Yuji stepped back out into the Pantheon's main hall.
The noise and light was what he was first met with, contrasting with the dark and silent chamber down below.
He spotted Finn immediately, standing near the base of one of the marble columns, Riveria and Gareth next to him. All three heads turned as he approached.
Finn's expression was set as neutral as possible.
"Concluded?" Was all he asked.
"Yeah." Yuji looked down at him, "Ran a bit long."
Gareth leaned in from the side, pointing towards Riveria, "Royman looked like a man being asked how the fire started while he was still on fire."
"I was asking clarifying questions." Riveria said without any particular remorse.
Gareth didn't appear to dispute her words, but Royman was notably absent.
Finn settled his hands at his side, many thoughts streaming through his head but he maintained his composure. "If you're ready, the city is waiting."
Yuji looked back at the hall for a moment. He thought about the chamber down below and towards the old God that kept the Dungeon in place for a thousand years.
Putting his hands in his pockets, he turned back to the three, "Yeah, let's go."
--------------------
Stepping out of the Pantheon the four were met with the full daylight and noise of the Northwest Main street picking up around them.
The city itself seemed a sharp contrast compared to the subdued nature that was the Guild building, besides the one or two Adventurers haggling over the price of their magic stones.
"Well." Finn descended the steps alongside him, hands clasped behind his back in the easy posture of someone who has gone through the same process over and over again. "Now the real work begins."
"Some would say the expedition was the work." Yuji said, looking over the crates of magic stone now being hauled inside by supporters and Guild workers.
"The expedition is half of it. The other half is everything that follows." Finn smiled, watching as Riveria and Gareth fell into step behind them. "And it never seems to get shorter, no matter how many expeditions we do."
"Such is the burden of being competent." Gareth said without any notable sympathy in his tone.
Riveria's reply was to look at him.
Gareth suddenly found something very interesting to study on the opposite side of the street.
They soon separated from each other to carry out their tasks. Riveria moving off to finalize and oversee the business conducted with the Guild and handle the final division of their proceeds. Gareth took a small group of lower ranked members toward the supply district to begin the long and miserable process of restocking everything the expedition had burned through.
Tione, who had appeared from somewhere while they were inside, fell in with Gareth and immediately began arguing with him about the supply list, not even ten paces away from Yuji and Finn.
The two stood for a moment before Finn broke the silence, "Aiz and Tiona went on ahead of us."
"To?"
"Towards the Goibnui Familia, although originally specialising in architectural work, they're also a smithing Familia. Their weapons took a beating on the deeper floors and the both of them have their equipment maintained there exclusively. Tiona would sooner disown her blade than take it anywhere else."
Yuji nodded along, noting down the name of the Familia.
"I'll be heading there as well at some point this afternoon. But for now, I promised you a tour of the city. Two birds with one stone, as you said."
"You said that."
"I paraphrased." Finn's tone was light as he joked, before he began walking. "Come on, then."
They continued onto the Northwest Main Street away from the Pantheon, heading deeper into the city rather than back toward the Twilight Manor.
Yuji walked with his hands in his pockets, hood covering his head, taking in the sights of the streets without any particular urgency. He had seen bits and pieces of Orario when they had returned from the Dungeon, but having a proper walk through it during the busy day revealed much more to him.
The street was broad enough to accommodate supply carts moving in both directions simultaneously, with foot traffic filing in the gaps around them. The buildings on either side were tightly packed but varied in their height and structure. Some buildings even featured banners of Familia's he didn't recognize, not that he would have in the first place.
"Eight main streets." Yuji said, remembering what he had been told.
"One for each direction." Finn confirmed. "Originating from Babel at the center, they extend all the way out to the walls. If you learn the eight directions, you can navigate most of the city without getting lost. The districts between them have their own character."
He gestured towards a sidestreet with the cobblestone and stonework was noticeably finer and of higher quality, along with the buildings being taller themselves.
"The northern sections tend toward the established Familias. The further south you go, the more commercial and residential it becomes. There's also the pleasure district, maintained primarily by the Ishtar Familiar but I doubt you would be interested in thay. Daedalus street, in the east, is the one exception to any rule. It follows its own logic entirely and resists any form of navigation as a matter of principle."
"Sounds like someone's ego project." Yuji couldn't help but say.
"There are suspicions that it was. Some people even call it a labyrinth in a labyrinth." Fin said with a smile. "You'd fit right in on that street, actually."
Yuji looked at him sideways. "I'm going to choose not to unpack that one."
Finn merely smiled, looking at the merchant stalls hawking their wares and food, waving them around to entice customers.
"There are some Far East imports in the eastern market. I can point you toward them later." Finn said it as though he was expecting Yuji to ask him that at some point. "It's expensive, but it exists."
Yuji turned to look at the Pallum. "And you just had that ready?"
"I noticed you checking the grain stalls on the way when we left the mansion." A small neutral smile on the Pallums face, as though he wasn't straight out saying he had been keeping an eye on Yuji. "You have very particular eyes. They don't miss much, but they linger on specific things."
Yuji looked at him for a moment before turning away.
