章節 43: The 'Others'
~Oh, won't you stay with me?~
~'Cause you're all I need~
~This ain't love, it's clear to see~
~But, darling...~
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(A Couple of Minutes Earlier)
Purple eyes gleamed as they watched Steve and Ais follow the servant into a side-door which led further away into the building. Where they were headed, she'd see soon enough as their souls could not escape her gaze, even through walls. She then cast her gaze over to Ptah and Hestia as they happily chattered, before an annoyed Hephaestus came up behind them and berated a flushed and nervously chuckling Hestia.
Freya then sighed as she sipped from a wine glass and took her eyes away from the window of the private booth on the second floor. Her sigh caught the attention of the large suited man standing behind her seat, someone that was ever vigilant of their surroundings for the benefit of his mistress.
"Lady Freya?" Ottar leaned forwards slightly. "Is everything alright?"
"I just can't do it Ottar." She sighed again. "I have tried as hard as I can to get a proper view of his soul. But from a distance such as this, it is much too bright to distinguish any proper colours, much less whatever image it tries to show me." She then looked up at her Captain. "I need to get up close my dear."
"I advise that we wait then." Ottar said as he looked out the window again and saw the same servant come back from the side-door and then direct the three gods below to follow him back in. A moment later, a flustered and flushed red Loki dashed after them. "It appears that there are other Familia who have approached him first."
"I could understand little old Loki having business with Ptah." Freya said as she too watched the bizarre activity. "From what our reconnaissance team brought back, there is an official alliance between Ptah's one member Familia and Loki's. It is unfortunate we could not glean the specifics of those conditions. Besides this boy's mysterious level, I would love to know more about what it is exactly he offers that could ensnare Loki's allegiance, even in a higher position of power, let alone being direct equals."
"From my understanding, this was an agreement done between Braver and this new adventurer." Ottar said. "Their respective deities were not involved in the proceedings at all. It was only put down on paper yesterday."
"But still, even with Ptah's antics over Loki, it is clear that this alliance is genuine and not one that they are opposed to. Otherwise Loki would have had it dissolved by the end of yesterday. She does not take risks in allying herself with even established Familia, let alone one that was born practically yesterday."
"It takes much to even catch Finn's interest." Ottar said. The Boaz had known the Pallum for a long time. Even though Ottar was the higher levelled adventurer, Finn was his senior in both age and experience, and they both had toughed it out under the shadow of Zeus and Hera. Their positions were well earned as Captains of the two superpowers of Orario. Finn also was not the type to just make an alliance with anyone, even a genuine level 9 without some sort of legitimate reason.
"I have strong suspicion that it has to do something with those new magical weapons that we are hearing about in circulation amongst Loki's executives." Freya smiled. "Otherwise, what else could explain Hephaestus's sudden interest in the boy?"
"Are you suggesting that perhaps he was the one to make them?" Ottar asked. "In the Dungeon?"
"Even if he's a level 9, it does not rule out the possibility he may be a great smith. Especially when you take into consideration who his god is. Ptah was a great blacksmith at one point before he delved more into masonry and sculpting than craftsmanship."
"What about the other goddess?" Ottar asked as he remembered the twin tailed girl.
"That would be Hestia. To my knowledge, she has no Familia. But her being a part of their party is no surprise. She is one of Ptah's oldest friends...she's even older than I am."
"Was she a great goddess?" Ottar asked out of curiosity. It was a natural state of law that powerful gods attracted powerful adventurers or people with the potential to become exceptionally powerful.
"'Great' has many perspectives Ottar." Freya said as her eyes clouded over as she dwelt on the memories of the past. "But putting aside all her quirks and shortcomings, when you see what position she held in her pantheon and what exactly she was respected for...she is indeed a very great goddess." She then looked back at her child. "How exactly does it feel 'King'? Is your throne becoming cold yet? Or are you still very much warm and comfortable?"
