The half-bird Fei patted her own chest, and the few tufts of red feathers atop her head bobbed along with the motion.
She even deliberately straightened her back and loudly added a remark.
Haimer sat on the sofa.
Looking at this half-bird who was so very skilled at reading the mood, he could only shake his head helplessly.
He thought to himself that this little one had picked up the art of flattery rather quickly—though it was, to some extent, a bit unnecessary.
Still, this somewhat playful, prank-leaning atmosphere wasn't bad at all.
"Since you're awake." Haimer, looking at Hestia in her still not-quite-fully-roused state, said offhandedly.
"Then this is a good time for me to head out and take care of a few odds and ends over at the new base."
The moment Hestia heard this,
the last of her drowsiness instantly scattered without a trace.
She pursed her lips, took a few quick steps over to the front of the sofa, and planted both hands on her hips.
"All you ever know is work!" Hestia complained.
"Last night you spent the whole night over at Hephaestus's place, clanging away at the forge."
"And now it's daylight and you've barely stayed a little while before you're off running out again."
"Could it be that you find me too much of a bother around the house, so you're deliberately avoiding me?"
Haimer looked at Hestia, all puffed up and indignant.
Yet he didn't lose his temper.
He reached out and lightly tapped her smooth forehead.
"Honestly, if you were a bit more reliable and could share some of the burden for me, then I wouldn't have to worry so much."
At this tap from Haimer,
Hestia immediately, somewhat guiltily, looked away.
She muttered and grumbled a couple of times, but stopped trying to hold him back.
Rei, who was standing off to one side, heard that Haimer was preparing to go out, and took half a step forward, her golden wings folding gently.
"Lord Haimer." Rei's voice carried a trace of expectation.
"If it's not too much trouble, could I… could we go together with you?"
Having said this, Rei even glanced at Fei.
Fei immediately raised her wings, expressing her strong agreement.
"Yeah, yeah! I want to go!"
Ever since being brought up to the surface, apart from eating one meal at the tavern in the evening, they had remained the whole time inside the mansion.
For this sky bathed in sunlight, and for the cities of humans, the Xenos all harbored a craving that was almost pathological in its intensity.
The Hellhound, Helga, came crowding over as well, nudging Haimer's trouser leg with her head.
As for the one-horned rabbit Aruru, who had been perched all along on the Hellhound's back, she too blinked her ruby-like eyes and gazed up at Haimer pitifully.
Haimer looked at Rania and asked.
"Doesn't Miss Spider want to come along and have a look too?"
Rania lifted her head, and a flicker of hesitation passed across the exquisite face of this somewhat pale woman.
She glanced at the sunlight in the central courtyard.
"I… I'll pass."
Rania shook her head, her voice a little hoarse.
"The way I look… would cause you trouble."
She knew very well that this half-human, half-spider appearance of hers carried far too strong a visual impact for the humans on the surface.
"I'll just… bask in the sun for a while, there in that central courtyard."
Rania extended a slender arm and pointed toward the open-air courtyard, bright and transparent, up above the interior of the mansion. "I see."
"In that case, if Miss Spider needs anything, just ask Hestia and Lili for help."
Hearing Haimer's parting instruction,
Rania was, on the contrary, taken aback.
This attitude of being treated just like an ordinary member of the family still left her somewhat overwhelmed by the unexpected favor.
Rania nodded a little awkwardly, then turned around and, shifting her jointed limbs, crawled off in the direction of the central courtyard.
Once everything was arranged,
Haimer walked up to the front door and pushed it open. "Let's go."
Rei and Fei, plus Aruru riding the Hellhound.
The whole group followed Haimer and stepped out of this upscale mansion.
The late-morning sunlight was just right, spilling onto the white flagstone road and reflecting a faint glimmer.
The streets of the upscale residential district were, as ever, broad and immaculate.
Now and then by the roadside one could see a few gardeners trimming the flowerbeds.
As well as several lavishly decorated carriages parked at the curb, their coachmen brushing down the horses.
And a group of finely dressed dignitaries and nobles, standing at the entrance of a high-class roadside café, chatting at leisure.
And so.
When Haimer, leading this band of monsters, appeared truly and unmistakably out on the sunlit street— "Clatter!"
At the café entrance,
a noblewoman's silver-handled parasol dropped straight to the ground.
The shears in a gardener's hand snipped clean through a precious rose stem.
The brush in a coachman's hand fell beside a horse's hoof.
Everyone's gaze was nailed fast upon that group of monsters behind Haimer.
A Siren! A half-bird!
And a Hellhound, too! There was even an Almiraj rabbit sitting on the Hellhound's back!
Although they had long heard that some deity was keeping monsters within the upscale residential district,
they had assumed, after all, that the monsters were kept caged and reared.
Who could have imagined that this pack of monsters would be walking down the main street just like this, utterly without any restraints!
