This is my first fanfic so please give me tips to improve my writing skills, it would be heavily appreciated.

Chapter 1: An Unexpected Guest

Bell soon arrived back at the Hestia Familia home, otherwise known as the Hearth Mansion. It was quite the experience he had with Ryuu, as he had slain countless monsters during their time together, and they even managed to fend off the juggernaut, who was infamous for being the guardian of the dungeon, as those who had crossed paths with it never came back to tell the tale. As soon as he opened the front door, a familiar face appeared before his eyes.

"BELL!" exclaimed Hestia, who was in a distraught state ever since Bell and his party entered the dungeon.

"I've missed you!" Hestia stated as she jumped onto Bell, with a feeling of relief as she can finally rest.

"I have too." replied Bell with a smile on his face.

Then Bell proceeded onwards into their home, when Lili, Welf, Mikoto and Haruhime saw him enter.

"Well well well, look who it is!" Welf said to him with a delighted face.

"We were all so worried about you, ever since you and Ryuu were separated from the main group." said the others, with generally relieved expressions.

"It's fine, I mean it. You don't need to worry about me so much, but I appreciate it."

"Why don't we celebrate by heading over to the Hostess of Fertility for a change?" Hestia decided, as she felt that her children deserved it, and considering what they had experienced, it was definitely a good idea.

The group then headed over to the Hostess of Fertility, where they began to talk about what had happened during their trip down to the lower floors.

"Yeah, that fight with the floor boss sure was intense!" said Welf, while taking a bite out of his jagamarukun.

"But anyway, so what actually happened down there on floor 37, when you were fighting the juggernaut?"

"Well, it's quite the story, but I will tell you anyway."

Bell proceeded to then tell Welf and the others about his intense adventure, about how both him and Ryuu managed to defeat the juggernaut, and their encounter with a vast number of new monster species that they had never seen before, as well as the monster colosseum they had seen, which seemingly spawned an infinite amount of monsters, replacing those that had perished with fresh, new ones.

"It seems like you had quite the adventure down there huh?" replied Welf, as he was fascinated by how much Bell got to witness down there.

After a while, they had decided to start heading back home. Upon arrival to the Hearth Mansion, Bell recognised a certain person who was waiting at the entrance. The long golden hair, matched perfectly with sparkling golden eyes and a slender body, no doubt it was the Sword Princess, Ais Wallenstein.

"Oh, hello Bell." Ais said in a soft tone, like usual.

"A-Ais?!"

Bell was in shock, he did not expect to see Ais waiting at the entrance of their familia home.

"What are you doing here?"

"I came to discuss with you about something."

Bell felt his heartbeat race. Was it really what he thought it was? Was she going to ask him out? Bell thought it was too early for this, as he wanted to get as strong as her before even thinking about attempting to ask her out.

"A-Ab-bout w-what?"

"Well, I wanted to discuss it with you in private."

Bell started to blush. He was being increasingly convinced that it was what he thought. He began to sweat slightly. "What am I gonna do?" Bell thought to himself. On one hand, he could finally spend some time alone with the girl of his dreams, but on the other hand, he had always pushed himself to get stronger and stronger to be with her, and he began recalling what Bete had said about him a few months back at the Hostess of Fertility, back when he was only a level 1. He then came to a conclusion. He was sure that Ais wasn't going to ask him out. But, there was always that slight chance that he was wrong, and he knew that. "Well, it's time to find out" he thought to himself.

"Ok, well come in and we can discuss

it between the two of us." Bell said to her in an anxious manner.

Bell then proceeded to unlock the front entrance to let Ais and the others inside, then he locked the entrance once everyone was inside. Then Bell started to guide Ais over to his room. Ais was impressed by the look of the mansion, as there was plenty of space for wandering about, as well as a training area for training sword fighting skill and practising technique, as well as a hot spring for bathing in and washing off. Although it was quite impressive, it wasn't as large compared to the Twilight Manor. Soon enough they arrived at Bell's room. Inside his room, there was a plain white bed

with the sheets and blankets neatly arranged. Next to it was a fancy wardrobe fitted with overly decorated handles, and a nightstand which had a lamp on top. There was also a bookshelf with books about heroes. Finally, there was a desk which was used for writing or drawing on.

"So, what were you going to talk about?" Bell asked Ais.

"Ah, right."

Ais had practically almost forgotten why she came here in the first place. She was enchanted by the design of Bell's room; it was very plain, with the wardrobe being the most aesthetically pleasing thing in his room. In a way, it sort of reminded her of her own room.

"Anyway, I had come to discuss about the monsters."

Bell was relieved at her response, he started to feel more calm knowing he was right.

"What about them exactly?"

"Ever since we fought in that alley, I couldn't bring myself to fight monsters anymore."

Hearing this, Bell was shocked. He knew the Sword Princess had slain countless numbers of monsters, and yet one short encounter with one made her resolve completely break apart. She felt sympathy for the first time for the monsters.

But inside her head, she felt like years of training to fight in the dungeon had all suddenly gone to waste. What was the purpose of fighting monsters if they had the same feelings as a normal person? She had gone over to Bell to discuss this problem, as to her it was a barrier that she couldn't seem to overcome.

"Yeah well, only some monsters can speak anyway, so the ones that can't more than likely to just be normal bloodthirsty monsters that will attack you on sight."

"That is true, but ever since you enlightened me to what I was blind to, it has caused me to feel something, a feeling I have never felt before, and it is for the monsters. My mind is conflicted between feeling pure hatred and feeling empathy towards them and it's.."

"It's what?"

"I can't take it anymore!" Ais blurted out without thinking.