[Saika: Level: LV.2
Strength: C642
Endurance: B703
Dexterity: C672
Agility: C626
Magic: A83...]
Saika's stat panel was terrifyingly high — numbers she had grown into without anyone even noticing. The only reason she hadn't leveled up yet was the restriction imposed by [Excelia] itself.
And as for the little one's skill — there were simply no words for it.
[Skill:
"Drawing Upon Heaven and Earth's Essence"
· All things under heaven carry spirit; those with the gift may absorb it into themselves, tempering body and soul.
By consuming all things, enhance stat values.]
Not a little jellyfish at all — this was a Leviathan of myth!
Fascinating.
When he first saw that skill, Isagi had nearly blacked out on the spot. Even so, Saika turned out to be fairly easy to keep fed — Magic Stones worked fine as little snacks, and as for materials, she took everything without complaint, from Sky Iron at the very top down to plain old iron ore at the bottom.
And she never seemed to get full.
Or at least, other than that time in the underwater Dragon Palace, where she had devoured every last trace of Alfia's magic power left behind there, Isagi had never once seen her satisfied.
Ah, well. Keep feeding her for now, and figure it out later.
The little jellyfish who had leveled up to LV.2 now looked the same as she had after receiving Haruhime's level-boost magic — a tiny pink-haired girl in a little white dress.
Still only about the size of a fist, though. Crystal-clear and luminous, like a Spirit.
Most of the time she just blew a bubble around herself and drifted wherever she pleased.
The goddesses were mainly the ones looking after her. Astrea and Demeter were both deeply curious — Saika was neither a monster nor a Spirit, and her calling herself a "yokai" was a concept that stretched well beyond anything they had a framework for.
Naturally, they were fascinated.
But more than anything else, the little one was just so cute, and so well-behaved. No one could bring themselves to put her down.
The evening banquet was cheerfully chaotic.
Goddess Demeter's cooking was beyond reproach, and with the recent harvest there was no shortage of anything — vegetables, fruit, meat — all in abundance. They had even had a great haul of rare deep-sea fish shipped in from the port city of Melen.
Quite a few of the ingredients were things even Isagi had never laid eyes on before.
And she had made far, far too much.
It gave the impression that no matter how long you ate, you could never make a dent in it — though fortunately, with Saika around, there was no risk of anything going to waste. That creature ate absolutely everything without exception.
Given that she apparently also ate monsters, even the goddesses were joking about it.
They should just release Saika into the ocean someday. The problem of rampaging sea monsters might very well be solved by this one tiny creature all on her own. Tsk, tsk, tsk.
The little one, of course, had no idea what they were talking about.
She just kept sweeping back and forth across the dining table on her own, inhaling everything in her path.
If no one was watching, she wouldn't have left the plates and cutlery behind either.
After dinner, the goddesses gathered in the courtyard as usual to drink and chat about who knew what. Isagi, meanwhile, called the girls together to settle on their next plan.
By all accounts, their exploration of the Dungeon had hit something of a plateau — they would need to level up before they could push any deeper.
But Isagi had a different plan in mind.
Specifically: the party would return to the ancient Dungeon of a thousand years past to adventure there, with the goal of defeating the Udaeus — the creature the Dungeon had created specifically to counter him, and which had been dogging his heels ever since.
At the same time, they would continue their exploration of that ancient Dungeon.
This was a decision Isagi had reached after careful deliberation and discussions with Ryuu and Lefiya.
The main reason for going back was, of course, to gather materials.
Since he planned to forge more weapons, the rarer the materials the better, and the only thing in his possession that qualified as truly "high-grade" was the Leviathan Magic Stone fragment retrieved from the Dragon Palace.
As for his own special Dungeon — there was still one Boss before Alfia that he could take on. But if he defeated it, Isagi worried there would be nowhere left to grind levels afterward. So he had decided to leave it for now.
With that ruled out, the only viable remaining target was the ancient Dungeon of a thousand years ago.
And it wasn't just Isagi who was drawn there. Ryuu, Lefiya, and even Riveria were all deeply curious about what had actually happened back then.
