Is It Wrong To Skitter In A Dungeon? Chapter 47: Fire and Gems (Patreon)

Chapter 47: Fire and Gems

The first day of the siege began like any other. Just because there was an army on their doorstep didn’t mean the bakers could stop baking, or the Guild staff stopped serving the adventurers who continued to dive into the Dungeon.

Life went on. Just with a bunch of rude and unruly neighbors. And, in order to handle these people, Taylor decided something new was necessary.

“Welf, how’d you like to get a new Skill?” she asked the red-headed blacksmith at breakfast. He looked up, blinking in surprise.

“Huh? New what, now?” he uttered, confused.

He wasn’t the only one. Quite a few of the adventurers at the table – the ones who were morning people, at least – also looked intrigued. Only Bell and Lucia knew what she was referring to, the rest unaware of her secret ability.

“You heard me,” Taylor replied as she finished eating her jam-smothered toast. “I wanted to know if you wanted to obtain a new Skill.”

“Why? And how?” Welf asked.

“For the latter, I have my ways,” she replied cryptically. “And for the former, I believe it might help keep you safe.”

“From Rakia,” Welf guessed, and the parahuman nodded.

The Blacksmith frowned but eventually grinned. “Yeah, okay. Let’s do this!”

“Wonderful. Finish breakfast, then we’ll go to the backyard,” Taylor instructed.

Welf finished in record time, scarfing down his scrambled eggs with indecent haste before running off to get ready.

Taylor was a bit more sedated as she ate the rest of her breakfast, but was done quickly and left the kitchen to stand outside in the backyard.

“Where are we going, captain?” Welf asked as he jogged out to join her.

“Away from Orario,” she replied. “Fetch the swing.”

He blanched but obeyed, getting what the parahuman wanted out of a storage shed nearby (there were a lot of sheds on the property) and brought it over to her.

The swing wasn’t anything special. It was just a wooden board with several ropes. A primitive swing set. Really, it was just something any playground would have had, except for the fact Taylor wasn’t going to be the one sitting on it, and that the ropes were also attached to a harness.

“Fly, Joy of Icarus!” Taylor intoned, and ethereal green and gold dragonfly wings appeared on her back. She then put on the harness and floated into the air.

With a heavy sigh Welf walked over to the swing and sat down on it, gripping tightly onto the ropes as Taylor took off, flying into the sky and leaving the Hearth Manor and Orario far behind in under a minute.

It wasn’t the most comfortable way to fly, and according to her test subjects, being suspended above the ground with nothing save wood and rope to hold them up was utterly terrifying. But it was the only method Taylor had that didn’t involve picking up and carrying a person in her arms if she wanted to fly with them. And as good a friend Welf was, Taylor wasn’t about to just pick up the guy. Hence the swing.

Taylor hadn’t forgotten Ouranos’ warning to never use Godslayer anywhere within or near Orario or the Dungeon. Yes, she’d broken that rule when she tore off Jura’s Falna, but that hadn’t affected the Dungeon as badly as the previous times she’d used that Skill. Still, she didn’t want to push her luck, and that was why she flew far away from the city with Welf in tow.

From above, even the massive army camped outside the walls looked tiny, and after flying for a bit, Taylor estimated she was approximately two hundred miles away from anything that might be affected if she used her Skill.

“It all looks so small,” Welf muttered as he looked down at the scenery.

“Yeah,” Taylor agreed.

“The Rakians kinda look like bugs,” the Blacksmith chuckled, peering at the army camped outside of the walls. Taylor chuckled at that comparison. They did resemble red and black ants scurrying around.

Shortly after that, they flew far enough away that even the city was no longer visible, and the duo were silent as they continued their trip. Taylor took the chance to get a good look at what beyond Orario.

The landscape around Orario was fairly green thanks to all of the farms and the rivers connecting to Lolog Lake in the north and east, but very quickly the surroundings turned dry and arid, grasslands receding into savannas which gave way to sandy, rock-strewn desert.

