Dungeon Menagerie 20 (Patreon)

Commissioned by InfiniteChaosRei

Dungeon Menagerie

Chapter 20

-VB-

Athena walked along the streets with her hands clasped behind her back. Her eyes roamed the streets as she watched the morning took hold of the city and got the denizens moving in a hurry like every other morning. 

Even as she made sure to look the part of being just another person on the streets, Athena’s mind remained firmly occupied with something else. Or rather, someone else.

Her child - or rather her children(?) - were growing strong at an unprecedented rate. Too fast, actually.

Vanessa wasn’t from this world, but even then, she adapted to it extremely well. Too well, in fact. 

Her beast friends - some of which weren’t even beasts but some kind of golems of steel, glass, and fire - helped her child to the best of their abilities, even if it meant detrimental degradation for them. Too selfless, she feared. 

Athena already surmised that their selflessness for Vanessa wasn’t a natural for them. She was a goddess of wisdom, and just a small conversation with Keramon, which had changed to something called Chrysalimon, only confirmed that for herself. 

Confirmation was important. Assumption made an ass of everyone involved. 

Did it matter? 

Had she been a lesser goddess, then she would have been praising her child for having a skill that brought so many wonders to this world. Her very essence solved one of the greatest desires of the gods and goddess: a neverending source of entertainment.

But Athena was better than that. She had to be better than that for her child. 

No, that skill was less of a boon and more of a curse for her child in this world. When the skill’s details leaked out, the entire world would be coming after her. How could they not? She was a walking talking miniature dungeon that made friendly monsters that could be exploited. Sure, the monsters she made were random in both nature and timing, but even that randomness held value. 

The Infinite Soap Bar, despite how insignificant it was, had uses that could affects hundreds and thousands of people.

After all, it wouldn’t be hard to design a machine that would scrub at the soap bar as quickly as possible underwater while allowing that soap-filled water to drain to tubs and elsewhere in a bathhouse. Just the number of people who would visit a bathhouse that they wouldn’t need to use their own soap or pay for it would number in the thousands daily. 

If a fucking soap bar had that kind of far reaching consequences, then what about the rest? 

Mori… scared her. 

Oh, she appreciated it. Him. Whatever. He was a good friend and mentor for her child. He was there for her before Athena was. But he was something like her and the other gods. Its Essence broke the natural laws of earth and magic with contemptous ease. 

How?

The sword made from its essence attacked souls.

It, despite being one object, attacked five different places simultaneously because it declared to the world that it was at five different places, not with words but its with near divine presence. 

Mori was … not quite divine. No, his Essence wasn’t intense or powerful enough to be truly called divine. A spirit? Yes, he was very much a spirit, set in his ways and unable to truly change had it not been for Vanessa’s skill changing his very nature for her sake. 

How truly scary. Not even gods could change a spirit’s nature willy-nilly. 

Right after her skills and her monster was her prestigious growth. It was abnormal. It was too fast. 

She wasn’t worried about the attention Vanessa would get. That was a given and already a fact because of her skill. No, what she worried about was whether Vanessa could even gain expertise in combat as she kept climbing. Her overreliance on her monster friends would only cause her physical skills to stagnate. She certainly didn’t want her first child to become a one-trick pony. 

She’d except a two-trick pony. 

Athena came to a stop and clicked her tongue.

She supposed that she’ll just have to keep pushing Vanessa for more training. She may be Level 2, but that was nowhere good enough to not escape her training grasp. 

-VB-

Bell was a good boy. 

There was no other way to describe it. Despite the fact that he came here with desire, even that desire was purer than any of Orario’s adventurers. 

Freya snorted. 

‘Pick up girls in the Dungeon.’ It was something that her no longer adventuring child running the inn told her with a dismissive snort.

There were very few people who would say something crazy like that. Of course, she realized very early on after hearing that her Bell was raised by none other than Zeus. The exiled god hadn’t returned to Heaven at all, choosing instead of raise a human child of all things. 

Her and Loki’s former usurped rivals sure were taking their lives on the mortal plane casually. No other god and goddess would ever think to just … live like a mortal. 

At the same time, Freya wondered just how Bell could have come from a household like Zeus’s. She had a hundred valis on Bell misunderstanding half of the things Zeus ever told him, though she had an inkling that even Zeus knew better than to corrupt a child. 

It wouldn’t surprise her if he had tried, though. 

Zeus wasn’t what she cared about right now.

No, she cared about Bell.

And she cared to preserve that purity. 

But there was a problem.

From where she was on top of the tower, she glanced toward the small plot of mostly undeveloped land near the southeastern edge of the city. That was where Athena Familia, a familia of two, had settled. 

From what she remembered about Athena from Heaven, that goddess, for all of her wisdom, was a war goddess through and through. She didn’t need to worry too much about her for now. 

No, her concern laid with “Vanessa.”

“How am I going to make you stay away from Bell…?” she hummed.