General Pov
The heavy, expectant silence in the room was broken not by Max's answer, but by a soft, melodic chime from the antechamber.
Freya didn't seem annoyed by the interruption. In fact, it seemed as if she had timed it perfectly. With a subtle, graceful gesture of her hand, the heavy double doors parted. A pair of attendants glided in, their eyes respectfully lowered, pushing a silver cart laden with domed cloches, crystal decanters, and the rich, mouth-watering aroma of spiced meats and roasted vegetables.
"Let us eat," Freya murmured smoothly, uncrossing her legs and rising from the bed. "Revelations are always better digested with a proper meal."
Max gathered his newly minted status sheets, feeling the immense weight of the numbers still fresh in his mind. He let Kairu hop back onto his shoulder and followed her toward the far edge of the vast suite.
A low, curved table of polished dark wood sat positioned directly in front of the floor-to-ceiling glass. Outside, the sun was finally sinking below the massive walls of Orario. The fading light painted the horizon in breathtaking shades of violent orange, deep indigo, and bruised violet—a sprawling, beautiful mosaic of color that reflected off the city's tiled roofs.
Max took a seat on the plush floor cushions opposite the Goddess. Honestly, he had demolished a massive bowl of Mama Mia's stew just a few hours ago, and his stomach was far from empty. But he wouldn't say no to a private dinner with Freya, especially when she had questions.
The attendants transferred the plates with silent, practiced efficiency. Max received a spread fit for a king, Freya took a smaller, elegantly arranged portion, and Kairu—to Max's immense amusement—was served a silver bowl brimming with polished, high-grade magic stones that sparkled like hard candy.
Once the attendants vanished and the doors clicked shut, they were alone again. The silence returned, softer this time.
"I'm an open book, Lady Freya," Max said, pouring himself a glass of juice while she poured the wine. He took a deliberate bite of the spiced meat, letting the flavor settle. "Ask whatever you like."
Freya took a delicate sip of her dark wine, her eyes pinning him down over the rim of the glass. She seemed to be mentally sifting through a mountain of questions, deciding which thread to pull first to unravel him.
"Let us start with your movement," Freya began, her voice taking on the analytical cadence of a scholar examining a rare artifact. "Through the echo of your Excelia, I watched you close the distance on your targets instantly. It did not register like the kinetic momentum of a high Agility stat pushing against the air. It felt... alien. Like you were ignoring the intervening space entirely. Was it magical propulsion? Or true teleportation?"
Max nodded, finishing his bite of bread, impressed as always by her raw intuition. She had felt the precise discrepancy in his movements just by tasting the shadow of the memory.
"It's called Shunshin. Body Flicker technique in the common tongue," Max explained, settling back against the cushions. "It looks like teleportation to the untrained eye, but it isn't. Not really. True teleportation moves you from Point A to Point B without crossing the space in between. Shunshin gets me from Point A to Point B by actually covering the physical distance... just incredibly fast."
Freya tilted her head, clearly fascinated by the technicality. "But if you are crossing the physical space, where is the momentum? Where is the friction? I saw no physical exertion."
"Because I don't use my muscles to push off the ground," Max said, holding out a hand, palm up, and letting a faint spark of mana dance across his fingertips for illustration.
"I channel my magic directly into the soles of my feet and compress it, like capping a geyser. When I release the seal, the magic detonates, vitalizing my entire body and propelling me forward in a straight, violent line. It relies entirely on magical output, not my physical speed stat."
Freya's eyes gleamed in the twilight, taking in the explanation, but she found a fatal flaw. "Ingenious. But utterly reckless. To propel yourself with that much localized, explosive force in the claustrophobic corridors of the Dungeon... one slight miscalculation in your trajectory, and you would splatter yourself against the walls before you even realized you had struck it."
"I did exactly that on Floor 1," Max admitted with a sheepish grin, tapping the spot on his forehead where he had face-planted against the wall.
Freya blinked, letting out a small, breathless chuckle at the image.
"But you'd be surprised how fast you adapt when you're forced to," Max continued, his smile turning a bit sharper. "I didn't need any extra magic to make it viable, just grueling practice. I stress-tested the technique until my eyes and brain stopped experiencing the tunnel vision. It started out as pure, explosive linear motion, like I'd point myself down a hall and fire. But once I got confident with the sheer velocity, I learned to control the bursts."