'I feel like I should ask him what his type is, just out of principle towards Todo.'
"You going to ask me about downstairs?" Yuji was the first to broach the subject, clearly sensing Finn had been waiting for him to do so.
Finn was quiet for a moment, as though deciding to himself what was the most efficient route. "I could. But I think you'll tell me what I need to know when it matters. I would ask only this... Was it productive?"
"In a way." Yuji responded, glancing down at the Pallum next to him.
"Then that's enough for now."
The two continued on in silence before finally arriving at the Goibnui Familia's forge, occupying a corner in the Northwestern District, tucked between a potion supplier and a narrow alleyway that ran behind it.
The sounds of hammering echoed out from within the workshop, the rhythmic sound of pounding metalwork announcing to everyone on the street what sort of workshop they were. The building itself was modest from the outside, going up two stories and covered in soot from years of forge smoke. The sign above the door bore three overlapping hammers in iron relief.
A small queue of adventures had formed outside, some holding weapons wrapped in cloth, one carrying a bundled breastplate under her arm with the expression that she was not going to have an enjoyable conversation inside.
Finn surveyed the queue for a moment before speaking, "Aiz and Tiona should be inside already. We're not collecting today, just dropping off the damaged pieces and arranging the repair commissions. It will take a moment."
"I'll wait out here."
Finn nodded and joined the queue without ceremony, which showed Yuji that even with the Familia's reputation and his own, their Captain had to wait for his turn.
Yuji leaned back against the wall of the building opposite, his eyes scanning the street as both average people and Adventurers passed by left and right.
His awareness slowly spread, expanding outwards to the area around him and slightly beyond. He took notice of the city in layers, the surface noise and activity, and underneath it the quieter, sneaking signals.
After cursed energy was removed from people around the world, a sin he had to bear, he adapted his senses to be able to locate those without cursed energy in them. He could sense the weight of a person's presence as they moved, their shape as their body shifted the air around them, all of this while still able to tell the difference between people going about their business, and people who were paying attention to something specific.
There were two of the latter, across the street and thirty feet to the left, and had been there since roughly three blocks before the forge.
One of them was trying to blend in with the shadows of the building and look like they weren't there. They were reasonably good at it too.
The other wasn't even trying at all.
Yuji tracked him from the corner of his eye without turning his head.
Small. Cat ears, black hair, a single silver shoulder guard and silver leg guards from the knee down. The rest of him was barely armored at all, which told Yuji the man had long since stopped worrying about being hit. He was leaning against the opposite wall with his arms folded and his yellow eyes locked directly onto Yuji.
He had the same look that Bete had, the first time in the Dungeon. The look of someone whose instincts screamed at them about something and whose pride was negotiating with it in real time.
The difference was that Bete had been a level five, going by this world's standard of scaling. This one was something else, he could feel it.
Yuji held the same stare with the same disinterest he'd held when first locking onto the man. He slowly took out a hand from his pocket, and the man opposite of him felt goosebumps riding up his entire body, tensing but not daring to move a single muscle.
As Yuji's hand raised further and higher, the man clenched his fists, his knuckles cracking under the pressure, ready to jump into action or away at a hairs notice.
Then, Yuji yawned, using his hand to cover his mouth before he turned away, his interest completely lost.
The cat's ears twitched as he forced his body to calm down. A very small, very controlled flicker ran through the man's expression. Not out of anger, but out of a hit to his pride as he had to recount the number of dangerous beings that could oppose him and his Familia in his head.
Yuji noted the presence of the second observer, the one being careful, and made no further indication that he'd notice either of them.
After a few silent moments, he felt the cat's gaze move away.
------------------------
Allen Fromel had a penetrating gaze so intense it frightened others, and he knew it so he abused it.
He also knew when someone was returning it without blinking. He turned his back on the man across the street and walked away, keeping his pace steady and unhurried, which took more deliberate effort than he would admit to. Behind him, the second shadow fell into step a few moments later.
"Well?" The shadow asked in a quiet voice.
Allen didn't answer immediately, recounting the brief encounter he had with the man he was assigned to observe and obtain more information of. He thought back to the way the man carried himself, leaning back as if nothing in the world mattered or could bother him. The way his gaze found and held him at exactly the right moment.
He thought back to the cut Ottar was still carrying, diagonal across his chest, dealt through a window from three hundred meters of distance. From a man who had barely given them more than a few seconds of his time.
"He knows we're here."
The shadow said nothing.
"He knew before we got there." Allen felt his jaw tightening subconsciously, "He just didn't care."
He walked away.
"Tell Ottar." He glanced sideways at the alley walls, "Tell him not to send anyone else for now."
"And what do we tell Lady Freya?"
Allen's eyes tracked forward, an impassive shadow masking his face.
"Tell her she found something interesting... but dangerous."
---------------
Authors Notes:
I had to stall the progress of the story a bit more to let some of Freya Familia's schemes work in the background, to set up for later on in the story. Remember, this is technically all this setup, but I have hope the payout will be worth it with how I'm building things up, as slow and tedious as some of you may find.