Waking up to Hestia snuggled up against me, completely nude, was a whole new experience for me, I have to admit.
Sure, I've dated a few girls and slept with a lot more than that, and waking up in bed with one isn't anything new.
But it's completely different with Hestia.
For one, attractiveness-wise, she's on a whole other level from normal girls back home. Granted, girls on average here seemed to be more attractive, but Hestia is on a higher level still.
Then again, she is a goddess.
A capital 'G' Goddess.
That was important to remind myself of. Staring at her cute, sleeping face, her breaths light and airy, tickling my collarbone from where her face is pressed against my chest, it was hard to believe she was one.
Hestia was an eternal being and within her small body, lay the power to decimate this entire world if she so desired. The Hestia in my arms is but the barest hints of her true form.
Even with my Typhon skill and even if I rose up and became more powerful than the One Eyed Black Dragon, I would still be but an ant to Hestia.
It was a kind of chilling thought that the girl in my arms could snuff me out of existence with a thought if she wasn't actively suppressing her Arcanum.
Yet despite those thoughts, I couldn't help the pride that burned in my chest. Even among the divine, Hestia wasn't average, she wasn't some low-ranking goddess.
Yet despite that, it was I who had claimed her purity, taken her maidenhood for myself, and not some god.
Hestia is my goddess.
And she certainly had a heavenly body I mused, unable to stop myself from relishing in the feeling of her large, soft breasts squishing against my torso and remembering how it felt to sink my hands into them last night.
It was a testament to her that I came at all last night. I'm not a fan of sleeping with virgins, sure they were generally nice and tight, but they most often didn't know how to move themselves, were pretty much dead fish in bed and weren't capable of making me finish at all, it took a lot to make me cum, especially with girls who didn't know how to clench nicely.
The fact that I actually managed to blow my load properly was a really nice surprise and made it a good time all around.
And things will only get better from here on out, now that she wasn't a virgin. The more used to my cock Hestia got, the better I could pound her to my liking.
I ignored the pulse of lust that ran up my spine as I imagined taking her from behind, railing into her, making those full perky ass cheeks of hers jiggle and clap while pulling on her twin tails while she squealed my name.
It would have to wait till later.
Because I need to get up. I'll be meeting Lili outside the Tower of Babel soon and we'll be going on our first trip together into the dungeon.
But before that, I've got a few things I need to take care of. Like, heading to the guild and selling off the crystal armour pieces I made before going to sleep and then getting my hands on a few magic stones I'd decided on last night.
Carefully, I slipped out of Hestia's grasp and slowly stood up from the bed. The goddess groaned, hands reaching for my apparent warmth instinctively, but finding nothing.
The ability to change my temperature to my liking made me quite the lovely hug pillow apparently.
Totally nude, I stretched out my arms and legs before pausing to admire myself, specifically, my abs.
Now, I've always been pretty fit. I was into sports since I was a toddler and have been practicing kickboxing since before I was ten. So my abs had already been visible, maybe not glaring, but they were pretty nice to look at and I was proud of them.
…But now? They're heavily defined, looking as if they were carved from marble. They looked hard enough for a normal person to break their wrist on if they tried punching me while I tensed.
'Evolution towards pinnacle body, huh?' I mused. Typhon is absolutely bullshit. Not only was it making me overpowered, but it basically made sure I'd have a body that was the envy of lesser males around the world.
And even then, it wasn't as simple as just having a good-looking body. My base body, according to Hestia is continuously evolving the stronger I get and the more abilities I gain.
That sounded cool and all on the surface, until one paid attention and realised what it truly meant. The Falna enhanced what was already there.
For example, take Bell Cranel and myself. If compared side by side with the exact same stats and abilities, it would seem that it would be dead even when fighting ability and experience aren't taken into account.
But no, that was false. The stronger a base the falna had to work with, the stronger the holder of it was. It was why races like dwarves, elves, amazons, and such were wanted more than humans, because at the very base, they had physical or magical abilities that surpassed humans and as such, would be superior to your typical human with the exact same stats.