He gestured with his hands, tracing sharp, jagged paths in the air above the table. "I learned to cut the output short, angle my feet to bounce off walls, and thread the needle through twisting corridors. I essentially turn myself into a high-speed pinball. It's what let me clear those floors so incredibly fast."
Freya absorbed this, her eyes narrowing slightly as she parsed the tactical reality of his explanation. "An impressive physical and mental feat," she mused. "But if that speed and navigation relied purely on your own reflexes adapting to the magical strain... then what about your new magic? Independent Action."
"Ah. That," Max said, his voice dropping into a steady, focused tone. "That's something else entirely. Shunshin gets me around, and it's great for offense, but it has a glaring flaw: you can't manually dodge what you can't see coming, especially when you're moving at highway speeds. Independent Action acts as an automated background protocol."
He tapped his temple, mimicking a machine engaging its processes. "I essentially coded a subroutine using my magic. An Auto-Evade protocol. During my initial tests on Floor 1, I set the parameter to a ten-foot radius, and later expanded it to fifteen, and finally thirty during the Evilus ambush. If any hostile intent entered that defined perimeter, the magic bypassed my conscious thought. It physically hijacked my motor neurons to force my body to dodge."
Freya stopped her wine glass halfway to her lips.
Highway? Coded? Subroutine? Automated protocol?
The foreign words washed over her like an alien dialect. He was speaking so quickly, rattling off this impossible magical framework with such a rapid, clinical detachment that she felt as though he were sprinting effortlessly ahead while she was merely walking. It was an entirely different, incredibly mechanical lexicon of magic.
But as her mind rapidly sifted through the bizarre vocabulary, she caught the terrifying gist of his explanation. She decided not to interrupt or ask him to define the absurd terminology—her pride wouldn't allow it, and more importantly, the sheer horror of the concept had already clicked into place.
She stared at him, her graceful mask slipping just enough to show her profound shock.
"You... surrendered the autonomic control of your own body," she whispered, her voice barely more than a breath, "to an active spell?"
To a deity, the very idea was anathema. The soul and the vessel were sacrosanct. To willingly hand the reins of one's physical form over to a magical spell was a level of detached pragmatism that bordered on insanity.
"Only for the duration of the threat," Max clarified, taking a sip of juice as if they were discussing the weather rather than rewriting the laws of mortal survival. "It felt like lag. A sudden jolt of electricity, and suddenly my body was two feet to the left and a War Shadow's claws were swiping empty air where my neck used to be."
He shrugged casually. "It took some getting used to—being a passenger in your own body for half a second—but I couldn't have survived the swarm ambushes and blind spots on the Middle Floors without it."
He paused, a flicker of genuine excitement crossing his face as he remembered his newly updated Status. Available Actions: 1 Simple, 1 Complex.
"And the best part is," Max added, his tone brightening, "now that I'm Level 2, the capacity of the magic has expanded. I have a 'complex' slot available. I'm already experimenting with ways to automate some of my plans. If I get the parameters right, I could—"
He cut himself off.
Freya had completely stopped eating.
She was looking at him with an expression that sat somewhere between absolute awe and deep, unsettling hunger. The clinical, highly pragmatic way he viewed his own power—stripping away all the reverence and mystery of magic and treating it like a machine to be dismantled and exploited—was utterly alien to this world.
"You speak of your own magic as if it were mere clockwork," she whispered, leaning forward over the table. The dying sunset cast a warm, fiery glow across the silver of her hair. "You strip the poetry from it entirely, molding it to serve your pure convenience."
"Magic is a tool," Max said simply. "I intend to use it like one."
Freya let out a soft breath, setting her wine glass down with a delicate clink.
"Indeed. It works beautifully for your purpose," she conceded, though her expression darkened slightly, the playful curiosity evaporating into something intensely serious. "But your cleverness and preparation can only shield you from the monsters on the outside."
She tilted her head, her eyes pinning him in place.
"They cannot protect you from the violent nature of your own vessel. Which brings me to Lux Tenebris."
Max stilled, the fork pausing in his hand. Kairu, who had been munching on a magic stone next to him, suddenly stopped, sensing the shift in the room's atmosphere.
