Chapter 25: Bone daddy?
I woke up in the middle of the night, my sixth senses firing off in response to something. I sat up in the dark room, pushing a sleepily moaning Freya off my chest.
Moonlight spilled into the room, powerful and bright. Where it hit were pools of silver and the shadows were made darker as a result. Freya mumbled something in her sleep before turning the other way.
Which annoyed me as her cold feet were pushed against my legs. What is up with that? I lightly kicked them away from me and faced the balcony door. Trying to blink away the fatigue, I tried to focus in on the alarms in my head.
The shadow demons were on alert. The one by the balcony doors was spamming distress alerts to me. A little annoyed by that, I flexed my fingers, and the shadow demon squeaked in pain before stopping.
Once it had ceased it's racket, it explained to me that somebody was on the roof. Someone powerful enough that they were confident they couldn't protect me.
I pushed off the covers and stepped off he bed, fumbling around for some clothes in the dark. Once I managed to find them and slip them on, I looked back to Freya to make sure that I would be leaving her safe.
My breath was momentarily taken away as I saw her pale form bathed in the silvery moonlight. Her hair seemed to glow with a light of its own, as well did her skin. I could swear I was hearing multiple humming some choir or hymn as I looked upon this sight.
But then again, it could be my imagination from watching too many anime. I walked over to her and wrapped her in the covers. But also knowing she tended to wake up if she was missing the warmth of my body and my scent as well, I took of my fur cape and draped it over her. It should keep her from waking up any time soon.
I then squared my shoulders and cast [DETECTION], which should give me a read on everything in my surroundings. The radius was small, but it was enough for me to know where exactly the person was on the roof.
I then silently cast [SUMMON: HANZO], and a small magic circle appeared. It hummed a little before a dark humanoid figure dressed like a ninja rose out of it. He looked around for a moment before kneeling on one knee and bowing his head.
"What is thy bidding, my Master?"
...Cool.
"There is an intruder on top of my house. I am going out to confront them, and see what business they have crawling about my tower. You see that woman there?" I pointed over to Freya. "Do you know who she is?"
He looked over to Freya before shaking his head. "Forgive me for my ignorance Master, but I fear that I do not."
"That woman is my wife, and the dearest thing to me in this world. Do you understand your duty now?"
He rose from his kneeling position, put a fist on his heart and bowed.
"If I must die to protect my Lady, I will gladly do so Master."
"I'm glad you understand. Now conceal yourself in the shadows nearest to her, and stay there until I return. If ANYBODY comes in here, knock them out and I will deal with them later for intruding in our private space. But if you find they have come here with bad intentions, then kill them immediately and I shall revive them later."
"To hear is to obey." He bowed once more before waking silently to Freya's side of the bed and melted into the shadows.
Hanzos were level 80 monsters. I was yet to test the differences between levels of the Falna and levels of Yggdrasil, but I doubted even Ottar could handle this one.
I was not afraid of Freya being startled by him. Any magic of mine resonated with her being, so she could immediately identify any summon of mine. And it seemed she thought she could lay claim to any summon of mine as well.
Proof of that is the bicorn sleeping in the Folkvangr stables right now. I tried to give her a unicorn to see if it would reject her for not being a maiden like how a bicorn would only accept impure maidens. Surprisingly, the unicorn let her ride, which was when I found out that people like her were always maidens.
But then when she saw the bicorn, for some reason she obsessed over it and tried to keep feeding it the cinnamon rolls I made earlier. As soon as Freya bit into one of those delicacies, she just would not stop eating nor stop trying to make the poor animal eat it as well.
The bicorn let her ride it out of pure terror of being choked on sweet death. Naturally when it asked me for help, I ignored it.
Coming out of my musings, I opened the balcony doors silently and stepped out into the cold air. Clicking the door shut behind me, I looked to the roof where I could see the meteor piece on top.
"I can still see you even with that invisibility cloak, stranger. It's pointless to continue concealing yourself now." I said quietly so that my voice would not go into the room but loud enough for our uninvited guest to hear.
Their invisibility wore off, revealing a tall and thin figure draped in black robes standing on the roof with a hand resting on the side of the meteor. Their hood concealed the entirety of their face, though I already knew that they and none to speak of.
