[Chapter Size: 2268 Words.]
Lucius POV
Abandoned Church.
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...
The next morning, the Hestia family, who would wake up in a typical manner like any other day, found an unusual situation. A disgruntled scream echoed throughout the old church, awakening a goddess and a young man on the sofa, startling them with the repetitive cry.
"EHHH?!!" Shouted an outraged voice this morning.
"Lucius-kun?"
"Mr. Lucius?"
Two more voices were heard in a questioning and frightened manner.
"WHO GAVE ME THESE NICKNAMES??!!" The first voice spoke again angrily.
"Nicknames, Mr. Lucius? You're still a level 01 adventurer to have a nickname..." Said a confused childlike voice.
"It's not that, Bell, how can I explain this... AHHHH! Forget what I said..." The once indignant voice now sounded melancholic.
"Why do I only have strange nicknames? Where are my incredible, majestic nicknames and sweet melodies to the ears?" He said quietly while holding back tears.
Hestia and Bell, unknowingly ignoring the slight depression in a corner of the church, went to prepare the first meal of the day. Even as the day began to seem normal, while three people ate eggs with coffee and bread, there was someone grumbling irritably at the table. Bell and Hestia looked puzzled at the man who fluctuated between cursing and lamenting all the time.
"I'll kill the damn person who did this!" Lucius was still indignant at the screen in front of him, unable even to eat his breakfast, cursing most of the time.
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• Nicknames: Loser/Useless Family Trash/Dungeon Beggar/Milf Slayer(New)/Bastard Exploiting Beautiful and Innocent Goddesses(New)/ Playboy (New) Family Hephaestus's Enemy (New)
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Seeing the three new nicknames, he couldn't help but think, 'Milf Slayer or Milf Killer.' Wasn't this nickname something I thought of yesterday when I declared it myself? Can I give myself my own nicknames, or did someone call me that without me noticing? I can try...'
"I am the coolest man in this town!" I shouted, startling my companions once again as I looked up and raised my hand in a pose, then looked at the system, ignoring my companions.
"No change... I guess that's not how it works..." I muttered.
"Lucius, are you okay?" I heard someone ask.
"I am, I'm fine..." I said, unaware of the strange looks my companions were giving me at the moment.
"Bastard Exploiting Beautiful and Innocent Goddesses and Playboy?!" I said angrily.
"This must have been the work of some jealous fool who saw my flirtations with Demeter yesterday, although that hotel clerk looked at me strangely... I'll blow up that place! That's it!" I said, slapping my hand as if I had just solved a great puzzle.
"We also have the nickname Family Hephaestus's Enemy..." I grumbled.
"What? Enemy of Family Hephaestus? Since when?" I heard a female voice shout indignantly, but I ignored it.
"I found this one hilarious; it must be that bastard 'half-man'! He must have spread it to other blacksmiths, and now they call me that. Next time, I'll blast that creature with firebolts!" I said, convinced.
I ignored my current family. Hestia had her mouth open, and her ghostly image was escaping from her open mouth; Bell had lifeless eyes. I was so indignant that I didn't look at them and quickly ate my breakfast, leaving the church and heading to the guild while my family didn't move an inch.
"Hmmm... My goddess, maybe Mr. Lucas wasn't joking about exploiting goddesses or being an enemy of Hephaestus's family, huh..." Bell said, still with a lifeless and scared expression.
Hestia trembled when she heard that.
"I hope not, Bell. I wouldn't want to become an enemy of Hephaestus, not when I owe her so much money..."
"How much do you owe?" Bell was startled.
"Almost nothing, hehe. I only owe a few valis! Hehe" Hestia nervously laughed, not wanting to admit that she owed 200 million valis to her friend Hephaestus.
Elsewhere.
Without any idea of the conversation in my family at the church, I went straight to the guild with the intention of selling my magic stones, which improved my mood a bit with the idea of earning some money.
Entering the place, I went straight to the counter of my favorite fox.
Rose attended to me as she always did. We chatted a bit, and then I collected ten thousand valis, planning to have some fun to relieve my stress tonight while having fun with my family, and deposited a portion into my guild account.
Farewell to Rose, some time later I was in the dungeon, casting spells continuously to increase my small quest. I noticed that it was getting easier somehow, without harming my throat as much as my resistance statistic increased. The change was still small, but it was there, and with my stock of water bottles, I could last quite a while here.
"FIREBOLT!"
*Boom*
While on the seventh floor, I heard someone shouting. It wasn't me who cast that spell; I heard a familiar voice conjuring that attack, killing a group of Killer Ants that I noticed disintegrating in a nearby corridor as I walked through the tunnels. It was Bell who appeared in my field of vision along with his support, that little girl who hates adventurers, by the way.
"Nice shot, Bell..." I said, smiling, making them look at me a bit surprised as I observed from a distance so they wouldn't notice me yet.
The little Hobbit looked at me with some caution, but Bell opened a big smile when he realized it was me.
"Mr. Lucius!" Exclaimed Bell, surprised to find me on the seventh floor.
"Hello Bell, I see you're doing well!" I said, trying to sound like the mage king from Black Clover, maturely, not like those situations where he acts like a child when seeing strange spells.
"Are you alone? Would you like to join us, Mr. Lucius?" He asked excitedly, and Lili got a little nervous, but I declined in the end.
"Sorry, Bell, I'm just passing through to the ninth floor, and I'm more of a lone wolf type." I said.
"I understand... Well... Good luck then. See you tonight." Said Bell initially disappointed but became excited later with the idea of going out for dinner tonight, which we planned to celebrate. So, I saw him making his way with his support, who was quiet the whole time while giving me some looks, looks that weren't flirtatious but rather studying me to rob me at some point, I presume.
