table near the window, Freya let her eyes drift over him first. She allowed herself that silent indulgence, as she always did, before offering the smaller courtesies of speech.
It would have been easy, in the cold light of morning, to dismiss parts of Hogni's midnight report as the product of exhaustion. Hogni didn't invent facts, but the scale of them was staggering. Max teleporting him to the dungeon? Sharing secrets as if they were common weather? It sounded like the sort of story even a truthful man might accidentally enlarge in the heat of the moment.
But now he was here. And the moment Freya's gaze touched his soul, the last residue of doubt vanished so completely it almost embarrassed her.
This Max was not the same one who had stood before her a fortnight ago. His soul had not merely grown; the layers were now bleeding into one another, creating a breathtaking, terrifying work of living art.
The outermost darkness was no longer a simple, flat obsidian. It was shot through with faint, living threads of crimson, as if the raw, intoxicating burgundy of his power was seeping outward, giving his quiet pride a dangerous, sanguine edge. Simultaneously, the burgundy layer was no longer a pure vintage; shadows now swirled within its depths, the cold, quiet abyss bleeding inward to temper its chaotic energy. It was a visual prelude to the terrifying richness of his Destruction magic, no longer just a raw force but something with shape, depth, and will.
But it was the change at the very heart of him that made her breath catch in her throat.
The silverish-blue core, which had once been a pristine, untouchable jewel, was finally showing signs of a thaw. Faint, ghostly threads of the other two layers now bled inward—not as a stain or a corruption, but with a delicate, almost reverent touch. It was as if the core was not being invaded, but was at last, after all this time, slowly beginning to open its shell, accepting the other parts of himself. It no longer burned with the cold, defiant light of a distant star, but with the warm, radiating corona of something drawing the surrounding darkness into itself to fuel its own magnificent fire.
She could scarcely reconcile this being with the layered, extraordinary soul she had met just a fortnight ago.
That soul had been a beautiful contradiction. This one was becoming a symphony.
It made her longing heart ache with a sensation that was not merely desire. Freya's own existence was an exquisite, chaotic tapestry of conflicting domains—Love and War, Beauty and Soulsight, Fertility and Sex. She was a being of vanishing divisions, a paradox held in perfect, beautiful tension. And now, for the first time, she was looking at a soul that reflected that same impossible architecture.
He was a glacier at the heart of a volcano. A match for her own chaotic existence.
Her soul did not just want his. It recognized it. It was the feeling of a collector who, after a lifetime of admiring fragmented artifacts, had finally found the lost, matching half to the most priceless piece in her own collection. He was not just something to be possessed; he was the piece that would finally make her feel complete.
But completeness required time, and time was a cruel thief in the lower world.
As she watched him settle into the velvet chair, her mind traced the anomaly she had read on his back: Devil. It was a lineage entirely alien to this reality. Was this living masterpiece bound to a brief, fragile span, or did his dark bloodline rival the longevity of the gods? She found herself fiercely hoping he would soon reveal the secrets of his lifespan to her.
She wanted him to be immortal. She wanted eternity to study him, to witness every infinitesimal shift his soul would undergo across the millennia. If his biology didn't spare him from time, then she would have to rely on the only loophole the gods possessed: the Falna. For the first time since descending, Freya was desperately eager for someone to Level Up—not for power, but for preservation. Pushing a vessel to the absolute peak of Leveling was the only way to lock a mortal's perfection in amber before the rot of time could touch them.
And if the whispered intelligence of the midnight hours was to be believed, that ascent was already well underway. It was precisely why she had not slept.
Hogni had arrived long past the witching hour, Horn's quiet knock preceding him with the apologetic gravity such an intrusion deserved. She had made herself decent and permitted him entry, expecting a crisis. What she received instead was a report delivered in a cadence she had never heard from her most anxious executive. It was thick with guilt, certainly, but beneath that lay a quality she could only identify as awe.
She had listened to every impossible detail. The spells she could not count. The teleportation network. The Goliath handled with a methodology that sounded less like survival and more like research.
