"Updating your ability values is no problem."
"But you've only just finished eating—reeking of cooking grease on top of the sour sweat left from today's special training."
"Go wash yourselves clean first."
With that. Once they had the god's approval,
the girls immediately let out a cheer.
One after another they rose, went to their rooms to fetch a change of clothes, and headed toward the luxurious stone bathhouse deep on the first floor.
Steam billowed through the bath. The patter of the showerheads against the pool's surface mingled with the fresh scent of soap bubbles.
Lili peeled off her clothes, folded them into a neat rectangle, and set them in the corner of a changing locker.
Her thin little body soaked in a corner of the hot pool.
Hugging her knees with both hands, Lili rested her chin at the water's surface and blew tiny bubbles.
She glanced left and right. Amid the drifting mist,
Amou Kirukiru leaned back at the hottest end of the pool, her long black hair coiled atop her head.
Above the water her fair-skinned shoulders were exposed, and one could faintly make out the pale red marks left from her earlier clash with Tione.
Her eyes were half-closed, her chest rising and falling.
Kikakujou Mary and Onigawara Rin, a little farther off, were scrubbing each other's backs.
Towels in hand, their gazes drifted now and then toward Amou Kirukiru, who rested with her eyes shut.
Curled up in her corner watching it all, Lili truly felt these past few days had been like a dream.
Back in the Soma Familia, forget washing herself with hot water—she hadn't even had a stable place to lodge.
At the thought, Lili's heart slowly sank.
"Lili, want me to scrub your back?"
Just then, Aihara Enju suddenly sidled up stark naked, a wooden ladle she'd found from who-knows-where clutched in her hand.
"No need, no need, I can do it myself!"
Lili jumped, waving her hands over and over.
"Ah!"
On the other side, Kohina Hiruko suddenly shot up from underwater right behind Hanasaka Warabi!
Hanasaka Warabi shrieked in fright, the bar of shampoo soap in her hand slipping straight to the bottom.
Seeing this, Kohina Hiruko broke into a grin and reached down to fish the soap back up.
As for the shallower step at the pool's edge, Rei and Fei sat side by side.
The water reached only past their waists.
The two carefully preened the feathers on their bodies.
Though they were Xenos half-covered in feathers, in this warm water so clean it could reflect one's shadow, Fei narrowed her eyes gently, feeling quite comfortable.
Still, everyone washed quickly. Their thoughts had clearly long since flown to the matter of updating their ability values.
In under twenty minutes the girls were all dressed, changed into loose sleepwear or thin silk robes.
As for the center of the hall, Haimer had been sitting before the sofa, waiting for a good while.
Seeing that everyone had gathered, and per the usual custom, the private matter of updating one's Grace naturally had to be done in an undisturbed setting.
Haimer stood up and waved a casual hand.
"Head upstairs once you're ready."
"Same as always—the master bedroom on the second floor."
Then Haimer turned to glance at Hestia, who was trailing at the very back, craning her neck to peek.
"Hestia, you go do your own thing as usual."
"I'm updating their Grace—don't come make trouble."
At these words, the half-step Hestia had just taken froze in midair, her cheeks puffing out.
"All right, don't sulk."
"While you were all bathing, I made some hot milk for you—drink it while it's warm, and careful not to scald yourselves." With that, Haimer led the girls upstairs.
Lili followed at the very end of the line.
She kept her head down, lightly pinching the hem of her sleepwear.
Her big chestnut eyes kept flitting between the floor and the receding figures on the stairs ahead.
After all, this was the first time she would truly receive an update of her God's Grace since joining the Familia of this Kami-sama—rumored to be blood-chilling, yet in truth fiercely protective of his own.
The last time she'd seen her own ability figures—even tracing back to her days in the Soma Familia—was probably several years ago now.
In those years, her daily task had been hauling heavy packs through the Dungeon,
or trailing behind adventurers who used her as bait.
