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teria... Lucian's mind montarily blanked.
Talk about a coincidence. If he didn't explicitly know he was an anomaly from another dinsion, he would seriously start to suspect he was the designated protagonist of this world. This encounter was almost mathematically impossible.
teria. The biological mother of the canon protagonist, Bell Cranel. And more importantly, the younger sister of the 'Silence', Alfia.
Alfia was a high-tier Level 7 executive who possessed a terrifying Limit Break skill, allowing her to temporarily operate at a Level 9 combat tier! If it weren't for the crippling, terminal debuffs ravaging her body, even the Level 9 Empress of the Hera Familia wouldn't necessarily have been able to defeat her. She possessed an absolute, reality-breaking talent, firmly centing her as one of the ultimate apex predators of the mortal realm.
"You're a child of Hera?" Hephaestus asked, her brow furrowing slightly as Lucian spaced out.
Her reaction wasn't directed at the girl herself; it was an instinctive, visceral reaction to the na 'Hera'.
While the gods of this world didn't possess traditional biological family trees—they were all innate conceptual entities birthed by the universe—she held a deep, lingering distaste for Hera.
They were 'innate', aning they were born entirely from the cosmos. They were 'conceptual gods', aning their very existence was a literal extension of the World's physical laws.
In Earth's mythology, Hephaestus was the son of Hera, cast off Mount Olympus because he was born ugly, crippling his leg in the fall. In this universe, Hera was a bratty, foul-mouthed loli deity who absolutely lacked a filter.
Because they were both deities originating from the Grecian sector of Heaven, they had spent hundreds of millions of years occasionally bumping into one another. Hera likely didn't harbor any genuine malice, but she had absolutely mocked Hephaestus's eye on multiple occasions.
"I am. May I ask who you are...?" teria inquired respectfully.
She easily caught the subtle flash of displeasure on Hephaestus's face, but her deanor remained perfectly polite. She didn't let the negativity affect her, maintaining the absolute reverence expected when addressing a deity.
She was well aware of her patron goddess's notoriously abrasive personality; the line of deities in Heaven who actively despised Hera could stretch from the Dungeon entrance all the way up to Babel's peak.
"I am Hephaestus, the patron deity of the forging faction," Hephaestus replied coolly. "Since my Familia only recently relocated to Orario, it's understandable you wouldn't recognize ."
"It's an honor to et you, Lady Hephaestus." teria offered a shallow, graceful bow, a soft smile on her lips.
Looking at the incredibly polite, gentle girl, the lingering annoyance in Hephaestus's chest completely vanished.
"For a mber of the Hera Familia, your physical constitution is shockingly fragile." Hephaestus glanced at Lucian, her razor-sharp intuition imdiately picking up on the subtle shift in his deanor. He clearly had an ulterior motive regarding this girl. "An illness?"
"Yes. It's an incurable disease," teria answered, completely unbothered by the blunt question. "When I first received my Falna, I hoped the inherent vitality boost of becoming an adventurer would suppress the symptoms. Tragically, the Falna interpreted the disease as an innate trait, permanently etching it into my status as a Negative Skill."
The adventurer standing next to her remained dead silent, but her fists clenched so hard her knuckles turned white. While teria was incredibly calm about her impending death, her companion clearly wasn't.
teria's boundless gentleness and fragile nature had turned her into the beloved little sister of the entire Hera Familia, and she was undeniably Hera's most deeply cherished child. Yet, destiny had been unbelievably cruel to her.
But destiny was about to drastically change course.
"If it's a Negative Skill, you just need to seal it," Lucian interjected.
White hair, heterochromia. She had definitely heard the legends of the Hera Familia's Witch. Reaching Level 7 at only eighteen... If this girl was her sister, did the Witch suffer from the exact sa terminal illness? If so, it made perfect sense why Lucian suddenly offered to help.
Firstly, Lucian was inherently a good person; lending a helping hand cost him virtually nothing. Secondly, the absolute might of the Hera Familia was the only thing standing between Orario and total annihilation. If he could help secure their absolute apex fighters, it was a massive, indirect contribution to saving the world. Thirdly, if he successfully cured them, securing a massive favor from the strongest Familia in the world would drastically accelerate both his own plans and the expansion of the Hephaestus Familia.
