"Huh?"
Sensing the killing intent radiating from the monsters, Rowan was a little confused.
He had no idea why these creatures were targeting him so aggressively.
And something was clearly wrong with the Dungeon itself.
But in the next instant, realization suddenly struck him.
The Dungeon was not targeting him specifically.
It was targeting a god.
Whenever a god dared to enter the Dungeon, it would trigger a violent reaction from the Dungeon itself.
In the original story, Hestia had once entered the Dungeon and caused it to go berserk.
And Rowan himself had once devoured a God of Death and taken his place.
Many people who looked at Rowan would instinctively regard him as a genuine God of Death.
He had not expected even the Dungeon to recognize him as a deity and immediately begin targeting him.
Uh…
Fine.
If it wanted to target him, then so be it.
Rowan turned toward Esdeath and the other two.
"Deal with all these monsters, then come find me outside."
The moment he finished speaking, he teleported away and vanished from the Dungeon.
The rampaging monsters immediately shifted their attention toward Esdeath and the others.
Looking at the swarm of monsters overflowing with hostility, Esdeath involuntarily revealed a savage smile.
This was perfect.
…
Meanwhile, after teleporting out of the Dungeon, Rowan appeared on the rooftop of a building in the Labyrinth City of Orario.
Looking down from above, he discovered that the entire city was surrounded by enormous, sturdy walls.
Many taller buildings stood around the outer districts, while the structures became progressively lower toward the city center.
At the very center stood Babel.
The city itself was divided into eight districts by major roads radiating outward in eight directions from the center, with the administrative organization known as the Guild serving as the heart of Orario.
After looking around for a moment, Rowan arrived at Northwest Main Street.
This street was also known as Adventurer Street.
The Guild Headquarters was located here, along with countless weapon shops, item shops, taverns, and other businesses essential to adventurers.
However, Rowan's destination was not here.
Instead, he headed toward North Main Street beside Northwest Main Street.
North Main Street was not as prosperous, but there were still plenty of merchants operating stalls there.
Hestia, for example, worked here.
She had once mishandled a magic-stone ignition device and blown up the stall where she worked, earning herself the nickname "The Calamity of North Main Street."
Rowan walked around for a while and quickly found Hestia selling fried potato puffs.
Anyone familiar with the story knew that Hestia had descended to the Lower World six months before the beginning of the main story.
At first, she stayed at the home of her friend Hephaestus.
However, she spent her days eating and lazing around, neither searching for Familia members nor finding a job.
Eventually, three months before the main story began, Hephaestus kicked her out.
Hestia then began working part-time and found a job selling fried potato puffs.
In the original story, the potato puffs Hestia fried received widespread praise.
Rowan was also curious about just how delicious they really were, so he came over to try them.
"Give me two fried potato puffs."
"Please wait a moment."
Hestia replied without looking up as she busily fried the potato puffs.
Before long, they were ready.
Hestia wrapped them up and handed them to Rowan.
"Here are your potato puffs—huh?"
The moment she saw Rowan, Hestia froze.
"I don't think I've ever seen you in Heaven before. Did you just descend too?"
As a goddess, Hestia immediately recognized Rowan as a God of Death.
However, she had never seen this God of Death in Heaven before.
Rowan was not surprised that Hestia could recognize his identity.
Even the Dungeon itself had regarded him as a god, much less Hestia.
As for why Hestia had never seen him before—
wasn't that obvious?
It would have been strange if she had seen him.
"I'm more of a reclusive minor god, so it's normal that you've never seen me, Hestia."
Rowan answered without changing his expression.
He had no intention of revealing that he came from another world.
Instead, he casually handed Hestia a piece of gold and accepted the fried potato puffs.
"I just descended and haven't exchanged any local currency yet. Can I pay with gold?"
"Of course!"
Hestia was both surprised and delighted. She quickly accepted the gold and examined it for a moment.
"Huh? This doesn't seem like gold from Heaven."
"Mm. That's right. It's just ordinary gold."
Rowan's eyes flickered.
From Hestia's remark, he could more or less conclude that gold from Heaven was somehow different from ordinary mortal gold.
As for exactly how it differed, Rowan had no idea.
After all, he was not actually a god from Heaven, so he gave a deliberately vague answer.
Fortunately, Hestia did not dwell on the matter.
Instead, she put the gold away.
"This amount of gold could buy a lot of potato puffs, and I don't have enough change."
"How about this? I'll cover your potato puffs for the next year. Is that okay?"
Looking at her sparkling eyes, which carried a faint hint of pleading, Rowan picked up a potato puff and took a bite.
His eyes immediately lit up.
As expected of the Goddess of the Hearth.
Her fried potato puffs were genuinely on another level.
"Sure."
Rowan agreed without hesitation.
"Your potato puffs are crispy on the outside and soft and chewy inside. They're delicious, so I accept your proposal."
Hestia immediately raised her chin proudly.