"My Lady, you know best of all how little I care for it." Ottar then stared at where the boy had gone. "But something about this Stephen Hewer...baffles me."
"Elaborate."
"If the Guild is so insistent on his level, and if even the Loki Familia swear upon it, I have no problem in accepting it as truth. But everything I've seen of him so far does not even smell like the characteristics of a seasoned adventurer...and yet that is exactly why it is puzzling. He possesses a joy and innocence that you do not find in someone worthy enough to even be a level 4, let alone what he is. He does not have the mannerisms of a veteran, or someone that has seen hardship and struggle. Just his appearance alone does not really speak of struggle besides the scars on his arms." Ottar frowned. "And yet when I met him in the Dungeon earlier today...every instinct I had told me not provoke him, not to 'poke the bear' as some would put it."
"I did give you explicit orders not to Ottar."
"And I obeyed. But even the thought of challenging him was met with this cold dread and adamant ringing in my bones not to do it. And more than that, is his eyes."
"His eyes."
"He has the eyes of a child...but there is something beneath. Deep down inside, there is something that lurks in him, which he could release on a whim. You ask me my Lady if my throne is being threatened? I welcome any worthy competition, and if he is genuine, I would consider it a great honour and privilege to fight him."
"You've sought a stronger opponent for some time now my dear." Freya said. "Zald sated that longing for a brief moment, but you then lapsed back into loneliness at the top."
"My competition since then has been nothing but the monsters." Ottar said as he then thought of one alleged accomplishment of this new adventurer and was taken back to a time when he was just level 6. "He is supposed to have defeated Balor by himself as well..."
"Succeeding where you failed." Freya smiled. "I can only imagine it only stokes that intrigue to fight him even more."
"When I am at a distance. But as soon as I go close to him, I get this feeling of...wrongness. Something is off about him Lady Freya...I just can't figure it out."
"Me and you both my child." Freya said as she put down her glass and stood up. "Well, I suppose we should go down there and give our due greetings to everyone. I don't imagine this meeting of theirs will take too long. The night is long and the party has only just begun. They'll come out eventually."
"Lady Freya?" Ottar asked. "Have you thought on how to respond to those many letters sent to our door?"
"Let us establish this now then Ottar." Freya turned to him him and fixed him with a stare. "Do you, or do you not, want to fight him? Put aside whatever it is you feel when you are near him, what are your interests right now?"
"...Yes, I do want to fight him." Ottar said as he clenched his fist. "If fear is what I'm feeling when near him, then it must have some justification behind it. And this would be the best opportunity to find out then any real hostilities you are afraid of creating."
"Indeed." Freya replied as she looked away. "Ptah and I may be estranged now...it would be wise not to get on his bad side. However, I alone cannot pressure him into a War Game...maybe if we go sowing few seeds into a few certain individuals." Freya's eyes locked onto certain specific people amongst the gods, such as one with orange-blond hair and a crown of leaves on his head. "It is decided." Freya lay a hand on the table as her eyes shone purple. "We will have a War Game!"
---
"Please tell me about some of your adventures. Just one." Ais pleaded as she leaned into Steve's personal space and looked up at him.
"We're about to talk with Hephaestus now on something very important Ais." Steve reasoned. "And they'll be here any moment. If I start now, then they'll come in and ruin the flow of the story. We can do this once we're done with this chat."
"Tell me about your friends then." Ais asked. "You said they might be as strong as you. What are they like?"
"My friends?" Steve said as he thought about the people he was going to bring into Danmachi from his second server. "I guess I could quickly tell you about them while we wait."
"Hm." Ais nodded as she leaned into him. He fondly put an arm around her as he recalled the default player characters he'd turned into NPC's with a Party Mod on his second server. They were coded to carry out certain jobs when exploring improved and modded terrains, all so that he wouldn't have to do anything besides fight. He gave orders through commands or chat, and the NPC's obeyed his commands.