Yet, beneath the tactical inventory lay something more precious: the way Max had spoken to Hogni as an equal. He had shared pieces of his mystery without demanding leverage, effortlessly dismantling the walls her Black Knight had spent decades reinforcing. In a single evening, Maximus had given Hogni something she had been trying to find a way to offer him for years.
A maternal warmth had bloomed in her chest at that. Her jumpy, isolated child had finally found a true friend.
After Hogni left, she had spent the remaining hours doing exactly what she told herself she would not: gazing at the ceiling and anticipating. She burned to see his stats, but more than that, she burned to know what surprise he had brought her. It had become a quiet, enchanting ritual. The Queen of Orario—a goddess accustomed to gods, merchants and adventurers alike emptying their treasuries at her feet—now found herself breathlessly wondering what a rookie adventurer might pull from his pockets.
The first time, he had offered a single, miraculous parchment: a personal tether bound directly to his side. After that, it had been a stack of them, a logistical revolution handed over as casually as a bouquet of wildflowers.
And now?
He sat across from her carrying the distinct, vibrant energy of someone deeply pleased with a secret, and she had learned to read that particular, thrumming hum in him very quickly.
Before she could even ask him what he wanted to discuss, Max flashed a brilliant smile and began rummaging through the inner pockets of his coat.
Freya leaned forward, her composure slipping just enough to show her excitement. He brought me something.
His hand emerged, reaching across the table to lay an object gently on the polished wood.
It was a necklace—though even her eyes had to admit the word was insufficient. The chain was a slender, elegant weave of silver alloy that hummed with a latent, complex magic. Intertwined along the links were rubies like sleeping embers and lilac gems that caught the morning light like dusk caught in crystal.
At the center hung the true marvel: her own emblem, the Valkyrie profile, rendered in pure white enamel over gold with a precision that was almost devotional.
Freya was not easily made breathless. Over eons, she had worn jewelry pulled from the silent treasuries of fallen civilizations and accepted tributes from the richest gods in the heavens. Those pieces had been masterpieces of technique, yes, but they were ultimately cold—static objects designed to broadcast status or appease a deity's vanity.
But this piece was different. It possessed a quality that divine craftsmanship often lacked: resonance.
As her fingertips brushed the rubies, she didn't just feel the cool surface of stone; she felt a faint, rhythmic thrumming, like a heartbeat. The wonder she felt was rooted in the realization that this was not an "offering." Most gifts given to her were born of desire, worship or fear, crafted by artisans who followed a script of what they thought a Goddess should want. This, however, was a portrait.
In the delicate lines of the white enamel Valkyrie, she saw how Max perceived her. He hadn't rendered her as an untouchable, distant icon. He had captured the fierce, sharp edge of her command and softened it with the lilac glow of the dusk she loved to watch. It was the first time an object had ever made her feel seen rather than just admired.
To a woman who was the very personification of beauty, the highest form of flattery wasn't a mirror that showed her face, but an art piece that reflected the chaotic, beautiful tapestry of her soul. The abundant care in every Braided link told her that every second he spent making it was a second he spent thinking only of her—not as a patron, but as a match to his own contradictory existence.
It wasn't just jewelry. It was a connection, and for a goddess who spent eternity in a gilded cage of isolation, that was a miracle worth more than all the gold in the world.
"This is my newest design," Max said, and Freya could hear the genuine pride in his voice. "It's not just decorative. I wove a localized protective shield into the silver, as well as a stored attack for emergencies. But the most important part? It has a communication enchantment."
She looked up, her interest piqued.
Max reached back into his coat and produced a small, gold-lined box. He flipped it open to reveal a set of sleek, similarly enchanted bracelets and rings. "These are for Ottar and Horn. I gave Hogni his yesterday. I have a full set ready for all the executives."
Freya stared at the silver and gems, the sunlight dancing across their surfaces. When she met him, her hunger had been simple: to cage him, to isolate that brilliant soul so it would shine only for her.
But as she watched him now—restless, eager, and bursting with the need to build rather than just survive—she felt her desire shifting. Max carried his own sun. He didn't seek protection; he sought to provide it, weaving a new tapestry that already included herself, Hogni, Ottar, and surprisingly Horn.