Though she didn't know what figures would surface on the paper soon,
the sort of manual labor that only involved lugging cargo could hardly earn any decent improvement.
Lili could almost already foresee how ugly those rows of dismal numbers would look once Lord Haimer wrote them onto the parchment.
"They definitely won't even clear the lowest, H..."
At the thought, Lili's steps grew heavier and heavier.
As for the first-floor hall, only the left-behind Hestia, Rei, and a few other Xenos remained.
The moment she heard Haimer had left hot milk, Hestia was easily placated—she scampered over to pick up a cup and sat cross-legged on the sofa.
First she carelessly gulped down a big mouthful.
A white ring of milk immediately printed a comical circle around her lips.
Then, thoroughly content, she cradled the cup and began sipping in little mouthfuls.
Rei and Fei, meanwhile, stood at the foot of the stairs the whole time, their gazes fixed on the figures vanishing around the corner of the second-floor corridor.
Even after the last flutter of a skirt hem was out of sight, they still didn't draw their eyes back for a long while.
Their eyes brimmed with longing.
"If only I were human too... no, even just a demi-human would be enough..." Fei murmured softly, then, as if some fantasy had been punctured, lowered her head in dejection.
Rei's eyelids trembled faintly as well.
After all, they both knew that while God's Grace was the deepest bond forged between Lower World residents and the gods,
for monsters born from the mire of the Dungeon and carrying a Magic Stone, forging such a bond with a god was plainly impossible.
The core within a Dungeon-born monster's body was a Magic Stone.
Even though they were Xenos, who had by chance attained minds nearly like those of surface dwellers,
the very structure of the Magic Stone at their core still made them naturally reject the gifts of the gods, utterly unable to bear the searing heat of Divine Blood.
Which meant that this God's Grace—symbol of the bond between god and child, able to give form to one's efforts—could never be branded onto their bodies.
At the thought, all manner of complex emotions couldn't help but flash through Rei's eyes.
This, naturally, was seen crystal-clear by Rania, the spider-woman leaning in the shadows.
She took it all in, her heart clear as a mirror.
Especially the look Rei usually wore when she gazed at that Kami-sama.
As time passed, it had long since become more than mere awe or the gratitude of one being sheltered.
"Haah..."
At the thought, Rania let out a silent sigh inwardly, and, dragging her spider legs, crept quietly over to Rei's side and lowered her voice.
"Rei, let's go outside for some air—there's something I'd like to say to you in private."
At the sound, Rei came back to herself, met Rania's gaze, and vaguely realized what the other wanted to say.
Rei pressed her lips tightly together.
Silent for a long while, she finally nodded slowly and followed Rania toward the courtyard.
As for the master bedroom on the second floor.
In the spacious room, with the Magic Stone climate-control system running, warmth suffused the whole space.
The girls lined up in order along the base of the wall.
As usual, Amou Kirukiru stepped out first, utterly natural about it, and then, right in front of everyone, brazenly grabbed the collar of that loose, pure-white shirt with both hands and briskly undid the top few buttons.
Then, with a shrug of her shoulders, she carelessly let the single garment—still warm from the bath—slip to the floor.
Leaving only her long, slender legs still covered by the shirttails, and an upper body with a figure that set the blood racing.
The shirt slid away.
A dazzlingly white, perfect expanse of back was fully bared to the air.
Across her spine there still lingered a few old scars not yet fully faded, along with the bluish-purple bruises left from her life-or-death fight with Tione earlier that day—making her look both alluring and full of aggression.
Amou Kirukiru climbed onto the broad bed and lay down on her front. Lay there lazily. Tilting that pretty, faintly seductive face aside, she quietly looked toward Haimer, seated at the edge of the bed.
Haimer wasted no words and stepped slowly forward.
He casually picked up the fine needle prepared beside him and, with lightning speed, pricked the tip of his left index finger, squeezing out a drop of Divine Blood that radiated a faint pressure.
With the Divine Blood on his fingertip, he traced swiftly above Amou Kirukiru's back.
