"Put it on. Here in Orario, no one will ever look down on Lili again—"
"Waaah—! Lord Haimer!"
Haimer never got to finish.
Lili couldn't hold it back a second longer.
She clutched the wooden box tight, let out a wail, and threw herself forward without a care in the world, burying her face in the front of Haimer's coat as she sobbed her heart out.
As if she meant to use this one chance to cry out every bit of bullying and every scornful look she had endured in her whole life.
Beside them stood Tsukuyo, White Heron in hand. She could not see the gift itself.
But from Kami-sama's description, she understood perfectly what an extraordinary present her patron god had just given.
Listening to Lili's crying, a smile rose to her lips, and she stayed obediently where she was.
By the door frame, Tsubaki watched the peaceful scene unfold.
She leaned against the metal door panel, her one remaining eye fixed on Haimer with something close to wonder.
She raked a hand through her black hair.
"What a devil of a male god."
"All right, that's enough. Keep crying and my little smudge-faced kitten turns into a mud-caked one."
Haimer laughed, crooked a finger, and gently scraped the tears off her cheek.
Then he straightened up.
"Sister Tsubaki." He turned toward the half-dwarf smith leaning against the iron door of the inner chamber. "I've kept you long enough. The forge is yours again."
Tsubaki waved a lazy hand and yawned.
"Don't mention it. Seeing that kind of craftsmanship with my own eye is worth a few years of bragging in front of Lady Hephaestus."
And with that, Tsubaki grinned, showing a flash of white teeth.
"Safe travels, Lord Haimer. About those big custom orders coming up—if you really run short on materials, send someone to the Red Chamber any time and take what you need."
Haimer nodded his thanks.
Then, with Tsukuyo Inaba beside him and Lili hugging the wooden box, he passed through the heavy iron outer gate of Valka's Red House and out onto the bluestone paving of Northeast Main Street.
...
It was high noon, the sun blazing overhead.
Yet strangely, the main street, always packed and chaotic, carried an eerie sense of order today.
Wherever the three of them walked, the crowd parted.
The small vendors pushing wooden carts of cheap wraps.
The low- and mid-tier adventurers with blades at their hips who scraped a living out of the Dungeon.
While Haimer was still a dozen meters off, all of them shuffled back toward the sides of the street, quickly and by unspoken agreement.
It was as if some vast invisible hand had cleaved a broad, unobstructed road straight through the sea of people.
Nor was that all.
The looks the retreating crowd turned on Haimer were tangled with all sorts of feeling.
"It's the Constable, out on patrol!"
"Speaking of which, did you hear? Word came out of the Guild this morning—the Constable's Familia, every last member, sublimated to Lv.3 in a single night!"
"And the Holy Emperor pulled two whole levels at once and broke past the Lv.4 threshold!"
Hushed talk spread along both sides of the street.
It was then that a commoner woman with a woven bamboo basket over one arm, leading a boy of five or six by the hand, squeezed unsteadily out of the outer edge of the crowd.
Five or six paces short of Haimer, she dropped to both knees on the bluestone with a thud.
Her weather-worn face was full of humble gratitude.
"Lord Constable!" Her voice came out hoarse.
"Thank you and your Familia, and thank Lady Holy Emperor, for saving the life of this whole city!"
"If it hadn't been for that Emerald Rain of Healing, my boy—he had consumption, he was so far gone—he'd have stopped breathing long ago."
"My lord, you're a living saint! A godsend to us poor folk!"
"Just remember the kindness. There's no need for these empty courtesies."
Haimer's voice was mild, and he left the words at that.
Then he led the two of them onward.
...
Except.
Lili, walking at his side down the road the crowd had opened for them, kept lowering her head further with every step.
Her small face had gone pale.
Every word of praise and fear for the [Haimer Familia] that brushed past her ears landed on her like an invisible slap.
Every member at Lv.3. And a Lv.4 besides.
Giants, all of them, who carved through mid- and lower-level monsters alone the way you'd slice a melon.
And her?
Lili kept her head down.
Apart from one transformation spell she used for petty tricks, she was still the same Lv.1 who couldn't put up the slightest resistance against even the weakest monster.
When her Grace was updated, she had prayed with everything she had for even a sliver of a breakthrough in raw strength.
But the parchment that came off the imprint had spelled out her nature all over again: she belonged tucked away at the very back.
Lili felt very small indeed.
"What are you brooding about?"
Just then a warm, broad palm settled on top of Lili's head.
It rubbed her hair twice, lightly.
Lili startled and looked up.
And met Haimer's eyes—clear enough to see straight through her.
"K-Kami-sama..." Lili looked away in a fluster.