It was just like an adventurer party and he was the captain. But as a bit of fun, he had put in a little bit of flavour text into their coding and then had given them resources or items that went along with what their interests were or what jobs were assigned in that fantasy roleplay.
"Well let's see. First and foremost is Alex." Steve said. "She's my best and my oldest friend. Out of our friend group, she and I have known each other the longest out of all of us."
"She?" Ais said inquisitively. Steve responded by pinching her nose, making her widen her eyes and then pout as he held onto her face.
"None of that now." He chided. "As a matter of fact, most of them are girls. There are only two other guys in our friend group. The rest are women. And nothing exists between me and Alex like what is between us. We are friends and comrades through and through. There's no romance."
"You know I trust you Steve." Ais said in a muffled voice as he still had her nose pinched between his fingers. "Can you let go of me now?" He complied and she took a quick breath through her nose, before paying apt attention to the description he was giving of his 'friends'.
"As I said, Alex is my oldest friend. We spent so much time travelling and adventuring together, I can't even remember how long ago it was that I met her. She's a fighter, a brawler by nature actually. When you see her arms, you'll realize just how much she likes to fight. Besides me, she's the most powerful member of our friend group no doubt. She's very good at organisation though. When they all come, she'll make a perfect vice-captain. It's what she's always been anyway." He relayed according to the flavour text. For so long, the only default Minecraft skins had just been Steve and Alex. The others came about seven years later all in one go. Alex's flavour text also wrote that she had very, very profound 'assets'. And she was quite conscious of it, so he looked forward to the day she met Loki.
He continued.
"Then there is Sunny. One of his arms is a metal prosthetic which he can move just like a real arm. He's our farmer and rations-keeper. Whenever we settled down somewhere, he saw to it that we started cultivating crops, veggies and fruit so we could make bread and stew. He was also the carer for our animals. He'd watch over the ones we domesticated and he'd cater to our mounts when we'd stop to camp. He was charged with keeping track of our rations whenever we went on adventures." Sunny's functionality had been compounded when Steve had added things like 'Fruits and Veg' mods and others like the 'GoodAll' mod. With more agricultural items and more animal varieties to, resources were aplenty and regulated when you had an NPC like Sunny. A funny quirk to Sunny was that he would use a Hoe like it was a Scythe to fight.
"Next I guess would be Ari. Now she is a mischievous one. She's a mastermind when it comes to making monsters traps and monster farms. You could call her an engineer of sorts since she can build a lot of different contraptions. But the one thing she likes more than building is destroying stuff. Whenever we raided an enemy castle, mansion or an outpost of pillagers and bandits so we could loot them, I'd send her on ahead to lay down explosives and then set them off so we could create an opening in the enemy's defences. She's also very good at building secure vaults and things like that so we could secure our valuables. She's very good with projectile weapons too." And deadly when he handed her a gun. She had been an exceedingly difficult one to code. It was hard having to program an NPC to build certain structures and redstone contraptions. It had taken hours upon hours of him doing it himself, recording it, then mirroring that recording with the programme, one by one, recipe by recipe so the NPC could do it by herself. With the destruction command, he didn't need to do much. He just typed something to her, and she would go lay down anything that had a TNT signature to it and then avoid the explosion or hightail it out of there. If there happened to be a nuke laying around because he left a mod on, she'd set off the nuke without hesitation.
"There is Noor. She is one of our mages but more than that, she is an animal and monster tamer. She has a very good skill that lets her tame any hostile monster or animal and make them love her easily besides the boss monsters. They take extra effort on her end." Noor's spells mirrored the powers of the monsters she tamed. If she tamed a skeleton, she could cast infinite arrows. If she tamed a zombie, her physical strength would multiply. If she tamed an evoker, she could summon vexes and evoker fangs etc etc. On the extremely low chances coded into the game that she could tame a wither or the dragon, she could use their abilities. The drawback though with the boss monsters was that once she used their ability, they broke free from her control. But otherwise, she was very powerful at magic.