"I felt the echoes when you crossed the thresholds of Floor 8 and Floor 15," Freya said softly, her gaze locked onto his, demanding truth. "It wasn't merely exhaustion I felt from your memories. It was pure, unadulterated agony. Golden-white smoke... a burning from the inside out." Her eyes narrowed. "Tell me exactly what that skill is doing to you."
Max set his fork down. The levity of the moment faded as the phantom memory of the pain rushed back to the surface. He absently reached back, rubbing his shoulder blade exactly where the skill sat beneath his skin.
"It's a threshold trigger," Max explained, his voice quieting. "When I first entered the Dungeon, I felt a heavy pressure, but nothing unmanageable. Just... a small tingle. But the moment my foot touched the landing of Floor 8, it stung. Like a heated needle carving into my spine. That was the first warning."
He looked out the window at the darkening sky, his eyes slightly distant as he relived the sensation. "But Floor 15... that was different. It wasn't just heat. It felt like my very soul was a glass bottle, and someone was pumping an ocean's worth of pressurized water into it. The skill was physically and spiritually stretching my 'vessel' to ensure it wouldn't shatter from the sheer volume of Excelia I was getting."
He took a slow breath. "It was pure agony. But it only lasted a few minutes. When it faded, I was stronger. Faster. The mana pathways in my body were wider."
Freya watched him closely, her sharp mind effortlessly running the arithmetic. Floor 1, Floor 8, Floor 15.
"Every seven floors," she deduced, her eyes catching the warm lamplight. She leaned back into the velvet cushions, the final puzzle piece locking into place with terrifying clarity. "Is that why you stopped at the threshold of Floor Twenty-Two? You had enough stamina and supplies to push deeper, yet you halted at the entrance and turned back. You knew the skill was about to trigger again."
Max offered a slow, validating nod.
"I couldn't risk it," he admitted, slicing a piece of spiced meat on his plate. "Hogni was standing right beside me. When it happened on Floor 15, he panicked. I managed to play it off by leaning into his 'Dark King' persona, telling him it was just the Abyss claiming its due or some nonsense." Max took a bite, chewed thoughtfully, and swallowed.
"But if I collapsed again, screaming, exactly seven floors later on Floor 22? He's a Level 5 executive, Lady Freya. He's not stupid. He'd connect the pattern, and he'd start asking questions I am not ready to answer."
Max looked across the table, holding her gaze with a meaningful, heavy look. The unspoken message hung clearly in the air between them: I trust you with my secrets, but I am not ready to share them with the rest of the Familia.
Freya's lips curved into a soft, intensely satisfied smile. She didn't mind his secrecy at all. In fact, she preferred it. The thought that she alone possessed the truth of him, that she was the sole keeper of his alien nature, catered perfectly to her possessiveness.
"A wise calculation," she purred, raising her wine glass to him in a small, approving toast. "I am more than content to keep the full scope of your anomaly entirely to myself. Which brings me to a mystery far more perplexing than your magic."
She took a delicate sip, her gaze shifting to Kairu, who had resumed happily digesting magic stones into a soft, blue glow at the edge of the table.
"Hogni Ragnar," Freya said, letting the name hang in the quiet room. "My very own Black Knight. Who is famously an isolationist. He pathologically avoids social interaction. He lives in his own mind, heavily guarded by his anxieties, to the point where even his fellow executives cannot engage him in casual conversation without him fleeing or retreating into a corner."
She leaned forward, her expression a mix of genuine bewilderment and profound amusement. "Yet, my sight showed him sitting by a campfire with you on Floor 18. Sharing a meal. Conversing openly. And letting your familiar ride into battle on his shoulder. How in the heavens did you manage to breach his walls in less than a day?"
Max couldn't help it; a wide, triumphant smirk spread across his face. He set his cutlery down and leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest.
"It wasn't a breach," Max laughed softly. "I just didn't force him to be someone else. Everyone in Folkvangr either treats him like a walking weapon or gets annoyed by his theatrical speech. I just... matched his frequency."
Freya tilted her head, enraptured. "Matched his frequency?"
With a nod, he continued. "When he was doing the chuunibyou—uh, the theatrical act—I played along. I spoke to him like a fellow warrior of the 'Abyss.' And when his mask slipped and he started stuttering, I didn't mock him. I ignored the awkwardness, asked him genuine questions about his past and the dungeon, and treated him like a senior I wanted to learn from."
