This chapter is 2 in 1, ch 242/ ch 08 (Side Story) — I did this so I wouldn't lose track of the count ;)
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Ryuu had indeed been putting in the work all this ti.
At first, the girl had wanted to model herself after Alfia — to understand what kind of person this legendary adventurer had been, the strongest she had ever encountered, the one she had even crossed blades with. She wanted to know how Alfia had beco the strongest, and to chase after that ideal as her own.
Just as Goddess Astrea had once said.
Ryuu Lion was not soone who could walk forward alone. She needed companions. She needed a goal. When the world around her went pitch black and she found herself standing in isolation, she was paralyzed, unable to take a single step.
Even so.
Even back then, when the girl had stubbornly left her holand by herself and made her way to Orario — even that had been the sa.
It wasn't a sign of how "independent" she was. More than anything, it had been a kind of "obsession" in its own way.
Like most veterans.
Ryuu was, at her core, a stubborn creature. And so, once she had fixed her eyes on a goal to pursue, the actions she threw herself into far exceeded what anyone around her could have imagined.
Clumsily, relentlessly, she sought out everything there was to know about Alfia.
And then.
Ryuu understood: she could never beco like her. "Learning from" the city's greatest adventurer — that was simply, absolutely, never going to happen.
The reason was simple.
Alfia was as strong as she was because of her talent.
A [Monster of Talent] envied by the heavens themselves — that was no re figure of speech, no colorful exaggeration. It was a fact written directly into the woman's skills and magic.
No amount of effort alone could bring a person to that place.
That didn't an Ryuu herself lacked talent.
Quite the opposite — by any asure, she was one of the most gifted adventurers among the city's younger generation. At her peak, she had even been spoken of in the sa breath as Ais.
And that was precisely why.
She understood, more keenly than most, exactly what a gap in talent ant.
The walls that ordinary adventurers spent days and years trying to scale — the grueling climb from Lv.1 to Lv.2 that broke so many of them — had co to her as naturally as eating and drinking. As easily as breathing.
Nothing more than "leveled up after being in the city for a while" — that ordinary, unremarkable sort of thing.
So of course, the things that were effortless and trivial for Alfia were simply beyond her reach, no matter what she tried. That was only natural.
Ryuu understood that clearly.
And so, rather than despair, the girl chose to try harder.
Because she could not stop.
In this stretch of ti, the elven girl had co to realize what mattered most. For her — whether it was protecting the younger mbers of the Familia as a senpai, or staying always by Isagi's side as he carried out the grand heroic feat of saving the world, or one day saving the companions she had lost — no matter what she wanted to do.
She had to beco stronger.
How strong? That answer was unknowable. So it was enough to simply be stronger today than she had been yesterday.
Like a sudden flash of enlightennt — the elven girl who had always been chasing the footsteps of others, always keeping soone else as her north star, had finally decided: from now on, her goal would be the version of herself that would exist tomorrow.
Her sword strokes, a little faster.
Her spells, chanted a little quicker, and with a little more force behind them.
The mistakes she made in battle, a little fewer.
Everything — done just a little more [perfectly].
Eliminate every error, and what remains is correctness. And when all those correct pieces ca together, the outco would inevitably be victory — and strength.
Starlight shines.
Isagi had said it once, offhandedly, on so forgotten day: the darker the sky, the brighter the stars.
The deep autumn air was crisp, though not yet biting with winter's true chill.
After "training" for quite so ti, the two girls finally chose to stop, and ca over to rest where Lefiya and Tiona had laid out their blankets.
The bout between Ais and Ryuu-senpai had ended without a conclusion.
It had been practice from the start — there was no real "winner" or "loser." From Isagi's vantage point, the two of them were evenly matched right now. If they had kept going, it would have turned into nothing but a pure endurance contest.
Whoever ran out of steam first would be the one to fall.