Going by a numerical example, say I was rated as a two, and the falna gave say a multiplication of five, that would mean my rating with a base falna would be ten. But, the evolving body aspect of Typhon was making it so that my base value was increasing as well, and it made a world of difference. For example, let's say I'm rated a ten now at body base, and the falna gave the same boost on application, five, that would make my base rating as soon as I gained the falna before applying my stats, fifty, five times greater.
…And I'm actually fairly sure that my base body is quite a bit more than five times stronger than what I started with.
Especially since according to Hestia, they were innate to me now and even if I lost the falna, I'd still have access to those abilities.
So yes, Typhon is a total game changer.
And I'm fairy certain, at least physical ability wise, I'm at least as strong, if not stronger than Bell was when he fought the minotaur and levelled up.
"Uh…" I groaned, palming my forehead.
I should be hyped, I should be gleeful.
…Well I am, but at the same time, I can't help but feel…not unworthy, but a bit unsatisfied.
It doesn't really feel fair that I have such a bullshit ability and few others do, like I need it to keep up or surpass them. Only Bell and that Zald guy ever had skills as bullshit as mine.
And I'm kind of annoyed that such a luck of the draw thing is the only reason I'm as successful as I am right now, and will make sure I stand at the top.
"Mmmm…Caelan?" a sleepy voice mumbled behind me.
I looked over my shoulder to see Hestia sleepily rubbing her eyes before yawning, "Are you heading out already?" she asked, pushing herself up a bit, uncaring of her nude body being utterly displayed to my eyes.
"Yeah, in a minute was just thinking a bit before I get ready," I replied, forcing a smile on my face.
"What's wrong?" Hestia asked, seeing straight through me.
The intuition of a goddess is a scary thing, huh?
I shrugged and sat down with a sigh, "Nothing important," I shrugged looking away and down to the pile of crystal equipment on the floor, "Just wondering if I actually deserve this skill of mine or not, it's kind of not fair to others, right?"
To be honest, at the core, I don't really care if it's fair to others or not. The issue I really have is whether I actually have what it takes to surpass the power the real monsters of this city have without such a cheat.
"Is that all?" Hestia voiced from behind me and there was clear amusement in her voice, a second later her arms wrapped around my neck from behind and I felt her large, warm breasts press against my back, "Don't think for a moment you don't deserve it. Skills can be earned through a variety of ways, but one like Typhon isn't so simple. It's an innate trait born from your very soul. It's completely natural, and if you didn't deserve it, then neither would elves deserve their innate talent with magic, or any other person that has some kind of talent."
"So it's not just luck I got it?" I asked reflexively.
And hated that I was needy enough to do so. Totally not manly.
"Nope," Hestia assured me instantly and I could feel her smile against my shoulder as she pressed her face against my back, "Typhon isn't something you were given or stumbled across. It's a reflection of your soul and who you are. So you don't need to be ashamed of having it, or think less of your efforts for it."
===================================
By the time I left the church behind, a near skip in my step, but not quite because skipping isn't manly and a grin on my face, the sun had already risen pretty high in the sky.
Which meant I was running a little bit late.
Thankfully, I have a nice and handy dandy new speed enhancement ability thanks to my good friend the Jack Bird.
Whirlwind Sprint it was called on my falna.
And boy did it fit.
Wind swirled around my feet and suddenly I was moving nearly twice as fast as I was able to before.
It was amazing for moving in straight lines, but made it a bit rough on turns and I gave some unlucky morning workers a bit of a fright when I almost trampled them.
I'll definitely need a bit more practice with it.
Honestly, I need to take some time to train with all my abilities. I know how to use them thanks to the memories and instincts of monsters I inherited, but my body is a lot different from theirs and I fight a lot differently from them as well.
Either way, thanks to it, I made good time on making it to the Pantheon guild building where I promptly traded in my crystal equipment.
I totally ignored the odd looks and questions I got for their shape and minutes later, made my way out of the building with another big ol' bag of valis and seven magic crystals.