In an instant, red light blazed across her back—racing over the Grace's engraving, recombining, transcribing.
The dark-red glow on the surface kept flickering.
A moment later, the light gradually gathered back into her body. Haimer took a blank transcription sheet from the wooden tray.
With a slap he pressed it against Kirukiru's back. Then abruptly peeled it off.
On the once-blank sheet, a densely packed status panel—converted from sacred script into the common tongue—immediately surfaced.
"Shff—"
The next second, all the girls standing against the wall, who had been fairly restrained until now,
as if seized by madness, instantly swarmed forward in a rush, craning their necks, eyes nearly pressed against the parchment, staring hard at its contents.
The room fell strangely quiet. Then everyone saw clearly the layout upon it.
[Name]: Amou Kirukiru [Race]: Human [Level]: Lv.2
[Title]: The Calamity God's Cursed Weapon
[Abilities]:
Strength: A899 → SS1079
Endurance: A896 → SS1099
Dexterity: A892 → SS1023
Agility: A895 → SS1042
Magic: I0 → I0
[Development Abilities]: Rigid Body I
[Magic]: None
[Skills]: Avatar Blade, Battle Frenzy
"..."
Lili looked, then rubbed her eyes hard, her eyeballs nearly bulging out.
After all, forget SS—Lili, who had scraped by at the bottom for so many years, had seen plenty of adventurers with even a single stat reaching A get hyped up as once-in-a-century geniuses.
And now? Even Dexterity, the slightly weaker of the four stats, had reached SS.
Amid Lili's astonishment, Onigawara Rin, watching from the side, was practically grinding her back molars to dust.
After all, she'd thought that since they were both Lv.2, even if Amou Kirukiru had started a bit higher than her,
as long as she pushed herself as hard as Amou Kirukiru, she could always close the gap a little. Even just a tiny bit would do.
But the facts proved that monsters and humans were, in the end, different.
Especially when the monster worked even harder than the human.
She recalled the scene on the Loki Familia's training grounds today—Amou Kirukiru sent flying by Tione, smashing through several stone pillars, drenched in blood yet still able to lunge back in like a lunatic with a savage grin.
By now, even Onigawara Rin, who had always found Amou Kirukiru's reckless conduct grating, had to admit
that Amou Kirukiru, who could manifest her obsession with strength into Battle Frenzy, was without a doubt the most suited to this world of them all.
"That Amazon woman called Tione really does have some skill."
Amou Kirukiru, looking at the numbers on the parchment, was in no hurry to leave the bed.
Like a cat, she stretched out an immensely comfortable, lazy stretch.
She grabbed the shirt piled beside her, draped it carelessly over her shoulders, and parted her red lips into a grin.
Hearing Amou Kirukiru's tone, Haimer, sitting beside her, couldn't help but tease with a laugh:
"Judging by the way you bring up Tione?"
"Looks like Tione really did leave a deep impression on you."
After all, he'd brought out the Loki Familia's first army to give them a bit of a reality check. But who could have guessed—
hearing Haimer's ribbing, Amou Kirukiru instead swept back her somewhat damp hair, her gaze sliding toward him.
"Of course."
"Anyone who can pin me to the ground and beat me naturally deserves to have me deign to speak her name."
"But..."
"That only holds until the day I utterly tear her apart and defeat her."
"The day I crush her underfoot in the very field she's proudest of, she won't even be worth me remembering her name."
"After all."
"Only a god could be the perfect opponent I crave most in this life—and the one I'm bound to defeat."
With that, in front of everyone, Amou Kirukiru brazenly stretched out her slender, fair arms as if no one else were there, hooked them around Haimer's neck, and pressed herself against him!
This sudden, provocative move made Onigawara Rin, standing closest, gasp sharply!
"You shameless she-ape!"
Onigawara Rin's breathing turned ragged in an instant; furious, her hand went straight to the hilt of the blade at her waist, half wanting to cleave this slutty vixen in two with a single stroke.