She looked at the set of artifacts and realized what he was truly doing, even if he was still largely unaware of the magnitude of his own ambition. This wasn't just craftsmanship; it was the architecture of an empire. He was unknowingly laying the foundations for a monopoly on the city's most vital currents—information and safety. The boy was becoming a sovereign of industry, and the prospect of watching him rise was far more intoxicating than the thought of a silent prisoner. She had no intention of stopping him; she wanted to see how far his fire would spread.
He leaned in slightly, his tone shifting into something eager and instructional, pulling her from her musings.
"If you want to reach someone on the network, you wear it and focus your intent on them," Max explained, his hands gesturing with animation. "The desire to communicate acts as the trigger—the magic finds their specific artifact, and you can speak to them directly regardless of where either of you are."
Freya did not keep him waiting. She lifted the slender silver chain and clasped it at the back of her neck. The metal settled cool against her collarbone, followed immediately by the warmth of his integrated magic. The enchantment hummed through her aura like a second pulse, acknowledging its new host.
Curious, she focused her eyes on Max. She didn't speak aloud; instead, she pushed her intent forward—a simple, focused desire to reach him.
Chime.
A soft, melodic note rang clearly inside her mind.
I hope everything is working properly, my lady?
Freya's eyes widened. His lips hadn't moved, yet his voice had resonated in her consciousness with impossible clarity—warm, slightly amused, and deeply familiar.
Indeed, she replied mentally, testing the link with the same wonder she might use to touch a falling star. Then, unable to contain the delight, she spoke aloud, "Maximus... this is a miracle. I wonder how long it took for you to make this?" her voice breathless as her thumb traced the golden Valkyrie emblem.
Max leaned back, a satisfied smirk playing on his lips. "Not too long, once I understood the mechanics behind the intent-linking," he said with an easy shrug. "The raw materials took some processing, but Kairu helped speed that up."
Freya turned the pendant over once between her fingers, her mind already running several steps ahead of the conversation. She saw more than a gift; she saw the first strands of a web that could cover the entire city. "This reminds me of the Divine Mirrors we used in Tenkai," she said, her eyes shimmering with a distant memory. "With Arcanum, we could speak across vast distances—face to face, in real time. I never imagined something comparable could exist in Gekai, where our power is so restricted."
"You have the principle right," Max nodded, leaning in as if they were co-conspirators. "In my world, we used magic circles for the same purpose. Since the magic here is so rigid, I had to find a hardware solution—physical anchors that use 'cognitive intent' as the trigger instead of raw mana."
Freya touched the pendant, a sudden thought occurring to her. "If it relies on intent and magic... is the bracelet always recording? Can you tune in and listen to what the wearer is saying at any given time?"
Max looked horrified at the suggestion. "No. That would be a catastrophe waiting to happen. The artifact stays dormant until it detects an active, focused intent to establish a connection. Only then does the link open."
He paused, leaning back and tapping his temple. "The real hurdle is the spiritual mapping. Right now, I haven't managed the magical equivalent of 'caller identification.' My current 'design' can link two minds, but it can't yet translate the unique spiritual signature of the caller into a name or a label for the recipient. It's like a ringing in the dark—you know someone is there, but you don't know who until they speak."
Max chuckled, his expression shifting into something playfully dramatic.
"And frankly, beyond the technical struggle, there's the matter of my own sanity. If I allowed myself to tune in whenever I wanted, I'd be taking a massive gamble. Imagine me accidentally eavesdropping on a conversation between two goddesses." He shuddered visibly, throwing his hands up in a theatrical display of horror.
"I'd be stuck listening to them ramble for hours about which silk weave goes best with which gemstone, or debating the precise notes of a new perfume for the upcoming banquet. And gods forbid if one was out shopping and another was doing a selection—my brain would just go poof from the sheer sensory overload of divine domesticity."
Freya let out a soft laugh, the sound like silver bells in the quiet room. She found his brand of humor—so irreverent yet strangely grounded—utterly captivating.
