Chapter 6:

Got held up writing another story. Apologies. Poll is still up in my profile.

JL Davenport: Whoa, a long review. I love reading those types though, gives me a good idea of people's perspective on the story. Yes, it'll be quite the stretch to make Hestia sacrifice a lot for Bell but there's at least three chapters left until we reach the canon storyline where I can hopefully get them closer. I like Mikoto too, I'll see what I can do. In regards to the Freya Familia, weeell, there won't be much until Bell hits level 2 and breaking the fastest record. Freya is his goddess now but I still haven't done much just yet because her Familia is top-tier as hell.

Oh, I'm following the chronology of the novels; Bell being saved from the minotaur was three weeks after he arrived to Orario. I'm filling up that empty time frame with things I have in mind.

Mind : Ironically enough, chapters 2 and 3 were much more rushed haha. Sorry for disappointing, perhaps it was because I was writing two stories at the same time? And no worries about Lilli, no girl gets left behind! She'll still be a supporter for Bell and the party's brains but that's still some chapters away.

ChaosWillReign: It'll pick up faster than the canon material haha. (Volume 16 is taking forever) But seriously, I'm trying to think of ways to make it happen, not completely sure how though but I'll make it happen.

Something felt wrong.

Bell had a bad feeling that something like this would happen but he thanked Ouranos that it didn't get so bad during his meeting with Eina, not when he visited Hestia, and not when he was doing his job as a waiter. A clawing at his chest that steadily got more and more obvious as time passed, at first, it was a stinging pain like he was being pinched, right at the skin in front of where his magic stone was buried inside his flesh.

It wasn't a continuous feeling, rather it came at random moments while Eina had been tutoring him, his strange and abrupt yelps of pain kept disturbing his advisor and making her worry that he was injured somewhere. However, the pain would disappear as fast as it had come, the only problem was that it kept happening more and more frequently after he bid his advisor farewell for the night.

Hestia must have noticed how he kept clutching at his chest the entire time he had come to talk with her, the jolts of pain that came at odd moments had eventually became a constant pinching pain and he had no idea what was causing it. Bell knew he hadn't gotten hit anywhere on his chest that day because that area was where he was most cautious of.

So then, what was the reason behind it?

Was it his magic stone causing it?

Recalling the previous day, he clearly remembered eating the magic stones of monsters just before he left the Dungeon. By now, it would have been one full day since that time and he had to wonder if there was a certain time limit until he needed to consume some more. This hadn't happened before, after all, and he didn't know anything about his condition.

Lady never explained much beyond that he needed to eat magic stones if he wanted to become like the heroes Bell had told her about during the night she stayed over. The only other person that Bell knew who might be more aware of Creature physiology was Filvis and he found no sign of her in days. He couldn't even sense her gaze on him like how he was able to after first meeting the elf with her blond god, a strange feeling of being watched the entire day.

As soon as she came back with that special raiment that would help conceal the traces of magic that he radiated, he would ask her about what he was currently going through and whether she also experienced the same thing. He had plenty of other questions that he'd want to ask as well, but the more he thought about the elf, the more he just wanted her to be near him.

Bell could still remember the loneliness he felt from her and he yearned to get to know her better, not just as fellow Creatures but as a fellow adventurer and as a beautiful girl.

The haze that prevented him from overthinking about what kind of being he had become was starting to fade away. Fortunately, his time in Orario and spending his days in the Dungeon had numbed him with the different experiences he's had and it didn't send him into a panic like when he first killed a monster.

After facing what must have been more than a hundred or two monsters since then, Bell was a little more confident about being competent at defending his magic stone. The apprehension that came from being always one strike to the chest from death didn't grip him with such a horrible fear anymore. But without the haze, he was starting to feel the sense of mortality and while it didn't daunt him anymore, anxiety from it still remained.

If, however, he was to face something terrifying like a dragon or even a minotaur all of a sudden, what confidence he had fostered might suddenly shatter. Eina and the waitresses at the Hostess of Fertility had warned him about how unpredictable the Dungeon was and he wasn't prepared to face anything out of his league just yet.

But what are the odds of that happening?

Later on, during the night, the pain persisted to assault him as he worked his shift as a waiter for the pub but he was lucky enough that doing his duties helped to take his mind away from just enduring the affliction. But in the eyes of the skilled and experienced adventurers there, they clearly knew something was wrong with him the entire time. Sudden halts in movements, brief expressions of wincing, gritting his teeth behind his usual smile, putting a hand on an injured part of his body as if to brace himself.

Little things like that, as much as he was trying to hide it, couldn't fool those that were paying attention to him and none more so than Mama Mia and her waitresses, who kept a close eye on Bell. The white-haired adventurer was putting up an air of being perfectly fine, not wanting to make them worry about him and just allow him to help out like normal.

The dwarven woman wouldn't act until it was an issue, the boy was a beginning adventurer and any experience he would have right now would benefit him in the future. She knew exactly why he was trying so hard to hide whatever was causing him pain, and the sooner he learned that he was being foolish about it, the better. But that didn't mean she didn't care about the young boy; she'd step in as soon as possible once he dropped the act of acting like he was fine or if it started to look like he was seriously injured internally.

As for his fellow colleagues, they were much more driven to help him once the pub closed for the night but Bell wasn't going to let them poke around his chest just yet.

Syr was the most worried of the bunch, the one who asked the most frequently if he alright and telling him that if he was seriously hurt, Mama Mia would understand Bell excusing himself from work that night. Chloe was more direct with wanting to help him, taking the trays that the kitchen staff would hand him so that she could pass it off to the customers for him. Ryuu and Lunoire forced him to take a rest from doing the nightly cleanup while Anya continually insisted him about letting her give him medical treatment until they had all gotten upstairs to sleep.

Although he tried his best to persuade them that he'd be fine after in the morning of the next day, they weren't buying his false bravado. Promising them that if it would get worse during the night or if he was still hurting even after he woke up, then he would ask for their help, the waitresses reluctantly let him head inside his room to go to sleep and hopefully recover.

Once it was lights out, he thought that getting some sleep would help ease whatever the cause of the pain was, and while it did work and he managed to doze off after a few hours of trying to get himself unconscious, it didn't last long. The more time passed, the more excruciating the agony became until it finally forced him from his dreams and back into his dark room.

Awake in the dead of the night, Bell woke up feeling like his chest was being split open and it took all of his effort not to yell and cry for help. His head was hurting and his stomach was begging for food, his thoughts were trying to make sense of what was happening but failed to make anything coherent besides hunger.

"Just… What's happening… Why does everything hurt…"

Gritting his teeth, his body felt wet with sweat and he hurried to get his black shirt off of him, and once peered down at his bare chest, it dawned on him why he felt like his body was being torn apart.

His magic stone was completely visible in the dim moonlight that entered his window, the skin and flesh around it had been, in the closest way he could describe, dissolved or was in the process of dissolving. No blood was pouring out but he could easily make out dark red meat that was a complete contrast from his pale skin faintly illuminated by the moonlight.

Horrified. There was no better way to describe what he was feeling.

Bell could not make a single noise, in a state of complete shock, his blood running cold underneath as he had become completely petrified from the disturbing sight. The next feeling that came was the nausea and lightheadedness, the agonizing pain keeping him from fainting on the spot and the severe esurience not letting him vomit anything out.

He moved a careful hand to come up and hover over the crystal, mindful of how hard it was shaking from the intense turmoil his mind was in, and with the slightest touch, he felt the magic stone. As expected, it was smooth like glass and cold from the evening chilly air, and while Bell's worries of another wave of pain from poking it were fortunately dismissed, he wouldn't push his luck with doing anything more than a gentle touch.

Trying to calm himself down, Bell took a few minutes to breathe in and out, attempting to gather his thoughts amidst feeling the tearing at his chest. There was no way he would ignore what was happening with his body, rather it was impossible to disregard, and he had to think of something that could help. He had no spare magic stones and going into the Dungeon was the last option he'd take.

And then he remembered it.