'Why is Danmachi's bone daddy here now?'
I assumed I would have encountered Fels at some point since there was no way Ouranos would let me do as I please without keeping a beady eye on me. But now of all times?
"I did not expect that you would be able to find me so easily, warrior of Freya. I have hung around many powerful adventurers like this in the past, and they didn't even know I was there?" They said in that strange, genderless, echoey voice of theirs.
"I wield magic hundreds of times more powerful than that item of yours. Even if you could hide your appearance from me, you cannot erase your presence."
"Hmm. I see. So that's how you knew I was there?"
"No. I could still see through the cloak. I was just making another point for you to improve on."
"...Duly noted then mister Garth."
I narrowed my eyes at him.
"Well it seems you know my name stranger. How about you tell me yours?"
"Of course." He dropped down from the roof and held that gauntlet of his to his chest. I say his because that was the closest gender I could associate them with. "My name is Fels. Usually ordinary people are not supposed to know this about me, but I am an agent of Lord Ouranos."
"And why exactly does the big man himself consider me an exception when concealing his secret hand?"
"That is something that I unfortunately cannot tell you. Not because I don't want to but simply because I do not know. And even if I did, I wouldn't tell you as per my orders would be."
I nodded in understanding.
"Well then Fels. Why have you come to visit us at this hour? I'm all for entertaining guests but I like to be aware that they are coming first."
"Simply put, Lord Ouranos wants to meet with you."
"Did he say why?"
"No. He just told me to come here and that you would come with me."
I clenched my jaw tightly. This was not good news to me. If this scenario were to happen, I'd expected it to be sometime after the Denatus. But perhaps Ouranos had his eye on me from the start.
Like I said before, I wasn't ready to cross with a Primordial yet. But then again Ouranos never did seem like a bad guy. Whatever he wanted of me on our first meeting, I didn't believe violence would be involved.
That being said, the guy had some creepy vibes going on and very deity in Orario was wary of getting on his bad side. It couldn't be for no reason.
I breathed in deeply and steeled myself. Whatever happened now, I'd just have to deal with it.
"Very well Fels. Take me to your master."
"Follow me."
He jumped from the tower intending to fall to the ground below. But before he did that, I grabbed the back of his cloak as he passed the balcony. His hood turned in my direction inquisitively as somehow I heard breath knocked out of him.
"Save that. Let's just cut time. [FLY]." I rose up into the air while still holding him and began flying towards Babel Tower. Fels marvelled as he watched the city passing beneath him.
"Your magic truly is a wonderous and mysterious thing mister Garth."
"Why would that be?"
"It just appears to be so versatile. I assume this is because the amount of levels you have?"
"No. It's congenital magic."
He gasped aloud.
"All of it?"
"Everything Fels. All of it is my own personal magic."
"It's not often that-"
"That a human is born with the ability to cast magic, yes I know. Every magic user I've come across has said the same thing over and over again."
"I assume you have met quite a few then."
"Over the past two days alone, at least fifty have come forward asking to be my apprentice."
"It's not surprising after all. The powerful magic you displayed the other day in front of all of Orario had given every mage a new target, a new height that they must aim for. Although I have to admit, I can't be confident that many of them may reach it...myself included."
I hummed in agreement.
"You are correct about that Fels. They never will in any of their lifetimes. My magic operates differently as well."
"Such as the need for no chants?"
"That is but the least of it all."
"Fascinating."
We reached Babel, which was mostly quiet and deserted in the streets around it. Fels showed me to the entrance of the secret tunnel and led me through. It felt seriously claustrophobic in there, even more so than the caverns of the first floor of the dungeon.
As we walked along, I examined the hieroglyphs carved into the walls. It was like I was walking through the hallways of an Egyptian pyramid tomb. The carvings looked ancient, probably because Daedalus did build Babel over a thousand years ago. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that everything was kept in good maintenance somehow.
"What is this place Fels?"
"This tunnels are not known by many. Only a handful of people have ever been through here. This was a secret passageway built at the time of Babel's construction that led to Lord Ouranos's throne room. Those whom he wished to see, this passage provided a quick means of meeting with him."