Max shook his head, his tone becoming more practical. "So, the answer is a firm no. The enchantment uses my mana network to establish a link between the individuals based on their intent. The artifact isn't the source of the sound; it's the gateway. It doesn't record, and it doesn't broadcast unless you want it to. It's safe—at least, that's how I designed it."
She offered a slow nod of approval, her fingers tracing the edge of her new pendant. Privately, she mused that if he had designed them for spying, she wouldn't have minded in the slightest. Her only concern would be the potential for other Gods—with their often crude erotic fantasies and notoriously questionable tastes in companions—filling her little Devil's head with their divine nonsense. She preferred being the only one to occupy his thoughts.
"A wise design choice, then," she said, her eyes shimmering with amusement. "To preserve both privacy and your own mental health."
She fell silent for a moment, while the logic of the device was sound, it was a specific phrase he had used that lingered in her mind—a peculiar string of words that sounded utterly alien to the common tongue of Orario, yet perfectly descriptive.
"Caller identification," Freya repeated, tasting the phrase as if it were a rare vintage. She looked up at him, her gaze searching. The word was so clinical, so structured—it was the language of a world that had categorized the very air it breathed. "You have a fascinating way of naming your hurdles, Max. It is a very... particular term."
Max had the grace to look slightly sheepish, realizing he'd slipped into the jargon of his old life again. He opened his mouth to explain, but a content smile touched Freya's lips, silencing him.
"Do not apologize," she murmured. "You have invented something the gods themselves would have found useful, and you are worrying over a minor labelling inconvenience. It only makes you more enchanting."
And so did not press him further on the terminology. Her mind had already left the immediate conversation and was running the implications out to their natural ends—the Guild's measured, slow-moving missive system rendered quaint by comparison, her executives reachable in seconds from anywhere in Orario, real-time tactical coordination at depth that no other Familia could replicate or even properly conceptualise. She thought of Hermes, who made a profession of knowing what moved between important people, and felt a particular, private pleasure at the thought of him having absolutely no insight into what passed between her and her commanders.
"Are you planning to share this with the Guild?" she asked, letting the knowing amusement into her voice.
"Eventually," Max said, and the smug gleam that entered his eyes was one she had already learned to find rather charming. "Right now I have limited stock, but I have enough to approach Lord Ouranos with a few pieces. A proof of concept to gauge his appetite before I commit to a larger production run."
Max pulled out several large sheets of parchment and spread them across the table. They were a far cry from the messy scribbles of a novice; the sheets featured meticulous sketches of various rings, bracelets, and amulets. Each was annotated with precise notes on magical properties, mind consumption rates, and proposed market values in his characteristic, slightly cramped handwriting.
Freya leaned over them, her silver eyes moving rapidly across the diagrams. She had attended enough Familia war councils and mercantile negotiations to recognize the difference between a plan assembled for mere presentation and a plan that had actually been masterminded. This was the latter. The annotations alone—material costs cross-referenced against mind consumption rates, pricing tiers adjusted by floor depth rather than rarity—told her he had not simply invented things and blindly attached numbers to them. He had considered exactly what they were for and who would actually use them.
She settled back slightly, content to listen rather than lead.
He began his explanation, walking her through the different tiers. He outlined the 'Uber' teleportation network's potential for high-stakes rescue missions, and the communication artifacts as a premium lifestyle line for the city's elite. However, the centerpiece of his civilian rollout was the "Trinitas" ring series.
"There are three combat variants," Max explained, tapping the sketches. "The Mother's Shield provides a localized geometric barrier, the Maiden's Lament fires a concentrated elemental strike, and the Father's Fist deploys a binding spell to restrain a target. I've weighted the pricing so the defensive barrier is the most expensive. In the Dungeon, a mistake costs health, but a lack of defense costs a life."
Freya followed the technical notes, her eyes widening as she noticed a recurring annotation: User Requirement: Cognitive Intent.