Ichor was what made a god's blood divine, holding properties that gave them power to update the Statuses of adventurers, but there was more to them than just that.

"The blood! Lady's jar!"

It took an enormous amount of effort to get up from his bed, every movement he made caused unbearable agony that made him want to cry for sweet unconsciousness but if he collapsed then and there, he'd run the risk of slamming onto the floor. The horrifying image of shattering his magic stone after he crashed down or it falling off of his body and then turning into ash as if he never existed, such vivid visions created by his delirious mind made him more awake than he'd ever been before.

Standing up on his two legs, he was glad that his room was so cramped that his desk where the jar of that mysterious goddess' blood sat was just mere celches away from where his bed was. The problem of the container being at the other side of the table kept him from just reaching over from where he sat on the bed, and thus he needed to wobble his way forward as best as he could.

Putting a hand on the table for support, under the intense pain that was tearing through his body, it felt like an hour would go by before he could take one step after another. Every inch of his body groaned at him to lay down and accept that there was no way to endure this torture but Bell persisted. There was no way that would happen, he'd take this blessing's curses and shove it down its figurative throat, he grit his teeth and pushed on.

Once he closed the distance, with one arm to support him on the table, he used his other to reach out and pull the jar to him. It was heavy with the liquid inside, if he pulled too hard, he might accidentally tip it over and leak the contents all over the floor. He would've gotten the thing open at least, but Bell hadn't gone mad in desperation just yet. When he started to struggle opening the jar while under the duress of the torment he was suffering, the urge to break the jar wasn't totally off of the menu.

Luckily enough, he didn't need to choose that rash method because with the utmost strength his body could muster, his exertion paid off and with a few more ministrations, the lid came off and the smell of iron flooded into the room. In the darkness of the room, the contents were a thick, opaque black liquid that slightly sickened Bell.

"Just the tip of my finger…"

Tap. A ripple of blood coursed through the surface.

With the same amount of gentleness as he did previously, he lathered the magic stone in his chest with the finger he tainted red with blood and like magic, the results were almost instantaneous. A reddish glow that was hardly visible even in the dark emanated from the crystal, and the flesh that was missing started regenerating as if the wound was as trivial as a cut on the skin.

Bell was transfixed at the supernatural sight but before he could even take in the spectacle that was beholden onto him and be in awe of the wonders he never would have gotten to see back in his old village, he blinked once and then all he saw next was his bare and pale chest. Gingerly bringing a hand to feel if there was something different with the way his chest felt or if it would hurt to touch, nothing felt odd but the slightly more tender feeling of muscle and flesh.

Pure amazement filled Bell, replacing the immense amount of stress, terror, and all manners of different emotions that wrought his mind into exhaustion. Whether it was magic or the just the power of what a god's blood contained, whatever it was, it blew him away more than the first time he saw the regenerative effect of pouring a potion on his cuts and bruises. There had been a literal hole in the center of where his chest was but now, firmly pressing onto where the tear was, not a single trace.

No scars, no difference in feeling, no artificial anything.

"That was crazy…"

He was glad to welcome anything remotely positive after the flurry of sensations he went through, but the only thing in his mind right now was wanting to collapse from the sheer relief that the pain had gone away and that he was perfectly fine now. Tomorrow he would worry about what in the world happened to him, maybe soon he would get answers from the pretty dark-haired elf anyways. At least, he hoped Filvis could explain why his magic stone tried to absorb his body.

Putting the lid back on the jar and burying it under his clothes, he took a few steps backwards, and then he bended over backwards and let gravity pull him onto his bed. Traces of cold sweat from his back wetting his sheets and mattress but he couldn't be bothered to put his shirt back on, he was both mentally and physically exhausted. He had no clue what time it was and he was too tired, the feeling of drowsiness gave him a good idea that it must have been way past midnight.

Bell closed his eyes and welcomed the sweet embrace of sleep.

But his dreams wouldn't let him find peace, a horrible ravenous hunger was consuming his every thought and fantasy, images of a skeletal beast with giant red eyes stalking the shadows of his nightmare. He saw a massive cavern, a ceiling so high that there might not have even been one in the first place, a cavern so wide that a city like Orario could have been put inside, and yet even so, an ivory creature bounded its way through with such terrifying speed.

Bone-white in color, it crouched down and leapt across large distances with a powerful thrust of its limbs, crushing the ground beneath it with its monstrous strength. It flashed razor sharp claws that tore everything apart with such ruthlessness he had never witnessed, an all-consuming maw that devoured hordes of monsters but it remained unsatiated, with every horror that it ate, pieces of its body would evolve.

And then, the thing turned its head towards where Bell's perspective had been staring at it.

Eyes as red as those of a gleaming ruby, in it lay voracity incarnate, hatred for all that opposed it, mercilessness to the weak that crossed its path, will to grow beyond the unimaginable power that it already had, instincts that told it survive as long as it could so that it could outlast its enemies. And beyond them all, pride in its heritage, obedience to a higher power that called for it to protect them, innate duty to perform what it had been born to do.

Was it a noble creature? Perhaps it wasn't, for it only knew one reason that drove it forward to exist. And yet, it held the noble cause of defending what had birthed it but rebelled against them when they asked it to perish, for it was never intended to exist for a long period of time.

As it crouched over the massacred remains of its fellow children of the same mother, no monster remained to sway its attention. No more skeletal warriors that carried assortments of equipment and weapons to pulverize, no more reptilian humanoids with scales that were more efficient than steel armor to rend, no more strange obsidian monolithic constructs to turn to dust, no more sheep that hid in the dark to find and slaughter.

After it had ingurgitated the hundreds and thousands of them all, it had grown weapons of its own to use against them, taking what made those monsters dangerous and adopting them into its body. Against even a well experienced team of high-level adventurers, they were mere sacrifices into a resulting bloodbath.

The slow yet powerful warriors were overwhelmed with its superior speed, the heavy armor that they wore, whether they were mithril or adamantine, it only served to become their elaborate coffin. The agile rogues could not outpace it, their measly attacks bounced off its skeletal body without leaving as much of a scratch, and its own claws severed them in half. Magic that hailed fire, storm, and ice to annihilate it would be repelled against their own casters and without anyone to stand in front of them so that they may try again, they would be butchered like their companions.

Nothing could stop it from rushing at Bell. They were drawn together down in the dark depths of the underground, only one would survive while the other would be helplessly consumed. The beast wanted what laid inside him while he wanted to borrow the strength of its imperium.

There was only he and the massive inexorable force that seemed to crush everything in its way.

There was only one word to describe it.

A Juggernaut.

Bell opened his eyes to the sight of five beautiful young women staring at him lying down on his bed. And then he realized that he gone back to bed last night without putting on a shirt and he was currently half-naked in front of them. His heart was already racing from the strange nightmare that he'd been having, of what it had been about, he could no longer remember, but right after he just woke up, it only beat faster inside of him instead of calming down.

"What the…!?"

Quickly grabbing for his pillow, he tried to hide himself behind it with his cheeks flushed red with embarrassment.

"Why are you guys in my room!?"

The girls were relieved to find that the little adventurer was so energetic in the morning and didn't appear to be suffering any longer from the injuries that he must have been enduring yesterday. Either it had been nothing after all or the boy was just exceptionally good at recovering after taking a good rest, they were simply glad that he was fine.

"Bell-kun, its almost about time for the pub to open."

"You slept in, nya! No more time for a training session, nya!"

"We thought it prudent to wake you up, Cranel-san. We were sure you wouldn't want to go into the Dungeon any later since plenty of adventurers have already gone in by now."

"We also wanted to check if you were alright since you didn't feel so well last night."

"You have such a cute face when you're asleep!"

True to their words, the five of them were already wearing their waitress uniforms and freshened up to start another day of work, the feminine scent of the vibrant ladies filling his small room was starting to make him a little bothered. It certainly didn't help that Chloe was much too close for comfort, the cat girl kneeling down right next to his bed and her cute face less than half a meder away from his own.

"I-I'm all better now after last night! Nothing to worry about anymore!"