Both of them seed quietly dissatisfied with that outco. Through the rest break, they sat in silence, eating and drinking, wearing the expressions of people lost deep in thought — still replaying the exchange in their heads, apparently. How very like them.
Isagi shook his head.
Then he fell into easy conversation with Lefiya and Tiona.
The elven girl was still imrsed in her magic research, and now that she had leveled up, it seed she was planning to attempt "controlling Explosion Magic" and bring a number of other "new ideas" to life. But any and all of that would have to be tested either in the Dungeon or on so deserted island overseas.
At the very least, within the city itself, Lefiya was absolutely never casting any magic again.
With the magical power she wielded now, razing half the city to the ground would be trivially easy. Genuinely terrifying.
What Tiona had on her mind was considerably simpler. The girl was busy thinking about what she was going to eat when the Fertility Festival rolled around in a few days —
As the city's grandest festival.
Central Park, where the celebration would be held, was going to be packed wall to wall with people. And naturally, vendors of every variety would be turning out in full force.
Even rchants from foreign lands, who had traveled vast distances just for the occasion.
Along with all manner of trinkets and curiosities, they would of course be bringing plenty of "exotic cuisine" along with them.
On top of that.
According to a certain Amazon girl's admittedly unreliable intel.
Apparently, so ti recently, the Amazons of the Kali Familia had gone out to sea in true form — as was their calling — and hauled back so enormous deep-sea fish. Said to be an unbelievably rare delicacy.
"Back ho, only the strongest champion was ever allowed to eat it!"
The Amazon girl's holand, the warrior nation of Telskyura, was a country situated overseas — and naturally, the Amazons' daily diet consisted of all kinds of fish from the sea. Fishing was, outside of "combat," the single most important industry in their nation. Bar none.
Isagi was curious too — just how big was this deep-sea fish, exactly? Apparently, they'd even sent out two Lv.6 mbers of the Kali Familia for the job.
And soon enough.
Lefiya, too, found herself intrigued.
After all, the girl who had spent her formative years studying in the Academic District had drifted on the sea for a long stretch of ti. While provisions had never been scarce, the district also regularly fished to give the students sothing different to eat — so she'd had her fair share of seafood over the years.
And so the two girls launched into a heated debate about what exactly this great fish was called and what on earth it actually was.
Unfortunately, they couldn't make heads or tails of it.
Tiona only knew the word for it in her hotown dialect, and Lefiya had never heard a lick of the warrior nation's language — she hadn't the faintest idea what the word ant.
As for describing it —
The Amazon girl, never the sharpest tool in the shed, could not produce a single word beyond stretching both arms wide and demonstrating that it was very, very big.
Lefiya stared at her in blank-faced stupefaction.
The autumn night was full of noise and laughter. Isagi sat a little to the side, quietly watching it all.
Beneath a sky thick with stars.
Far off, the city blazed with light — like a small sun that would never set. Still. Beautiful. The kind of sight that made you think of the word "eternity."
Isagi blinked.
He thought he understood, just a little, what it ant to save the world.
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The night before the Harvest Festival, Isagi made his way to Babel — at the joint 'invitation' of the goddesses Deter and Astrea.
He went invisible.
As he had ntioned before, both goddesses had been run ragged with festival preparations and had taken to staying at Babel for days at a stretch. Tonight, though — the last night before the holiday — was finally a mont they could breathe.
Isagi, of course, understood exactly what that ant.
A chance to rest. To really, thoroughly rest.
He made his way through the streets under cover of night. The late-autumn stars and moon hung scattered and indifferent overhead, lending everything an almost excessive stillness. It was around nine in the evening, and the stretch from North Main Street all the way to Central Park was packed with people.
Fortunately, Isagi was invisible the entire way. And since he could fly, he covered the distance with remarkable efficiency — it wasn't long before the base of Babel rose up before him.
Few adventurers ventured into the Dungeon at this hour.
