In the main hall, Hestia was sprawled across the wide ironwood rattan sofa in a posture of utter defeat.
Her twin black pigtails dangled listlessly over the edge of the carpet.
One hand rested on her noticeably distended belly, while the other still clutched half a piece of toast in an absentminded grip.
"Urp—"
A resounding, shameless belch echoed through the hall.
Onigawara Rin and Kikakujou Mary, standing off to the side, exchanged a glance.
They couldn't help but sigh inwardly.
This Lady Hestia.
When Kami-sama was around, she at least had the decency to rein it in a little — putting on that helpless, pitiful act, all cute whimpering and pouty displays.
But the moment Kami-sama stepped out the door, her true colors came roaring back.
Not only had she eaten herself into oblivion, she was now wallowing in this completely unrepentant, spectacular collapse of dignity.
Two completely different people.
"Lady Hestia, no matter how angry you are at Lady Loki, there's really no need to take it out on your own stomach."
Kikakujou Mary smoothed out her skirt and finally couldn't hold back any longer, speaking up with a gentle word of caution.
"If Kami-sama comes home and sees you stuffed to bursting like this, he might actually get upset, you know."
Hestia let out another belch, then laboriously rolled over, turning her back squarely to Mary.
"I don't care!"
"I'm going to eat him out of house and home!"
"Let him feel the pain!"
Faced with this level of petulant, tantrum-throwing declaration, Kikakujou Mary gave up entirely.
This woman's emotional maturity was probably beneath that of a ten-year-old.
Mary decided she couldn't be bothered to argue further, and simply turned her gaze outward toward the central courtyard beyond the hall.
In the courtyard, dappled sunlight filtered through the branches of the laurel tree, scattering patches of warm light across the ground.
Aihara Enju and Hiruko Kohina, the two little ones, were sitting cross-legged in the shade beneath the tree.
Each of them cradled a mug that was almost bigger than their own hands.
The cups were filled to the brim with the warm sweet milk Ryu had just heated up for them.
"Glug! Glug!"
Both of them tilted their heads back and drank with pure, unrestrained delight.
When they set the cups down, their lips were ringed with little white foam mustaches.
"Wow!"
Aihara Enju was wearing the slightly oversized orange hoodie that Hanasaka Warabi had lent her.
She reached out her small hand, grabbed a strip of bacon from the plate — edges crisped to a perfect golden brown — and shoved it straight into her mouth, chewing with oil running down her chin.
"This milk! It's so sweet! It's so good!"
"And this stuff called bacon! It smells amazing!"
"Compared to those rock-hard black bread crusts we used to pick up out of the sewer drains in the Outer District — these are like heaven and earth!"
"Right, Kohina?!"
Aihara Enju turned her head. The crimson eyes that had always been shadowed by timid self-consciousness were now brimming with pure, unclouded happiness.
"Mm-mm!"
Hiruko Kohina beside her nodded vigorously in agreement.
She was busy chomping away at a jam-smeared piece of toast, too engrossed to even bother looking up.
For children like them — the Cursed Children, rejected by human society in their world as monsters — the old days had meant scrounging for food in the sewers alongside rats and stray dogs.
Getting a mouthful of leftovers that hadn't gone rotten yet had been a luxury.
And now.
They were sitting in a beautiful house like this.
With soft warm clothes to wear, and a proper maid preparing hot food for them.
It felt like a dream. The kind where you're terrified to fall asleep, because you might wake up and find yourself back in that cold, damp, foul-smelling gutter.
At the edge of the hall.
Ryu paused briefly in her motion of collecting the breakfast dishes.
Chloe and Lunor, standing behind her, also went still.
The sewer?
Black bread hard enough to crack your skull?
In the minds of the tavern maids, Orario was prosperous, but hardly without its dark slums. They had naturally assumed these two little girls were orphans Haimer had taken in from some rock-bottom corner of the city.
But hearing children this young talk about their past — scavenging garbage — with such bright, excited voices.
Ryu pressed her lips together. A flicker of sympathy she couldn't quite suppress passed through her eyes.
Even so.