"You mentioned these 'bypass the Mind penalty' earlier," Freya murmured, her voice silk-thin with realization. "Maximus, the mechanism you've sketched here... it doesn't rely on a Mana-Ignition phase. It triggers based on the wearer's mental directive."
Max nodded proudly. "Exactly. Like the communication necklace you're wearing. It tethers to the user's soul-intent rather than their mind."
Freya looked up, her eyes sharp. "Which means even non-mages—beastmen, dwarves, even unblessed humans—could use them."
"It would be a total paradigm shift," Max admitted. "That's why the rollout has to be careful. I plan to market them as 'Mana-Conductive focus tools for Mages' initially. I'll keep their true nature quiet. Eventually, some idiot is going to buy one and try it on as a joke, and find out it works for him too. When that happens, it'll be a 'miraculous discovery' by the public, rather than a deliberate reveal from the merchant. It keeps the heat off us while the demand reaches a fever pitch."
Freya offered a slow, approving nod. Shrewd. Very shrewd.
But then her eyes drifted to the bottom of the parchment, where the final price points were listed. She froze. The temperature in the room seemed to drop as her expression went from intrigued to utterly flat.
"Maximus," she kept her voice measured, though the confusion was undeniably real. "You are pricing a reusable magical artifact that circumvents the Mind penalty—something the Elven nobility would pay millions for without negotiation—at the price of common dungeon gear. Explain your logic before I assume you have simply made an error."
"It's intentional," Max said, and his voice had changed. The merchant's calculation was still there, but underneath it was a heavy, cold seriousness. He remembered the shredded leather tunics and broken shields he had found on Floor 9. He remembered the oversized Killer Ant feeding on the remains of rookies who had run out of options. "If I price them at a million Valis, they go to people who are already safe. That's not what they're for. I want them on the fingers of every Level 1 who is praying they don't get cornered by a pack of monsters in the upper tunnels. Twenty thousand is achievable for a desperate party. A million isn't."
Freya tilted her head, studying him with an expression she did not entirely bother to conceal. "Philanthropy. From a Devil."
"Pragmatism," Max corrected with a small, almost self-deprecating shrug. "I don't like watching people die for no reason. If a twenty-thousand Valis ring gives a rookie the three minutes they need to run away and survive, then it's priced correctly. The sheer volume of sales will generate more consistent revenue than luxury pricing anyway, and the political goodwill is worth more than the margin difference."
She looked at him for a long moment—taking in the profound contradiction of him, the way his ruthless commercial architecture sat entirely comfortably alongside his quiet mercy—and felt a soft, involuntary warmth move through her chest.
Shaking her head at his stubbornness, her eyes tracing back over the sketches. She found the naming conventions for his combat rings—Mother's Shield, Father's Fist, and Maiden's Lament—to be delightfully quaint. The first two were standard, evocative, if a bit sentimental. But Maiden's Lament?
She lingered on that one, a faint, amused smile ghosting across her lips. To her sensibilities, the name felt less like a tactical spell designation and more like a carefully crafted, bitter personal insult directed at someone. She could almost picture the specific, pathetic individual Max had in mind when he'd dubbed that particular ring, and for a fleeting second, she felt a sliver of sympathy for whatever poor soul had earned the boy's ire enough to be immortalized as a 'lament.'
She chose not to voice her amusement, merely offering a soft, knowing nod that signaled her approval of his colorful, if somewhat petty, artistic license.
"Very well," she said, her tone smooth and resonant, carrying a melody that could have brought the city below to its knees. "I will not interfere with your pricing, nor your choice of nomenclature."
Max offered a small, knowing grin, sensing she had caught the subtext, before his expression shifted into something more calculated. He tapped the parchment again.
"One more thing, Lady Freya," he murmured, his eyes locking onto hers with a fresh spark of tactical inspiration. "It ties directly into the network, and it's something I think you'll find... quite lucrative."
Freya settled back into her chair, her curiosity piqued anew. "Go on."
Max reached for a blank sheet of parchment and quickly sketched a rough, circular outline. "Floor 18. Rivira. Right now, it's a muddy, lawless waystation for desperate adventurers and black-market merchants. No major Familia has a permanent, official presence there because maintaining supply lines and communication through seventeen floors of monsters is a logistical nightmare."
