On the way to the Familia's home, Noir opened the parting gift Granny May had given him before he left.
It was a sword wrapped tightly layer upon layer in strips of cloth.
Drawing the sword from its wrappings, Noir could feel the sharpness coming off the blade.
It was a fine sword.
"Noir-kun received a pretty nice gift."
"Mm."
Before long, the two of them arrived at the Hestia Familia's home, a run-down old church.
Hestia scratched her cheek awkwardly, then raised her voice and said to Noir, "Our Familia is only just getting started, but once you grow stronger, Noir-kun, we'll be able to live in a much grander place."
"It's fine. This place is enough."
Hestia might not know it, but Noir knew exactly why there was a ruined church in Orario, the city known as the center of the world.
So as far as Noir was concerned, having this as the Familia's home suited him just fine.
Without the slightest objection, he walked inside and followed Hestia down to a small room underground.
The room was tiny. The only things that could really be called furniture were the large bed in the middle, along with the cabinets and two-seater sofa placed on either side of it.
He set down his backpack, took out the things inside, and neatly arranged them where they belonged.
"Happy, Noir-kun? Tonight, you get to sleep with me, a super cute beauty!"
Hestia, who had come in after him, leapt forward and flopped onto the big bed. Rolling over, she propped her head up with one hand, lay on her side, and spoke to Noir.
"I'll just sleep on the sofa, cough cough."
"Uuu~" Staring at Noir, who kept tidying up the room without paying attention to her, Hestia suddenly ran over, hugged his head, and draped herself over his back. "Family should be closer to each other. How can we sleep separately?"
Feeling the astonishing softness pressing against the back of his head, Noir slipped his hands under Hestia's arms, lifted her over his head, and set her back down on the bed.
"We're going to register at the Guild today. I want to go into the Dungeon tomorrow."
Ignoring Hestia's constant pestering, Noir quickly cleaned up the somewhat messy room. Not only did he put away the daily necessities he had brought with him, he also straightened out Hestia's originally disorderly room as well.
After spending half a day thoroughly cleaning the tiny room, Noir brought Hestia with him to the Guild to register his identity.
Whether it was coincidence or not, Noir's advisor turned out to be Eina. Then again, maybe it was not a coincidence at all.
"Congratulations, Mr. Noir. You finally joined a Familia."
Eina smiled as she offered Noir her congratulations.
As a Guild staff member, she was very familiar with this odd man who came by every few days to apply to join a Familia.
Unfortunately, he was already not very young, and his body was terribly frail.
The most fatal thing of all was that he was ill.
With conditions even worse than those of a prum, naturally no Familia had been willing to take him in. Even Eina had tried to help and had urged Noir more than once to give up on becoming an adventurer, but all of it had been futile.
"I was actually planning to recommend Lady Hestia's Familia to you the next time you came, but I didn't expect you to have already joined. Still, now that you've become an adventurer, let's begin the lecture. I'll explain the basic things you need to watch out for in the Dungeon."
Seeing that Noir had finally gotten what he wanted, Eina was genuinely happy for him. But at the same time, she was worried that someone as frail as Noir might die in the Dungeon the very next day, which was why she had personally taken on the role of his adventurer advisor.
The lecture lasted for two full days.
Although Noir's memories already contained most of the settings and information related to the Dungeon, the constant pain wracking his body reminded him every second that this was a real world.
So Noir carefully listened through all of Eina's lectures, and as a result came to understand this world even more clearly.
"I'm heading out."
After getting dressed and taking up his weapon, Noir said a word to Hestia, who was still dreaming sweetly on the bed, then left the room.
Following West Main Street, he made his way to the center of Orario, Babel Tower.
All along the road, he encountered adventurers of every kind.
Dwarves, elves, prums, beastmen, and more.
Moving with the flow of people, Noir quickly reached the fourth floor of the Dungeon. Although judging by his stats, he had already reached the minimum standard for exploring around Floors 8 to 10, this was still his first time ever entering the Dungeon.
For someone like Noir, who had never fought before, let alone the eighth floor, even the Shadow monsters that appeared after the sixth floor, known as rookie killers, could very well kill him.
To be safe, Noir decided to spend some time exploring the fourth floor first.
The environment of the fourth floor of the Dungeon was that of an ordinary cavern. The monsters that appeared here were goblins, kobolds, and Dungeon Lizards, all of them the lowest-tier monsters that even ordinary people could deal with using weapons.
As Noir recalled the information on this floor, he soon sensed a trace of something unusual ahead.
Looking in that direction, he saw the Dungeon wall crack open, and an ugly green goblin hatch out from it.
The moment it emerged, the goblin saw Noir and immediately lunged at him.
What did battle require?