Compared to the feelings of Onigawara Rin, Kikakujou Mary, and Amou Kirukiru, the maids' emotions were coming from a completely different place.
Because they had been there last night.
They had heard with their own ears the truth about the [Protogut Virus].
They knew exactly what kind of experimental subjects these two children were, and what depths of cruelty and malice they had been subjected to.
So hearing them now, with this innocent, guileless satisfaction in their voices.
It felt like something had reached into their chests and squeezed their hearts hard.
Kikakujou Mary lowered her gaze.
She looked softly at Enju and Kohina in the courtyard.
"This is the reason Kami-sama personally brought them here."
By any means necessary. Even if it meant tearing that other world apart.
He would pull these children out of the mud.
After the breakfast commotion settled down.
With Haimer away, the senior members who had joined the Familia earliest — Onigawara Rin, Kikakujou Mary, and the others — decided to take up the responsibility themselves.
They would take the new arrivals out to get their bearings, and give them their first look at the Dungeon this world had to offer.
The group changed into their gear and headed out through the estate's front gate.
Only.
A group composed entirely like this, walking through the streets of Orario, was simply impossible to ignore.
Every last one of them was a girl.
And each of them beautiful in her own distinct way, without a single flaw to find.
Kikakujou Mary's dazzling golden hair, paired with the natural, unhurried grace of someone born to high society.
Tendou Kisara in her sleeveless, form-fitting white training uniform — toned, balanced muscle lines on full display, ponytail swaying in the breeze — exuding a crisp, ice-cold vitality.
And then there was the Holy Emperor.
Dressed in a pale, flowing long skirt, the refined elegance cultivated over years at the apex of power settled naturally around her — and matched against her face, that flawless, otherworldly beauty that seemed untouched by the grime of the mortal world.
In an instant.
All along both sides of the street.
Whether street vendors or passing adventurers — heads turned at an almost ridiculous rate.
Noticing the curious looks of the passersby closing in from all directions, the Holy Emperor grew visibly uncomfortable.
"Don't be nervous."
Onigawara Rin noticed the Holy Emperor's discomfort and thoughtfully stepped in close, pointing toward the towering spire rising into the clouds in the distance.
"That is Orario's center — Babel Tower."
"Beneath that tower is where we're headed today — the Dungeon entrance."
Onigawara Rin smiled reassuringly.
"Relax. When we first arrived in Orario, walking down the street got us basically the same treatment."
"The people here are adventurers who live with their lives on the line every day — they have a bold way of looking at people, no concept of subtlety whatsoever."
"You'll get used to it. Like Kami-sama always says — don't bother paying attention to boring stares."
"You're a member of our Familia. Head up, chest out, and keep walking."
Beside her, Amou Kirukiru made no attempt to hide the wave of sheer, oppressive bloodlust she radiated outward. The adventurers who'd been drifting a little too close immediately flinched and averted their eyes.
After the trials of the past few days — not to mention the confidence boost from last night's Grace update — the veterans of the group had grown thoroughly immune to the spectacle of being stared at.
And they all knew: the moment they raised the banner of the Haimer Familia, backed by the fearsome reputation they'd built over those days, none of these people would actually dare start something.
Hearing those words, the Holy Emperor glanced at her composed companions walking alongside her.
The knot in her chest loosened a little. She gave a small nod.
Drew a slow breath.
And was just about to steel herself and push past the discomfort.
But then.
A harsh, booming shout rang out from farther up the street.
"Make way! Everyone move! What are you all crowding around here for?!"
The voice was rich with authority.
The adventurers who'd been loitering on both sides of the road, shamelessly craning their necks for a better look — the moment they heard that voice — reacted like mice catching a whiff of a cat.
Every wandering gaze snapped to attention. They scrambled back to either side of the street in a rippling wave, clearing a wide corridor as if by instinct.
The Holy Emperor looked up ahead and blinked in surprise.
Advancing toward them was a unit of adventurers — uniformed, well-equipped, moving in perfect lockstep.
On the chest of every single one of them was the unmistakable emblem of an elephant's head.
And more than that.
Every one of them carried an aura that was in an entirely different league from the scattered adventurers around them — radiating the iron discipline of people who had been drilled hard and bled harder.