To the north-west of Orario lay Rakia, while to the south-west the Kaios Desert sprawled out. The travelers couldn’t see either of them, but they were certainly out there.

Taylor felt the urge to explore the new world she’d found herself rise up within her. She’d hardly had the chance on Earth Bet, and she wanted to see what this one had to offer.

‘Later, though,’ she thought to herself. ‘When the city has calmed down a bit.’

Some more flying later, and Taylor felt confident that she’d flown far enough away to not affect anything. She didn’t have exact numbers, but she was fairly certain it was more than five-hundred miles.

‘More than enough distance to hopefully not affect the Dungeon,’ she thought to herself.

She then set down after checking there was nobody within range of her swarm, and Welf fell to his knees as soon as they landed on the ground.

“Sweet land! Solid land!” Welf wept comically. "How I missed you!"

“It wasn’t that bad,” Taylor said with a roll of her eyes.

“You weren’t the one dangling hundreds of feet in the air!” he retorted with a huff before getting back up to his feet. “Ugh, whatever. How are we gonna do this?”

“First, I have to tell you something,” Taylor said. “About my past.”

“I knew it! You’re a princess!” Welf exclaimed.

“What? No. Are you still on about that?” Taylor asked, sighing in exasperation. “Listen. The truth is I’m… not from around here.”

Just like with Lili, Taylor spoke to Welf about her past, revealing her otherworldly origins. For a while he just stared at her, jaw dropped, as he tried to process what he’d been told.

“Okay… that explains so much…” Welf muttered. “I mean, we already sorta knew about the whole Faller thing… Bell’s terrible at keeping secrets… but to have it stated so clearly… and for there to be a world as advanced as yours...”

“So, what do you think? Are you still interested in a Skill?” Taylor asked.

“You don’t have any control over what I get, yeah?” Welf asked.

“Not really. It seems to interact with the Falna to choose a power that would best fit you,” Taylor explained. “Bell got the ability to be in multiple places at once in order to fight and protect people, while Lili can carry a huge amount of supplies without issue. Iris got a Brute power to enhanced her already impressive strength and Lucia got to teleport to enhance her mobility.”

“Hmm, alright, I see,” Welf said, nodding to himself. “I think… I think I’m gonna take the deal.”

“Let’s begin, then,” she replied and reached for Godslayer. Queen Administrator responded immediately and it seemed to Taylor her passenger did so with greater excitement than any other time. Was the Shard interested in Welf’s bloodline ability to create Magic Swords?

Whatever the reason for it, Queen Administrator ‘touched’ Welf with an extra-dimensional tendril and bestowed upon him the elements necessary to become a parahuman.

The blacksmith twitched and then blinked before looking around with a frown. Nothing had outwardly changed as far as they could tell.

“Feel anything?” she asked. “Have any odd thoughts?”

“Uh, no, nothing,” he admitted.

“Not a Tinker, then? Interesting, I assumed you’d have gotten something like that given your crafting skills,” Taylor hummed.

“Not sure what that means,” Welf admitted, scratching the back of his head.

“Well, let’s wait for Hestia to update your stats before doing any experimentation,” Taylor suggested. He sighed when she gestured for him to get back onto the swing.

“When we get back, I’m inventing a better way to do this!” Welf cried out as Taylor took off again. She just laughed.

The return flight to Orario wasn’t much different to the flight out to the middle of nowhere, and when they returned Welf hurried off to find Hestia.

“I wish you’d told me you were going to do this,” the Goddess of the Hearth grumped as she walked into the living room where Taylor and a few other Familia members were relaxing, Welf trailing behind her with an excited look.

“You’d have known if you woke up earlier,” Taylor replied.

“Ten in the morning is a perfectly acceptable time to get up!” Hestia huffed.

“You’ve gotten lazy since you stopped having to go to work at the food cart,” Taylor said with a disappointed shake of her head.

“I have five carts now, and a restaurant!” Hestia fumed. “I can manage my time just fine!”

Taylor reached over and patted the goddess on the head. “I know.”