"Aww, I wanted to take care of you…" Chloe said dejectedly.

"Haha… Well, even if it was nothing, thank you guys for being so concerned," flashing them a beaming smile in appreciation, making their cheeks tint themselves pink for various reasons, and even the normally stoic Ryuu felt a little embarrassed.

"So adorable even in the morning!" Pinching his cheeks, the cat girl was getting dangerously close and the other girls were starting to have enough of her antics and pulled her away from the flustered boy.

"Now, can you tell us about what happened last night?" Lunoire asked.

"As our junior, you shouldn't be keeping any secrets, nya!"

"We were really worried, you know? Staying quiet about your injuries isn't very smart., Bell-kun." Syr scolded him.

"Y-yeah, sorry, I swear that won't do it again… "

"Because I'll make sure that never happens again, and I'll have to think of a way to sneak some magic stones away from being exchanged…"

"…But I really don't know what happened yesterday. I didn't even let any monsters hit my chest and it kept acting up after I left the Dungeon."

"Perhaps you should visit Dian Cecht's pharmacy? They would know much more about this." Ryuu advised.

"Hmm… If it happens again, then I'll go, but right now it's gone so I'd be wasting their time."

They didn't like what he said, nor agreed to it, yet they trusted him to keep his word.

"If you say so, Bell-kun…"

"I'll take better care of myself, I promise. I'm not going anywhere…"

"Grandpa, think of something that'll help my case!"

'I've just the right thing to tag alongside that!' The mental imitation of his grandfather's likeness said.

"…A-and I wouldn't want to never see any of you girls again, you know? Y-you're all p-precious to me…" Bell managed to stutter out, his face beet-red in embarrassment, getting quite the reaction from the waitresses who were staring at him wide-eyed.

"I don't think that was the right thing to tag alongside what I said…"

His mind wouldn't give a response and left him to fend for himself and he painfully waited for anyone to burst the tension in the room.

"Aww, you're so sweet, Bell-kun!"

Chloe suddenly broke free from the girls and threw herself at him, landing on top of him on the bed and burying her face into his bare chest, rubbing her cheek across it and purring like an actual cat. That was all that was needed for the others to break away from their thoughts and back to pulling the girl away from Bell once again. Unfortunately for Syr, the cat girl was giving plenty of resistance and instead of yanking Chloe away, she somehow found herself being yanked onto the bed instead.

Closing her eyes and pulling her head back to stop herself from smacking into anything, her hands managed to touch down onto the mattress just in time to prevent her body from crashing into Chloe or Bell and she tried to push herself off the bed. But when she opened her eyes, she found rubellite eyes mere celches away from her, and then she realized how it must have looked like to anyone staring right now. Syr's face burst into red and she scrambled so hard to move away that she fell off the bed with a loud thump.

"I wanna join too, nya!"

Another cat girl decided that it was a smart idea to pounce on top of the two on the bed and rolled to the side of Bell that was nearest to the wall and straddled the boy's body, nestling her head into his neck. An exasperated Lunoire and Ryuu now had to deal with getting Anya off as well, the two of them splitting up to each wrestle a cat girl off of the boy that looked ready to faint.

'Didn't I tell you that it was the right thing to tag onto what you said?'

This time, Bell couldn't give a response as his head was in an utter mess, save for the part of him that made him think of his grandpa saying that.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on whose perspective it was, a certain dwarven woman downstairs that had been waiting for her waitresses to come down already was started to get very irritated with the sounds of them fooling around upstairs. And with one big yell,

"You girls better come down here this instant or else!"

Chloe and Anya jumped away from Bell and the bed and started to quickly fix themselves up, Syr finally got herself together and stood up from the floor with a blush still on her face, and Lunoire and Ryuu simply accepted that they would be dragged into receiving Mama Mia's reprimanding.

As they the girls turned to leave the room and head downstairs, one of them had a curious thought in mind,

"He doesn't lock his door~"

That person gave the boy a playful grin, which made the boy shiver for some odd reason that he couldn't quite tell, she had let the boy live with them for a few days now without making any advances on him. She had been waiting for the white-haired adventurer to get a lot more used to the presence of her fellow waitresses and getting comfortable enough that he wouldn't be so easily flustered.

While the slightest teases were still making him blush red, the close contact from their morning training sessions were starting to pay off and the little intimate touches she'd give him would only invoke confusion instead of embarrassment. She was done waiting for the boy, and now that she found valuable knowledge in the lack of security he had, it was time for her to lure him in and pounce.

"Well, gradually, wouldn't want to traumatize poor Bell~" she thought to herself before exiting the room and leaving the boy alone.

Something was bothering Bell again, like the pit of his stomach had become an empty void and it was reminding him of the hunger from last night, which had mysteriously vanished along with the gaping wound in his chest.

"Not again…?"

Were the effects of the blood just temporary? Did it have any other effects on him?

The first thing he needed to know was if eating a meal could help stave it away. In case something ever prevented him from consuming magic stones in the future, he could make sure right now if ordinary food would have any effect on the hunger. Hurrying to catch up with the young women going down the stairs, he called out for the blue-grey haired waitress that took it upon herself to cook him meals every day.

"Ah, Syr-chan, you made breakfast already, right?"

"Yeah, of course! You want it now?"

"Mm, I'm feeling really starved…"

She gave him a bright smile and nodded, but before she could head down to get the boxed meal and then return to hand it to Bell, a curious thought crossed her mind and prompted her to ask the adventurer a question.

"That reminds me… you never eat here for dinner, where do you usually have it after you leave the Dungeon?"

"Ah… there's this stand that sells food and it's managed by a goddess, I always pass it by when I'm on the way here."

This was not technically a lie. But Syr's piercing blue-grey eyes made him feel unsure that she believed what he said.

"That doesn't sound very healthy, Bell-kun."

He awkwardly laughed it away, promising that he'd go around and try some other food stands. Not taking long downstairs, Syr hurried back up to hand Bell the boxed meals she had prepared earlier and told him to enjoy his meal before she went back down to help Ryuu and the others with the readying up for business.

Opening one of the boxes up, Bell wolfed down the contents of it but didn't find any feeling of fullness, just more and more hunger piling on, and it was clear to him that food did nothing to resolve of it. Apologizing to Syr internally, the white-haired boy ran to the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth before changing into his Dungeon attire. If food couldn't help him, then only consuming magic stones could, and he needed to hurry as fast as he could before anything like yesterday might happen.

Weapons sheathed, armor equipped, and bag with useful inventory on, Bell was ready for another day in the Dungeon. But on this day, it seemed much more particular than others.

"Still hungry… So very hungry…"

Forcing a smile on his face, he quickly stepped downstairs and waved everyone goodbye before rushing to the center of Orario, where what laid beneath was the Dungeon and all the magic stones he would ever need that he was starting to desperately hunger for.

"Damn it!"

The loud sounds of monsters and adventurers clashing all over the first to second floor made Bell realize just how true Ryuu's words were when the girls were in his room. Practically half of the adventurers that were residing inside Orario were level one and such a high population meant that those that went into the Dungeon for a living, practically crowded the first four floors.

Once he had arrived at the second floor, from every tunnel that diverged to the paths that went further into the caverns, there was not even one where he couldn't hear the echoes of multiple adventurers. Eina had allowed him to head down to at least the fourth floor seeing as he now had a supporter but Bell doubted that even the fourth floor was clear enough at time in the morning.

The benefit of going down into the Dungeon so early was being able to kill rooms full of monsters and progress quickly into the edges of the floor while monsters respawned for the later adventurers to fight. The next step to take after reaching the rim of the floor was to travel its perimeter, choosing which side to go for the day and then slaughter any monsters he could find. Over time, he got a hang of telling how much time had passed by the sounds of adventurers nearing where he was, once they had gotten loud and near, it usually meant that it was somewhere past noon to sunset.

