As the morning sun climbed higher, casting long, golden shadows across the stone-paved streets of West Main.
Inside the "Hostess of Fertility," the air was filled with frantic energy, and the rhythmic shuck-shuck sound of mops against floorboards.
Time usually had a way of slipping through one's fingers in the city of adventurers.
Today, the staff was working with a mechanical, almost desperate efficiency.
The reason was simple: Mia Grand.
The matron of the establishment had delivered a scolding earlier that morning...a verbal lashing that signified, she wasn't in a good mood.
Consequently, the girls had finished their chores nearly two hours ahead of schedule.
By half-past nine, the pub was spotless, the tables gleaming under the soft light of the sun, and the pantry stocked for the noon rush.
The Hostess of Fertility operated on a peculiar, yet logical, schedule.
From noon until the early evening, it was a sanctuary for the common folk...traveling merchants, craftsmen, and the civilian families who lived within the labyrinthine city.
But as the sun dipped below the horizon, the atmosphere shifted.
The commoners retreated, and the adventurers descended.
In Orario, the economy was fueled by the blood and sweat of those who braved the Dungeon. Adventurers earned the most Valis, and they certainly spent it the fastest.
However, during the daylight hours, any adventurer worth their salt was deep within the earth, risking their lives for magic stones and drop items.
They emerged in the evening, physically battered and mentally drained, craving only two things: a mountain of hot food and enough booze to drown the memory of a Minotaur's roar.
This nocturnal model was a necessity for the staff.
The adventurers were lucrative, but they were also exhausting.
They stayed late, shouted loud, and often forgot their own strength.
For the waitresses, the morning was their only time to breathe, to clean away the grime of the previous night, and to prepare for the transition.
There was also the matter of safety; a drunken adventurer was a walking disaster.
A casual, intoxicated swing of an arm that might merely bruise a fellow warrior could easily prove fatal to a civilian just looking for a quiet lunch.
Thus, while the pub never officially turned adventurers away at noon, the "idle" ones were few and far between.
.........................................................…
Far from the bustling streets, within the walls of the Bahamut Familia's home…
In the vast, subterranean training grounds, a strange scene was unfolding.
Michalis, Nikolaos, and Vasileios stood near the perimeter, their ears twitching as they watched the chaos in the center of the room.
"Nyaaa-ha-ha-ha! Run, younglings! Run like your lives depend on it, because they just might!"
The manic laughter belonged to Chloe Rollo.
The cat-girl was a blur, her twin daggers sheathed as she pursued the four youngest members of the Familia: Cecil, Iselina, Schau, and Ulanda.
The expedition, while not completely successful, had been productive.
All twenty members who participated had returned alive, and in the subsequent status updates, nearly everyone had achieved a Level Up.
However, the four youngsters had found themselves in a frustrating limbo.
Their stats were agonizingly close to the threshold required for Level 2....just a few points shy of the standard required by the Bahamut Familia's rigorous internal benchmarks.
Rather than sending them back into the dungeon to cull low-level goblins, the Familia leadership had decided on a more "efficient" method: survival training against a Level 6.
"Shouldn't someone... you know, intervene?" Nikolaos asked, his voice tinged with a mix of pity and second-hand exhaustion.
He watched as Cecil tripped, scrambled up, and narrowly avoided a playful (but terrifyingly fast) swipe from Chloe's hand.
"You know how she gets when she's around the kids," Michalis replied, his gaze drifting.
He started to say more, but he caught Chloe's eyes for a split second.
The predatory glint in them made the hair on his neck stand up.
"Ugh, how scary..." Michalis whispered, leaning closer to Vasileios once the cat-girl had turned her attention back to her "prey."
"To think, this is the same quiet, robotic girl from five years ago."
Vasileios nodded solemnly.
"I know, right? After Draco-nii left, who would have thought she'd start showing her true colors like this? It's like the mask just fell off and there was...well, that underneath."
The history was well-known amongst most of the familia members.
Five years ago, during the dark, blood-soaked days of the Great War against Evilus, Chloe and her partner at the time, Luniore, had been caught attempting to kidnap Draco.
It was a fool's errand, considering the power of the Bahamut Familia, and the goddess Bahamut had been "creative" with their punishment.
No one had expected Chloe to actually enjoy the environment.
She had joined the familia willingly, at least that was what Bahamut told them, but no one believed that nonsense.
Though at first, Chloe had been a wraith…..silent, stiff, and utterly devoid of personality.
She only did as she was told, and barely responded to anyone.
It had taken the persistent, often annoying pestering of Eleni and Dimitra to crack that shell.
And over time, she had become family.
But as the boys grew, they realized that "family" meant something very specific to Chloe.
"But thinking back on it," Michalis said, a nostalgic, slightly pained look crossing his face, "wasn't that the only time a girl actually made a move on us?"
Vasileios sighed, his shoulders slumping.
"Ugh, now that you mention it, that's depressingly true."
"Sigh. And now she just looks at us like vermin," Nikolaos added.
In their youth, the three brothers…..part of a set of sextuplets…..had been the definition of "cute", at least outwardly.
It was when they were twelve and Chloe was sixteen, she had been obsessed.
Her suggestive remarks, her "accidental" invitations to bathe together, and her constant hovering had been a source of immense internal conflict for the young boys.
At the time, they were too flustered and "spineless" to do anything but blush and stammer.
Now, they were almost eighteen, and Level 6 powerhouses with maturing builds and sharpened features.
To Chloe, they had committed the ultimate sin: they had grown up.
The "Shota" appeal was gone, replaced by the mundane reality of adult men.