But Babel itself was another matter. The tower served a partial role as a comrcial district within the city — so beyond the steady foot traffic moving through Central Park, the interior was bustling in its own right. The elevator line alone cost him over ten minutes.
His destination was clear, so Isagi bypassed the dical facilities on the second and third floors — which provided ergency care for adventurers who'd just staggered out of the Dungeon with serious injuries, staffed around the clock by healers from Dian Cecht Familia — as well as the restaurants, coffee shops, and clothing boutiques scattered throughout those levels.
Then he passed through the fourth to eighth floors, ho to the Hephaestus Familia's branch store.
Beyond their shops on Adventurer's Row, this tower location was the true main base of the city's greatest smithing Familia. Gleaming equipnt and weapons lined every surface — second-class armants and magic swords, standard-issue gear for the tens of thousands of adventurers the city supported. Whatever you needed, you could find it here.
Higher still, the floors dissolved into a sprawling variety of specialty shops: apothecaries, vaults, material reclamation stalls, bookstores, and all manner of miscellaneous establishnts. Many mid-tier rchant Familias in the city maintained a presence here — including Deter Familia, which ran a sizable agricultural market, and several wine rchants operating under the patronage of various wine gods.
An overwhelming abundance.
Isagi had been here before, though not often. The crowds made it feel stifling and warm, but since the gods occasionally held banquets here, he'd accompanied Deter or Goddess Astrea a handful of tis.
Before long, he passed through the 'public floors.' Above the twentieth floor, Babel was no longer open to the general public — ordinary visitors were not permitted beyond that point.
Not by any official Guild regulation, but by an unspoken tradition that had held for a thousand years.
Above the twentieth floor of Babel was the domain of the gods.
And not just any gods — only those who had made a na for themselves in the city, who stood at the very top of its hierarchy, held the right to reside there. The higher the floor, the more august the deity, and by extension the greater proof of their standing.
Higher still lay the grand assembly hall where the gods convened — used also for presiding over War Gas and bestowing epithets upon adventurers. Above that were cafés, restaurants, bars, and various other anities reserved exclusively for divine residents.
And on the topmost floor — the fiftieth — the suite that belonged solely to Goddess Freya. The supre proof of dominance over the city, reserved for whoever held absolute power. Once it had been Hera Familia, led by the Empress at Lv.9. Now it belonged to the Goddess of Beauty, who counted the Vanargandr among her ranks.
Sotis, without even aning to — whether in the Garden of Stars, or on his way to the Dungeon, or anywhere else in the city, or even beyond its walls — Isagi would find his gaze drifting to this tower that stood as the symbol of the city of adventurers.
It wouldn't be so difficult, he thought idly, to have Goddess Astrea move into the very top floor in place of Freya.
His thoughts wandered.
Then he arrived at the door of the suite the two goddesses shared. He drew out the key Deter had given him, slipped it into the lock, and stepped quietly inside.
For so reason, the fact that he'd spent the entire journey invisible made him feel oddly furtive — like a thief in the night. The invisibility granted by the divine artifact was absolute. Even other gods could not detect or see through it. This wasn't one of Miss Asfi's Mystery Items — it was a creation of the Goddess of Beauty herself.
Which was precisely why Deter and Astrea had asked him to wear it on the way over.
Even goddesses had their sense of ambiance, after all. Isagi understood this completely.
So he had already mapped out his own plan for what tonight would hold — had been prepared for it long before he arrived.
The room was dark.
This was Goddess Deter's suite in Babel, and it was correspondingly grand — by Isagi's estimate, it sprawled well beyond two hundred square ters. There was a sitting room, a study, a balcony, a bedroom, even a pool, and the signature feature of any Babel suite: a sweeping floor-to-ceiling window of breathtaking width and elegance.
They were on the forty-third floor.