After his first few days of adventuring, he hadn't met a single soul while using that method of traversing the Dungeon, at least not until he had to return back to the staircase that would lead to the first floor. He neglected to mention this to Eina, who would have probably gotten a little mad that he was actively trying to get away from people that could help him if they were nearby. But goblins, Kobolds and Dungeon lizards were nothing that he couldn't handle by himself, no matter how many of them came after him.

Bell felt a manic frenzy rampaging inside of him at the thought of facing masses of those weak upper floor monsters and butchering them for their magic stones. The longer that he couldn't get his hands on a monster, the more he felt like he couldn't think straight any much longer. And with the last efforts of his rational mind, he would use it to find somewhere secluded or at the very least, unpopulated with hundreds of level one adventurers.

The last thing he needed was to look like a psychotic adventurer viciously tearing through monsters and devouring the magic stones inside of them. Even if they wouldn't understand that he was Creature and that eating magic stones was what made him stronger, it would still be a bad image that Bell wanted to avoid. Filvis had specifically warned him not to attract that kind of attention, wary of those that didn't understand what they were and the possibility of people that wanted to exterminate their kind for being abnormal fusions of monster and adventurer.

Taking out his map, he was thankful for Eina being so overprotective that during his sessions with the half-elf, she gave and explained detailed guides of the floors that she hadn't allowed him to go to just yet. Notably, she had taught him about the fifth floor, the map of which he was currently going over, and what he was looking for was a location in the floor that his advisor had expressly forbidden him to get anywhere near of.

There existed certain rooms in different floors where monsters would gather to feast on a strange excretion naturally produced by the Dungeon through pillars of quartz, such locations were called 'Pantries'. It was highly inadvisable for adventurers to enter a pantry or wander through routes that would lead to one since the vast number of monsters could easily overwhelm even a party of adventurers.

As far as most people knew, the most well-known pantry in the upper levels was located in the seventh floor but Eina had heard rumors of another possible pantry that might have been in the fifth floor. The seventh-floor pantry was inhabited by a variety of monsters that could be found from the sixth to ninth floors.

It was likely that the fifth-floor pantry was where the first to fourth floor monsters would have travelled to if those floors weren't a battleground for beginner adventurers. The migration of monsters from one place to another was a good way to denote that they were travelling to a pantry. However, since those monsters' numbers were cut down by the hundreds every day and couldn't respawn as quickly as those in the lower floor, and add the fact that newbie adventurers would frequently die and be feasted on, there wasn't an observable evidence for a pantry above the seventh floor.

And that rumored fifth-floor pantry was where Bell Cranel was planning to harvest a collection of magic stones as soon as possible.

Even if a pantry didn't exist there, there had to be at least a sizable number of monsters found in that area, enough for some adventurers to suspect whether it was or not and for word to get around about it in the Guild. If he went there, he could confirm if those quartz pillars were present, but regardless of there being one, he would be guaranteed a location with a mass of monsters and most likely devoid of any adventurers who knew better than to get themselves killed for magic stones.

Bell admittedly wasn't thinking of a very good course of action but the hunger was half-controlling his train of thoughts and the sound of being able to slaughter a hundred and more monsters in one area was its fuel. With only that in mind, he made way for the stairs that went down into the third floor, running past some adventurers that were arriving at the same time as him.

With a map in hand, it didn't take long for him to arrive at the fifth floor and upon entering it, instead of the light blue walls that he had become familiar with in the floors above, the first he noticed was the coloration of the environment had turned into a light green. And similar to the walls, the strange crystals in the ceiling that lighted the Dungeon cavern's roof, like they were blue stars in a night sky, were now tinted an emerald green.

Although travelling three floors deeper hadn't been an arduous effort, Bell was breathing hard once he touched down the bottom of the stairway to the fifth floor. He wasn't exhausted one bit from the trek down, rather the feeling of appetence to hunt down monsters had gotten so intense that it left him panting. It was taking a lot to hold back the urge to go into a frenzy, the last vestiges of control that he had was slipping away further and further.

Launching himself from where he was crouched down, he loosened the pack he was wearing on his back so that it fell to one side as he ran, letting it hook to his arm so that he could stuff the maps he was gripping inside. After making sure they were properly packed away, he put the bag back into its original position while still following the route that he memorized, one that would take him to the rumored pantry.

As expected, the paths, rooms, and corridors that he entered while traversing the Dungeon floor was devoid of any sign of monsters. From the sounds of a battle echoing from somewhere not so nearby, it was highly likely that an adventurer or a party of them had recently cleared them of monsters. Perhaps if he could find just one monster to subdue, then eating their magic stone could help alleviate the manic ravenousness that was halfway through breaking his mind.

And as his luck would have it, the rapid pace of his sprinting had, in no time, taken him to the areas that were currently being avoided by beginner adventurers due to the high density of monsters that were gathering there. From where he was running, he could spot two new monsters he hadn't encountered before idling at the end of the tunnel. Giant versions of the frogs from his village, except these particular ones had only one large eye, a description that meant that they were Frog Shooters.

Roaming the fifth to seventh floors, Eina had taught him about the frog monsters' methods of attack, because despite how they looked like they couldn't put up a fight, these were the first monsters an adventurer could encounter that used long-range attacks. The two Frog Shooters had noticed the white-haired adventurer running in their direction and prepared themselves before stretching their mouths open and shooting out their tongues like a high-speed projectile.

From the fifth to seventh floor, it was highly recommended that a level one adventurer has stats at least G – 200 or higher if they wanted to survive and fight evenly against the increased spawn rate of monsters that were now much stronger than goblins or Kobolds. Bell didn't have a clue what his true stats were with the added bonus of having consumed a little more or less than a hundred magic stones since his first day in the Dungeon but he hoped that whatever they were, it would be enough for this suicidal objective he had in mind.

Moving from one side to another, dodging the two tongues by a hair's breadth, the white-haired adventurer would have realized that he really wasn't ready for facing even several of these frog monsters, let alone trying to fend off dozens and dozens of them in a room packed with just as many other types of monsters. The problem was that the rush of blood in his head at finally being able to rip out the magic stones of these monsters had effectively shut out any rationality in his plan of action.

Unsheathing his two daggers, two flashes of silver attempted to cut out the pink appendages launched forth by the Frog Shooters but their tongues were quicker at being reeled back in into their mouths. Unfortunately for the two monsters, they had no time to take proper aim at the boy who had already managed to close the distance between them.

Jumping into a roll in case of being shot at once again, Bell ducked behind one of the two Frog Shooters, which turned to try and swallow the boy whole, and got under its lower jaw to send a flurry of stabs into its body. His half-elf advisor taught him that their magic stones were at the center of bodies, hidden behind their large mouths, but knowing where their cores were wasn't important to Bell.

What he needed was where to give a critical strike to an organ of the beast that guaranteed a sure kill without destroying the magic stone that it held in their bodies. And as his mind ran on a killer instinct, Bell pierced multiple holes into the Frog Shooter, trying to see if he could puncture its heart from one side and another. Blood was pouring through every single wound he gave, the body of the monster of was starting to weigh on him as it slacked its dying form over the adventurer.

Satisfied with getting as much as he could from his ruthless experiment, he set his attention on the other frog monster that was likely waiting for any opportunity to shoot its tongue out at Bell once he was in vision. It was prepared to launch its ranged attack whether the white-haired adventurer decided to rush out from either side of the fellow Frog Shooter he was hiding behind, or even if the boy jumped into the air above.

However, what it didn't expect was for the giant body covering the boy to suddenly turn to ash that slowly dissipated thin into air, which for just a brief period of time was a cloud of dust that obscured its vision. Before it could think to attack right at the center of the entire muddle, from within the concealment, it was able to spot a swift movement of white hair and it shot forth its appendage to strike.

And then, a sharp burst of pain.

It pulled back its tongue but found that it had been severed. The Frog Shooter was laid to rest not long after, a single thrust of a narrow blade accurately finding a way through the monster's soft flesh and into its heart. Dislodging his dagger, the boy's agile figure climbed on top of the frog monster and then slammed his blade into where he thought its brain would be, making it slump down onto the Dungeon floor lifeless.