Of course, a fair amount of time had passed since their last visit. No telling what state things were in now.
Isagi decided they should go take a look first, and simply turn back if things didn't pan out.
The rough plan was: ancient Dungeon first, then find Zard next time, and by that point it would probably be time to level up — once he hit LV.6, he would challenge Alfia inside his Dungeon.
That was the general shape of things. Ryuu and Lefiya raised no objections, so the plan was locked in.
For this trip to the ancient Dungeon, Isagi intended to bring the whole party — including Haruhime, Saika, and Riveria. The elven woman had requested to come herself.
It was a proper expedition this time, and they would go fully prepared — none of the scrambling they'd done before.
In the days before departure, following the goddesses' advice, they gave themselves time to rest and recover. Build up their strength.
And so —
The autumn wind was cool and sparse.
Even in the afternoon the sky hung low and gray, the pale sun like a peeled egg hiding behind layers of ashen cloud.
The endless sea beyond reflected that same dullness, the tide rolling slowly in to swallow the beach before retreating again, washing over the girls' slender, pale legs.
Autumn wasn't truly cold yet.
So Lefiya and the others were still in their summer swimsuits — as if making up for lost time — playing along the shore.
This was, of course, still the remote island some distance from Melen.
After a stretch of time and considerable "changes," the place looked nothing like it once had.
Beyond the longhouses that had been built near the beach, the most striking transformation was the stretch of woodland further inland — once lush and dense beyond all measure.
Because the girls and Isagi had been training there so often, vast swathes of it had been completely demolished, leaving behind great tracts of bare, open wasteland.
Amid that wasteland, Lefiya's magic had been used to excavate a large pit, which the girls had then flooded by pouring water directly inside using water-attribute magic swords, before boiling it with fire-attribute magic — and just like that, a makeshift hot spring had been born.
When they had arrived at the island that morning and he had watched them do it, Isagi had stood there dumbstruck.
The girls' creativity really did get more absurd by the day. Using magic to improve your quality of life was one thing, but wasn't this taking it a bit far?
That said —
The hot spring they had conjured entirely from scratch felt surprisingly good to soak in.
Isagi was currently leaning back against the edge of the pool.
Through the drifting mist, and thanks to the slightly elevated ground of the old woodland, he could just make out the girls on the distant beach, their voices carrying faintly on the breeze.
At this moment, they were on the sand, taking direction from the Goddess of Beauty.
Aphrodite was rehearsing a play.
Since practically all of her own Familia members were away from the city, she had drafted Lefiya and Ryuu into helping instead. Apparently she intended to perform it at the upcoming goddess festival sometime in the near future.
But the original script had been flatly rejected.
Because the story the Goddess of Beauty had envisioned went something like this: a certain adventurer who had just arrived in the city — the protagonist — discovers that no matter who he meets, be it his own Familia's goddess, his senior adventurers, the city guards, the blacksmith at the forge, the female physician at the apothecary, the shopgirl at the general store, the female guards on patrol, or even female monsters encountered in the Dungeon — every single one of them was extraordinarily "accommodating" toward him, willing to grant his every request without hesitation.
As Aphrodite described her plot, Isagi sat there blinking in growing bewilderment, immediately thinking of a certain very famous genre of —
Wait, hold on, what on earth is wrong with this script?!
But looking at the Goddess of Beauty's perfectly earnest little expression, it was obvious she saw absolutely nothing wrong with it.
She even declared that this was what true "pure love" looked like!
Come on.
Where exactly was the "pure love" in that, if you please.
Not just Isagi — the other goddesses, and even Aphrodite's own Familia member, the girl named Harmonia, were all visibly disgusted.
So the disgruntled Goddess of Beauty puffed out her rather impressively proportioned chest and challenged them with an indignant, "Fine, then you come up with something better!"
Isagi actually thought it didn't sound that hard.
They just wanted to rehearse a love story, right? Simple enough.
"Have you ever heard the story of Grimm, and the girls he loved?"
"?"
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👻🔥+40 ch: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Samsara Game: Starting with Shirogane Kei
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