He tapped the center of the sketch. "But with the teleportation anchors and the comms bracelets? Those hurdles don't exist for us anymore. I propose we establish a permanent, fortified Freya Familia Outpost directly inside or adjacent to Rivira."
Freya's eyes widened slightly as the sheer audacity of the idea washed over her.
"Think about the strategic value," Max continued, leaning in, his voice dropping into a serious, tactical cadence. "First, intelligence. We know Evilus operates out of the artificial labyrinth, Knossos. Floor 18 is a massive safe zone that connects the Upper and Middle Floors—it's the absolute perfect place for them to conceal a backdoor entrance. If we have a permanent garrison there, we have eyes on everyone who comes and goes."
He tapped the parchment again. "Second, control. The Guild claims jurisdiction over the Dungeon, but everyone knows that's a polite fiction. What happens in the Dungeon, stays in the Dungeon. Rivira runs on extortion and dark deals. If we station just a rotating squad of Level 3s down there, or even a single Level 4, we wouldn't just have an outpost. We would own the town. We'd control the black market flow, the information brokerages, everything."
Freya stared at the rough map, her brilliant mind racing ahead of his words. The implications were staggering.
"And finally," Max grinned, "the training potential. Floor 18 is massive—much larger than Floor 28—and the Dungeon repairs any environmental damage for free. It's the perfect secondary Baptism ground. We can send recruits down instantly. They can spar with real terrain, and when the Goliath spawns every two weeks, our garrison has first dibs. That's guaranteed, high-quality Excelia to power-level the lower ranks on a fixed schedule."
Freya sat in stunned, absolute silence.
She looked at the boy across the table, her mind reeling. Why did Zeus or Hera never think of this?
The answer, she realized instantly, was simple: they didn't have the logistics. Even at the absolute peak of their golden age, the logistics of maintaining a deep-dungeon fortress without reliable communication or instant resupply would have bled their resources dry. But Max had just solved both problems in a single afternoon. With his comms bracelets, she could speak to the outpost commander from the comfort of her bed. With his teleportation anchors, she could reinforce them or extract them in seconds.
He wasn't just offering her a base. He was handing her a monopoly on the Middle Floors.
A slow, predatory smile spread across Freya's lips. The prospect of extending her reach so deeply into the unsavory, unregulated depths of the Dungeon—a realm where her influence had previously been limited by proximity—was utterly intoxicating.
"It is a masterpiece of logistics, Maximus," Freya purred, her eyes glowing with profound approval. "I will see to it that it is done immediately. In fact..."
She tilted her head, her gaze sweeping over him with distinct pride. "This operation requires a commander with vision. Someone to oversee the construction and manage the garrison. I could easily appoint you as the head of the Rivira Outpost. It would formally integrate you into the Familia hierarchy, effectively granting you the authority of a pseudo-executive."
It was a massive promotion. A shortcut to power and status that any other adventurer in the familia would have killed for.
Max, however, instantly grimaced. The confident merchant persona evaporated, replaced by the sheer horror of a man visualizing a mountain of administrative duties.
"Oh, absolutely not," Max said, shaking his head vehemently. "With all due respect, my lady, that sounds like a nightmare. Managing rotations, handling logistics, breaking up bar fights in a muddy town? That is way too much paperwork. I have spells to invent, magical artifacts to forge, and a whole lot of leveling up to do."
Freya blinked, startled by the immediate, visceral rejection, before a soft, melodic laugh escaped her lips. Of course he would refuse bureaucratic power. He was a creature of action after all.
"Then who would you suggest?" she asked, genuinely curious.
"Van," Max answered without missing a beat. "I think he's Level 3, he already acts as a frontline commander for the lower levels, and he's respected. Or Trent. The old dwarf is a high Level 3, and his entire philosophy revolves around breaking recruits into actual warriors. Put him in charge of a self-repairing training ground with a captive audience, and he'll be the happiest dwarf in Orario. They're both perfect for it."