She grumbled a little before gesturing at Welf. “Anyways, I felt what you did. Again. Not a great way to wake up, but I updated his stats.”

“May I see?” Taylor asked, and the red-head passed over his sheet for her to observe.

Welf Crozzo “Ignis”

Level 2

POWER – G 222 → F 387

ENDURANCE – G 215 → F 379

DEXTERITY – I 85 → H 160

AGILITY – I 85 → H 130

MAGIC – H 163 → G 223

Skills –

Vulcan Drive: Freely manipulate existing forms of heat and flame (SHARD).

As expected, a new Skill had been added to the Falna, joining Welf’s Crozzo Blood and Veritas Burn. The description was short but told Taylor everything she needed to know.

“Pyrokinesis, huh?” Taylor hummed, reading the Skill description. It was honestly the perfect power Welf could have gotten. He was a blacksmith who worked with fire all the time, and already had a Skill that granted resistance to heat and flames, as well as a Spell that was a fire-based anti-magic attack.

Will-o-Wisp, Welf’s Spell, was incredibly useful, but rather slow and only capable of moving in a straight line. With Vulcan Drive, Welf could negate both of those downsides.

‘Though I expected some sort of Tinker-based Skill,’ Taylor admitted to herself. Queen Administrator must have seen something about Welf that made the entity grant him a different Shard.

‘Likely because Welf would never accept Tinkertech. If he can’t understand it or build it himself without some sort of crutch, then he would reject it,’ she mused, guessing the reason why.

A flicker of CONFIRMATION flickered through her mind, Taylor’s passenger agreeing with her assessment.

“Look at those numbers,” Welf whistled, impressed by his rate of growth. “I didn’t think I’d get so much so quickly after Leveling Up!”

He glanced at Taylor. “Must be all of that training is paying off, eh?”

“Thanks for the compliment, but you won’t get to weasel out of future sessions that easily,” Taylor warned, and he slumped.

“Worth a shot,” he sighed, before perking up. “That Skill is pretty neat, though!”

“I’m looking forward to seeing how you can apply it,” Taylor said. “I’ll arrange some special training just for you soon.”

Welf wilted a little but didn’t try to resist. Taylor rolled her eyes. With potions and healing spells they could recover from their sessions just fine. Besides, it was for their own good!

She then glanced over her shoulder at the adventurers who were nearby, and she smirked at them. Sensing the hellish training session they’d have to go through soon, all of them looked despondent.

“Guys! I’m home!” Bell called out from the foyer. “And I’ve got a guest with me!”

Taylor looked up as the door to the living room opened up, expecting to see Ais or one of the other adventurers Bell was friends with to show up. Instead, what greeted her was a blood-stained Bell and a very nervous looking Haruhime.

If that wasn’t enough of a red flag, between the two of them was a tiny girl in a ratty brown robe that failed to hide her decidedly unusual features, tightly holding onto the two adventurer’s hands. It was rather cute, like a child out with their parents. Except for, you know, the blood and oddness of said child.

“Um, everyone, this is Wiene. Can she stay here for a bit?” Bell asked with a nervous laugh as he looked around.

“Bell… what did you do this time?” Taylor asked with a heavy sigh, eyes darting between him and the blue-skinned girl, her gaze lingering on the jewel embedded in her forehead.

The rest of the people in the house couldn’t help but stare as well, completely bewildered by the sight in front of them.

Hestia groaned and put her face into her hands. Why was her Familia so full of problem children?!

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“Oh dear,” Haruhime muttered as she looked into the cupboard. “We seem to be out of a few spices.”

She turned to Bell who was washing dishes in the kitchen. “Mr. Bell, would you please go with me to the market?”

“Sure! Just let me finish up here, Miss Haruhime!” Bell replied with a wide smile.

“You can just call me ‘Haruhime,’” the renard said with a giggle.

“Okay, but ‘Bell’ is fine as well,” the white-haired adventurer said.

“Alright,” she conceded, before getting ready to go out.

