Within the hall, in the shadows behind that thick black Roman column.
Rei, Fei, and Rania—the spider-woman whose lower body bore enormous arthropod limbs—stood there quietly.
Rei watched this scene.
As a Xenos who had once been cast aside by the world, able only to eke out a meager existence in the gloomy corners of the Dungeon, she felt a particular empathy for that sensation of suddenly being grasped by a pair of warm, large hands within the depths of despair.
"Lord Haimer... truly is a very gentle deity."
Fei lowered her voice, muttering softly.
Rania said nothing, only nodding silently, her eyes fixed on the direction of the sofa.
Then. From the direction of the second-floor staircase came a patter of footsteps. "Tap-tap-tap."
Onigawara Rin, Tendou Kisara, Inaba Tsukuyo, the Holy Emperor, and the others were coming down the stairs.
The Holy Emperor, walking in the middle of the group, had already completely wiped away the tear-tracks at the corners of her eyes.
Though her eyes were still faintly red-rimmed, it did nothing to hinder her light, brisk steps at this moment; that heavy self-reproach which had been pressing on her heart, nearly leaving her unable to breathe, had evidently eased a great deal.
Because everyone had successfully completed their level sublimation during that recent trip to the master bedroom, steadily stepping into the realm of Lv.2, the girls' spirits were running very high just now.
Even Amou Kirukiru, usually so deadpan, had a hint of a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
"Kami-sama." Onigawara Rin walked briskly up to the sofa.
"As for going to handle the level-update procedures at the Guild—we can manage that ourselves."
Tendou Kisara followed behind, nodding repeatedly in agreement.
"That's right. Last night you spent the entire night forging in the Hephaestus Familia's workshop without so much as closing your eyes."
"Now that every one of us has Lv.2 combat strength, running an errand through the streets of Orario is more than well within our means."
"You should just stay home and rest well for the day."
Haimer sat on the sofa, his gaze sweeping over the expressions of forceful concern on these girls' faces.
The thought he'd had of accompanying them to the Guild—and incidentally checking on Royman Mardeel's efficiency—was thus dropped.
He nodded helplessly.
"Then go on as you like. Stay safe on the way, and don't be afraid if you run into trouble."
"Understood!" The girls answered in unison, their voices crisp and ringing.
Then they waved goodbye to Haimer, to Lili standing in place beside him, and to Rei and the others hiding behind the column.
"Bang."
The hall's heavy solid-wood door was pulled open, then gently shut.
The sound of the girls chattering about what titles they wanted grew distant through the door panel, finally vanishing out on the street.
And so. The door closed. The hall fell quiet once more.
Lili stood where she was, the words Onigawara Rin and Tendou Kisara had just spoken replaying over and over in her mind.
Every single one of them Lv.2?!
Lili's mouth fell slightly open, her clear, large eyes goggling round, even baring one pointed little fang—the whole of her like a petrified statue.
Seeing Lili in such a stupefied state, her jaw all but dropping to the carpet, Haimer picked up the black tea from the table and shook his head helplessly.
"Looks like I've gone and startled you, little one."
Haimer set down the teacup, his voice breaking Lili out of her petrification.
"Don't make that face. They have indeed all completed their level sublimation and reached Lv.2."
"Lili... Lili feels like the entire worldview she built up over the first half of her life is suffering a brutal, inhuman blow."
Lili came back to herself, clutching her hooded head with both hands and muttering softly, her tone full of existential doubt.
At this point, Rei too emerged from behind the shadow of the Roman column, bringing Fei and Rania with her.
A smile on her face, Rei stepped forward with light footsteps.
But when Lili's gaze fell upon the half-human, half-bird Rei and Fei, upon the spider-woman Rania moving about on the enormous arthropod limbs of her lower body, and upon the Hellhound of fearsome notoriety in the Dungeon—
Lili's pupils contracted sharply, and her body instinctively retreated two steps.
Her back bumped right into a low cabinet beside her.
After all. Monsters of the Dungeon!
The instinct carved into the very bones of surface dwellers, bought with countless bloody lessons, could not be easily erased.
Seeing Lili tensed from head to toe as though facing a great enemy,
the goodwill on the faces of Rei, Fei, and Rania instantly froze; looking somewhat awkward, they unconsciously halted, not daring to step half a pace closer.
They knew all too well what their appearances meant in the eyes of humans.
Seeing this, Haimer rose helplessly from the sofa and walked over to Lili's side in a few steps.