I continued my way, casting my spells on everything that appeared. I remembered that I hadn't shown my Firebolt to Bell yet because I'm a bit cautious with Freya, that goddess. Most likely, she's watching all the time like a maniac stalker. I hoped she didn't know that I could use Firebolt and hoped it wouldn't draw her attention if she saw it because it would be obvious that I stole the spell. I'm sure she didn't see me do it because I was sure an Ottar would appear in that alley before I even had a chance to read that book, or my mission would have failed.
Personally, I never liked Freya. I always thought she was a bitch who thinks she deserves everything she wants and is willing to do anything for it. She is obsessed with Bell to the point of trying to kill Hestia. She seeks some kind of destined husband, which I think must be the beta of the millennium to take on that kind of woman.
While thinking about these matters, I was still walking and killing some monsters in the last hour around this ninth floor while accumulating more points. A few minutes later, I took a break while drinking a water bottle I took from the bag.
But I stopped drinking as soon as I heard some steps coming towards me as if I were their target. A few seconds later, I saw who these sounds belonged to. There were four well-equipped adventurers coming towards me.
I didn't need much time to understand what was happening here, with them walking calmly without surprises. They were waiting for me here with malicious eyes, and they are obviously known to the little Lili, whom I saw with Bell an hour ago.
"Probably, she warned about me going to the ninth floor, which was much more isolated for murders, or they were spying on me and followed me along the way," I thought.
"Soma Family?" I said calmly, while looking at the emblem on their armor and necklaces.
Looking at the four adventurers, three humans and a beastman, I looked bored because they didn't seem like important characters that appeared in Lili's introductory episodes; they were more like common thugs.
'I believe the real confrontation between Lili and her family will happen next week. Well, it doesn't matter now...' I thought and got rid of that thought.
"Look! What do we have here, Gury?" Said one of them, who had stopped some distance away and finally broke the silence that had settled between the two groups.
"A lone adventurer! Hehe. This is the type that dies to easy monsters, and it's a waste for monsters to eat those crystals in his bag with his sword. Why don't we help him, guys?" Said another, laughing.
*Boom*
"Come on, I know that alone wouldn't kill them. So let's continue..." I said mockingly while waiting without moving an inch.
When the smoke cleared, it showed the four still alive, but there was blood and burns across their bodies, their expressions now showing frustration and hatred. They are all level 1, so it's easy to hurt them with Firebolt. They were confident being 4 against 1, but it's easy to catch them with a quick casting spell.
"Fools, where's all that arrogance now?" I taunted again; it's not every day you leave a thug who wanted to harm you speechless.
"If you had any brains, you would have analyzed me from a distance to see how I fight before ambushing me here. You would know that I could cast magic without any long chants, but your confidence in numbers blinds all of you. I could say that mistakes are part of learning, but for that, you would have to live to learn, and that's something that won't happen!" I mocked them with a villainous smile, and with my hand still pointed at them, I continued.
[- Firebolt]
[- Firebolt]
[- Firebolt]
[- Firebolt]
[- Firebolt]
[- Firebolt]
[- Firebolt]
[- Firebolt]
[- Firebolt]
They scattered in desperation as soon as they saw that I was going to attack again. Not all attacks hit, but I started hitting one by one as they tried to advance, leaving them increasingly injured with the attacks that were hitting.
"WHY WON'T HE STOP ATTACKING??" One of them shouted when he saw a companion die after suffering 5 attacks from my spell and realized that I didn't seem to decrease while I continued shouting the spell's name.
"THIS ISN'T POSSIBLE!!! HOW DOES HE HAVE SO MUCH ENERGY?? RETREAT!!" The man quickly shouted and decided to give up the attack.
With 3 still alive, they began to run in the opposite direction since they couldn't get close to me, who was attacking all the time. They were being hit and started to have casualties, while they didn't even have a chance to get close to me.
"HE'S A MONSTER!"
"WE HAVE TO RUN!"
Not stopping the attack, I saw the second of them fall dead to the ground while he was all burned. It wasn't a pretty sight, but I didn't care and continued with the continuous attacks.
[- Firebolt]
[- Firebolt]
[- Firebolt]
I knocked down one more, the beastman, stopping two of the three who tried to escape to the opposite side. With only one survivor, I accepted him a few more times, which made him see that it was useless to try to escape and seeing his ex-comrades charred like the rest of the corpses, he really gave up trying to run.
He was crying at this moment, with his whole body hurt, and the smell of burning flesh from his colleagues didn't help alleviate his despair.
"PLEASE! HAVE MERCY, MY LORD! I'LL DO ANYTHING! PLEASE, I HAVE A FAMILY!" He said with tears and scared eyes as he begged on his knees; he had given up trying to flee.
"How many adventurers should have asked this of you by now? How many said these same words, but tell me, how many of them did you spare? I answer, none, so there is no mercy with me." I said with a cold voice. The mortality rate in the dungeon is very high. The anime doesn't show this very well, but with my experience from the last two years, I know that dozens of people die here every day, and the real terror, both of monsters and adventurers themselves, is that half of the deaths are by the adventurers themselves.
Without thinking much more, I raised my hand and conjured my flame to end his life. I had cold and emotionless eyes when I saw him die without blinking. I wouldn't be merciful to this kind of people. Casting a few more firebolts on the fallen bodies so that the bodies disintegrate without anyone noticing their deaths, it was easy to make them catch fire as soon as they lost their lives. All the resistance they gained with the falna disappeared when their souls left the body.
So they burned easily while I was returning to my point collection in the system without caring that I had ended 4 lives.