[Noir: Lv. 1]
[Strength: I-127 → H-153]
[Endurance: D-598 → C-666]
[Dexterity: I-81 → H-103]
[Agility: I-75 → I-92]
[Magic: I-0]
[Magic:]
[Skills:]
『Flame of Vengeance』
『Mask of Pain』
『High-Ranking Player』
"Noir-kun, your growth improved a lot today. Did something happen in the Dungeon?"
Sitting on Noir's back, Hestia looked at his increased stats and spoke in surprise.
"I went down to the sixth floor today, cough cough!"
Pressing the light of the Falna back into Noir's back, Hestia took out a sheet of white paper and laid it over it. Then she traced a circle on the paper with her index finger, and the contents of the Falna were copied onto it.
Hestia sat down to the side and handed it to Noir.
"Even though your stats are enough for the sixth floor, Noir-kun, you've only been an adventurer for a very short time. The Dungeon is a very dangerous place, so you need to pay more attention to your safety."
Seeing that his back, already crisscrossed with scars, had gained even more, Hestia could not help feeling heartache.
"Mm, I'll be careful."
After wrapping the bandages back on, Noir took out the coat he had bought earlier.
"A gift. Thank you, Lady Hestia, for letting me join your Familia, cough cough!"
It was the first gift Hestia had ever received from family, from a Familia member, and she happily pulled it on, jumped down from the sofa, and spun around in place.
"Noir-kun, does it look good?"
"It looks very good on you, Lady Hestia."
The coat was not some especially gorgeous piece of clothing. The pure white outerwear wrapped around Hestia's delicate, shapely body, making her seem a little less provocative and a little more pure.
Noir had only bought it to keep Hestia warm, but he had not expected it to suit her so well.
After being happy about it for quite a while, Hestia also pulled out an armguard from behind her back and handed it to Noir.
"Hehe, looks like Noir-kun and I are really in sync. Here, this is my gift, to celebrate the founding of our Hestia Familia."
Noir reached out, took the armguard, and fastened it onto his arm.
"It fits perfectly."
Back when he used to watch the anime, Noir's impression of Hestia had been that she was just a somewhat provocative goddess with a thing for young boys.
But after actually living with her, he found that she was in fact a very gentle and dependable patron deity.
Unfortunately, Noir could no longer smile. Otherwise, he probably would have been smiling very happily right now.
After selling fried potato puffs for over a year, Noir knew very well what the upper limit of a day's earnings looked like.
And there was no way that armguard could have been bought for anything less than four digits of valis.
When was the last time someone cared about him like this?
Noir's pupils contracted, as if he had recalled some extremely painful memory.
But very quickly, that familiar indifference returned.
'It's not time yet.'
After glancing at Hestia, who was still fiddling happily with the coat, Noir left the church and began practicing sword swings at the entrance.
Growing stronger was not something that happened overnight. No matter how fast his stats rose now, he was still only a giant infant with nothing but brute force.
Only by mastering his own power could he truly be called strong.
What Noir lacked the most right now was habit.
The habit of fighting, the habit of gripping a sword, the habit of slashing and striking.
In the Dungeon, he could only attack a handful of times a day at most, only swing his sword a few times in actual battle.
But if he spent two hours a day practicing sword swings, he could perform several thousand, even tens of thousands of swings.
...
The next morning, before the sky had fully brightened, Noir woke up on the sofa.
After dressing himself, putting on the armguard, and taking up his weapon, he prepared to head back to the sixth floor of the Dungeon and continue exploring that "goblin nest."
However, before he had gone very far, three familiar figures appeared around the corner of a nearby street.
"Well, well, if it isn't an adventurer from our 'Soma' Familia."
As Noir looked at the beastman walking toward him, the despair from a week ago, when he had been deceived and watched his last shred of hope shatter, felt as vivid as ever.
The beastman and his two lackeys moved into position, surrounding Noir in a triangle.
"What do you want?"
Noir's cold voice rang out.
The beastman stepped forward warmly and threw an arm over Noir's shoulder.
"Aren't we 'companions'? I heard you made quite a bit yesterday. So how about it, want to party up with your brothers today? We can help lighten the load for you."
As he spoke, his hand came to rest on his weapon, while the two behind him sneered at Noir.
The beastman's name was Zagg. He had been an adventurer for several years already. As a member of the infamous Soma Familia, he often intercepted adventurers from small Familias and extorted them.
As Noir looked at Zagg's face, stretched into a false smile, a streak of blood-red flashed deep within his eyes.
"Sure."
Seeing Noir agree with that blank expression on his face made Zagg feel unbelievably good.
He liked this kind of look the most, the kind where someone clearly hated it but still had to obey.
And even when he occasionally ran into someone who resisted, it did not matter. After a beating, they always came around.
Thus, Zagg kept his arm around Noir all the way into the Dungeon.
Even though people along the way kept looking at him like he was trash, Zagg did not care in the slightest.
Only valis mattered. As long as he got the money, he could drink divine wine.
At the thought of drinking his fill tonight, Zagg could not help swallowing.
Very quickly, the four of them entered the Dungeon.
When they reached a deserted corner, Zagg shoved Noir hard, drew his weapon, pressed it against Noir's neck, and pinned him against the Dungeon's cold wall.
"Trash. Tell me, how did a sick old wreck like you make twenty thousand valis?"
Zagg pressed his face close and snarled viciously. As he spoke, he deliberately nudged the blade against Noir's neck, drawing a thin line of blood.
Now that they were in the Dungeon, there was no need to keep pretending.
"I found an unexplored region where lots of weak monsters appear, cough cough!"
Looking into Zagg's fierce eyes, Noir felt that if he pretended to beg for mercy right now, the lie might sound more convincing.
Unfortunately, after trying, Noir discovered that he still could not control his expressions, so he gave up on the idea.
The Dungeon was a place where danger and opportunity coexisted.
The deeper one went, the more dangerous the monsters became, but at the same time, the rewards grew greater as well.
Because of that, the Guild in Babel Tower divided the Dungeon into the Upper Floors, Middle Floors, Lower Floors, and Deep Floors.
One of Orario's strongest Familias, the Loki Familia, could bring back an eight-digit haul of valis or more every time they made an expedition to the Deep Floors.
But the Deep Floors were filled with all kinds of extremely dangerous monsters rated Level 4 by the Guild.
Not to mention ordinary people, even most top-tier Familias could not conduct expeditions there.
And the majority of Orario's adventurers were ordinary ones.
Nearly eighty percent of all adventurers in Orario were Level 1, which was why adventurers of Level 2 and above were called high-class adventurers.
And of those high-class adventurers, over eighty percent belonged to the top Familias.
So while the Dungeon was enormous, and the deeper levels expanded even more, the reality was that over half of Orario's adventurers were concentrated on the upper twelve floors.
That, in turn, meant that even with the Dungeon's seemingly infinite resources, supply could never keep up with demand.
So discovering an unexplored region on the Upper Floors, one with weak monsters, large numbers of them, and no one else around, was practically the same as discovering a treasure trove.
"Hahaha, who knew a sick old wreck like you would have such good luck?" Struck by such overwhelming delight that he was almost beside himself, Zagg turned and said excitedly to his lackeys, "Looks like this is going to fall right into our laps, boys."
"Sickly bastard, you're definitely willing to lead your brothers there, right?"
Although Zagg said it with a smile, the threat in his words could not have been more obvious.
"..."
Even now, not one of them was suspicious?
What kind of world had so many convenient coincidences? What if he was lying?
Noir genuinely could not understand why they had accepted his story so easily.
And so, under the watch of the three men, he led them toward the "Goblin Nest."
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