Leading them was a tall woman with short blue hair — features sharp and clean, expression cool and controlled.
Her gaze was as keen as a blade's edge.
A longsword hung at her hip. The way she moved carried the unmistakable bearing of someone used to giving orders — upright, purposeful, magnetic.
The pressure she put out just by existing in the space.
A single glance at her and you felt your lungs tighten.
The Holy Emperor's internal alarm bells went off instantly.
Years of political instinct told her: a unit in matching uniforms, moving with this kind of coordinated force, always meant serious institutional power was stepping in. They were disturbingly reminiscent of the imperial guards she'd known in her own world.
That thought made her unconsciously lean closer to Onigawara Rin, dropping her voice.
"Miss Rin... who are they?"
Onigawara Rin looked up, spotted the blue-haired woman at the front of the column.
Rather than tension, her expression actually relaxed.
"Nothing to worry about."
"They're the Ganesha Familia."
"The constabulary of Orario — this labyrinth city. Their job is maintaining public order."
Kikakujou Mary had also spotted the tall figure leading the column at the front of the constabulary unit.
The captain of the Ganesha Familia herself.
— Lv.5, the «Staff of the Elephant God», Shakti Varma.
So.
Kikakujou Mary's eyes lit up. She leaned in close to the Holy Emperor's ear.
"Don't worry, the captain leading them is someone we know."
"That big sister with the blue hair."
"Back when Kami-sama bought the big house we live in — she was the one who stepped forward and had the Ganesha Familia foot the bill for him. The furniture too — she had the Ganesha Familia cover that as well."
"She's a very easy person to talk to."
The moment those words landed.
The Holy Emperor — who had just been beginning to exhale — and Tendou Kisara, walking behind them, both froze.
Foot the bill?
The captain of the law enforcement constabulary paid for Kami-sama's house and furniture out of her Familia's funds?
What in the world was going on here?
While the two of them were still thoroughly baffled.
Shakti had already led her unit close.
A casual sweep of her gaze across the crowd immediately locked onto the towering black-bear Kyoubou — built like a small mountain — and then onto Onigawara Rin and the others ahead of him.
Shakti signaled with one hand for the unit behind her to fan out and maintain a perimeter watch, and slowed her own pace.
Then she walked over alone.
"Oh, it's you lot."
Shakti came to a stop in front of them. Her gaze swept quickly over the familiar faces — Onigawara Rin, Kikakujou Mary — and her perennially stern features made the rare concession of softening slightly as she spoke.
"Just a few days ago I saw you making your first trip into the Dungeon, and now I turn around and you've all already leveled up to Lv.2 across the board."
"Got word from the Guild yesterday. Even our patron deity did a double-take."
"Congratulations. That kind of growth rate is unprecedented."
"Hehe, you're too kind, Senior Shakti — it's all thanks to Kami-sama's Grace." Onigawara Rin rubbed the back of her head, a little sheepish.
"Ha. Your own talent and effort deserve credit too." Shakti said, mildly.
Then her gaze settled directly on the unfamiliar faces in the group.
Specifically — the moment Tendou Kisara and Hiruko Kohina entered her field of vision.
Shakti's pupils contracted, just slightly.
As a Lv.5 first-tier adventurer who had spent years scraping the line between life and death.
Her instincts were razor-sharp.
She caught it immediately — the unusual, unsettling undercurrent of bloodshed both of them carried.
Shakti's eyes narrowed.
This black-haired girl in the white training uniform.
She wasn't doing anything. Just standing there.
And yet, in Shakti's perception.
She was like a cursed blade half-drawn from its scabbard.
Every inch of her radiated the terrifying killing intent of something that would cleave through anything in its path.
That kind of aura.
You only developed it by having the blood of countless lives — people just like yourself — on your hands.
And the little girl standing beside her, in the jumper dress, wearing an expression of childlike innocence.
Those orange-red eyes held a madness that held absolutely no reverence for life.
The image that flashed through Shakti's mind made her stomach clench. The muscles across her body went taut without her meaning to.
"These few — they're the new Familia members Lord Haimer has taken in?"