He reached out and gently ruffled Lili's head of chestnut-brown short hair a couple of times, soothing her suddenly taut nerves.
"Don't be afraid."
"Though they look no different from the monsters of the Dungeon, they all possess the same capacity for independent thought and reason as we do."
"They are called Xenos." Haimer stated the identity of Rei and the others plainly and directly.
Having heard Haimer's words, Lili's eyes were still fixed dead upon Rei, Rania, and Fei before her. Her whole face was filled with disbelief.
Monsters with reason? That could even think? That such beings could actually be born in the Dungeon?
Faced with this stalemate,
Rei knew that, as a veteran representative of the Xenos, she ought to take the initiative.
So Rei stepped forward again, stopping two paces away from Lili.
She bent slightly at the waist, performing a perfectly standard bow of the sort belonging to human society.
"A pleasure to meet you, Miss Lili."
Rei's voice was ethereal and pleasing to the ear.
"My name is Rei. I am a Siren." "From now on, we'll all be living under the same roof, so please look kindly on me."
With that, Rei smiled and slowly extended one of her wings, covered in brilliant golden feathers.
She held it out toward Lili.
Lili swallowed nervously, a soft "gulp" sounding in her throat.
Gazing at those golden feathers,
she drew a deep breath.
Though the aversion born of her many years of encounters in the Dungeon still lingered in her heart, she nonetheless summoned tremendous courage, gritted her teeth, and slowly extended her right hand.
Her small palm rested lightly on the edge of Rei's wing.
There was none of the dread she'd expected from touching a monster.
Instead, the feathers of Rei's wing felt exceptionally smooth and soft.
Feeling this, the heart Lili had been holding in her throat finally settled a little back into place, and her tense shoulders relaxed along with it.
With that, the atmosphere in the hall visibly eased.
Haimer sat back down on the sofa and took a light sip of his black tea.
"Since it's just the few of us left at home today."
Haimer glanced at Lili, then turned his gaze to Rei, Fei, and the others.
"Is there anything you'd like to go buy out on the street?"
"I happen to be free, so I can take you out for a stroll and help you get familiar with the surroundings while we're at it."
"And Lili, is there anything you need to pick up?"
Hearing this, Rei hurriedly fluttered her pair of golden wings and shook her head again and again.
"There's no need, Lord Haimer!"
"Last night you went to the goddess Hephaestus and were busy the whole night through; you must be exhausted now."
"You truly needn't trouble yourself any further on our account. We're perfectly content just staying here."
"That's right! That's right!"
Fei nodded vigorously beside her, the few tufts of red feathers atop her head bobbing along with the motion. She pointed toward the second-floor staircase.
"Just look at that goddess up on the second floor—she's been hollering and carrying on ever since she got back last night, ate her fill this morning and then flopped right over to sleep. All day long it's nothing but sleeping and eating; right about now she's probably off having sweet dreams again."
"As the only patron deity of this Familia, you shoulder everything yourself and keep running nonstop like this—it pains us to watch."
"You really should get some proper rest!"
Listening to Fei's blunt words—which didn't even forget to throw in a dig at Hestia—
Haimer felt a little helpless.
Indeed, from the direction of the second-floor staircase, one could faintly hear the smacking of Hestia's lips as she rolled over in her sleep—the timing flawless, as if perfectly on cue.
"I don't actually feel tired, though."
Haimer set down his teacup and leaned back into the sofa.
"Once the new base the Guild is spearheading is finished and we move in, there'll be plenty of time to rest."
With that, Haimer's gaze passed beyond the hall's enormous glass dome, looking with interest at the azure sky outside.
According to Hephaestus, the blueprints for the new base had been completely finalized at the meeting last night.
A colossal fortress capable of housing the daily life of more than three thousand people, its defensive specifications set directly against the highest city defenses of Orario.
Once that fortress was fully completed, the matter of the Familia's foothold would be comprehensively secured.
It would also be time to open the cross-dimensional portal and return to the G-404 World once more.
Those Cursed Children.
Those little ones like Aihara Enju and Hiruko Kohina—coming here, they might want to settle down.
A group of young girls carrying the Gastrea Virus Factor, possessing terrifyingly sharp combat instincts, together with these Xenos birthed by the Dungeon.
As long as they meshed together well,
this would absolutely become a terrifying force in Orario that no one could afford to ignore.
The scale of his own Familia, too, would see an exponential surge.
He just didn't know whether, once all of these matters were settled, the System's quest progress bar would meet the conditions to trigger the selection of the next new world.