"And a quick way for him to scurry out if ever things are beyond his control I assume."
Fels turned to look at me.
"I'm no sure what you mean mister Garth."
"I think you know exactly what I mean Fels."
He made some small noise before he turned his head again to see a seemingly dead end in front of us. he held his hand up to the wall.
"Stand back for a moment while I-"
"No need." I said as I marched over to the wall and dug my fingers underneath it. With a weak little pull, the wall slid up and slammed into the ceiling make dust and debris fall out of it. Fels stood stock still as his arm trembled a little.
"How?" He said, which was odd hearing a surprised voice like that in that echoey tone of his.
"I'm strong." I said simply. That was all there was to it.
We both proceeded further up the revealed stairs until we reached a wall that opened to reveal the dark throne room. Ouranos had his face turned to me the moment I walked in.
---
(General POV)
A seemingly old man with long white hair concealed under a hood and dressed in a robe and sandals sat upon the throne. Upon the seal of the dungeon, Ouranos kept the dungeon in check by exerting his will over it.
Thanks to him, monster attacks had decreased in intensity in the last couple hundreds of years, which allowed adventurers to venture even further into the dungeon's depths with no fear of being overwhelmed by numbers they couldn't handle.
Until now that was.
Ouranos had felt the upper floors of the dungeon react violently to something within it a few days ago. Releasing so many monsters at once in an area full of rooks and noobs was a concerning development and he tried desperately to reign it in.
The dungeon fought back against him and continued to send out more and more monsters, until eventually, it astonishingly began to wear itself out. he recognized that it was not because of him trying to contain its urges but because it had overexerted itself in it's upper floors.
Having finally managed to regain control, he'd set forth an investigation as to why it had reacted that way. Not one day passed before results came back to him.
A newcomer had come to Orario, one who carried such a powerful presence that the dungeon had tried to spawn as many monsters on top of him as it could in the hopes of killing him with numbers.
But according to the eyes he'd placed in the dungeon, the stranger was able to swat each challenge aside like it was nothing. And then during the spar with he Sword Princess, the stranger had begun to damage the dungeon floors with such carelessness, Ouranos was beyond relieved that the dungeon had not activated it's defence mechanisms and spawned something that could have killed everyone in there.
The later reveal of the stranger's power level was something that shocked him to the point he'd almost lost control. Like everybody else, he was inclined to believe that Freya was pulling something and had half a mind to drag her down here to explain herself.
However, the meteor incident had held off any such insinuations as he was forced on helping to evacuate Orario into the Amphitheatron through every means he could on is end. Knowing that Babel could be destroyed in the impact, Ouranos was ready to put measures in place to holdoff the dungeon a little while longer so it would not immediately act out in his imminent absence.
But then something blasphemous happened. The stranger had somehow channelled Arcanum to create a giant barrier around the entire city, housing everyone within. From his seat, Ouranos could sense it was more enough enough to protect against a meteor as the amount of magic and Arcanum running through it made the impression that only a force greater than the earth and the skies could break through it.
Like every other deity, he grew concerned upon this development. A mortal able to channel Arcanum without at least burning up was unheard of, much less being able to wield several dozen times more than some gods he'd known in his lifetime.
Upon inspecting the boy himself, Ouranos did not find anything sinister about him. He could not find any ill-intent in his heart, although as a mortal, what was the likelihood of that not changing in the future. Especially now that he had undoubtedly caught Evilus's attention.
Ouranos was not patient enough to wait for the Denatus to address this, and o he'd sent Fels to bring the boy at time when no other deity could interfere with the exception of Freya. But so there would be no one impeding his conversation with the young man, he'd instructed Fels to bring the boy alone.
And now that he was looking at him, Ouranos could see why the dungeon reacted the way it did. While mortals certainly could pick up on his power, they could not perceive it the way deities could.
The boy was surrounded by a magical field so dense and potent, Ouranos was not surprised he could perform the feats of magic he could. Though there was not a trace of Arcanum in it now. Which confused the Primordial as it gave no explanation as to how this 'Garth Ragnar' could utilize it.
Whatever the answer may be, he intended to find out.
"Welcome, Garth Ragnar. I have been expecting you."
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