Max reached out and ruffled Kairu's gelatinous head. "And when it was time to move past Floor 18, I showed him trust. I offered him a magical contract: I promised I wouldn't fight any monsters, letting him have the spotlight, while we raced to Floor 22. And to ensure I didn't cheat... I had Kairu jump on his face like a blindfold."
Freya's wine glass paused midway to the table. "You... put a slime on a Level 5's face."
"Yep," Max grinned, highly entertained by the memory. "While Kairu covered his eyes, I yelled, 'Let the dungeon hide and seek begin!' and just bolted. By the time he pulled Kairu off, I was long gone. I blitzed ahead, completely skipped fighting, and waited for him at the entrance of Floor 22 to spook him from behind."
He seamlessly omitted the detail about the secret, warded "Super Villain Cave", keeping the narrative focused entirely on the banter and the prank.
Freya stared at him for a long moment. She pictured the terrifying, shadow executioner of her Familia standing in the middle of the Large Tree Labyrinth, blinded by a cheerful blue puddle, while a rookie shouted about hide and seek and vanished.
A giggle escaped her. Then another. Within seconds, the Goddess of Beauty was laughing so hard she had to cover her mouth with a napkin, her shoulders shaking with pure, unadulterated joy.
"You turned my Vanguard of the Night... into a playmate," Freya gasped, wiping a tear of mirth from the corner of her eye. "Oh, Max. You truly are a menace."
"I prefer the term 'team-builder'," Max replied cheekily with a proud smile. "But honestly? He's a good guy. Just needs someone to treat him like a person instead of a problem."
Freya's laughter subsided into a warm, lingering smile. She looked at him for a long moment, still smiling. She didn't say what she was thinking.
She didn't need to.
"You have accomplished more in forty-eight hours than most do in many years, Max," Freya said softly, her voice carrying the absolute, uncompromising weight of her divinity. "You have your levels, your funds, and your magic. Once the rest of the Familia processes this... you will be a known entity. So, what are your future plans?"
Max rested his forearms on the edge of the dark wood table, looking past the glass at the twilight settling over Orario. The sky had deepened into a rich, bruised purple, the last light bleeding out over the city's tiled rooftops.
"The Goliath," he said simply.
Freya's eyes widened in genuine, undisguised surprise. "The Monster Rex? Already?"
A fresh Level 2 aiming to solo a Level 4 floor boss was exactly the kind of suicidal crucible her Familia was notorious for. Still, she hadn't expected him to embrace their specific brand of lunacy quite this early. Even for an anomaly with EX-rank stats, actively picking a fight with a localized disaster like the Goliath in a week of his official dive bordered an absolute madness.
Max nodded, taking a moment to swirl the water in his glass as he decided how much he wanted to reveal. When he looked up, his expression had lost its playful edge, settling into a cold, aristocratic pride that felt ancient and ingrained.
"You saw the words on my Falna," Max began quietly, his tone measured. "The designation of 'Low-Class.' In the society I come from, for a Noble of my lineage to bear that title at my physical age is nothing short of a profound insult. Unless one is afflicted with an illness that actively saps away their demonic strength, someone of my bloodline is expected to be at least Mid-Class. Preferably High-Class."
His hands tightened, a flash of pure Devil's Pride burning through his human veneer.
"I don't know how the Falna's leveling system directly translates to my species' societal ranks," he continued, "but sitting at the absolute bottom of the barrel is unacceptable. Ascending the levels is the only metric I currently have to force that evolution. Reaching Mid-Class, and then High-Class, is my immediate priority."
The dark intensity vanished as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by a devastating, roguish smirk. "Not to mention... taking down the Goliath solo would be very, very flashy."
Freya felt her heart skip a beat, a surge of absolute joy blossoming in her chest.
She had burned with questions about the hierarchy of his race ever since the falna, but she had forced herself to hold back, betting that patience would yield better results. Her restraint had paid off spectacularly. He was giving her the pieces of his soul's puzzle freely, unprompted, driven by his own ferocious ambition. A noble of a dark society, expected to rule, yet placed at the bottom... and furiously clawing his way up. It was a magnificent narrative.