She made sure her maid uniform was tidy and straightened out, and that the shopping baskets were where they were supposed to be, grabbing two of them for the trip to the market.

Bell came over a little bit later, hands dried and the dishes from breakfast put away, and offered her a smile before stepping out of the manor.

Taylor’s rule that everyone go somewhere in pairs was important, and it was one nobody was keen to forget. Watching each other’s backs in the Dungeon was second nature at this point, and with Rakia and Evilus on the loose, staying safe was more vital than ever.

Despite the tense situation, the city was as lively as ever. People walked around, went into the Dungeon, and bought and sold things. Prices for some things had gone up slightly, but it didn’t bother Haruhime or Bell as the Hestia Familia’s finances were quite robust at the moment.

“Good morning, ma’am,” Haruhime said as she approached a stall selling all kinds of peppers.

“Ah, it is a fine morning, isn’t it?” the elderly cow-woman running the stand agreed.

“I would like to purchase some peppercorn and bell peppers, miss,” the renard said after looking over the selection. “A stone’s worth of the former and half a bushel of the latter.”

“Of course, dear. That will be seven-hundred and fifty hundred valis.”

Haruhime winced a little at the price, but paid it without question. Normally, she might haggle a little, but with tensions so high in the city it was easier to just go with it.

The next few stalls went much the same way, with plenty of spices bought to restock the manor’s supplies. With over a dozen people living and eating there, they went through quite a bit of food rather quickly.

Haruhime didn’t mind shopping and cooking. It was fun, and she enjoyed seeing the faces of others when they tried her food.

“Anything else, Miss… I mean, Haruhime?” Bell asked as he adjusted the strap of the basket he was carrying for her.

“Just some sugar and cinnamon,” she replied.

“For cookies?” Bell asked eagerly, and Haruhime giggled.

“Yes. I believe Taylor-Sama wanted to bake some more snickerdoodles.”

“I hope so!” he said, licking his lips. His sister made the best cookies!

As they were making their way to the store that sold sugar – expensive ingredients like that were sold in actual buildings instead of temporary stalls in the city’s marketplaces – a loud noise rang out from a nearby alleyway.

Now, normally, such a thing wouldn’t be worth more than a glance and a shrug before moving on. There were rats in Orario, after all. Big, mean, cat-sized vermin who’d gotten fat off of magical trash. But the crash was accompanied by a feminine cry, which immediately raised alarm bells in the two adventurers’ heads.

Haruhime and Bell rushed over towards the commotion, and stopped and stared at what they saw: A young girl in a tattered, filth-stained brown robe was struggling against a much larger man who was grabbing her arms, trying to pull her away with him. There were manacles on the child’s wrists and ankles, the chains making a doleful clatter as she tried to resist.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Bell demanded angrily, stepping into the alleyway. “Stop!”

“Huh?!” the greasy looking rat-faced adventurer uttered angrily, glaring at Bell as he approached. “Screw off, kid, this doesn’t concern ya!”

The girl whimpered and tried to escape again but was struck by the back of the man’s hand, knocking her onto the ground. The hood on her robe shifted as she fell, revealing odd, blue-tinged skin.

“I told you to stop!” Bell shouted.

“And I told ya to mind yer own business!”

“What else am I supposed to do when you’re clearly hurting her?!” Bell snarled.

“‘Her?’ Hah! What a joke! She ain’t human! She’s a damned monster!” the adventurer claimed, grabbing the child by the hair and exposing the red jewel embedded in her forehead. “See?!”

The child whimpered and looked at Bell with tears in her eyes, and the white-haired adventurer felt a pang in his chest.

“I see,” Bell said darkly, before darting forward.

The Hestia Knife flashed out of its sheath before plunging into the other man’s stomach. Shocked, he released the blue-skinned girl, who immediately scrambled away, pressing her back against the wall.

“Wh-why-?” the slaver gurgled out, blood spilling down his chest.

“She was crying,” Bell retorted. “Monsters don’t cry.”

“D-damn you…” the slaver uttered before collapsing, unconscious and bleeding heavily.