Without even pausing to take his breath, the white-haired boy chomped down on the magic stone that he had torn out of the first Frog Shooter that he felled.

And he felt,

Unsated.

Flipping over the corpse of the other monster, his knife carved out the section of the body where the magic stone was buried inside, and after cutting it free, he immediately swallowed it but found that it held no effect on the hunger.

In fact, he was craving for more, much more.

Gripping his two daggers, he continued to slaughter every other monster that was unfortunate enough to get in his vision, from the packs of Kobolds to groups of goblins, Bell made quick work of the weaker monsters no matter how many of them were cooperating as they scoured the Dungeon. He didn't know when but at some point, his mind working on purely how to fight and butcher monsters had stopped his body to focus on casting Bregðask i Óvættr, the enhancement to his senses being more beneficial as he moved on instinct based on what he could observe.

Discarding his gloves, an ivory armor encased the middle phalanx of his fingers up to their tips, before extending out into talons that were some celches long. Leaping from the floor and hooking himself to the wall with his claws, he rushed at Frog Shooters with much more ferocity, springing himself onto different surfaces to dodge their tongues, all the while advancing into a good enough range that he could pounce on them with his razor-sharp claws.

Their skin and flesh didn't stand a chance against his claws or his dagger, alternating between which to use as the situation depended, occasionally scratching his palms from clenching onto the knife carelessly. Splitting a tongue in half as he blocked it from impacting his body, his claws would dig into the appendage and let himself be pulled in by the frog monster before maneuvering into a spin to deliver a downward impalement with a dagger in his other hand.

When encountering a roomful of goblins and Kobolds, Bell easily dispatched any goblin that came anywhere near him with a swift kick aimed at their heads. Although his quick attacks didn't have the right amount of strength to impact them hard enough to completely crush skull and brain, they had just enough force to break necks or leave them effectively out of the battle. As for the dog-headed monsters, he was already experienced enough at combating them that fighting a few more of them at the same time wasn't a significant disadvantage.

Truthfully, what was wasting him plenty of time was having to rip their magic stones out after clearing a room or a path of monsters. Whether they were still dripping with blood, Bell couldn't feel any disgust in his frenzy and swallowed the crystals without any hesitation, practically throwing them inside his mouth freshly after wrenching them out of corpses. The true feast was still further ahead and these light appetizers couldn't fill the void in his stomach.

Slaughtering his way closer and closer to the rumored pantry, he faintly cognized that the number of monsters increased as well and he was starting to feel the difficulty of getting past caverns with Frog Shooters at the backline and fodders of goblins and Kobolds. Bell made the mistake of shielding himself behind one of the dog-headed monsters from the lashing tongue of a frog monster, wherein instead of his cover taking the entire brunt of the attack, the force of the appendage propelled the Kobold right onto the adventurer and knocked them both down.

Once the monster on top of him recovered, it tried to chomp down on the boy under him but white claws punctured their way into its mouth, piercing through the monster's lower jaw, and forced its head up. It managed to slash at the boy with its own claws before Bell could deliver a finishing strike into its heart, lacerating him somewhere near his shoulder. But there wasn't time to rest, goblins and Kobolds were still advancing on him while he was down and Dungeon lizards were crawling their way towards him as well.

Rolling away from the pounce of a Kobold, he tried to get into a standing position but then had to duck down to avoid a Frog Shooter's tongue. Launching himself behind a cover of stalagmite rocks, a Dungeon lizard crawled up to his location, climbing atop the stalagmites, and made an attempt at ambushing the boy. Poking its head from behind the rocks, its neck was almost instantly severed through by the cut of a knife and causing it to fall off from where it was perched and smack onto the ground as it struggled in its last moments of life.

Loud sounds of flesh slamming onto the rocks alerted Bell that the Frog Shooters from some distance away were now trying to break his cover down, waiting for them to launch their attacks again, he fended off the Kobolds that had gotten close. With either a kick to stun one or two and preventing them from overwhelming his position, or quick thrusts with his dagger to dispatch a Kobold and lessen his burden, Bell bided his time until…

Smack!

The white-haired adventurer broke into a dash right towards where the group of Frog Shooters were firing their tongues from, leaving the stalagmites and the monsters that had been closing in on that area. The distance between Bell and the frog monsters was just far enough that they were allowed to pull their tongues back and take aim at the boy once more. But as he had done before, his left clawed hand caught the nearest tongue to him and dug in deep, both pulling the frog monster closer and letting himself be dragged faster than he could have run.

However, the plan wasn't perfect, his weight significantly slowed down the rate at which he was being pulled unlike the other tongues that were successfully reeled in without any issue and were prepared to launch at him once again. Slamming a hand down on the ground to push himself to safety, letting go of the tongue he had been using, and evaded numerous ranged attacks before he returned to rushing at the Frog Shooters. This time, now that they were much nearer, Bell easily crossed the distance between them, jumping on the closest one to him.

It wouldn't take long until the fodder monsters would catch up to where they were and that meant he needed to put all of Frog Shooters down before that could happen, otherwise there would be complete chaos in the battlefield. Bell wasted no time in killing the frog monster he was currently grappling on with his left claws, stabbing through its soft flesh with his misericordia. However, now he was in a difficult position, there were multiple Frog Shooters taking aim at him now, waiting for him to pop out of hiding, and deceptive tactics wouldn't be as effective.

Hearing the sounds of Kobolds getting closer, there was no way of getting through this without taking at least one hit from a tongue, and the force behind it would knock him a distance away. But Bell's mind was solely focused on slaughter, if there was no strategy that it could think of, it was left with only one remaining option and it wouldn't hesitate in resorting to brute force. Getting onto a crouching position similar to what he had seen Kobolds do before they lunged at him, with his dagger sheathed, he hooked onto the Dungeon floor with his claws and planted his feet firmly,

And then he sprang into movement like a bounding rabbit.

Once he was in vision of the Frog Shooters, they immediately attacked.

The most difficult part was advancing in the direction of where the tongues were coming from, all the while he maintained a running speed and having to simultaneously dodge out of the way so that he wouldn't be blown back and peppered with a series of consecutive blows. In a quick motion, his hand wrapped around the grip of his Guild knife and swung at a tongue that missed him by mere celches, severing it off.

One of the Frog Shooters took aim and fired just as soon as he slashed and Bell brought the blade back just in time to block the appendage, but his endurance couldn't hold up well enough and his arm was blasted back. Instead of letting himself be buffeted, he used the momentum to swing his body and evade a tongue that came from another Frog Shooter, and then latched onto the tongue that he blocked which was being pulled back.

Dragged nearer to the monster, he rolled forward and luckily dodged another attack that crashed into the floor instead of the side of his body, and getting under the frog monster, Bell plunged his narrow dagger into where its heart should have been. Leaving it inside so that he could spare just one second to instantly move onto the next Frog Shooter, his hand reached for the Rondel dagger he kept sheathed at his backside and repelled a tongue that came right at him.

The appendage hit the side of the blade and Bell forced it to skewer through its middle, ducking down and launching himself at the monster, he lowered the blade so that it stopped cutting the tongue, which would have slowed him down if he kept at it. Sooner than it could reel it back in, Bell was already at its side, right before another tongue crashed into the frog monster he was taken cover behind. It may not have been blown away by the impact but taking the opportunity of it being stunned, Bell rushed to another Frog Shooter.

With two less Frog Shooters taking aim at him and another still pulling their tongue back, Bell didn't need to focus on dodging too many attacks and wasn't forced to block in defense. Sidestepping as he ran, he was able to lop off another appendage and evaded another before he successfully reached a Frog Shooter. Jumping over the monster, he shoved his Rondel dagger inside its skull in midair and landed behind it in a crouched form. Now there were only a few left capable of attacking and once he finished them off, the three frog monsters that had their tongues sliced by him wouldn't be too much of a problem.