And not even in the slums, either—this was the upscale residential district, where every inch of land was worth its weight in gold!
"M… monsters!"
At last someone reacted, crying out a single word in terror.
This one shriek of alarm
instantly ignited the panic across the entire street.
The dignitaries and nobles screamed, hiking up their cumbersome long skirts and, with no regard for appearances, running back into their carriages or ducking into nearby shops.
"Quick, call the military police! Get the people of the Ganesha Familia here!"
"Help! The monsters have gotten out!"
The street fell into utter chaos.
Within a few minutes,
from around the street corner came a dense rush of footsteps.
The [Ganesha Familia]'s military police squad, acting on the word that had reached them, swiftly arrived on the scene.
Only, faced with the patron deity of the [Haimer Familia]—the one whom even their own patron deity Ganesha had repeatedly instructed must absolutely not be provoked, the one he was willing to pay out three hundred million Valis from his own pocket just to appease!—
the military police captain, Alexander.
On the forehead beneath his helmet, layer upon layer of fine sweat had already broken out.
How the hell was he supposed to handle this?
The military police squad captain was caught in a dilemma.
In the end,
looking into Haimer's eyes,
the squad captain swallowed hard.
He could only let out a heavy sigh, lower the spear in his hand, and, together with his men, retreat to either side of the street, clearing an exceedingly wide thoroughfare.
He even quite conscientiously turned his back, facing those nobles who had been frightened out of their wits.
"Everyone, please stay calm! Do not panic! These monsters are… under control!"
The squad captain loudly maintained order, pretending he was hard at work.
…
And just like that,
Haimer led his group, passing unobstructed through the wall of people formed by the military police.
Even now, taking in this scene, Rei and Fei still felt an immense astonishment, gazing curiously all around them.
Everything about this surface city was brimming with novelty to them.
The vividly colored shop signs, the exquisitely carved stone pillars, and the aroma of baking bread drifting through the air.
All of this was beyond anything the Dungeon could compare to.
Fei especially.
As a half-bird, the sky was her inborn home. She lifted her head.
Looking up at that vast, deep-blue firmament overhead, without a single obstruction.
A place she had yearned for countless times in her dreams, yet believed she could never touch.
Fei came to a stop and looked toward Haimer pitifully.
"Lord Haimer…"
Fei pointed at the sky, her red eyes full of pleading.
"Can I… can I go up and fly a lap?"
"Just for a little while, I promise I won't go far!"
Although Fei knew her own identity was a sensitive one, and that if she flew around recklessly in the city it would surely cause an even greater panic.
But still. The sunlight.
The white clouds. The gentle breeze. All of it was madly tempting her.
Haimer looked at Fei's beseeching expression and gave a faint nod.
"Go on." "A bird ultimately longs for freedom." "Just don't fly too high—wouldn't want the sun to dazzle your eyes and send you tumbling down."
"Thank you, Lord Haimer!"
Having received Haimer's permission,
Fei immediately, excitedly, hugged Haimer's arm.
Then her legs abruptly pushed off against the ground.
She gave a powerful sweep of that pair of broad, dark-red wings. "Whoosh—!"
A burst of violent airflow whipped up the dust on the ground.
Fei's body lifted straight off the earth and surged into mid-air. "Whoaa—!"
Fei let out a joyful peal of laughter up in the sky.
She spread her wings in the sunlight, feeling the sensation of the wind passing between her feathers.
She even turned a few somersaults in the air.
Across that face, no different from a human girl's, beamed a radiant smile.
This scene
was witnessed not only by the crowd on the street below.
It also fell into the eyes of someone who had just rushed to the scene upon hearing the news.
—The captain of the [Ganesha Familia], Lv.5.
—「Staff of the Elephant God」, Shakti Varma.
Shakti was dressed in a crisp blue military police uniform, iron gauntlets on her hands.
She had only hurried over to maintain order after receiving an urgent report from her subordinates that a disturbance had broken out in the upscale residential district.
And the result. The moment she rounded the street corner,
she saw that figure circling and dancing in flight up in the sky, laughing without cease.
As a first-class adventurer who had crossed paths with Dungeon monsters, Shakti's conception of monsters could be called deeply ingrained.
Seeing this scene, Shakti was utterly stunned, frozen on the spot.
What were monsters?
They were weapons that knew only slaughter and destruction, their heads filled with nothing but devouring adventurers alive. But now.
That half-bird up in the sky.
She was actually… laughing?
"How utterly inconceivable…"
"A monster… that can laugh?"
Shakti lifted her head, eyes wide, staring fixedly at Fei in the sky, murmuring to herself.
This completely overturned the common sense she had held for decades.
Last night, in the Babel Tower plaza, Haimer had said he controlled these monsters.
Could it be that this so-called control could even perfectly simulate emotions as well?
Shakti shook her head, driving the absurd notion out of her mind.