As the tallest structure in the city, even from here Isagi could look down across all of Orario — the glittering sea of lights stretching in every direction below. The streams of people moving through the streets far below had shrunk to tiny, swaying specks. Tilt your head up slightly, and you got the strange, intoxicating illusion that you'd nearly reached the sky itself.
Babel had fifty floors in all, but its height exceeded several hundred ters — a wonder that by any asure surpassed what this world's engineering should have been capable of, a true marvel in every sense. Naturally so, since it had been built by the master craftsman Daedalus, who possessed the developntal ability [Mystery] and had also created the inconceivable Artificial Labyrinth.
He'd been here before, yet each ti he stood before this window and looked down over the city, Isagi felt a quiet awe stir in him — and understood, at last, why Goddess Freya was so fond of living at the top of this tower. The feeling was extraordinary. Truly extraordinary.
He hadn't turned the lights on.
A sweet, heady scent of wine drifted through the sitting room. On the table sat empty bottles of the fruit wine the goddesses favored — clear evidence that Deter and Astrea had already made their preparations well before he arrived.
Isagi quickly found the soft, motherly goddess in the bedroom.
Deter was fast asleep.
In the faint, scattered glow of starlight and moon, her honey-colored waves of hair spilled across the bed in loose, flowing tangles. Her body curled softly, like a sleeping infant — radiating that sweet, milky warmth of hers, while broad expanses of pale skin tinged with cherry-blossom pink pressed against the outline of a black lace nightgown, giving the impression of sothing that might spill over at any mont.
This was the particular charm of a fully ripened woman.
Isagi stood at the bedside for only a mont, yet already found himself thinking of the warmth of being held in that motherly embrace. It was a sensation that made him want to climb into bed right then and there — to take imagination and make it real.
Ripe fruit always made you want to sink your teeth in.
But Isagi held himself back — not because restraint was required, but because when he turned, out on the balcony, bathed in faint starlight, Goddess Astrea stood in a pure-white nightgown, gazing out at the distant city as though lost in thought.
Her long brown hair fell loose around her.
The nightgown was not particularly voluminous — it clung to her like a thin veil of mist, tracing the lines of the goddess's tall, graceful figure, the curves full and perfectly arranged.
Most notably: Astrea was standing with both hands folded lightly together, leaning against the railing. Her body tilted slightly forward.
Which ant, from Isagi's angle, the natural arc of her slender waist was thrown into relief all the more vividly.
Whether or not she'd done that on purpose — Isagi was fairly certain she had. He hadn't been quiet at all when he pushed open the bedroom door.
So. Even though the invisibility helt Aphrodite had given him was sothing no god could see through, at this mont Astrea almost certainly knew he was already here.
Well, that was entirely normal. This had all been arranged in advance — they'd told him ahead of ti, after all, and the 'ambiance' had been very clearly implied.
The Goddess of Justice was simply pretending not to know he'd arrived.
So she was still out on the balcony, pouring herself another glass and sipping alone. The wine glass in her hand swirled gently — faintly red, exhaling sweet, fruity fragrance — and it swirled a little more noticeably when he stepped out onto the balcony and ca up beside her.
Unlike the full-blood sweetness of the motherly goddess, this was sothing entirely different — cool and clear, like the damp mountain forest air after morning rain, at once refined and mysterious, feeling close enough to touch yet impossibly far away.
Moonlight spilled down exactly then.
It wrapped the goddess completely in a pale silver glow.
She appeared to be watching the city below, and it was indeed a beautiful sight — but Isagi, who knew Astrea well, saw right through her. Those pale-blue eyes, serene as still water, were in fact ever so slightly hazy, and her cheeks had already begun to color — carrying with them a wordless, indescribable kind of longing.
It was the proof that she knew he was there. And the silent, unspoken plea of soone anticipating what ca next.
Isagi answered the goddess who had been waiting all evening.
With the first touch, her body responded — not just visibly to the eye, but perceptibly beneath his palm and fingertips — a faint, trembling shiver.