That was, until one of the Frog Shooters hopped with its hind legs and attempted to slam their body into him. Although it wasn't able to hit Bell who dodged it at the last second, it was certainly a distraction that led him to get struck by another Frog Shooter who could use their tongue, slamming into him hard and hurtling him into the ground. Before he could completely recover, his clawed hands gripped onto the Dungeon floor and forcefully pulled his body away from another assault of tongues.

Bell took a sharp breath before impelling his tiring body to get behind a cover of rocks, currently only having his Guild knife with him, the situation was gradually turning for the worse as the Kobolds were starting to litter the battleground between him and the Frog Shooters. A sense of despair was pulling him back into reality, but returning from his semiconscious state only made him feel the hunger inside of him that had been blissfully unacknowledged so far.

His manic ravenousness reinvigorated his body with energy and without being aware of it, his mouth and mind unconsciously recast Bregðask i Óvættr. Whether or not the effects of the spell stacked increasingly the more that it was cast, Bell or the anomalous battle instinct that was controlling him didn't know or wasn't even paying attention if it did. What mattered from recasting the spell was that his claws were renewed and his senses were refocused and steeled, there was no space for apprehension.

The white-haired adventurer sprang away from where he was hiding with his Guild knife gripped tightly in his right hand and talons at the ready in his left. Barely getting away from the attacks that followed right after he showed himself, he ran in the direction of a Kobold that had entered the fray. Timing it just right, he moved directly in front of the dog-headed monster with just a meder of distance between them, and let the Kobold be hit by the tongues that were meant to be fired at him. Slashing at the Kobold's neck as it whizzed past him, Bell repeated this same strategy with several more Kobolds, whittling them down one by one.

It took a lot effort, especially since some of his swipes with his Guild knife weren't accurate enough to leave fatal cuts on the Kobolds and he had to make sure they would be struck by tongues again. Sometimes a Kobold would have their arms or legs crippled by the lash of an appendage and have their movements impaired enough that Bell could forego them for another target. As he took down the fodder monsters, he had to also be aware of the three Frog Shooters that were resorting to launching their bodies at him and evade them accordingly.

Keeping a fair distance away from the frog monsters that were using long-range attacks, getting any closer would mean that Bell needed to take sharper and faster evasions, it didn't take long to reduce the number of enemies he had to pay attention to. The next plan of action was to systematically kill the last Frog Shooters using the strategy of hooking himself onto their tongues with his claws and getting under them to deliver a harsh stab.

He wasn't able to fully complete the process unharmed, a Kobold would get a lucky tear at him, a Frog Shooter would be able to aim a strike that he needed to block and suffer the force of the impact all over his arm. But pain meant nothing to the savageness of the white-haired Creature, who rushed around with a total disregard for the state of his body. For as long as he could move, his body could kill, and he did so ruthlessly after he discarded his Guild knife, shoved inside the chest and into the heart of a Frog Shooter, using his claws to gore through skull or chest of the frog monsters that remained alive.

Standing atop the corpse of a Frog Shooter, the last monster that was alive before the adventurer mercilessly tore its head open with his claws, he looked upon the scattered bodies of the monsters he had slaughtered and feasted on their magic stones. Unaware that he had been scampering around carcass after carcass on his four limbs instead of walking or running with his legs. Heat coursed through his body and a feeling of warmth at the center of his chest, the boy had consumed every last magic stone in the room and yet,

His voracity remained, in fact, it was even stronger than before. This wasn't the full course meal just yet, only but a savory dish to stir his unending appetite for more. The adventurer collected the three daggers that he left inside the bodies of Frog Shooters and set out to the rumored pantry.

However, the last of Bell's consciousness was fading, his body remained moving, perfectly well enough to exterminate the monsters he was hardly recognizing in his blurred perception of the Dungeon around him. Everything was starting to haze, all pain, all hunger, all exhaustion, he was losing himself to the thing that was puppeteering his body forward. Travelling through more and more tunnels, dispatching monster after monster, eating magic stone after magic stone, Bell was aware that at some point, he had finally reached his destination.

Before it all turned to black, Bell saw what must have been a hundred and more monsters in a large cavern that he entered, a horde of monsters gathered into one location for whatever reason nobody quite knew. He was most likely the first to come upon the area and with the last of his efforts to discern the contents of the sizeable cave, he strained his senses to look for a structure of quartz.

And found none but the wisp of a purple cloaked figure somewhere inside the room, faceless to the boy's dimming vision or perhaps masked, but they were the only thing that didn't look fully inhuman in the swarm of monsters.

He saw himself leap into the room and everything was swept away.

When Bell opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the ceiling of the Dungeon.

"I thought I was dead… But- Agh! I can't move!"

He was sprawled all over the floor and when he tried to get up, pain stabbed him everywhere on his body, even trying to turn his head to look around for signs of monsters caused a throbbing ache to spark across his head and neck. His arms wouldn't listen to his brain and they laid themselves uselessly at his side and with plenty of difficulty at struggling to glance at them, he found the reason why they were hurting so much.

The long sleeves of his brown coat were ripped to shreds, completely beyond repair at this point, and looking at the heavily battered flesh underneath, Bell was a little surprised that it didn't hurt as much as it did. His black shirt's long sleeves could hopefully be patched up and he could count on it with Lunoire's skill at sewing. A horrible pain ran through his fingers when he tried to flex them into view and that meant they were probably broken, the adventurer just hoped that they could uncork the potions in his bag, or even get them out of the pack in the first place.

Looking down at his body, the slightest relief flooded him at seeing his chest was mostly alright, however the armor that was protecting it was littered with dents and scratches and was extremely discomforting, if he could move his hands to remove it, he would have. His neck couldn't raise itself enough to let him have a look at his lower half but he was able to see that the rest of his coat was in a similar condition to his sleeves. From how his back felt as it lied down on the ground, there had to have been similar tears at the back of his clothes, where his wounded flesh was painfully sticking on the cavern floor.

And if that was the case, then he wasn't wearing his bag and it was tossed somewhere in this large cavern he was in. Which also meant that he had no potions on hand right now.

As for his legs, although he couldn't see them, they must have been in terrible shape as well since he couldn't move them and any attempt at doing so triggered a wave of pain to surface. His entire body wasn't only feeling really hurt but also awfully tired, like he ran the distance between his village and Orario and then immediately started doing backbreaking labor once he arrived. There was no use in forcing his body to get up, Bell had to wait for somebody to come along with a potion before a monster could wander in and find a hapless adventurer on the ground who couldn't defend himself.

"At least I don't feel like I'm starving anymore…"

Trying to make out his surroundings, he could spot splats of blood everywhere in the room but no trace of monsters or their corpses, there was not a single noise that could've indicated that there were any remaining monsters inside. Piecing the two together, his body must have devoured the entirety of the room's magic stones before it collapsed onto the ground finally satiated. There was no way that he had the stats to take down an entire horde of monsters that belonged to the fifth floor but there was no other explanation that Bell could think of.

How else was he still alive?

Now that his head had cleared itself up a bit, he started to really ponder on what happened to him. Remembering how his body moved by itself without any instruction from him, the only answer he could think of was that it was something related to either his skill or his physiology as a Creature, both of which he didn't know much about. There were certainly many mysteries that he was dying to figure out, mostly because it involved his flesh and blood, and he wanted to avoid the hunger from turning him into a crazed and ravenous fiend.

When he was watching his body act on its own from the subconsciousness of his mind, there was something familiar about the movements, how it ripped and tore monsters apart, how it leapt and pounced at them, like he had seen them before but couldn't recall from where. The more that he tried to think about it, pain intensified inside his head, like his mind didn't want him to find out the truth.

"O-ouch…"

His voice felt hoarse but at least he was able to say something, maybe even yell out for help if he heard any adventurers roaming by. Except he was located in an area that people thought was a pantry, so the chances of anyone being foolish enough to purposefully go here, like a certain white-haired adventurer decided to do, were slim to none. Perhaps an upper-rank adventurer would think to investigate, Bell thought to himself, tasked by the Guild to get rid of the monsters so that a level one adventurer wouldn't be put in danger.