Tendou Kisara and the Holy Emperor, who had just come near, flushed red in an instant as well!
When had two such well-bred young ladies ever seen such a spectacle? Faces red, they hurriedly turned their heads aside while reaching out to firmly cover the eyes of Aihara Enju and Kohina Hiruko beside them, who were watching the show with eyes full of curiosity!
Meanwhile, the assassin Nomura Satori, who was ever afraid the world wasn't chaotic enough, let out a mischievous little laugh.
"No looking for little kids~" She reached out both hands and covered Lili's eyes from behind.
"Mmph! Kisara! What are you doing! Now I can't see Kirukiru-neesan's ability values!"
Aihara Enju flailed her little hands in dissatisfaction.
As for Lili—though her vision had indeed gone dark the moment her eyes were covered, she'd already seen everything worth seeing of what had just happened.
"So—so that's..."
"There really is this kind of relationship inside Kami-sama's Familia!!"
Lili's mind instantly boiled over.
Having spent too long knocking about in the filthy back alleys outside,
Lili had often heard, from the mouths of drunken hooligans, rumors of certain adventurers trading their bodies to gods and goddesses in exchange for resources.
Could it be that here, with Lord Haimer, such a thing existed too?
But looking at the god she admired, whose appearance was like something from a painting, untouched by the mortal world,
the moment she pictured such a scene, Lili flushed all the way down to the base of her neck, buried her head, and dared not say another word.
Fortunately, Haimer wasn't having any of Amou Kirukiru's push-your-luck routine.
He simply raised his hand and gave her back two firm pats, signaling her to rein it in.
"Your current stats, at the Lv.2 tier, can be said to have reached the absolute limit—there's no more room to cram in. You can undergo sublimation at any time."
"Do you want to advance to Lv.3 now?"
Though Haimer had tossed out an extremely tempting question, Amou Kirukiru merely licked the corner of her mouth.
"Let's wait a bit."
"I still want to probe where this body's limits lie."
With that, Amou Kirukiru declined the offer, her gaze still clinging, until she sensed that Haimer truly had no time to indulge her—only then did she withdraw to the side amid a cloud of fragrance, arms folded, ceding her place.
Haimer drew back his gaze and turned to glance at the girls.
No need for words.
The girls all understood, of course. Next up was Inaba Tsukuyo.
Her eyes were tightly shut, her waist-length silver hair falling smoothly down her back.
That skin, a shade whiter than snow, and her somewhat petite, delicate frame, could easily stir others' urge to protect her.
She walked properly up to Haimer, face reddening, undid the collar of her training garb, and lay down on the bed, her movements carrying an extremely strict, old-fashioned decorum. Exceptionally obedient.
When Haimer finished the transcription with Divine Blood via the same procedure, the red glow on Inaba Tsukuyo's back slowly faded.
A new sheet of parchment was peeled away.
[Name]: Inaba Tsukuyo [Race]: Human [Level]: Lv.2
[Abilities]:
Strength: B765 → S938
Endurance: D521 → B524
Dexterity: A847 → SS1005
Agility: A831 → SS1018
Magic: I0 → I0
[Development Abilities]: Mind's Eye I
[Magic]: None
[Skills]: Magatsuko, Fleeting Splendor, Ill-Fated Sword Demon
As expected. Dexterity and Agility leapt into the SS rank.
After all, even before, in combat, Inaba Tsukuyo had never been weaker than Amou Kirukiru.
But limited by the Ill-Fated Sword Demon skill—born of her blindness and frail body—her Endurance still couldn't rise quickly.
"Do you want to sublimate?" Haimer asked, as was routine.
"I... I'd like to wait a while too." Inaba Tsukuyo lowered her head quietly and answered in a small voice, her slender shoulders curling slightly inward, her little mouth pressed tight, saying nothing more.
Haimer naturally understood that Inaba Tsukuyo's spirit was stronger than anyone's. He patted her head.