Bell winced before pulling a potion bottle out of his pocket. He tried to carry a few around, just in case. He kicked the other man over and poured the contents onto the wound, healing it. He would live. Now that he wasn’t in danger of bleeding out his Falna’s durability would keep him alive.

Bell then turned to girl who was cowering in the shadows of the alleyway. He sheathed his blade and knelt before her, offering a kind smile.

“Are you okay?” he asked softly.

Slowly, she shook her head, and Bell winced. “Ah. I suppose not.” His eyes darted down to the chains binding her limbs. “Let me get those off of you.”

He reached out and began to try and break the chains with his bare hands, but found he couldn’t. Frowning, he turned to fallen body of the adventurer and began to pat him down, finding a pair of keys in his pockets. One of them fit into the lock of the chains, and he freed the child.

“There. Does that feel better?” Bell asked as the chains clattered to the ground. The girl nodded hesitantly, as if she couldn’t believe what had just happened.

“Do you have a name?” he inquired.

“W-Wiene,” she eventually whispered, voice barely audible.

“That’s a lovely name,” Bell said, before turning to Haruhime. “Don’t you think so, too?”

The renard jerked out of her shock and nodded, mostly out of reflex than anything else, but it seemed to do the trick as the blue girl relaxed minutely, looking away shyly.

“Th-thank you,” she mumbled.

“Can you tell us what happened to you, Wiene?” Bell asked, still kneeling in front of her.

“They kidnapped me,” Wiene said, looking at the fallen adventurer with fear but also hate dancing in her eyes. “Kept me in a cage.”

“I see. That must have been scary,” Bell murmured.

“It was! I was scared, and I couldn’t find my friends!”

“There are others like you?” Haruhime asked, surprised, and just a little worried.

“Yeah! We hide in the Dungeon!” Wiene confirmed, before frowning. “I got separated. That was how the bad men found me. I tried to run… they were too fast.”

“And then? What happened after they caught you?” the white-haired adventurer inquired.

“They brought me out of the Dungeon,” the blue-skinned girl revealed. “It was dark. The walls were different. And there were a lot of other cages. Some had monsters. Others had a few of my friends.”

“How did you escape?” Bell asked.

“They were going to sell me,” Wiene whispered, her voice quavering. “So, they moved my cage out of the underground chamber they’d been keeping me in, and took me to a warehouse. But then, they said something about a siege preventing them from leaving, and so I was forced to wait in there for days.”

Wiene sniffled and wiped her eyes before continuing. “When they fed me food last night, I found a bone in the meal they gave me, and used it to break the lock on my cage.”

“That was very resourceful of you,” Bell said kindly. Haruhime nodded, impressed despite herself.

“When the bad men weren’t looking, I escaped this morning. I tried to find my way home… but I couldn’t. And then that man found me,” Wiene told them, finishing her story, and Bell reached out and patted her head comfortingly.

“That was very brave. But it’s okay, now. We’ll protect you,” Bell promised.

Haruhime winced at the promise, but didn’t say anything against him. Even though the girl was clearly not normal, she’d also just been enslaved, and the former brothel worker felt a pang of sympathy towards her plight.

“What the hell?!” a voice exclaimed.

Bell, Haruhime, and Wiene all jerked in surprise before looking over towards the other entrance to the alleyway where a pair of adventurers were standing, staring at the trio. The one who’d spoken had spiky blue hair and a spear on his back, while the other had green hair and a one-handed axe.

“Shit, they got Darrel!” the blue-haired member of the duo uttered, eyes darting from the unconscious guy on the ground over to the escaped monster girl.

“Step away from the merchandise, brats,” the axeman ordered menacingly.

“Wiene isn’t going anywhere with you,” Bell shot back.

“Who do you think you are, kid?” the spearman demanded with a sneer.

“That’s the Lucky Rabbit!” the green-haired thug uttered as he drew his axe. “He’s Level 3, just like we are!”

“We can take ‘em, then!”