Shakti suppressed the unease rising in her chest and kept her voice as level as she could, addressing Onigawara Rin and the others.
"Yes, Senior Shakti."
"Kami-sama brought them back last night. They just joined the Familia, and we're taking them to get familiar with the Dungeon."
Onigawara Rin nodded, open and composed.
Shakti listened, and didn't press further.
In a city like this, those who lived long knew exactly what to ask — and what to leave alone.
Especially when the people in front of her belonged to a god even Lord Ganesha treated with extraordinary wariness. She was not in a position, as a mere constabulary captain, to go around probing their background.
"Since they're Lord Haimer's Familia, I won't hold you up."
Shakti gave a brief nod.
"However."
Before turning to leave, Shakti added one last word of caution.
"Take extra care in the Dungeon lately."
"A lot has been happening in Orario behind the scenes. Things are not entirely settled."
"Watch out for anyone looking to take advantage."
"Understood. Thank you for the warning, Senior Shakti. We'll be careful."
Onigawara Rin dipped her head in thanks.
With that, Shakti said nothing more. She gave the group a small nod, turned on her heel, raised one hand, and led her constabulary unit onward down the street on their patrol route.
The group continued forward.
Following that encounter, the Holy Emperor remembered a question she'd had since last night — one that had never been answered.
And after watching Shakti and the entire constabulary unit, her curiosity was practically ready to burst.
"Miss Rin."
The Holy Emperor quietly spoke up.
"Is our Kami-sama... someone of very high standing here?"
Hearing the question.
Tendou Kisara also quietly turned her attention that way.
Onigawara Rin and Kikakujou Mary exchanged a glance.
The question genuinely stumped them.
"Well..."
Onigawara Rin scratched her head.
"Honestly, if you asked us to explain the specifics, we're not sure we could."
"We've only been in this world for a few days ourselves — we don't really understand the hierarchy between gods yet."
"That said."
Onigawara Rin thought back over everything they'd experienced since arriving.
"From the president of the Adventurers' Guild, to the major figures of various Familias — every single one of them, when they meet Kami-sama, has an attitude of extreme reverence. Bordering on fear, even."
"And from what Lady Loki mentioned — before Kami-sama came down to the Lower World, he apparently did something extraordinary up in the Heavens."
Something extraordinary?
That made both the Holy Emperor and Tendou Kisara curious.
It was right at that moment.
Aihara Enju, walking out at the front of the group, suddenly cried out with a burst of excitement.
"Ah!"
"Look over there everyone!"
Aihara Enju thrust out her slender arm, pointing straight ahead.
The Holy Emperor and Tendou Kisara looked up.
Without realizing it, while they'd been walking and talking, the group had already crossed through the bustle of the main streets.
Ahead of them, a tower of staggering, almost unreal enormity rose from the center of a broad plaza. Its sheer presence hit them like a physical force — the apex lost somewhere far above in the clouds.
Babel Tower.
"That's it."
Onigawara Rin pointed at the structure.
"Beneath that tower is the entrance to the Dungeon."
"The very place we're headed today."
Onigawara Rin was just about to seize the moment and start briefing the fresh newcomers on Dungeon basics.
But then, abruptly.
As her gaze swept across the plaza spread out below Babel Tower, it caught something.
A careless, passing glance.
Snagging on a dead corner of the crowd near the entrance.
Her eyes went still.
There was an extremely small figure there.
Wrapped in a tattered robe so patched and faded the original color was impossible to guess.
On their back was a pack nearly twice their own size.
The sheer weight of it bent them forward slightly as they walked.
Head bowed deep, chestnut-colored bangs hiding half their face, carefully avoiding the gazes of the towering adventurers milling around them.
Hugging close to the wall, moving in hurried, flustered little steps toward the staircase leading down into the Dungeon.
"That's..."
Wasn't that the small supporter — the one who'd been getting bullied by members of their own Familia — that she and Inaba Tsukuyo had stepped in to help the other day on East Main Street, when they'd taught those Soma Familia thugs a lesson?
Onigawara Rin recognized the silhouette at once.
"Hey—!"
On instinct, Onigawara Rin raised her arm and stepped forward, intending to call out and say hello.