Four from infant dragons, one from a mermaid, one from a light quartz, and I decided to just grab one for a bad bat from the tenth floor as well since they were known for their sound wave-based abilities.
It meant I lost two hundred thousand of the three hundred thousand valis I made from the crystal equipment.
But totally worth it!
After ducking out of the way so nobody could see me, I took the time to fill my stomach with my tasty new magic crystals, before continuing on my way.
When I arrived at Babel tower, adventurers were already beginning to pour in. Hundreds of them. It was like the busy morning rush of people heading to work…which I suppose is true.
In such a huge crowd, it would be incredibly hard to find Lili with how short she was, if not for the fact that she carried a massive backpack on her back that was pretty much twice her size.
So picking her out wasn't all that hard.
I found her waiting at the large, expertly crafted fountain outside the tower.
"Yo, Lili." I greeted her with a wave as I approached.
She turned at my voice calling her name and immediately stood up from where she was sitting and rushed over to me, "Good morning Mr. Caelan." she replied, bowing deeply despite the huge bag on her back.
Artel Assist was such a good skill man, I could think of so many ways to abuse it.
"You don't need to bow or be that respectful we're partners now," I waved her off, though I doubted she'd comply with that right away, "You ready to head in?"
"I can't do that Mr. Caelan, Lili is just a leech of a supporter, not a strong and powerful adventurer like you," Lili shook her head, "And yes, I'm ready and I'll be sure to work hard to not disappoint you!"
"Well, suit yourself I guess," I shrugged, there's no use pushing it for now, "Then let's go, we're heading to the seventh floor today."
"Right!" Lili nodded in understand quickly.
I'm thinking I'll see how many of them I can mass spawn at once and use the pantry to make sure I don't get overwhelmed by numbers and force them into a choke point, just like yesterday.
================================≠==≠==
Caelan Odhar was strong.
Unfairly so in fact if Lili were to be truthful. By his own words, the boy who was a whole year younger than herself, claimed to be a rather new adventurer.
Yet he tore through monsters within the dungeon like they were made of wet paper.
Without a weapon in hand, his fists and feet lashed out like flying daggers and crushing warhammer's.
The first monster they saw in the dungeon, got his clawed gauntlet-clad fingers punched through its skull.
The second, a kobald received a stomp to the knee that crunched bone and then a pair of arms around its neck that twisted and snapped it as if it were a mere twig.
Yes, Caelan Odhar did not need a weapon.
Because his body clad in gleaming bright blue crystal-like armour, was a weapon in itself.
Lili had seen a lot of level one adventurers fight, she'd supported hundreds in fact. She was well aware of their strength and capabilities.
Caelan Odhar did not at all fight like a level one.
He was too fast, too strong, too skilled. And wholly too confident.
She'd seen a glimpse of that confidence when she first met him yesterday and he brutally killed Mr. Ged, though the man definitely invited his own death, he wasn't weak, he was in the upper middle tier of level one adventurers.
Yet he was killed within mere moments by a self-proclaimed newbie.
And that same self-proclaimed newbie treated their way down the dungeon floors towards the seventh floor, as if it were a walk in the park.
Most Lili had supported took over an hour to reach their destination. While following Caelan though…they had reached the fifth floor in under ten minutes.
In fact, even with him killing monsters as they spawned and attacked them, it was Lili who was having trouble keeping up.
He killed the monsters so swiftly that he was ready to go again before she had even extracted a single magic stone from the corpses left over.
It was on the next floor that she truly learned how far apart they stood in the world.
When they stepped down, it was to find over eight war shadows waiting for them. The dungeon it seemed had been preparing for them.
Lili froze on the steps.
War shadows were troublesome in that they could only be killed by magic or by striking the magic stones hidden behind their gleaming red eyes.
And they were strong.
Fighting them, for the vast majority of level ones was an utter waste of time that only invited strong chances of death.
Before she could say anything to Caelan though, he simply reached up and slid the front part of his helmet up revealing his face as he took in a deep breath.