"Then there is Zuri. He's the brains of our team and also quite an accomplished mage. He specializes in tomes and grimoires, and therefore his spells are more expansive and broad. He's our strategist and he's the guy that decides what expedition we should go on based on the resources we have remaining. He's also a very good architect when it comes to building our houses and our villages." Most of that was part of flavour text but Zuri was a very fast builder NPC that did use books and magic circles in battles when he had a fantasy mod on. Otherwise, Steve would just give him a blueprint and every building resource on hand and Zuri would get onto the job right away. But in his flavour text, Zuri was also brilliant in physical combat as well when he chose to pick up a sword.
"After him I guess is Makena. She's mainly our cook. She forages for wild ingredients or hunts game. She then brings it back to base or back to camp and makes food for all of us. Besides that, she's very warm and friendly. However, she too is a massive brawler and she is merciless with axes. So...don't piss her off, okay?" Ais nodded in agreement. Steve had threw it all on stereotype but he had designed Makena's character off of a typical African mum...you know, because she was black. Makena was literally coded to always be making food for the team and whenever he types a command or one of the other NPC's lost saturation, the coding would force that NPC to come to a standstill so Makena could throw out food into the NPC's inventory. The NPCs were programmed to eat in response to severe loss of saturation so they ate just like a player. Makena's character text was someone who was sweet and motherly, but furious and vicious when she was disrespected and militant with the punishments she dished out. She also had large 'assets'.
"Then there is Kai. She's purely physically based when it comes to fighting and her best attribute is her speed. I reckon I'm the only one that can outpace her when it comes to fighting and outclass her when it comes to the skill of any weapon. But believe me, she is not a pleasant person to fight. Outside of combat, she's quite friendly. I'd imagine she and Tiona would make good friends...she also loves the colour purple quite a bit. That's why she regards Netherite weapons with a particular kind of love." Kai's programming was built on an advanced combat mod that put in cool new moves into the game based on whatever weapon was in hand. Those were what made her a speedy combatant.
"Last is Efe. She's the only 'girly' one. She loves dressing up in a fashionable way and she adores jewellery. She cannot live without it. She loves anything that is a precious metal or gemstone. She is also the youngest out of all of us I presume...but don't let that fool you. She's the most powerful mage amongst us. I daresay I might be the only one more powerful than her due to only my level but seriously, her stuff is no joke. She rarely fights with weapons but she is still very good with them. And because she loves metals and gems so much, she has a very strong affinity with Earth magic...I'm going to wait until you meet her so you can see for yourself how powerful she is with magic. I bet you, Riveria has nothing on that girl." Steve very much doubted that Riveria could match the NPC that could raze an entire biome and punch holes through the chunks into the void with her magic. Efe was supposed to be the spoilt little sister of the whole group hence why she dressed the way she did and why she loved jewellery. She was the stereotypical mage girl with possibly a witch's hat in every isekai fantasy anime. But Efe had a bite to her...and her flavour text obligated her to call him 'Onii-chan' much to his embarrassment.
Had his 'real' friends ever found out about this whole thing he'd spent hundreds of manhours on just to play by himself for the sake of roleplay, they would have teased him to oblivion because of just how much cringe he'd put into the whole damn thing. BUT, assuming that they followed the conditioning of their flavour text, then they were the perfect party to add to the Ptah Familia and the best executives any future member could have when they joined. He wasn't sure what levels they would be when Ptah slapped a Falna on all of them but considering he dabbled with Super EXP mods on that server, he was pretty sure they had plenty saved up to be as awesome as he. He couldn't wait to bring them over...even if he had to live with Efe calling him Onii-chan from now on.
"They sound like really fun people." Ais said. "Can I fight them? Kai sounds strong."
"Don't just straight up challenge them to a fight Ais. Get to know them first and then ask them for a spar please. You can't go asking for a fight out of every strong fighter you see."
"But I must grow stronger!"
"And you will." Steve calmed her down. "With time. You're the strongest level five in your Familia. You'll get to the next level in time. Don't worry."