Something caught his eye as he was looking around though, on the walls of somewhere far from him were scorch marks that seared a long dark trail of blackened rock, like a lightning bolt struck across the face of the Dungeon and annihilated everything in its path. But he was very certain he had no way of making anything like that, nor was there any monster that Eina let him know about that could do something similar, maybe a hellhound but those were found much further down.

What could have caused-?

"Hmm, you're awake?"

Bell's eyes widened in surprise.

"That was fast!"

"Y-yeah… w-who are…"

A familiar face greeted his sight, black hair, red eyes like his, and elven ears, standing over him was Filvis Challia, the elf that saved him on his first day as an adventurer and the one that told him about the true nature of what he had become after he was given Lady's blessing. And as far as Bell knew, she was the only other Creature in Orario that he knew of.

"Filvis-san!"

"Good day to you, Cranel-san. What are you doing here?"

Internally panicking that the elf had once again seen him knocked down in unconsciousness, Bell's pale face tinted itself red from embarrassment.

"Not again!"

"I-it's a long story. But do you spot a black bag around here? I've got two potions that I'd really love to take right now- Agh!"

The dark-haired elf stared down at him for some time before closing her eyes, something in mind relieving her that Bell wasn't aware about, and leaving the boy to search for the pack in question. After some time of looking around the large cavern, she caught sight of the discarded item and brought it to the adventurer still lying on the ground in plenty of pain.

"They're in a pocket inside…"

Opening the bag up, she found lots of crumpled up maps, a package of food, a few bags of valis, and some other miscellaneous inventory before she took out two small tubes of blue liquid that had luckily not been broken.

"Umm… F-Filvis-san…"

"What is it?"

"C-can you bring one up close so that I can drink it?"

The more experienced adventurer didn't think much of the request but seeing her get so close to him so that she could let him take the potion, the elven beauty's face nearing him closer and closer, was making Bell very flustered. Kneeling beside him, he could smell the fragrant aroma that exuded from the elf and he mentally shook himself from doing anything that could creepy.

"Open your mouth a bit wider…"

The pleasantness of her soft breath and the warmth of it assaulted his senses, and his mind froze for a few seconds, images of much more intimate interactions between the elf and him filling his head and created by his active and rather immature imagination. Bell could almost hear his grandfather telling him to close the distance for a kiss, damned be the consequences, just the kind of words his 'grandson' expected him to say.

'This is your chance, Bell! Steal her heart and a kiss to boot!'

"No way! We've only met once before! She's going to kill me! Or worse, never talk to me again!"

'You've got it backwards, Bell, but that's exactly how I would've put it myself!'

"I-I'm still not gonna kiss her out of the blue! Besides, I can't even move anything right now!"

Filvis looked at the white-haired boy in confusion, his eyes were spinning, face beet-red, and he looked completely dazed, and she wondered what was causing him to look so distressed. Safely assuming that popping the potion into his mouth would help with whatever was making like that, she let him know that she would be pouring it now so that he wouldn't accidentally choke on the elixir. Bell managed to shove away the argument he was having inside his head with his imaginary grandfather just in time to receive the stream of blue liquid.

Once it was finished, Bell could feel the healing effects of the potion start working its magic and he could actually bring his right hand up to his face to check on why they were hurting so badly. Some of his fingers were broken and little traces of the ivory claws remained on his hand, he wondered how many times he had recast it while he was in that state of not being in control of his body.

"It's not enough."

"…Filvis-san, can you pour the last potion on my right hand and legs. I'm sure I can get to a pharmacy just fine if they're healed."

"From the fifth floor?"

Bell doubted he could dodge a Frog Shooter's attacks in his state, but he also knew that elves were prideful and selective of people who could touch them, and that meant asking Filvis for her shoulder or to lend him a hand was out of the question. He didn't want to force her into helping him like that, he was a little too kind for his own good and wasn't aware of it at all. Even if he wanted to have the elf beside him, to tell her everything that's been happening so far with his body and to ask her plenty of questions that he needed answers to, Bell knew that they would meet again some other day and he could wait until then.

For now, he needed to soldier on and get himself out of the mess he dug himself up in, Filvis didn't need to get caught up with assisting a level one adventurer. His grandfather told him about the pride of being an adventurer, a hero, and a man, and in his heart was a desire to prove himself worthy of having those titles. Maybe he was just being immature or foolish, Bell didn't care, what mattered was if he could do it or not.

"…Yeah, no problem."

"We are a fair distance away from the stairs, you will be met with monsters."

"Don't worry about me, I'll be good enough to fight after another potion."

The elf said no more and did what the boy told her, evenly spreading the liquid over his legs and right hand before sprinkling the boy's arms with the little that was left. It didn't do a good enough job at healing his injuries when used that way but Bell had no choice, he needed to run as fast as he could to get out of the Dungeon and the better his legs were, the faster he could run. However, he needed at least one hand to grip on a dagger in case a monster caught sight of him and attacked.

The boy's face was covered in a pained expression as he forced himself up into a standing position, his legs screaming at him in protest and threatening to give away underneath him, but Bell grit his teeth and took one step forward and then another.

"See? All good… and can I have my bag back?"

"You won't last long like that."

"Watch me," he gave her a confident grin and she handed him his pack.

"If you make it out, you'll want to meet me tomorrow. I'm sure you have a lot on your mind."

"Haha… You don't know the half of it. I always head to the Dungeon by dawn and I'm here for the entire day."

"I'll be waiting in front of Babel in the morning then."

"A-actually, I have a Supporter coming with me tomorrow…"

Filvis narrowed her eyes, intimidating Bell just a little, only because he didn't know which part of what he said had upset her.

"Then, I'll be observing you two until she leaves your side."

"W-well… We separate after we split the profits for the day over at the Guild…"

"…After that then…"

"I-I'll make sure we leave early for tomorrow…"

"Good."

Bell gave the elf a nod before turning to leave with a hobble in his walk.

"Cranel-san."

Startled, he looked back at Filvis.

"What is it?"

"Why won't you ask for my help?"

The white-haired boy froze.

"…That's… well…"

"Is it because you find me distasteful? Has your opinion of me since the first time we met changed?"

"What…? No, of course not. I still want to get to know you better and be your friend."

"Would you still say the same thing once you knew that I was cursed?"

"C-cursed!? What are you talking about?"

She shook her head; the boy was clueless about her background.

"Then perhaps you never tried to seek after me, and never heard of the rumors about me spread around by those that know who I am."

"Rumors? No… I didn't because I believed we'd meet each other again like today…"

Her red-eyes stared deep into his own red-eyes.

"Filvis-san, I didn't ask for help because I just didn't want to trouble you… I know that elves… they don't like having people touch them and maybe you would've felt guilty about rejecting me…"

Bell took one step closer to her.

"All that talk about rumors and curses… I couldn't care less about what other people think of you! I want to get to know who you are from your own words."

"And my words are that I am unclean," she spoke with an impassive face that didn't hint a lie.

"…I don't believe you."

"But as you said, you wanted to know me from-"

"That's too bad because I don't believe you're unclean!"

"You're being unreasonable."

"I-I'll see for myself! Tomorrow, I'll prove to you that you aren't unclean!"

"There is no way you can convince me, Cranel-san, for it is something I firmly believe that I am. You don't know who I am, why I am like this, my past, or anything for that matter. You know nothing about me."

"Then I'd be welcome to know! And even after that, I'll guarantee you that I still won't find you unclean! I'll find a way to make you see otherwise! I'll show you that you're beautiful-!"

"Ack! Wait! I went too far!"

"-A beautiful person! I meant-!"

The dark-haired elf with piercing red eyes, who had been so stone-faced the entire time he was trying to argue with her, looked flustered at what he had yelled so loudly, the echoes of the word 'beautiful' still ringing throughout the large cavern that they were in.

The damage was done and there was no fixing it, Bell thought, before smacking himself mentally at once again not knowing when to shut up when he got too heated.

"Y-yeah, t-tomorrow, I'll see you tomorrow! I-I'll be going now!"