And then he exhaled with a roaring shout.
And a great gust of flame burst into existence from his mouth, washing over the war shadows as they rushed him and roasting them alive in all the time it took to blink.
It was over in moments, the dark monsters falling to the intense heat and their life burned out.
"Alright Lili, let's grab these guys' stones and continue on," he said, turning to face her with a boyish grin.
That did not at all suit the way he'd just annihilated a large group of strong monsters as if he were a monstrous dragon from legend.
Lili nodded dumbly and proceeded to make her way over to the charred corpses and begin extracting the magic stones while her employer stood at the ready in case any more monsters spawned.
"So…you can use magic Mr. Caelan?" Lili asked demurely, fishing for information.
If he was a new adventurer and had access to such amazing armour as he did right now and magic as well while being human, then his Familia was probably sitting on a lot of money, or maybe he was? He gave her the feel of someone who came from a rich background.
"Something like that," Caelan shrugged, a bit stupidly in her opinion, he was so confident, so arrogant he didn't seem to see the problem with revealing things to her, "It's more of due to a skill I have than actually magic, though it does use up my mind and hey, you don't need to call me Mr, it sounds weird coming from a girl older than me."
Lili grimaced, but quickly hid it, 'A skill?'
That dashed those hopes then. The only way a human could learn magic after all was luck through the Falna or a grimoire and considering how little time he'd been an adventurer by his own words, she'd been assuming a grimoire.
"I can't do that Mr. Caelan, like I said before Lili is just a useless leech after all, it's only proper I refer to you with respect," she replied.
It was easier that way, to keep from feeling sentimental at all. In the end, whatever goodwill they had for her even slightly, was always dashed in the face of money.
Caelan Odhar would just be another name added to the list of adventurers who used her and tossed her aside when they no longer needed her. Albeit, the strongest one.
"We'll work on that," he shrugged, "Anyway, you bringing up my skill does remind me that we should decide how we're going to split the loot when we finish."
Lili had to withhold a sigh. 'Here we go.' she thought, preparing herself for the inevitable.
The fact of the matter was, ten percent of an adventurer's earnings, was on the high end of things she was ever offered. Though, even those who did offer that much, tended to stiff her.
It was why she always stiffed them right back. Like on this trip alone, she'd already hidden away twenty percent of the magic stones she'd gathered to trade in herself.
"It might be a bit unusual, but how about this," Caelan grinned at her, "I'll pay you a hundred thousand vali's and you can keep all the item drops, but in return I want to keep all the magic stones if that's fine with you?"
…Eh?
As if on cue, Lili was so shocked by his words that she instinctively pulled out the magic stone of the war shadow she was harvesting, causing it to burst into smoke and leave behind a pitch black blade-like claw in its wake.
…A war shadow claw was worth three thousand valis alone.
She hardly paid it any attention though and stared gobsmacked at the armour-clad boy, "A hundred…thousand?" she repeated, not quite believing her ears.
And that was without taking the monster drops into account.
That was far, far more than she'd ever made on a single dungeon dive as a supporter. In fact, it would usually take her multiple months just to make that amount.
He had to be lying!
…Right?
She hated how hopeful her thoughts turned. She already knew never to hope, it would just end up with her face in the mud as it always had!
"Yeah," Caelan nodded, "Actually if things go well down here today like I hope, I'll pay you daily if you become my personal supporter."
…If he wanted to hire her as his personal supporter and would pay her daily like that to keep her coming back, did that not mean he would actually pay her to ensure she would come back?
'No, don't get Lili's hopes up!' she cried inwardly.
With that kind of pay, she could be free of the Soma familia easily within a few months!
But no…it was too good to be true, right? Adventurers were liars, thieves, and evil murderers. Caelan Odhar wasn't any different.
He was just new, he'd get infected by that taint soon.
If he wasn't already.
Instead of letting her dark thoughts show on her face though, Lili gave him a bright smile she'd learned to form from years of practice.