"Lili just... Lili feels useless. All Lili does is cause trouble and never help with anything."
"Everyone's so strong. With Lili on the team, Lili probably can't even manage as a decent supporter hauling the baggage."
"You're still too young, Lili."
Haimer's large hand slid down from the top of her head.
"Does Lili really believe a whole, lasting Familia can survive on killing alone?"
Haimer's stride never slowed.
"Kisara's and Kirukiru's swords are sharp, true. But a blade too rigid snaps."
"That's exactly why I've always meant to train them."
"Because the moment someone charges in blind, they die. All they become is a beast caught in a trap."
"Especially in this Labyrinth City, where everyone schemes and it swallows people whole without spitting out the bones."
"Lili matters. There's no question about that."
"Because Lili doesn't have to rely on a blade, and doesn't have to force her way through on brute strength."
"There's a place for you too—an excellent one."
"Yes! Lili understands!"
Lili scrubbed at the stinging corners of her freckled face and nodded hard.
Behind them, Tsukuyo Inaba listened in silence.
The corners of her mouth lifted.
Kami-sama's gentleness always worked like rain soaking quietly into soil, loosening the pitiful shackles that bound everyone's hands and feet.
They passed through the noise and bustle of the trade district, and marble paving spread out ahead of them.
Before them stood a sprawling complex, spires bristling above it, its walls of high-grade brick in bands of yellow and brown stacked into an almost obscene display of luxury.
This was the seat of the [Loki Familia]—the Twilight Manor.
They had only just stepped through the grand wrought-iron gate into the courtyard.
"Hey, hey, hey!"
"Somebody get over here and talk some sense with me!"
A brash female voice with a foot-stamping edge to it cut straight through several layers of carefully trimmed hedge.
The three of them followed the sound.
On the wide lawn at the center of the courtyard.
With a teapot set on a fine hardwood table as the center point.
On the left, Loki stood with both hands on her hips.
Her red ponytail looked ready to stand straight up in fury.
Not far behind her, a knot of [Loki Familia] members wore awkward, resigned faces and studied the sky very hard.
As for the right side.
Hestia had folded her two small, delicate arms across her chest, doing her utmost to display that magnificent capital of hers to its fullest effect as a show of force.
Her chin tilted up.
She let out a dismissive snort through her nose. Gathered beside her were several [Haimer Familia] girls whose faces were a mass of exasperated lines.
Hestia and Loki had been staring each other down like this for the better part of an hour without a single word, contesting nothing but sheer presence.
"Wh-what is going on here?"
Lili, who had come in with Haimer, stared blankly, her eyes full of confusion.
Were the two goddesses playing a staring game?
Haimer took in the scene and sighed.
"Don't mind them. Put those two together and they're guaranteed to cook up some nonsense."
He paid no further attention to the pair of cross-eyed deities locked in their duel and strode straight over to the other side.
Finn and the others were under the trellised walkway.
"Lord Haimer."
Finn had been going over a list with Gareth, and the moment he saw Haimer he set his pen down.
"How are the preparations coming along?"
"The purchase and allocation of supplies for the deep-level campaign, and all the reserves for coping with the intensity down there—has it all been closed out smoothly?"
With business on the table, Finn put away the smile on his boyish face and rolled the long strip of parchment into a thin tube.
"You do us honor by worrying over it, Lord Haimer."
"That said—the large Magic Stone lamps for this long expedition, the baseline stock of spare parts for armor wear, and the sheer volume of pure water and dried meat rations to hold off deep-level corrosion."
"All of it is ninety percent in place and accounted for."
"The only thing left is the last batch of high-grade anti-status potions."
"Lord Dian Cecht has promised they'll be delivered to the Twilight Manor in bulk before the sun clears the horizon tomorrow morning."
"Good."
"Since every piece of hard equipment will be covered by tomorrow."
"Then there's nothing to gain by dragging it out."
"Let's set the match between us and your Second Corps for one o'clock tomorrow afternoon and move out from there."
With the new base due to be finished within days, Haimer heard out Finn's crisp accounting and settled the plan on the spot.
"While the light's at its best. One round, and we'll all know where we stand."
The words landed.
Finn nodded without hesitation and agreed.
At the far end of the walkway.
Several [Loki Familia] Second Corps members, Raul among them, heard that the fight was set for tomorrow.
Every one of them gripped the sword hilt at his waist, and their breathing sank several notches heavier.
After all, ever since word came this morning that the [Haimer Familia] had undergone another Rank Sublimation across the board and every member now stood at Lv.3.
Raul, Anakity and the rest might be veteran Lv.4 adventurers of the [Loki Familia] Second Corps.