"Her gaze is so cold now," Michalis commented, watching her pin Schau to the ground with a grin that was far too wide.
"But... isn't that kind of sexy too? In a 'she might actually kill me' sort of way?"
"I just wish we weren't such cowards back then," Vasileios muttered.
"Maybe we wouldn't still be... well, you know. Vir—"
"Ssssh! Keep your voices down!" Nikolaos hissed, pointing toward the center of the room.
Chloe's ears had swiveled backward, 180 degrees.
She was listening.
Even while terrorizing four Level 1s, she was tuned into their frequency.
"Geh, we can't even talk in peace," Michalis grumbled.
"Why are we only surrounded by scary women? Between our sisters and the others, it's a minefield."
"Tsk. And we can't even make a move on anyone else because they either have a crush on Draco-nii or they're too terrifying to approach," Vasileios added.
Michalis hummed, tapping his chin.
"I don't know if its all of them. But, I think Iska, Maryuu, Ryana, Neze, and Asta-san are actually quite approachable. It's the wall of 'protective' girls around them that makes it impossible to get a word in."
"You might be right," Vasileios said, "but aren't they, like, way older than us?"
Michalis let out a bark of laughter that echoed off the stone walls.
"Age? Pfaff! Hahaha!"
"What's so funny?"
"Sorry, sorry," Michalis said, wiping a tear from his eye.
"It's just... think about our big brother. Draco-nii is currently involved with two goddesses. They're literally older than the concept of time. In Orario, if you start worrying about age gaps, you're going to run out of options real fast."
"Then, since you're so enlightened," Vasileios countered with a smirk, "would you be willing to date an eighty-year-old human or Pallum?"
"Of course not! That's gross," Michalis shot back.
"And it's insulting to the girls I mentioned. They're only four to eight years older than us. That's a prime age gap! I wouldn't mind dating someone eighty-plus if they were an Elf or someone other species who keeps their youth. But goddesses? No. I know my limits. I don't need that kind of pressure."
Nikolaos shifted the weight of the maul on his shoulder.
"Speaking of Draco-nii... didn't he kind of abandon us?"
The mood shifted instantly.
Michalis's face went from playful to fuming in a second.
"Aaaaah! Now that you mention it, I am so pissed!"
"Exactly," Vasileios chimed in.
"He caused that massive scene two nights ago, sets the whole Familia on fire with drama, and then just bolts? Leaving nothing but a 'weird letter'? It's cowardly, is what it is."
"Well," Nikolaos said, playing the devil's advocate, "can you blame him? The girls went absolutely feral. If I were in his shoes, I might have jumped off Babel just to find some peace." He paused, looking at Michalis.
"Anyway, are you actually okay? With the whole Clair thing?"
Michalis went quiet for a moment.
He looked up at the rocky ceiling, his expression uncharacteristically soft.
"I'm fine, bro. Honestly. I knew how that was going to end years ago. I gave up before I even started. Draco-nii just has... that pull. Maybe it's a Dragon-kin thing. They're either monsters or lady-killers, and he's both."
He flashed a sudden, mischievous smirk.
"I, on the other hand, am just an ordinary cat-boy in search of love."
"Ordinary? Look at you, calling yourself ordinary," Vasileios scoffed.
"No 'ordinary' cat-kin reaches Level 6 in eight years of adventuring. You're a freak of nature, just like the rest of us."
"Hehehe, well, that is true," Nikolaos admitted.
"None of us siblings are exactly 'standard' by Orario's metrics."
"Shisshishi... hearing you guys say such nice things, makes me feel like I could snag a goddess or two myself," Michalis joked, puffing out his chest.
"Like hell you will," Nikolaos teased.
"Not with that average face of yours."
Michalis's jaw dropped.
"Average? If my face is average, so is yours! We're sextuplets, you idiot! We have similar faces!"
"Like hell I have the same face as you," Vasileios immediately denied, stepping into the argument.
"Mine is clearly closer to Vasiliki's, and she gets ten times the attention you do."
"That logic doesn't hold up!" Michalis yelled.
"Eleni and Dimitra get just as much attention as she does, and they look like us too! It's all about the hair and the vibe!"
"No," Nikolaos said, his voice dropping into a mock-serious tone.
"I've spent a lot of time looking in the mirror, and I've come to a conclusion. Michalis, you are definitely the ugliest of us siblings."
The silence that followed lasted exactly half a second.
"WHY YOU…..!"
The lighthearted banter dissolved instantly into a chaotic physical tussle.
The three Level 6 men became a tangled mess of limbs, rolling across the stone floor in a cloud of dust.
The intensity of their "scuffle"...which involved enough force to crack the ground….brought the training session in the center of the room to a screeching halt.
Cecil, Iselina, Schau, and Ulanda stood frozen, gasping for air, their clothes soaked in sweat. They stared at the high-level brothers who were currently trying to noogie each other into submission.
"What... what are they even doing?" Cecil panted, leaning on her knees.
Ulanda wiped sweat from her brow, her expression deadpan.
"Men stuff. It's always just stupid men stuff."
A shadow fell over them.
The air grew cold, and the sound of a tail swishing through the air signaled a return to reality.
"Who said you all could stop?" Chloe's voice was like a silken razor.
"The 'vermin' over there can play all they want, but you four still have three hundred laps to go. Nya."
The younger girls groaned in unison, but as Chloe's eyes locked onto them, they found a sudden, desperate burst of energy.
They began to run again, their footsteps echoing through the hall, while behind them, the "strongest" brothers in the Familia continued to argue over who had the most 'average' nose.