Though he still said nothing, Inaba Tsukuyo's shoulders did indeed relax a fraction.
Then Haimer gave the girls a look and pressed on, speeding up the process.
Next was Onigawara Rin's turn. She obediently lay down as told, and after the transcription was done, put her clothes back on and began reading the sheet.
[Name]: Onigawara Rin [Level]: Lv.2
[Abilities]:
Strength: A887 → S985
Endurance: A882 → S988
Dexterity: B745 → A899
Agility: B758 → A877
[Development Abilities]: Swordsman I
[Skills]: Clear Mirror Sword Heart, Sealed-Heart Sword Soul
A panel of two A-ranks and two S-ranks.
Though not as monstrous as Amou Kirukiru's, they were absolutely the kind of figures that would make an ordinary person cough up blood at the sight.
Onigawara Rin looked at her stats, which leaned toward Strength and Endurance.
Though in her heart she still wanted to surpass Amou Kirukiru, she wasn't discouraged, and nodded in satisfaction.
"I won't sublimate either, Kami-sama." Onigawara Rin declared at once, beating Haimer to the question.
After all, Onigawara Rin didn't want to snatch away Amou Kirukiru's standing as the first to sublimate to Lv.3 before she had officially surpassed her.
And so, after declaring this, she stared fixedly at Amou Kirukiru.
Amou Kirukiru, of course, noticed Onigawara Rin's gaze. Her brow arched.
"Fine."
The unspoken understanding between the two—Haimer grasped it too, naturally.
Next was Kikakujou Mary.
[Name]: Kikakujou Mary [Level]: Lv.2
[Abilities]:
Strength: C610 → A825
Endurance: C625 → A850
Dexterity: A842 → S968
Agility: A855 → S985
[Development Abilities]: Chain Assault I
[Skills]: Noble Judgment, Graceful Waltz
Hanasaka Warabi.
[Name]: Hanasaka Warabi [Race]: Human [Level]: Lv.2
[Abilities]:
Strength: S996
Endurance: S952
Dexterity: A889
Agility: A880
Magic: I0
Nomura Satori.
[Name]: Nomura Satori [Race]: Human [Level]: Lv.2
[Abilities]:
Strength: A821
Endurance: A898
Dexterity: A889
Agility: S942
Magic: I0
Then, Tendou Kisara.
[Name]: Tendou Kisara [Level]: Lv.2
[Abilities]:
Strength: B720 → S980
Dexterity: B750 → S975
Agility: B780 → S960
[Skills]: Tendou-ryū Full Mastery, Heart of the Sword Demon, God-Forsaken Pain
And thanks to these past two days of high-intensity sparring against the Loki Familia's first army, everyone's various stats had grown steadily,
forcibly pushing their ability values onto a preposterous ladder where A was the floor and their peaks all touched S and SS.
And, unsurprisingly, everyone declined to sublimate directly to Lv.3.
After all, there was still Amou Kirukiru looming above them, eyeing them hungrily and bent on blowing their bodies apart.
No one wanted to rush ahead and level up to Lv.3.
[Name]: Aihara Enju [Race]: Human [Level]: Lv.2
[Abilities]:
Strength: A805
Endurance: A820
Dexterity: A845
Agility: A815
Magic: I0
[Skills]: Crimson Bane Factor, Moonstep Sky Drive, Crimson Lotus War Dance
[Name]: Kohina Hiruko [Race]: Human [Level]: Lv.2
[Abilities]:
Strength: A830
Endurance: A815
Dexterity: A825
Agility: A823
Magic: I0
[Skills]: Crimson Bane Factor, Twin-Moon Death Wheels, Preying Mantis
____
👻🔥Walnut-chan on Pa+reon for more!🔥👻
🔥 New history: Zenless Zone Zero: Rewriting Fate in New Eridu — over on The_Mikudayo
📚 Walnut-chan = +40 chapters of early access, and every bit of it funds the translation work
Help us unlock these community rewards:
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 Bonus Chapter for everyone