Freya considered the names. It was a shrewd recommendation. Elevating veteran, mid-tier members to positions of genuine authority would bolster morale and solidify loyalty across the lower ranks.
"Very well," Freya nodded, committing the decision to memory. "I shall speak with Hedin to draft the deployment orders for Van and Trent. They will have their outpost."
With the final, massive piece of strategic business settled, the atmosphere in the room shifted. The heavy, calculating weight of commerce and warfare faded, replaced once again by the intimate, sun-drenched quiet of the goddess's sanctum.
-◈ -
Max
He leaned back in the velvet chair, his fingers drumming a slow, rhythmic beat against the armrest. The electric hum of the negotiation was finally fading, settling into the quiet, heavy satisfaction of a deal struck in iron.
He took a slow sip of wine, allowing a sharp, contented smirk to finally break across his face.
Hedin, Max thought, swirling the liquid in his glass.
The Light Elf was likely sitting in his immaculate office right now, waiting for him to return humbled and broken by the suffocating weight of a 150-million Valis debt. Hedin expected Max to bow his head. To accept his place as a "good little investment," a tool to be managed, polished, and leveraged until he eventually shattered.
Hedin had absolutely no idea that the ledger was already bleeding out.
Between the money he was left with from his first dive, the massive haul of Middle and Lower Floor drops he had just farmed, and the pending hundred-million Valis paycheck from the Guild, the debt was effectively cleared.
Max wasn't afraid of the debt. In fact, he was grateful for it.
Hedin's petty attempt to shackle him with a 150-million Valis bill had been the catalyst for his entire economic strategy. The sheer, suffocating pressure of that number had forced him to look beyond mere dungeon grinding and start thinking like a true isekai character. It was the spark that had ignited the invention of the comms bracelets, the 'Trinitas' rings, and the entire teleportation network.
Hedin thought he was forging a collar. He didn't realize he had just handed a Devil the keys to the armory.
You want to play the master, Hedin? Max mused, his eyes gleaming as a truly diabolical idea took root. Fine. I'll clear your books. I'll generate so much capital you'll be left grasping at straws. But clearing the debt isn't enough, is it?
He thought of Hogni's quiet admission—that the White Elf was one of the wealthiest individuals in the entire Familia. A wicked, capitalist glee began to bubble up in Max's chest. What better payback than to make the man who tried to chain him with money utterly dependent on the very systems he, Max, had built?
Max pictured it with relish: Hedin, needing to use the teleportation network for a time-sensitive quest, begrudgingly paying the exorbitant executive-tier fee that Max would set just for him. The image of the proud, arrogant Light Elf being forced to bleed his personal fortune just to access resources he couldn't replicate or command over was more satisfying than any physical confrontation could ever be. It would be the ultimate, crushing cherry on the cake.
Just as Max was about to dive deeper into the delightful logistics of how to go about implementing this personal surcharge, Freya's voice pulled him from his scheming.
"Maximus," she murmured, a gentle, amused lilt in her tone.
He looked up. Freya stood by the edge of the sprawling bed, her expression was one of fond exasperation, as if she had been watching him get lost in one of his plots for some time.
"Our business is entirely concluded for the day, my ambitious Devil," Freya whispered as she glided to the mattress and sat, looking back at him over her shoulder, her eyes burning with excitement.
"Now..." she murmured, her gaze dropping deliberately to his shirt. "I believe it is time we see exactly how much you have grown."
--> Devil in a Dungeon <--
AN:
Damn, another long chapter. Almost 7k.
Coming to the chapter, just for those curious, they ate lunch, a bit late, but they did though it was not mentioned. And Max finally shared everything he wanted to with Freya about his business plans and she was happy with them. How did you like the change in Max's soul and the following parallels of it to Freya's? It is significant as you'll find out in next chapter, hehe.
Now to the questions, would you like for Hedin be charged a fee to use the Teleportation Network? If so, how much should it be? His fandom page states he has 790.7 million valis, lmao. Even if we assume he has third of that now, it would around 263 million valis!
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Next update will be on Tuesday.
Ben, Out.
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