Haimer leaned against the sofa, quickly sorting through his plans for the layout ahead.
Then, all of a sudden.
A pair of small hands reached over the top of the sofa's backrest.
They rested lightly on his shoulders.
Haimer tilted his head slightly.
He glanced over his shoulder.
At some point, Lili had quietly slipped around behind the sofa where he sat.
"L-Lord Haimer..."
"When Lili was little... she learned some tuina and massage techniques from an auntie she knew."
"If you don't mind, let Lili rub your shoulders to help you relax."
"Consider it... consider it repaying the kindness of you taking Lili in."
Seeing the flash of stubbornness in Lili's downcast eyes, and the way she so desperately wanted to demonstrate her own worth, anxious to do something—
this time Haimer did not refuse.
Instead, he simply leaned back against the soft cushion of the sofa, settling into a more comfortable position.
"Then I'll trouble you for it."
At Haimer's permission,
a flash of joy plainly crossed Lili's face, the corners of her mouth tilting slightly upward.
Her small hands hurriedly pressed firmly against Haimer's shoulders, her fingers exerting force as she began to knead vigorously.
Though a Pallum's strength was not great—indeed, one might even call it rather soft and feeble—
Lili's technique for finding the pressure points was astonishingly precise.
Her thumb and forefinger pressed alternately on the sore spots where shoulder met neck, the perfectly judged force dissolving the stiffness in the muscles bit by bit.
Haimer simply closed his eyes.
He let this little girl fuss away at his shoulders.
Seeing this, Rei, Fei, and the others tactfully withdrew to a sofa on one side of the hall.
They sat obediently, waiting quietly, making not a single unnecessary sound to disturb this tranquility.
Feeling the soothing pressure on his shoulders, Haimer felt at ease within. After all,
in all the time since he had descended to the Lower World,
it was a rare thing, in such a quiet afternoon, to have someone at his side fussing over his comfort, rubbing his shoulders and kneading his back.
At last, he was no longer carrying on as a lonely old bachelor.
And so.
After Haimer had closed his eyes and enjoyed it for a while,
the pressure on his shoulders gradually shifted.
Lili slowly moved her fingers upward, feeling her way to the nape of his neck.
Her movements here were gentler, carrying a hint of tentativeness.
Her fingers wove lightly through the strands of his hair, the pads pressing against his scalp.
Seeing that Haimer still kept his eyes closed, with no sign of refusal,
Lili grew a little bolder.
Applying slight force with her fingers, she began to massage his scalp in circles.
Now and then a few strands of hair brushed across the back of Lili's hand, bringing a faint, barely-there ticklishness.
Lili's breathing began to slow, for fear of disturbing Haimer.
Her small, warm, soft palms pressed against the skin of his nape, her fingertips bearing the thin calluses left by years of rough labor.
This slightly rough touch, on the contrary, made the fatigue in his head fade all the faster.
"Kami-sama... is the pressure all right?"
Lili asked softly.
"Mm, it's good."
Haimer affirmed with his eyes still closed.
Standing on the other side of the tea table, Rei's gaze kept following Lili's small hands as they nimbly wove through the black strands of hair.
Watching those ten deft fingers,
Rei slowly lowered her head.
She looked at the two enormous golden wings at her sides—beautiful though they were, they could never work as nimbly as a pair of human hands.
A trace of dejection flickered in her eyes, and she let out a soft sigh.
If only she had hands too—might she then be able to share a little of Lord Haimer's weariness like this?
A serene atmosphere drifted slowly, and rarely, through the hall.
Until—
"Knock, knock, knock."
A knocking came from beyond the mansion's tightly shut solid-wood door.
It made Lili, absorbed in her massage, pause her hands for a moment; she turned her head and looked toward the door.
Rei, Fei, and Rania.
Their gazes, too, snapped in unison toward the entryway.
Anyone who would come knocking at this high-class mansion at a time when the [Haimer Familia] was at the height of its fearsome reputation—
was clearly no hot-headed street thug coming to pick a fight.
Outside the door now, a blue-haired figure draped in a white coat and wearing black-framed glasses stood ramrod straight, waiting quietly before the door, an envelope still pinched in hand.
It was none other than the captain of the [Hermes Familia], Lv.4.
The "Perseus," Asfi Al Andromeda.
____
👻🔥Here: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Homelander: Founding the Hero Association
We have set new community milestones:
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 Bonus Chapter for all readers