The benefits were massive, the contribution to humanity was imasurable, and the act itself was inherently kind. There was zero downside. Hephaestus had absolute faith in his magical prowess. Besides, what was the worst that could happen? It wasn't like he could accidentally kill a girl who was already dying.
"Seal it?" teria blinked in surprise, but before she could speak, her companion violently stepped forward.
"Do you actually possess a magic capable of that?!" the adventurer demanded, her voice trembling with intense emotion.
Despite being a Level 3 or 4 Second-Class elite, she was practically pleading with a complete rookie. The glare of mild annoyance she had initially aid at Lucian had completely morphed into desperate hope. It was painfully obvious how deeply she cared for teria.
"Let's find sowhere quieter to talk," Lucian suggested, scanning the busy street.
He spotted a quiet, mostly empty cafe nearby and led them inside. After ordering a coffee, he finally turned his attention back to teria. "I can attempt to seal it. Would you like to try?"
"I would be incredibly grateful. Please, go ahead," teria replied, offering a deep, earnest bow.
Growing up, Hera had scoured the entire lower world, dragging in the absolute highest-tier healers to cure them, but the best they could manage were expensive artifacts that slightly delayed the symptoms. If he could genuinely seal the skill... maybe her older sister wouldn't have to suffer so much anymore.
teria's thoughts instantly went to her sister. Even though her own body was in a far more deteriorated, agonizing state, her primary concern was solely for her blood relative.
The Negative Skill was essentially a terminal drain. It constantly sapped her HP and inflicted severe debuffs. The harder she pushed her body, the more violently the skill retaliated, and the most horrifying aspect was that the damage permanently reduced her maximum HP cap over ti.
"Give your hand," Lucian instructed softly.
"Okay." She obediently extended her arm.
Her skin was pale, soft, and completely devoid of calluses. The kind of flawless, delicate hands that would instantly turn Yoshikage Kira into a berserker.
Lucian gently took her hand, closing his eyes as he rapidly mapped out the necessary rules in his mind. Having repeatedly stress-tested the absolute limits of his Third Magic, [Rule Creation], constructing the necessary formula took only a few seconds.
"[Skill Seal.]"
He spoke the invocation. A concentrated pulse of ntal energy erupted from his core, solidifying into highly intricate, jet-black arcane crests. The markings spiraled out from his hand, rapidly crawling up teria's arm and spreading across her entire body.
Within monts, the dark script completely enveloped her. The crests aggressively converged on her forehead, locking together to form a delicate, pitch-black lotus emblem. Once the lotus solidified, the rest of the markings faded into the skin, becoming entirely invisible.
It wasn't a permanent deletion; the skill was rely suppressed and hidden from the Falna's active registry, operating on the exact sa logic as a god locking an adventurer's status board.
"How do you feel?" Lucian asked.
"I feel... so incredibly light," teria whispered, her eyes wide with disbelief.
She had never, in her entire life, experienced a sensation this euphoric. The crushing, suffocating exhaustion that had plagued her since birth was completely gone. It felt as if a colossal boulder had been forcefully ripped off her chest.
Despite never once cursing her cruel fate, choosing instead to greet every single agonizing day with a warm smile, finally experiencing what it ant to be 'healthy' was an unimaginably profound, life-altering joy.
"Hold on a second." Lucian observed her for a mont, noticing she still looked slightly pale. He triggered another spell. "[Heal.]"
A soothing, pale green light enveloped her. Almost imdiately, a healthy, vibrant flush returned to her cheeks.
Seeing the job was done, Lucian released her hand. The sudden loss of that incredibly soft, delicate warmth triggered a brief, highly instinctual twinge of reluctance in his mind.
A split second later, he felt a sharp, warning pinch on his waist.
Glancing out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hephaestus staring at him with a dangerously calm, half-smiling expression.
Does she really have to be this observant?
. . .
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