The World Spins On

Bell practically sped through the Dungeon that day, massacring his way through the Monsters of the first 3 floors without slowing down even momentarily. He was surprised about how easy it was. He had only been going to the Dungeon for a few weeks at this point, and yet here he was annihilating everything that he came across. The Kobolds had seemed faster before, their strikes quicker and had seemed to come closer to hitting him before he was able to jump out of the way, but now he could twirl and swirl around and evade every swing by whole inches where before it might have been millimetres.

He jumped up over one, lashing down with his dagger as he soared over it and severing its cranium in two, before rolling with the landing and stabbing up underneath the guard of another that came at her, withdrawing his blade immediately to use to block an incoming strike from another, before lashing out with a punch from his free hand and sending the dog headed monster flying into the wall. He annihilated another one that foolhardily tried to attack him head on, before rushing over to drive his dagger through the heart of the one he had knocked away.

Standing up, he looked around to see that there were no Kobolds left. He had killed the entire group of them. He wiped away the tiny spattering of sweat that had gathered on his brow, and set about the true busy work of being in the dungeon. Once every Monster had been slain, the Magic Crystal contained within their body had to be retrieved from the corpse. It was by handing in those crystals at the guild that Adventurers received their pay. Crystals from Monsters found deeper in the dungeon would be bigger, of higher quality and therefore considerably more valuable to the guild. Up here in the first few floors, these crystals would fetch but a pittance.

It took a few minutes to remove all of the stones and collect them in his small side pouch. Combined with the crystals from the other floors on his way down here to the 4th, this might be about 30 thousand valis. That was more than he had made on any of his previous trips into the dungeon. Maybe Ryuu had been right, and that all he needed was an incentive to work harder?

Still, this was nothing compared to Aiz Wallenstein. Loki Familia regularly launched expeditions that reached the deep floors of the dungeon, reaching floors in the 50s in their quest to find the bottom of the Dungeon. Here he was only on the 4th. How could he even compare to her?

One of his hands came up to brush against the earrings still hanging from his ears. Hestia had said that they looked good on him, and he hadn't even thought to take them off, but they didn't actually belong to him did they? They should be Aiz's. If he was to ever be worthy of standing in front of her, and giving them to her as thanks for his life being saved, he would need to get stronger. Much Stronger. And far quicker than he had until now.

His eyes turned towards the darkened passageway that lead down towards the next floor, the same floor that his fateful encounter had happened on the day before. With a deep breath, he headed down into the darkness.

He returned to the surface several hours later, the crystal pouch on his belt heavier than it had ever been before. He headed straight to the guild office, and he was handed 126,000 valis in return for the whole lot of them. It was a practical fortune for him, who had been barely scraping by on the tiny amount of money Hestia brought in and his own meagre earnings.

He was so enamoured with the little treasure he had acquired with only a single day in the dungeon that he sprinted all the way back home to the Church he shared with Hestia, the coin pouch being set down in the middle of the only table in their one room living space, and sat eagerly on the couch waiting for his Goddess to return.

It wasn't long at all before Hestia descended the stairs, bounding down them with a great smile on her face, and two brown paper bags in her hands. "Bell! I've got extra large potato puffs toda-" She cut off as her eyes fell on the bulging coin pouch on the table. "Bell, where did you get that?"

"In the Dungeon. I went down to the 5th floor again, and scoured every nook and cranny on the floor for monsters to fight. I need to get stronger, and that means I need to get proper experience fighting."

"The 5th floor? Bell that's dangerous. You've only been going into the Dungeon for a few weeks!"

"But Goddess, look at how much I made! If I earn like this every day, we might be able to afford proper food every day."

"No Bell." Hestia said, stomping her foot. "I don't care how much money you make, I won't have you going out and taking on unnecessary risk. You will stay on the first few floors until your Guild Advisor says you are good enough to descend deeper."

With Hestia's ultimatum delivered, they spent a lengthy amount of time talking further, before eating their meals. Once that was done, they came to a very important part of the day.

"Shirt off Bell. It's time to update your Status." Considering that this was a standard part of their daily routine, Bell was quick to obey, moving over to the bed and laying down on his front with his back bared to his goddess. She came up behind him and kneeled over him, before pricking her finger and dripping a single droplet of blood onto his back, letting the excellia, the record of his actions and experiences, collect within his body, enhancing him in the way only a gods blessing could.

As she read over the runs that decorated Bell's back as a record of everything he had accomplished since the two of them had contracted together, Hestia became more and more worried.

Strength: I82 -> H120

Endurance: I13 -> I42

Dexterity: I96 -> H139

Agility: H172 -> G225

Magic: I0 -> I2

His status had increased immensely, almost 150 points gained in just a single day. That was absolutely absurd. The lower your stats, the quicker you were supposed to receive gains in them, but this was absolutely ridiculous. An adventurer was lucky if they could manage to get 30 points in a day if they fought nonstop, and here was her Child managing to gain 5 times that.

But there was something more concerning then that. Bell had gained two points in magic. But that was impossible. She looked over everything to make sure, and indeed she had made no mistake. Bell didn't know any spells. Bell didn't have any magic. So how did he gain those points? Excellia couldn't just be gained randomly. You had to actively work on your abilities, and the blessing they had been given enhanced the gains from that work. In short, to make gains in his magic statistic, Bell would have to actually use magic.

Her worried intensified.

Still, there were other things to be equally as concerned about. Bell had two skills. Skills were incredibly rare abilities, usually something inherent only to the person who discovered them, and the blessing could reveal their existances. But that was the thing. They were incredibly rare! And Bell had two of them! What was going on with her child?

The first one she could understand well enough. Liaris Freese. It was a skill that represented Bell's desire to catch up to the Aiz Wallenwotsit or whatever her name was. Hestia's protective instincts flared just looking at it. That woman had saved her Bell, but she'd also stolen him away in a way. It explained his growth. So long as his feelings for Aiz remained, he would gain power at an absurdly increased rate, and the greater his feelings for her, the greater the rate of gain. She almost wanted to go right over to Loki's mansion right now and give that blonde sword bimbo a bit of her mind. She thought better of it. If she went over there, she would have to explain why, and then everyone would know about her Bell's skill. Something that powerful would have the other gods clamouring to get ahold of him, to steal him away from her and use him as a toy. She couldn't do that to Bell.

But the second skill caught her attention, for the fact that she couldn't read it. It was written in the same runes as everything else, but for whatever reason, she just couldn't but them together in her head. The meaning just slid by, never letting her get a hold of it. Could this skill be the source of those Magic gains?

Hestia stewed in her worry until Bell called up to ask her what was wrong, at which point she hastily got off of him and transcribed the results of his status update, pointedly leaving out the two skills Bell had acquired. Better to keep him unaware for now until she could figure out what to do about them.