"Okay." Ais conceded before she looked at him. "Promise to help me?"
"With all my heart, Ais." Steve took her fingers and kissed them, making her blush. "I will not rest until you get to the same level as I am now. Our adventures together are just beginning...just give it time. Be patient. Promise that to me."
"I promise." She said as she hugged him.
"Good. Because the others are here." Steve said just as the door flew open and in strode Ptah along with Hestia and Hephaestus trailing in behind him. Tsubaki was the last to enter and she shut the door behind them as they took the seats they preferred. Hephaestus and Ptah sat closest to the couple as the goddess folded her hands.
"I just realized I didn't introduce my Captain to you earlier Steve." Hephaestus said. "I can call you that right?"
"By all means."
"Very well. This is Tsubaki, my level 5 captain." Hephaestus gestured to the half-dwarf.
"How's it going?" Tsubaki cheered as she stuck her hand out.
"I'm good." Steve said as he shook it. "I've heard about you from Gareth you know. He says that you are his exclusive smith by contract, and it was only afterwards that I was afraid I may have slighted you by enchanting his axe. I hope you're not too unhappy with it?"
"It's cool now." Tsubaki said. "Honestly, after all I've heard about you from both him and Finn and seeing exactly what you're capable of, I must say that I am in actuality honoured to have had my work improved by a master craftsmen and smith such as you."
"You give me too much credit." Steve said as he rubbed the back of his head while laughing. "I was just landed in some very fortunate circumstance which allowed me to learn how to do the things I did. I'm not as dedicated to a single line of craft the way you are. If anything, I should be the one bowing to you."
"...You know, you're exactly as they said you are." Tsubaki smiled. "All the exceptionally high level adventurers I've ever met were always so stiff and such complete assholes. But you...you're different."
"I just like to get along." Steve said before he turned to Hephaestus. "Now that we are all gathered and we have our privacy, what was-"
He was rudely interrupted by the doors slamming open again as a red faced Loki came rushing through.
"I demand to be a part of this conversation as well!" She yelled.
"And what justification could you have for that Lopt?" Path said threateningly. "Or am I going to have to teach you a lesson on manners yet again?"
"Eeerrhhh...hehe..." Loki laughed nervously. "Well, it's just that...my Aisy-poo is taking part in this...and I can guess why Hephy is here. It's because she's interested in that spear that Finny boy brought back to the Manor. He said it was made by him." Loki pointed to Steve. "Since our Familias are also supposed to be in an alliance, I just guessed that I should be here too."
"For once in your life you actually sound moderately intelligent." Ptah sniffed. "Go and sit next to Hestia."
"What?!" Hestia gasped in horror. "Why are you making her sit next to me Ptah? Is this some sort of joke?"
"Hestia?" Loki asked as she finally realized who else was in the room. "Oh I'm sorry Itty Bitty. You're so small, I guess I just didn't see you when I come in."
"And you can only rely on drama to be noticed yourself Loki!" Hestia hissed before a devious smile stretched across her face as she pointed to Loki's chest. "You're so unnoticeable, people just shrug you off as another MAN in the crowd. So all you've got to do is puff out your chest like you actually have one and scream and shout like a little baby to be noticed, Miss No-Boobs."
"Why you little-!" Loki was about to lunge for the goddess but Ptah's eyes glowed red and she stopped in her tracks before sullenly walking over to the seat beside the goddess and slumping in it.
Hestia flashed her a victory smile. Whenever they both had a spat, it was always a good idea for Hestia to get Ptah involved because he always took Hestia's side, even if Hestia was wrong just to spite Loki. After all, what were friends for?
"Before I was so impudently interrupted..." continued Steve as he turned back to Hephaestus. "...what was is you wanted to talk with me about Goddess Hephaestus?"
"Simple...I have one demand and it is this." Hephaestus leaned forwards and stare him straight in the eye. "Stop making weapons."
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