For a complete beginner who knew nothing, battle simply meant swinging the sword from the right position.
When the goblin came within about a meter of him, Noir swung his sword in the direction of the goblin's charge.
The goblin, struck in a vital spot, died instantly. Its body turned to ash, leaving behind a purple magic stone on the ground.
Noir stepped forward, picked up the magic stone, and dropped it into his pocket, but his brows furrowed.
That strike had not been ideal.
What he had actually intended was to cut off the goblin's head. He simply had not expected to hit somewhere else instead.
'Looks like actual combat is very different from what I imagined. Once I get back, I should practice more basic sword movements.'
He continued roaming around the fourth floor, and every so often a few monsters would appear.
But each time, Noir sensed them in advance.
What he encountered more often were rookie adventurers like himself, along with high-level adventurers just passing through. Whenever he met those people, Noir would nod in greeting, then decisively step aside.
After several rounds of testing, Noir figured out part of what his High-Ranking Player skill could do. By actively concentrating, he was able to sense all living beings within a ten-meter radius.
And not just monsters, either. Once, he had sensed another adventurer waiting around a corner.
This trip into the Dungeon had three purposes.
The first was to make money. Weapon maintenance, armor, medicine, all of it required money, and right now, the only thing Noir had on him was a sword, and even that had been a gift from Granny May.
The second was to learn how to fight. The best way to teach himself was through practice and by summarizing experience afterward.
The third was to test his three skills.
When he woke up the day before yesterday and learned that he had three skills, Noir had honestly been even more shocked than when he saw his Endurance jump straight to E.
He knew exactly where the skill Mask of Pain had come from. It was the most truthful reflection of the past few years he had spent in this other world, constantly enduring every kind of pain, whether physical or mental.
As for its effect, he had already experienced it firsthand.
Pain magnified to the extreme, and ridiculously abnormal Endurance growth.
As a comparison, during this time he had once let a goblin bite down on his arm, and had also taken a hit from a Dungeon Lizard.
The result was that the place bitten by the goblin felt as though it had been slashed by a blade, while the spot struck by the Dungeon Lizard felt like it had been smashed by a heavy hammer.
But the actual damage he suffered had not changed. The place hit by the lizard was only slightly red.
Only the pain caused by the damage had been dragged straight to the maximum.
Flame of Vengeance also reflected Noir's truest feelings at the moment.
Yes, Noir wanted revenge. He wanted to return the pain inflicted on him tenfold, a hundredfold.
So even during the period when he had lost his memory, his heart had constantly reminded him of one thing, become an adventurer. Because in this world, strength was everything.
This world needed the strong, and so the will of the strong was something even the gods would not ignore.
To glorify such people, the gods had even given them an especially honorable title, Seed of Heroes.
From the very first moment a monster appeared, Noir had already tried to designate it as a target of vengeance, but not once had the skill activated.
As for the last skill, High-Ranking Player, honestly, although Hestia's presence had helped restore part of Noir's memory, most of what returned was memory related to this world.
Noir knew that this skill was perhaps influenced by his previous life.
If he had the choice, he honestly would not want the first two skills, no matter how endless the benefits they brought him.
Soon, the day came to an end. As the adventurers from the lower floors returned, the upper floors practically stopped spawning monsters altogether.
When he arrived at the exchange counter, he lined up and traded in the magic stones he had collected that day to the Guild, receiving 1,300 valis.
That was more than Noir used to make in an entire day of selling fried potato puffs.
When he returned to the church home, Hestia had already come back. The moment she saw him, she threw herself at him.
"Welcome back, Noir-kun."
That night, after reporting the day's activities in the Dungeon to Hestia, he began updating his Falna.
[Noir Lv. 1]
[Strength: I-17 → I-29]
[Endurance: E-404 → E-473]
[Dexterity: I-0 → I-16]
[Agility: I-0 → I-13]
[Magic: I-0]
[Magic:]
[Skills:]
『Flame of Vengeance』
『Mask of Pain』
『High-Ranking Player』
Aside from Endurance, everything else had only grown by a little over ten points.
And this was still the rookie growth period at the very beginning. Noir had already caught a glimpse of the miserable one-digit growth awaiting him once he hit a bottleneck later on.
"Well, everyone grows up this way, so don't worry too much."
Perhaps seeing through what Noir was thinking, Hestia patted him on the shoulder and tried to comfort him.
Neither of them brought up the Flame of Vengeance skill.
Hestia did not want Noir to live immersed in an ocean of hatred.
And Noir did not want Hestia worrying that his desire for revenge would drive him to extremes and ultimately destroy him.
After adjusting his mindset, Noir picked up his longsword and went up to the church hall above to practice swinging it.
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