Through the thin fabric, the sensation was silky to the point of being slippery, and beneath it ca warmth and a subtle firmness in return.
Both were mature won, but Goddess Astrea was, at most, the 'older sister' type — quite different from Deter's fully ripened beauty.
The motherly goddess was the kind you wanted to sink into — and indeed that was exactly what happened, irresistibly, whenever she was near; too soft, and your fingers would be enveloped without warning in yielding, warm gentleness before you even realized it.
An older sister, by contrast, made you want to — linger. If one had to find the words: she was like warm, smooth jade, none of the sharp facets of a gemstone, but carrying instead a texture you couldn't bring yourself to let go of.
That was precisely what Isagi was doing right now.
By this point it was entirely familiar — for both of them — as it had always been.
So she did exactly what she always did: she let her teeth press lightly into her lower lip, let her eyes fall half-closed, and looked away to one side with that faintly awkward air of hers — as though she were pretending nothing whatsoever was happening. But the vivid, luminous cherry-blossom color had already begun to creep slowly outward from her cheeks.
First to the tips of her ears, then smoothly to the corners of her eyes, then spreading along her jaw, then downward to her throat, and lower still — to the wide, rising expanse fully concealed beneath the modest nightgown.
Though, because the nightgown was itself so thin.
The pink warmth bled through the fabric all the sa, for all its efforts to hide, making the sight only more enticing for it.
Gradually.
Astrea found she could no longer keep a firm grip on her wine glass. To avoid it slipping from that height atop Babel and plumting down, the goddess extended her trembling hand and, with so effort, set it on the side table nearby.
She still tried to hold herself otherwise perfectly still — only stretching her arm out to accomplish that small task.
The reason, of course, was that the sensation pressing in from behind — that warmly familiar heat from the boy's palm — had left her sowhat 'at a loss.'
Not truly at a loss.
In truth, Astrea knew perfectly well what it ant. But as was always the case in these monts, she had a certain passiveness to her nature.
She wouldn't seek it out herself.
Instead, she would wait. Slowly wait, as the boy moved forward step by step — from beginning to end, from opening to rising action, through the turn, until at last the resolution ca.
The goddess was savoring the process itself.
That sensation of knowing precisely what was coming next, and yet finding that the way it unfolded was always sohow different from what she'd imagined — always full of small surprises, and even...
Astrea lost herself in it, and she was rather helpless to do otherwise.
Isagi had long since figured out the goddess's temperant completely.
It wasn't hard to understand.
So rather than doing what he usually might — perhaps suddenly grabbing the goddess pretending nothing was happening and pulling her inside, then tossing her onto the bed — he did sothing else entirely.
Isagi abruptly stilled his hands. He even took a mont to gently straighten her sowhat disheveled nightgown.
Then he switched character cards — and swept her up in his arms, leaping from the balcony in a single bound.
"Ah—!"
The goddess in his arms let out a small, startled cry.
Beneath invisible golden wings of light, Astrea took flight — rising swiftly, passing through thin wisps of cloud —
The goddess's heart was hamring.
Not only from the lingering contact that had left her flustered and unsettled — more than that, it was the utterly extraordinary sensation of being airborne, of soaring through the sky, which was nothing close to an everyday experience.
As a goddess, 'flight' was not, in itself, any particularly remarkable ability.
But having descended to the mortal realm, she was no different from any ordinary human now — flying was simply impossible.
Astrea breathed in quick, unsteady breaths.
The warm, sweet-scented air puffed against the boy's face.
Her head swam. She wondered what on earth Isagi thought he was doing — surely he wasn't planning to fly all the way up into the sky itself...
Well.
This was just one part of Isagi's plan.
He carried the goddess swiftly upward to greater heights, and their first stop — the very top of Babel.
Author's Note: Didn't realize how much I'd written — let's leave it here for now. I'll split this into two parts, upper and lower.
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