"I'm the Goddess of the Hearth! Something as simple as frying potato puffs could never be difficult for me."
"Oh, right. You just descended, so you probably haven't found anywhere to stay yet, have you?"
"You can stay at my place for one night if you want."
She felt that since she had accepted his gold, helping a newly descended junior god find somewhere to sleep for one night was the sort of thing a senior should naturally do.
"No need."
Rowan waved his hand.
If he remembered correctly, after being kicked out by Hephaestus, Hestia currently lived inside an abandoned church.
Fifteen days before the beginning of the main story, she would personally invite the protagonist, Bell, to join her Familia.
Judging by the fact that she was currently willing to let Rowan stay with her, Bell probably had not joined the Hestia Familia yet.
Otherwise, Hestia would never invite another man over and disturb her precious private time with Bell.
Therefore, Rowan decisively refused.
"I may have just descended, but I have money. I can simply stay at an inn."
"Huh?"
Hestia could not understand.
Why had she descended to the Lower World so poor that it was practically legendary, while this guy had arrived with money?
Wasn't the difference a little too ridiculous?
If Rowan had brought heavenly gold down with him, Hestia could have understood.
But the gold he had used to pay was clearly ordinary mortal gold.
She simply could not figure out where he had gotten it.
Rowan had no intention of explaining.
After chatting with Hestia for a little while, he took his fried potato puffs and left.
Mainly because Hestia still had work to do, and he felt bad distracting her for too long.
Besides, Rowan wanted to explore this otherworldly city and see just how prosperous the famous Labyrinth City truly was.
After saying goodbye to Hestia, Rowan bought several other snacks along North Main Street and wandered around while eating.
Although Rowan had already visited several different worlds, most of those worlds were still overwhelmingly dominated by humans.
Fairy Tail might have been a genuine sword-and-magic fantasy world, but the variety of intelligent races there was pitifully small.
There were humans—
and dragons.
And most of the dragons had already been slaughtered by Acnologia.
So the race Rowan encountered most often was still human.
The world of Akame ga Kill! was the same.
Humans overwhelmingly dominated civilization, while Danger Beasts generally lived deep within mountains and wilderness.
That world did not even possess magic.
If it were not obviously different from Earth, it might barely have qualified as another world at all.
But the world of DanMachi was completely different.
This was a truly orthodox fantasy world.
There were humans.
Magic.
Adventurers.
Gods.
More importantly, besides humans, this world also contained dwarves, Pallums, elves, beast people, and many other races.
All kinds of races gathered together to form the Labyrinth City of Orario.
As Rowan walked along the streets and looked around, he saw groups of adventurers everywhere.
Humans and elves walked together harmoniously.
Beast people and dwarves strode side by side.
Some carried swords.
Others wore blades at their waists.
Some carried bows on their backs.
There were even quite a few mages walking through the streets with staffs in hand.
Combined with the exotic architecture surrounding him—
Rowan could not help sighing.
"Now this is what you call another world."
Before he realized it, Rowan had wandered back onto Adventurer Street.
There were even more adventurers here.
He also discovered a shop belonging to the Hephaestus Familia.
As one of Orario's most prosperous smithing Familias, their shop was astonishingly large.
Countless weapons were displayed inside.
However…
how should he put it?
These weapons actually seemed inferior to Imperial Arms.
This world literally had gods living in it, yet the weapons forged here were somehow inferior to Imperial Arms.
That was honestly a little disappointing.
Even more worthy of criticism were this world's so-called Magic Swords.
A Magic Sword was a weapon whose power did not depend on the wielder's own Level or magical ability.
Even someone who was not an adventurer could use one.
Of course, a Magic Sword did not necessarily have to be an actual sword.
It could be a katana or even an axe.
They were simply collectively called Magic Swords because the term was convenient.
At their core, Magic Swords were weapons capable of releasing magic.
That in itself was perfectly fine.
The problem was that ordinary Magic Swords in this world had a limited number of uses.
Once that limit was reached—
the weapon destroyed itself.
Of course, this was not absolutely true for every type.
There was another category known as an Unbreakable Magic Sword.
As the name suggested, these had no usage limit and would not destroy themselves.
However, unlike ordinary Magic Swords, they did not rely on energy stored within the weapon.
Instead, they consumed the wielder's own magical power.
Therefore, their strength depended entirely on the user's Magic and Level.
Put simply—
a Level 1 adventurer could not use an Unbreakable Magic Sword to unleash Level 2 destructive power.
Therefore, although Unbreakable Magic Swords were extremely rare, they were rather useless to most adventurers.
Especially low-Level adventurers.
After all, the main reason weak adventurers wanted Magic Swords was precisely because those weapons could unleash destructive power far beyond their current Level.
In a life-or-death situation, an ordinary Magic Sword that consumed none of the user's own energy while releasing power comparable to the magic of a much higher-Level mage was exactly what they needed.
As for the fact that the weapon would eventually break after enough uses?
When your life was on the line—
who cared?
~~~
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