“Grow. That power and that vessel. Breadth of wealth and breadth of wishes. Until the bell tolls, bring forth glory and illusion. Grow. Confine divine offerings within this body. This golden light bestowed from above. Into the hammer and into the ground, may it bestow good fortune upon you. Grow!” Haruhime quickly chanted, summoning a magic circle that appeared beneath Bell’s feet.

He glowed brightly as power flooded him, and his Level temporarily increased. Moving fast, Bell slammed into the spearman, taking the two adventurers by surprise by his sudden boost in speed and strength.

With a swipe of the Hestia Knife, Bell destroyed the spear, cutting the pointy end off before driving his elbow into the adventurer’s throat, crushing it.

Bell did not stop, ducking out of the way as the axeman lashed out, trying to bisect him, but only ended up chopping into his companion’s shoulder.

The green-haired adventurer however did not stop. In fact, he didn’t even seem to care he’d nearly cut off his own partner’s arm, and immediately tried to go after Haruhime and Wiene instead, realizing that Bell’s sudden boost in power had to be due to the mage who’d cast the Spell on him.

“Die, bitch!” the axeman shouted.

“No!” Wiene suddenly shouted, jumping in front of Haruhime to protect her, her back to the adventurer. And at the same time, the gem embedded in her forehead glowed ominously.

A large pair of wings appeared on Wiene’s back, wrapping around her and Haruhime, protecting the both of them.

Although surprised the smuggler didn’t stop, but when the axe struck against the wings it bounced off, unable to do any harm. Before the green-haired adventurer could react, however, he choked out a garbled cry as Bell slammed into him from behind, the Hestia Knife punching through the man’s spine and into one of his lungs.

He collapsed, twitching violently, and Bell hastily dribbled the remaining contents of a second potion vial onto his oozing wound.

“Are you okay?” Haruhime asked, examining the girl’s wings carefully. They retreated under the Xenos’ cloak, shrinking as they did so until you couldn’t tell they’d ever been there in the first place.

“I’m fine,” Wiene said softly. She then went still as the renard wrapped her arms around the tiny girl.

“Thank you, Wiene,” Haruhime whispered.

“We should get out of here,” Bell suggesting, glancing over his shoulder at the spearman. The blue-haired adventurer was unconscious as well, and would take a while to recover since Bell had used half of the second potion on his arm and neck.

“Yes,” Haruhime agreed. “We need to take the spice back home.”

Bell chuckled in agreement before holding his hand out to Wiene. “Come on. It’s safe at the Hearth Manor. And maybe we can get Taylor to help you get back home to your friends.”

“…Really?” she asked, desperate hope tinging her voice.

“Really,” Bell assured her, grinning confidently. Wiene gave a tiny smile and took his hand. She then reached out and took Haruhime’s as well.

Though surprised at first, the renard in a maid outfit squeezed her hand fondly, giving the Xenos girl a reassuring smile of her own.

The three of them hastily left the back alley and made their way away from the scene of the crime.

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“…and then we hurried back to the manor,” Bell concluded.

“We thought it was best she not spend too much time out in the open,” Haruhime added, looking a bit embarrassed.

During the retelling of the events, the rest of the Familia had gathered, and everyone was listening with stunned expressions, unable to look away from the blue-skinned girl who shied away from the attention.

“So? Can Wiene stay?” the white-haired adventurer asked. Taylor raised an eyebrow at him before directing her attention to the girl who had to be a Xenos.

Wiene flinched back, red eyes wide and full of tears. The parahuman felt a pang as the child’s expression tugged at her heartstrings, and after a moment she sighed, shoulder’s slumping.

“…alright, fine,” Taylor said as Bell finished his retelling of events. “She can stay.”

“Really?!” Bell asked happily.

“Really?!” everyone else in the Familia exclaimed, staring at the parahuman.

“Hmm? Oh, right, I haven’t told any of you about this, yet,” Taylor said. “Completely slipped my mind.”

She folded her arms. “So, when we were in the Dungeon the last time, I met with this adventurer from the Guild named Fels…”