"Speaking of exploring Orario and rising to the top, though," Max said, leaning back and resting his hand on Kairu's head. His expression sobered. "Fame brings attention. Which begs the question about the other Gods?"
Freya tilted her head. "What of them?"
"Till now, since I haven't had any contact with any other deity besides you, my secret is relatively safe. But if I kill a Monster Rex solo, I can't stay hidden in Folkvangr forever." Max frowned slightly.
"You shared how deities know when a mortal is lying to them. What happens when another God asks me a direct question about my origins, and they realize they can't read me? Or worse, what happens when they learn I have the ability to lie straight to their faces without setting off their divine lie-detectors? What then?"
Freya's amused look turned sharp instantly. The atmosphere in the room cooled.
It was an excellent, highly dangerous point. While his All-Speak masked his lies from divine intuition, the very absence of that expected intuition could tip off a sharp-minded god that something was profoundly wrong. If they realized a mortal could deceive them perfectly, the subsequent hunt would turn Orario upside down.
She was silent for a long minute, her eyes dark with calculation as she gazed out over the city.
"You are correct," she said, her tone serious, the playful Goddess replaced entirely by the commanding Queen. "Anonymity through avoidance will not last once you begin making headlines. We must formalize your existence in a way that deters deep questioning."
Max set his fork down with the quiet finality of someone who had finished taking inventory and was ready to move.
Kairu, as if sensing the shift, swallowed his last magic stone with a soft, satisfied pulse of blue light and went still.
A comfortable silence settled between them — the particular kind that only forms between two people who have said enough, and know it.
Freya set her wine glass down with a soft, final clink. Her eyes moved from the parchments to Kairu, still glowing faintly at the edge of the table, and then to Max.
"You are considerably more dangerous than you look," she said at last. Not a compliment. A verdict.
"We all have our strengths," Max replied.
She stood up, smoothing the skirts of her dress.
"Come," she said, turning toward the door.
Max blinked, standing up quickly. "Now? Where are we going?"
"We have someone to meet," Freya replied, grabbing a heavy, dark cloak from a nearby stand.
-◈ -
The Pantheon
Ten minutes later, Max found himself walking through the cooling night streets of Orario beside Freya. As she was draped in a thick, unassuming grey cloak, the deep hood pulled low to completely obscure her hair and devastating features. Her divine aura, usually so potent, was violently suppressed, allowing her to walk through the crowds without leaving a trail of infatuated, drooling mortals in her wake.
Surprisingly Ottar was nowhere to be found as he was left at Babel, the goddess insisting his presence would only draw the attention they were trying to avoid. Thus, only the duo—and Kairu, safely tucked beneath Max's armor—made their way to the Pantheon.
Instead of taking the wide marble steps to the front entrance, Freya guided him around the side of the massive Guild structure. They approached a heavy, unmarked iron door set flush into the stone wall in a dimly lit alley.
As soon as Freya stepped within five feet of it, the heavy door swung open silently on well-oiled hinges, allowing them entry.
Max frowned, his magical senses reaching out. I feel magic pulsing through the frame, he noted internally. It's definitely custom-made for the Guild. Possibly designed to automatically recognize divinity, allowing for hassle-free access so Gods don't cause a ruckus in the public lobby. Very clever.
They stepped into a torch-lit hallway with a wide stone stairway leading sharply downward. But before they could even turn toward it, a figure came hurrying down the main hall toward them.
"My Lady Freya! Please, wait!"
Max looked at the newcomer. It was an old, spectacularly fat Elf with white hair, bright green eyes, and surprisingly short legs for his race. His excess weight made his height seem even smaller than it was. He was wearing a sharply tailored black suit made of materials vastly superior to the standard Guild uniforms Max had seen.
Royman Mardeel, Max's weeb-brain supplied. The Guild Head. The corrupt 'Pig' who loves money more than his own dignity, and looks down on everyone who isn't a God.
"You cannot go down there right now," Royman gasped, coming to a halt and dabbing his sweating forehead with a silk handkerchief. He looked distressed but firm. "Lord Ouranos is in deep prayer. He is absolutely not available to meet anyone!"
Freya's head tilted slightly, her eyes glinting dangerously from the shadow of her hood. Her anger flared. The temperature in the corridor dropped, and a crushing, oppressive weight pressed down on the air. She hadn't come here for a picnic; she had an incredibly delicate matter of state to discuss, and she would not be denied by an overfed bureaucrat.