"Okay, Lili will happily sign up for benefits like that Mr. Caelan!" she chirped in agreement.
"Bitchin'!" the self-proclaimed bad guy who killed Ged brutally pumped his fist happily into the air and grinned, "Cute supporter, getto!"
=====================================
It was not even half an hour later that Lili began to regret her decision to support Caelan Odhar.
"Mr. Caelan, there's one coming out above me!" she cried out as a huge killer ant burst out of the wall above her.
Caelan, standing a few paces beyond her held two huge killer ants by the neck. They writhed in squealed in his grasp, before going silent as a meaty crunch resounded as he smashed both of their heads together, smashing their skulls in.
He tossed them aside and whirled around, shooting forward in a blur of speed and spinning to lash out into the air with a spinning kick that caught the ant above her in the neck…and cleaved right through it, the head flying off into the distance while the force of the kick tore the whole body of the beast out of the wall.
"You alright?" he asked as he landed a moment later beside her.
"Yes…but!" Her eyes went to the opening of the pantry of the seventh floor that they were currently locked within.
To where a dozen more ants were doing their level best to climb over a hill of their brethren's corpses to get into the pantry and attack them.
…By Caelan's own decision. Multiple killer ants, their bodies mangled and barely clinging to life hung from above the entrance. He had beaten them down and left them there, barely alive so they could release their pheromones to attract more killer ants.
"Got it!" he turned, his helmet already slid up to reveal his face as he took in a deep breath and then releasing a roar quite similar to an Infant Dragon she'd once seen and unleashing a wave of flame from his mouth that washed over the killer ants trying to get into the pantry and roasting them alive just like the fellows they were trying to climb over.
'Mr. Caelan is crazy!' Lili thought, mind whirling. She had not at all expected something like this when she agreed to support him!
Killer ants were known as rookie killers for a reason. Just a dozen of them were enough to take down someone like Mr. Ged who wasn't a weak level one at all!
Yet even as they appeared in the dozens, Caelan tore through them like they were mere goblins.
That is to say, he treated them like he treated the goblins from the first floor. Like wet paper just made to be torn apart.
If this was the kind of thing he got up to in the dungeon, then it was no wonder he'd grown so quickly, he must have been raking in excelia by the bucket load and it was no wonder he seemed to so casually say he would pay her a hundred thousand valis a day!
They'd been on this floor for less than half an hour and yet she'd already lost count of how many killer ants he'd killed, but it was well over fifty! And their magic stones alone cost a thousand two hundred valis!
"Mr. Caelan, are you alright?" she found herself asking. There was no way he could keep this up for long, right?
In reply, the younger boy just grinned at her and flashed her a clawed gauntlet-clad thumbs up, "With mind potions, I can do this all day Lili, no need to worry!" he assured her, "I'm more worried about you, are you sure you'll be fine?"
…No in fact she was not.
But of course said otherwise, "I'll be fine you're the one doing all the fighting." she replied.
In contrast, her job was simple. All she had to do was remove and collect magic stones and items from the killer ant corpses, and whatever else turned up.
She didn't even need to really drag the corpses out of the way either because…
Caelan grinned at her answer, before making his way over to the huge pile of killer ant corpses piled up at the entrance of the pantry, many a goblin, needle rabbit and such mixed in….and promptly picked them up by the doubles, one in each hand and threw them back towards her.
In just moments, a huge pile of dead monsters formed next to her as he continued tossing them until the entrance was bare.
And he stood at the ready, waiting for more to come. Yes, in comparison her job was much simpler, just looting the corpses and letting him know of any other monsters that were spawning within the pantry itself.
"Let's try for seven hours!" he called back to her, "I did six yesterday, but with you here taking care of the magic stones and the like, I figure I can go longer!"
'What a monster.' Lili couldn't help but stare at his broad back in a combination of horror…and awe.
She didn't think even Zanis or Chandra, the only level twos in the Soma Familia could slaughter the killer ants as fast, systematically…and easily as Caelan Odhar did.
…Was he really only a level one?