Chapter 11: Hestia: Where Did This Superfan Come From?
....
[Lili's transformation magic is remarkable. Genuinely impressive. I want to learn it too.]
Reflecting on the previous night's various surprising developments, Kihara filed the thought away with genuine appreciation.
[It's probably her exclusive skill. Doesn't seem transferable.]
The leg injury served as convenient cover. Hestia hadn't noticed anything unusual about Lili's condition — she'd only found it slightly odd that the girl spent the entire breakfast finding new angles from which to praise Kihara, and hadn't connected anything further.
As for why Lili had sought him out in the first place: gratitude was part of it, certainly. But there was also the matter of the million falis — she'd knocked herself unconscious before learning it had been recovered, which meant from her perspective, Kihara had spent a genuinely enormous sum to buy her freedom. In her experience, people didn't do things like that without wanting something in return. Better to address it directly than wait to find out what form the debt would eventually take.
She'd run the calculation and decided that acting first gave her more control over the outcome. And if he eventually tired of her — well. At least she'd have secured some degree of goodwill.
What she hadn't accounted for was that the calculation might simply be wrong.
"Since Lili's legs still need a day or two to heal properly, why don't you rest as well, Kihara-kun? Having a supporter once she's recovered will make dungeon exploration considerably smoother."
"That's right! Lili has the Carry skill — Lili can haul a lot of equipment for Lord Kihara!"
Supporters occupied a specific niche in Orario's adventuring ecosystem. Those whose potential and ability didn't meet the threshold for a Falna still had a role to play — logistics, supply management, battlefield cleanup, magic stone collection, camp setup, cooking on extended expeditions. The work was unglamorous and the pay reflected that.
Kihara had a dimensional storage and therefore no logistical needs whatsoever. But Lili was looking at him with an earnestness that made declining feel unnecessarily unkind.
"Two days then. We'll head out once you're healed."
"Lord Kihara is the best—!"
"Ahem."
Hestia watched Lili attach herself to Kihara's arm and produced a pointed cough. "Lili-san — physical boundaries between men and women are something to be mindful of, especially in close quarters."
"Of course! — Oh, speaking of which, are the other Familia members away on expedition? Lili would love to meet everyone!"
"Ah... Lili-san, currently the Familia has... just the three of us."
Hestia had expected some disappointment. Instead, Lili's eyes went wider and more admiring.
"Lord Kihara is incredible — a brand new Familia and already living somewhere this luxurious!"
You're his dedicated superfan, aren't you.
Is there an angle from which you can't find something to praise?
Hestia swallowed the observation. She'd done enough reading on the subject to know that unfounded jealousy was counterproductive and, more to the point, undignified. Kihara had gone to considerable effort and expense on the Familia's behalf. The results spoke for themselves.
She simply made a mental note to keep an eye on the situation.
Confirming the existence of a mine elevator that only he could see and operate had done more for Kihara's enthusiasm about dungeon exploration than anything else so far. If the elevator existed, there was a reasonable chance the floor treasure chests appeared at every tenth level as well — and the fishing floors at twenty, sixty, and one hundred were worth investigating in their own right.
Once he confirmed that Lili could handle basic ore extraction, he waited for her legs to heal, equipped her properly, and took her into the dungeon.
He kept the elevator to himself for now. Something capable of bypassing the dungeon's entire vertical structure and invalidating every conventional assumption about how deep exploration worked was exactly the kind of thing that attracted catastrophic attention when revealed prematurely. Transformed into Faiz, he estimated he could hold his own against a Level 5 — but hold his own wasn't the same as win, and the enemy in that scenario wouldn't be a single Level 5. It would be every Familia in Orario with a vested interest in controlling access to the lower floors.
He also needed to think about advancement.
The conditions for levelling up in Orario were straightforward in principle: reach rank D in any parameter and acquire an Heroic Feat — a moment of achievement that the divine recognised as a genuine milestone. Meet both conditions, and the next level unlocked at the following status update.
Each level represented a categorical shift, which was why the distinction between Level 1 and Level 2 carried such weight. Mediocre adventurers simply couldn't clear the bar — talent was a genuine prerequisite, not a formality.
In Kihara's interpretation, Heroic Feat and aptitude functioned like the breakthrough conditions for a major level threshold in any RPG — both gates had to be open before advancement was possible.
Aptitude wasn't a concern. Hestia had guaranteed this with complete conviction, accompanied by a demonstrative bounce that had made the guarantee somewhat difficult to focus on — no one in Orario, she'd said, likely had better natural aptitude than someone who came out of their first Falna ceremony with double-S and double-A rankings. The Divine Favour skill had since pushed his parameters past the S999 ceiling entirely, into territory the ranking system designated SS.
That left only the Heroic Feat, which was the less clearly defined of the two conditions. Based on what the records showed and what common sense suggested, most advancements had been preceded by either defeating a significantly more powerful opponent or leading a party through an impossible situation — both of which amounted to the same underlying mechanism: acquiring experience far beyond one's current level in a compressed timeframe.
His working theory: a Heroic Feat was essentially a timed challenge — perform at dramatically above your recognised level within a sufficiently short window, and the system registered it.
Which gave him a clear next target. Floor seventeen housed a special boss-type monster — the giant-form creature known as the Goliath, rated at Level 4.
The Crimson Blade carved a quiet arc through the dark of the tunnel, and a Dungeon Lizard that hadn't finished processing the threat ceased to exist in two separate pieces.
"Lord Kihara — are we truly going to the sixth floor? That's where the War Shadows are — they're called rookie-killers for a reason—"
"My target today is actually the tenth floor."
"...Excuse me?"
Lili stared at him. In everything she knew about dungeon exploration, reaching the fifth floor at Level 1 without casualties — while escorting a non-combatant — was already the kind of thing that didn't happen. The tenth floor was a different conversation entirely.
"I understand Lord Kihara is exceptional, but isn't that a little... reckless?"
Kihara considered this briefly. "You have a point. If we're stopping at ten anyway, we might as well push to seventeen and take a look at the Goliath while we're there."
Lili arranged her face into something that approximated a smile.
"...You're joking."
"Am I?"
...
Thank you for reading.