"For now, we'll make do with what we have," Genji said, his voice dropping an octave as he tried to inject a sense of stoic "monk-like" virtue into his poverty. "Frugality is a divine discipline. Besides, once we breach the lower floors of the Dungeon, the Valis will flow. It's a temporary bottleneck."
"So," Leila summarized, her tone as sharp and cold as a winter morning in the elven forests. "You have zero members, zero funds, and zero reputation. Your base of operations is a structural hazard, and your business plan is 'hope for the best.'"
Genji's salesman smile didn't just fade—it curdled.
The elf girl looked at him, her polite distance now reinforced by a wall of crystalline logic. "Lord Genji, your personal qualities are... undeniable." Her gaze lingered on the sharp line of his jaw and the haunting depth of his dark eyes. A flicker of genuine regret crossed her face, but it was quickly snuffed out by elven pragmatism.
"But the strength of a Familia isn't found in the face of its God. My kin expect me to join a D-rank collective at minimum—a group with established logistics, a stable treasury, and at least two Level 3 veterans to serve as mentors. I cannot justify this to my parents. They would think I have... entrusted myself to the wrong person."
She took a half-step back, performing a flawless, aristocratic bow. "If I were injured, could you afford a High-Potion? If I needed to reinforce my bow, do you have a contract with the Hephaestus Familia? The answer is written in the dust on your boots. I wish you luck, Lord God. I suspect you will need it."
With that, she turned. Her departure wasn't a walk; it was an exit—swift, decisive, and utterly devoid of hesitation. To her, Genji wasn't a deity; he was a bad deal she had wisely declined.
Genji's hand remained frozen in the air, his fingers still curled as if trying to catch the ghost of a recruit.
"Entrusted to the wrong person..." he muttered, the words stinging more than the hunger gnawing at his ribs. "Damn it."
He slumped onto his stool, burying his face in his hands. This was the third strike. The dwarf earlier hadn't even looked at him, and the beast-kin youth had laughed before Genji even finished his greeting. In the shadow of Babel—the ivory monolith that pierced the heavens—Orario was a city of winners. And Genji was currently the king of the losers.
Being a god in the Lower World was a rigged game. To play, you had to seal your power, embracing mortality for the sake of "entertainment." You felt hunger, you felt exhaustion, and without a Familia to tithe their findings, you were just a very handsome vagrancy statistic.
It was an ironic fate for him. In the high reaches of the Tenkai, Genji wasn't some minor spirit of grain or hearth. He was the Master of Iron and Blood, the Gravedigger of Civilizations, the Terminator of All Things. His divinity wasn't born from a story, but from the very first moment a hominid cracked a skull with a stone. He was the personification of conflict, the spark in the forge, and the silence of the mass grave.
But in Orario? He was just the guy with the crooked sign.
He still remembered his registration at the Guild. The Half-Elf clerk, Eina Tulle, had started with a professional smile that slowly dissolved into a look of profound concern for his mental health as he recited his grand, apocalyptic titles. To the Guild, if you weren't on the "Top 50" list, you were white noise.
"Maybe I should just give up the 'startup' dream," Genji sighed, reaching down to pick up his discarded sign. "Hephaestus is always looking for bellows-monkeys. Or Miach... he's a good soul. He'd probably let me pound herbs for a bowl of soup."
It was a humiliating thought for a God of War, but pride didn't stop stomach cramps.
Just as he prepared to close his "shrine" and accept a life of divine blue-collar labor, a flicker of light caught the corner of his eye. It wasn't the sun reflecting off Babel. It was internal—a series of translucent, sapphire-blue lines manifesting in the air, visible only to his transcendental perception.
[Condition Met: Host has survived 30 days of 'Divine Poverty'.] [Multiverse Recruitment System: INITIALIZING...] [1%... 45%... 99%... 100%] [Activation Successful. Welcome, Lord Genji. The Gates of the Multiverse are now open for recruitment.]
The recruitment sign clattered from his hand, hitting the dirt. Genji stared at the floating text, his breath catching in his throat.
The System?
The "Golden Finger" of the transmigrator, a month late and fashionably dramatic, had finally arrived.
"Transdimensional recruitment..." Genji whispered, a slow, predatory smirk finally replacing his desperate salesman's grin. "Tell me, System... if I can't find a legend in this world, can we just go ahead and import one?"