But.
The gap in strength between the Second Corps and the [Haimer Familia] was simply too glaring.
They already knew, going in, that most of them would just be handing over their heads.
Even so.
Under the eyes of their own captain and the lords of the First Corps, they could hardly turn tail before the battle, even if they were beaten into pig heads.
"Hey!"
"Finn!"
As for Loki, who had noticed Haimer's arrival some time ago.
She stiffened her neck and glared it out with Hestia for another dozen seconds.
Then, as though finally conceding defeat, she flapped her aching eyelids, dropped the solemn act entirely, and started bawling orders at Finn at the top of her lungs.
"Go on! Send a few fast runners out right now, to those seasoned wine merchants in the city!"
"Order us fifty big oak barrels of the finest iced white grape wine and the strong ale!"
Loki shouted her decree like it was a matter of life and death.
Finn shot Haimer an apologetic look, then turned back and spread his hands in resignation.
"Loki."
"In the Familia's temperature-controlled cellar, the fine fruit wine we laid in as a send-off for the warriors leaving for the deep levels next week still comes to nearly three hundred barrels."
"If you really want to drink your fill, just send someone down to haul a few up."
Hearing all this, Finn's first thought was that their spendthrift patron goddess had lost her mind over something new again.
"Enough of that!"
Loki cut him off, impatient.
Then she rubbed the small of her back and got to her feet.
And flatly ignored the predatory glare Hestia was aiming at her back.
A few long strides.
She slung an arm around Haimer's right shoulder with practiced ease and let most of her weight hang off him like they were old drinking friends.
"That fruit stuff in the cellar? Fine for wetting your throat. But how's that supposed to count as real liquor, the kind you can put on a table with pride?!"
Loki looked thoroughly pleased with herself, and the grin she cracked came with a glistening trail at the corner of her mouth, excitement and greed getting the better of her.
"I've got this all worked out to the last coin!"
"Hey~ Haimer! These past few days Hestia's been camped out in my manor, eating my food, taking my things, ordering me around like I'm the hired help!"
"I've got a bellyful of grievances stored up, and I mean to settle the whole tab in one go!"
Loki was shameless about it, and so righteously shameless that Riveria and the others beside her could hardly bring themselves to look.
"So!"
Loki hugged Haimer's shoulder tighter and waggled her eyebrows, radiating pure mischief.
"Today!"
"We're borrowing that name of yours!"
"And sending my people over to Dionysus, and to Soma!"
"To beg the Divine Wine they've got hidden at the bottom of the chest~!"
"After all, you and your Familia have had this place in an uproar for days."
"Feels like it's been ages, too. And since you're here, we'll do it right in this courtyard! We'll haul over every rare bottle Soma and Dionysus have squirreled away—the kind you couldn't pry loose on the open market for any amount of Valis—and enjoy ourselves properly~!"
Loki played the shameless rogue to the hilt, paying no mind to Lili gaping at her side, or to Riveria and the others whose mouths twitched with the effort of holding it in.
Even Hestia, who had long since risen with her arms folded and dead-fish eyes locked on her, didn't get the chance to fling out an accusation about disgracing the heavens.
As for Haimer, hearing this whole scheme of nonsense and borrowed blades aimed at other gods' cellars.
A low laugh escaped him.
"You."
"Fine, why not."
"Since you've already laid it all out on the table."
"I haven't had a break in quite a while these past few days, and I could use one."
"So I'll keep you company and have a proper drink~"
"Heh heh heh, who said anything about one? Tonight we don't stop till we're drunk!"
"Ugh, Loki again. She's going to get plastered."
Tiona looked resigned. Every time Loki got drunk, they were the ones left cleaning up the wreckage—though of course she never counted herself among them.
As for Tione, her mind went straight to the potency of the Divine Wine Soma brewed.
"If Captain Finn drank some... haaah, haaah!"
"Hey, hey, you're drooling! Lord Haimer and the captain are both looking over here!"
Watching the increasingly outrageous look spread across Tione's face, Tiona's own expression curdled into disgust on the spot.
____
📢 WANT MORE CHAPTERS? HELP US HIT OUR MILESTONES!
💬 Reviews: Leave a review! For every 5 REVIEWS, 1 bonus chapter gets released. 💎 Power Stones: Hit 100 POWER STONES to unlock another bonus chapter! 🚀 P@treon: Want to read ahead? Join the P@treon (Walnut-chan) to get up to 40 chapters ahead and access 60+ stories!
🔥 New history: Mushoku tensei: Speed Run to kill Hitogami — posted on The_Mikudayo