Hobbling as fast as his legs could take him, the pain wasn't as important as getting away from the awkwardness of the atmosphere that was beginning to suffocate him. Before she could even say anything, he managed to break into a full run despite how crippled his legs looked, and Filvis was left with only her thoughts.

"This is only the second time we've met! We never even spoke that long a few days ago! W-what a stupid-! How can he say such things to a practical stranger!?"

She felt livid but what she was angry about most was how fast her heart was beating.

"Tsk. Troublesome rabbit! He's nothing like Revis or that fanatic, Olivas! A lot more annoying than them! I can't believe he's supposed to be a Creature!"

Just to be safe, she thought to herself, she would continue watching over him as he ran at almost full speed to leave the Dungeon. No particular reason beyond that she couldn't let someone with potential have an early grave, she'd already saved him twice now and he was off running into certain death once again.

"What in the world does Dionysus-sama have in mind for that kid? There is no way we can rope him into our plans, a beginner like him would take years to level up and even then, he's too young and kind-hearted."

Her god's machinations were beyond her mortal mind and as far she knew, they would be acting very soon as the Loki Familia went down into the deep floors in their latest expedition. But when he heard of a certain white-haired Creature, and not the one who wore a goat's skull as his mask, recently arriving to Orario, Dionysus gained an interest in him despite writing off the boy as not even worthy of being a zealot to their cause. There was a reason why a large number of monsters had suddenly gathered in one area in the fifth floor after all, there couldn't have been an ordinary reason behind it. It was a gamble, would the boy be lured in or not?

He wanted to see what this new Creature, whose Familia they had no clue of, was capable of and Filvis could only wait and see how her god would further involve the boy into their plot.

She moved to shadow Bell Cranel, who was currently still at the fifth floor and running away for his dear life from a pack of Kobolds that caught a whiff of an injured adventurer and began hunting him down.

"I-I made it!"

It was sometime past noon but before the sun had set when a white-haired adventurer hobbling out the Dungeon yelled out in the middle of a stream of people that were also leaving.

Collapsing on the ground, uncaring of the mocking looks and laughs of the adventurers that passed him by and saw a pathetic looking boy wearing tattered clothes, assuming that he was a level one adventurer that nearly got himself killed in the first few floors. Taking off his badly damaged brown coat and putting it away on his bag, yelping a little at the jolt of pain that came from his side, as well as the metal plate of armor that he wore around his chest, Bell took some time to rest on the ground before he'd rush off to a pharmacy to buy some potions.

It looked like he'd be off to Dian Cecht's much earlier than he had expected, Amid would probably wonder how he used up five potions in two days and yet needed to buy more on his second day because of how injured he was. He was glad that he kept some valis around just in case inside his bag, there wasn't a point in actually bringing it because he would visit the Guild for exchanges after a day in the Dungeon and then proceeded to buy anything important once he got his profits.

After catching a much-needed break, the adrenaline rush that had been helping him run out of the Dungeon was starting to die down and the pain coming from his injuries started to return in full force. His legs were worn out beyond belief, his arms felt fractured, the air stung the wounds on his back, taking off his coat let him know that he might have had a broken rib, and after gripping a dagger the entire way out, his recently healed fingers felt broken again.

All in all, he wasn't in a good shape.

Dian Cecht's pharmacy was a long walk away from Babel, he'd need to get past the Guild in Northwest Street to get there, and Bell really didn't want Eina to see him or hear any word about this. Without any magic stones or drop items to exchange and yet still looking like he had come from the Dungeon, his half-elf advisor would ask a lot of questions that he really didn't want to answer. Sighing, he wracked his head for a way to get out of this mess.

There wasn't any other choice than to ask for assistance but with the way that he looked, there probably weren't many that would give him the time.

Looking at the entrance and exit of Babel, the white-haired boy scanned the adventurers that were milling out and tried to discern if anyone would be the type to be kind enough to help a really hurt boy get much needed aid. Unfortunately, Syr hadn't taught him yet about the psychological tactics she used to see through people's real selves, and he was just cluelessly looking for people that didn't appear tough and rough like that Mord person from two days ago.

Bell didn't know why but he got a strange feeling from three particular adventurers that were just leaving, dressed in clothes that must've been native from where they came from, they looked quite foreign compared to the average human. One was a tall man with a fit build and wearing a lavender top, the others were girls wearing exotic purple dresses, one had their hair in a ponytail while the other had their medium length hair fall over her face.

There wasn't any harm in asking, and he could always try again with another adventurer if they would reject helping him. And so, gathering his courage, he called out to them.

"U-umm! Excuse me!"

A few adventurers that weren't the target of his attention looked at him but he successfully made the one with a ponytail turn her bluish-purple eyes towards the sudden shout and he waved at her to let her know that she was talking to him. The girl's companions noticed her stop to look at an injured boy sitting on the floor and the man told her to come along and forget about it. Bell couldn't hear what they were talking about but after they had their chat, the three of them walked over to him.

"Who are you? What do you want?" The man sternly asked.

"I-I'm sorry! I'm Bell Cranel and I just wanted to ask for some help getting to Dian Cecht's!"

The man shook his head and turned to leave, not interested.

"Sorry, kid. Try asking someone else."

Disheartened that he had gotten the wrong people's attention, Bell awkwardly scratched the back of his head and apologized for holding them up. The man sighed and began walking away with the girl whose hair was partially covering her face hesitantly following after. Bell sighed and drooped to look at the ground, wincing a little from his injuries, reminded of the time that he had gone around asking to join people's Familias but was turned down.

"Why are you in such a bad shape?"

Startled that the first one that approached him was still there, he looked up at her and tried to think of answer that didn't make him seem reckless or unwise.

"I-I was trying to get a look at those rumors about the fifth floor…"

Her eyes lit up but there was a fair amount of skepticism in them.

"Really? And what did you find?"

"There was a lot of them, goblins, Kobolds, Frog Shooters. They were everywhere."

"So, you're saying that it truly was a pantry?"

"W-well, I didn't see any of those quartz pillars that my advisor taught me about, so… I'm not sure what it actually was."

"How intriguing…"

"But don't worry! An adventurer came to wipe them out already!"

"By themselves? Who was it? It may not be that difficult to clear beginner monsters but a horde... it had to have been an upper-class adventurer."

Bell didn't want the recognition, and even if he did, nobody would believe him anyway. He was terrible at lying but not so much at telling half-truths, after all, he wasn't the only one inside that cavern, there happened to be an elf there who, Bell guessed, was an upper-class adventurer like the ponytail girl was expecting.

"I-I don't know who it was but she was an elf wearing full white and used magic!"

She put a hand up to her chin and wondered if anyone fit that description in her head, and Bell was hoping that she didn't know who Filvis was, otherwise that lie would spread around without the knowledge of the actual adventurer in subject.

"Hmm… Well, that's comforting to know that it's been dealt with. But you shouldn't have gone in to investigate like that. You're a level one, right?"

"Y-yeah, I'm pretty new to adventuring, so maybe I shouldn't have done that, haha…"

"At least you've learned…" She shook her head, "I'm Yamato Mikoto, just call me Mikoto, Bell-san."

"O-oh! Nice to meet you, Mikoto-san!"

"Now, c'mon," she put her hand up in front of him and he looked at her in confusion.

"I thought you were asking for help?"

"B-but what about your friends?"

"Just forget them, Ouka's just being grumpy as always, he probably already knew that I was going to stay behind."

"Are you sure?"

"It's not a problem, we'll meet up at the Guild and it's not that far from where you're headed. They can handle the report and exchange."

"A-alright, thanks!" Taking her hand, she pulled him up with relative ease and she let him hold onto her hand to balance himself on his unsteady legs, and waiting for him to get ready.

"Let's get going, yeah?"

"Sure!"

Well, well. That was much longer than I intended. Funnily enough, this was supposed to be two days in one because I wanted to get to the canon storyline faster. Unlucky. The day couldn't even be finished. Anyway, leave a review of your thoughts, those are always nice to read.