She opened her mouth to put the arrogant elf in his place.
"Really?"
Max spoke first, stepping slightly in front of Freya. His voice was dripping in a sickly sweet, incredibly condescending tone.
He leveled a mocking smirk at the Head of the Guild. "I'm quite sure that door didn't exist when we first arrived... and now, funny enough, it's standing wide open. Seems like someone is expecting us, don't you think?"
Royman's face flushed a furious red. The indignity of it — a mere human, taking a dig at the Guild Head in front of a Goddess — was almost more than his considerable pride could bear.
Then he actually looked at Max's face. The blue hair. The aristocratic features. The lack of head gear.
His outrage recalculated into something considerably more mercantile.
Whatever he had been about to say, Ouranos's voice made the decision for him.
It was deep, ancient, and echoed with absolute authority.
"You may enter, Freya."
That made Royman pause, his mouth snapping shut. The command was absolute. Knowing he was no longer needed—and that standing in the way of Ouranos was career suicide.
He bowed stiffly and stepped aside.
But before they left, Royman took one long, calculating look at Max as they passed him. Then they were gone, moving toward the stairs, and he was left standing alone in the corridor with nothing but the echo of Ouranos's voice and the slow, quiet certainty that he would have what he wanted eventually.
As Freya and Max made their way down the spiraling stone stairs, the air grew incredibly thick. Max could feel a suffocating, almost physical 'aura' permeating upward from the depths of the basement.
He's suppressing his power, holding the Dungeon back, and he STILL feels this heavy, Max marveled, shivering slightly in anticipation rather than fear. If this is what Ouranos gives off in a sealed state, what would his true, unleashed presence feel like?
The thought thrilled him. He wondered if his own eventual power, or perhaps the power of someone like Sirzechs back in his original world, would exude this kind of absolute, localized gravity.
They reached the bottom of the stairs, stepping into a massive, shadowy subterranean chamber. At the far end, sitting upon a towering stone throne surrounded by torches, was the oldest God in Orario.
His reverie was disturbed by Freya's voice, dropping her hood to reveal her face.
"Ouranos," she said, offering a slight inclination of her head by way of greeting. "It has been a while."
Ouranos slowly opened his eyes. The heavy pressure in the room shifted as he nodded in acknowledgment. Then, his ancient gaze slid past the Goddess of Beauty and landed directly on the blue-haired boy. It wasn't a cursory glance; it felt like a physical weight trying to look through Max's Falna and into his very soul.
"What is your purpose here, Freya?" Ouranos rumbled.
Freya stepped forward, the protective, calculating Queen taking center stage.
"I am here to establish an understanding, Ouranos," Freya stated clearly, her voice echoing in the sacred chamber.
"Max is... profoundly unique. His soul, his magic, his presence—they defy the conventional logic of Gekai. Soon, the other deities will notice. They will try to read him, fail, and initiate witch hunts simply because they cannot comprehend him."
She raised her chin, her divine aura flaring to meet the heavy pressure of the room.
"I want Guild assurance regarding his nature. He is mine, and I will not have him dragged before the divine council on accusations of heresy."
--> Devil in a Dungeon <--
AN:
Honestly this chapter went away from me. I thought of writing it like the previous ones, with Max and Freya's Povs back and forth, but the analyses wasn't segmented in this one as it is simultaneous, I felt that would be redundant and the pantheon scene in the end was the nail in the coffin, which made me to switch to General 3rd Pov.
Anyway, we get to meet Royman officially and see Ouranos again, in his official capacity now. Do you think Ouranos would agree to Freya's bargain? Canon has set a poor precedent imo, making Ouranos uncaring about anything but keeping the dungeon at bay. Which I feel is sad for a God who was overseeing Orario for a millenia and he deserved more character than that.
But yeah, do share your thoughts on what would he do now with Freya in front of him along with Max to boot...
If you'd like to read 8 chapters ahead(around 40k words), support my work, or commission a story idea, visit p.a.t.r.e.o.n.c.o.m/b3smash.
Please note that the chapters are early access only, they will be eventually released here as well.
Next update will be on Tuesday.
Ben, Out.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.