She strode quickly up to Haimer.
Facing this ancient god who, in the span of just a few short days, had turned all of Orario upside down,
Shakti's attitude was far, far more respectful than it had been the first time. "Lord Haimer."
Shakti lowered her head slightly and performed a standard hand-over-the-chest salute.
"Lord Ganesha has instructed that, should you have any need within the city, we of the Ganesha Familia are at your command at any time."
"You've come out with… your Familia—is there somewhere you wish to go?"
"If you don't mind, I can take charge of escorting you and clearing the way, so as not to cause any further unnecessary panic."
Shakti put it very tactfully.
But in truth her meaning was quite plain.
She was afraid that this pack of monsters walking down the street would frighten the whole city's populace into some dire state.
With her, a first-class adventurer and military police captain, following along at their side, it could at least serve to settle people's hearts a little.
Haimer looked at Shakti, nodded, and turned his head to look at Rei beside him, as well as Aruru riding on the Hellhound's back.
"Is there anywhere you particularly want to go?" Haimer asked.
Rei stood where she was, her golden wings folding gently.
She glanced at Shakti, then looked toward Haimer.
Clearly aware of the trouble her group walking down the street would bring, she had no wish to add an extra burden to this Kami-sama who sheltered them, all on account of a momentary curiosity of her own.
"Lord Haimer." Rei shook her head slightly, her tone sincere, her voice still especially pleasant to the ear.
"Please just go and finish the business you came to attend to first—there's no need to be concerned about us."
"This city is so large; we'll have all the time in the world to look around slowly later on. The matter of us can be set aside for now."
The Almiraj rabbit Aruru, sitting on the Hellhound's back, along with the Hellhound Helga, nodded along repeatedly as well, exceptionally well-behaved.
But as Rei's voice reached Shakti's ears,
Shakti, standing off to the side, went utterly rigid on the spot, as though struck by lightning.
What had she just heard?!
A monster… could actually speak! And what's more.
That attitude within the dialogue—of voluntarily yielding so as not to trouble others, the consideration and concern it expressed.
Was that truly a level something a mere monster could imitate?
In this moment, Shakti felt only a prickling numbness sweep across her scalp.
Haimer noticed Shakti's reaction, and he could understand it.
For although she was, after all, the captain of the [Ganesha Familia], as a resident of the surface, when it came to the secret of the Xenos existing in the Dungeon, within the entire [Ganesha Familia] only Ganesha himself knew of it.
Out of his far-reaching considerations, Ganesha had evidently not told Shakti the truth about the Xenos.
At this thought, Haimer paid no mind to the various wild conjectures Shakti was conjuring up.
Instead, he reached out and ruffled Aruru's head.
Then he turned to look at Shakti.
"Since Miss Shakti intends to accompany us,"
"then let's all go take a look over at the new base."
"Y-yes… I understand, Lord Haimer!"
Shakti of course knew what the new base Haimer spoke of was. She lowered her head repeatedly, masking the fluster at the bottom of her eyes, and turned to make a hand signal to those beside her.
And so.
The outer ring of Orario.
It was also the very place Haimer had opened his lion's maw to demand back then.
This had originally been a large stretch of old, derelict cityscape, abandoned from long years without repair, with broken walls and ruined fragments visible everywhere.
But today.
When Haimer, leading Rei and the others under Shakti's escort, arrived at this district,
the sight before them made even Haimer raise his eyebrows slightly. For there—
at this moment, it was extraordinarily lively.
Stone materials piled up like mountains, scaffolding everywhere, and busy artisans of every race shuttling back and forth.
Atop a raised platform in the very center of the construction site,
stood several familiar figures.
"Hey! That load-bearing pillar over there—its elevation is off! Drive it down two inches! Otherwise how is the Magic Stone circulation piping supposed to run?!"
Tsubaki, wearing work overalls, was holding a huge rolled-up blueprint in her hands and bellowing at the top of her lungs at the dwarf construction crew.
Beside her,
Hephaestus, with an eyepatch over her right eye and her arms crossed, was all seriousness—like an utterly impartial, iron-faced overseer.
And it wasn't just the two of them.
On this enormous construction site,
Haimer could even see Takemikazuchi, sleeves rolled up, drenched in sweat as he hauled heavy stone materials.
This guy really does everything himself, hands-on.
…
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? — Dungeon Encounter: Memoria Freese
Takemikazuchi — CV: Majima Tsukasa
The patron deity of the first faction to establish its stronghold in the Far East; an old acquaintance of Hestia, to whom he taught the [Dogeza]. Like Miach, he possesses the trait of naturally attracting women, and among the gods he bears the natural nickname of the gigolo / pretty-boy kept man.
____
👻🔥Walnut-chan in "P" for more!🔥👻
🔥 New history: Homelander: Founding the Hero Association
Help us unlock these community rewards:
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 Bonus Chapter for everyone