But.
The plaza was simply too crowded.
In the blink of an eye, before her voice could carry.
The small figure with the enormous pack on their back had plunged headfirst into the stream of people flowing down into the Dungeon.
And was swallowed up instantly among the sea of all kinds of adventurers, not a trace left to find.
"What is it, Rin?"
Kikakujou Mary, who had been walking right beside her, noticed the sound Onigawara Rin had made and her hand frozen in midair. Following her gaze, she saw nothing — and turned back with a puzzled tilt of her head.
"..."
Onigawara Rin slowly lowered her suspended hand.
Stared at the entrance for a long moment.
Then shook her head.
"Nothing."
"Just spotted someone I've crossed paths with once — thought I'd say hi."
"But she looked like she was in a real hurry, so she's probably just rushing down to get to work."
Onigawara Rin murmured to herself, and pulled her gaze away.
One hour later.
Dungeon, Tenth Floor.
The walls were blanketed in a thick coat of moss, and the ground was carpeted in short grass underfoot.
A layer of mist drifted through the air, thin as morning fog, softening visibility just enough to matter.
Then, in an instant.
"Splch!"
A teeth-tingling sound of flesh tearing apart detonated in the mist.
Several small, grotesque imps hadn't even had time to let out their signature grating shrieks.
Nothing but a streak of black — moving too fast to follow — flashing before their eyes.
Hiruko Kohina gripped the twin short black blades in her hands.
— And threw herself into the fray like a rabid Killing Blade Weasel gone berserk.
With a crack of displaced air.
Hiruko Kohina's attack speed spiked to a level that defied reason.
The imps couldn't even manage a reaction before she had cut them apart with surgical precision — into a dozen-odd chunks of scattered meat.
Which then detonated into a cloud of black ash, leaving only a few low-purity Magic Stones to clink down onto the grass.
On the other side.
"Ha!"
Facing a Boar Man — standing a full three meters tall, corded with muscle, swinging a thick tree trunk like a bat.
Aihara Enju let out a crisp, sharp battle cry.
A pair of crimson twin-tails swept a bright arc through the air.
Not a shred of hesitation or retreat.
Aihara Enju's slender legs drove hard into the ground.
And she launched straight up.
Then twisted in midair.
Her right leg snapped straight as a whip under tension, carrying the full force of her downward momentum, and came hammering down squarely on top of the Boar Man's skull.
"BOOM!!"
A dull, thunderous impact exploded outward.
One kick — landed dead center on the Boar Man's head.
"CRACK——"
The muffled crunch of bone shattering made everyone's scalp crawl.
The massive boar skull caved in, burst apart on the spot. The enormous body went rigid in an instant.
Then the headless hulk swayed twice and crashed to the ground with a thunderous impact.
Instantly dissolving into a storm of drifting ash.
Clatter.
A mid-purity Magic Stone dropped to the ground.
Aihara Enju landed cleanly, dusted off her hands.
Then she spun around toward everyone behind her and flashed a wide grin, throwing up a victory sign.
"Done!"
A short distance away.
Hanasaka Warabi was perched on the broad back of the black-bear Kyoubou, the little cub nestled in her arms — eyes shining with admiration — watching the whole thing.
She stared at the way Aihara Enju had just delivered that finishing blow, and her eyelid started twitching uncontrollably.
As they say — even walls have ears, and doors have eyes.
"Hey, Enju..."
Hanasaka Warabi pressed her fingers to her temple.
"That kicking style of yours is absolute murder on footwear, you know?"
"You just stomped that hard with a kick like that, and the boot didn't blow out at the seams? What kind of quality is that thing made of?"
"If it were a normal shoe, the sole would have been shredded into rags after a hit like that, right?"
Enju blinked, snapped back to the present, and looked down at her own boots.
The force behind that axe-kick really had been excessive — the edge of the sole already showed clear cracking along the seam.
"Now that you mention it..."
Aihara Enju scratched her head with a slightly embarrassed grin.
____
👻🔥Seek: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: COTE: Confessing to Sakayanagi From the Start
Let's hit these goals:
🎯 100 Powerstones = 1 extra chapter for the public!