The New Normal

With his armor taken from him by the girls for souvenirs, Bell needed new armor. Since he liked the light armor, he went to look for the same smith, Welf Crozzo, who crafted his original armor.

Bell managed to find Welf at the Hephaestus shop and they had a great discussion. Bell loved how light the armor was while Welf was amazed he got to meet the new record holder. As other jealous smiths walked by, the two agreed to sign a contract in which Welf would provide the recorder holder with weapons and armor. What particularly impressed Welf was that Bell did not care if he refused to make magic swords. The two then would agree to meet at the same time the next day for Bell to pick up his new set of light armor.

After meeting with Welf, Bell went to see Lili. It had been a couple days since their return. There was still some mutual embarrassment about the peeping but they managed to get through it. They then made plans to go back in the dungeon at the end of the week. That would allow Bell the time to focus on training with Ais and Tiona, while Lili needed time to handle some familia business.

Then it was time for training. Ais and Tiona were already there when Bell got to the city wall. As they trained, an unexpected person dropped in. It was Lord Ottar!

Ottar "Sword Princess and Amazon, thank you for training our member. Would you like to spar with me also?"

Ais and Tiona of course jumped at the opportunity. Thus the training rotated sparring partners. Of course, no one was a match for Ottar, but Ais and Tiona learned a lot from getting beat up. They had also adapted certain training rituals. Everyone went to get potato snacks from the best stand in Orario with a cute twin-pony-tailed goddess. For dinner, Bell usually went with Ais and Tiona to the Hostess. That continued to cause whispers from other customers especially as little bits of details were leaking about the peeping. That also caused green eyes from Syr, who continued to be teased by her friend Ryuu. The only unusual matter over the week was the girls' focus on Bell's new armor. For some reason, the competition for Bell's armor in the dungeon somehow got the girls focused on owning additional pieces of Bell's armor...

This 'routine' continued until the end of the week, and Bell's stats were rising rapidly per Freya' updates. After the latest update and hot kiss on the cheek, Freya showed Bell his stats:

level 2

strength: 356

endurance: 466

agility: 423

dexterity: 335

magic: 582

skill: argonaut

magic: firebolt

development ability: luck

For a normal adventurer, these stats would already have meant a level up, but Bell agreed with Freya to wait until he reaches at least s levels.

With the end of the week, everyone took a break from the training. This was time to meet Lili for going into the dungeon. With Bell's new friendship with Welf, Bell agreed to allow Welf to join their party as a part of their agreement.

The 3 junior adventurers met up at the Babel entrance, but Lili and Welf immediately developed an animosity to each other. The trouble started because Lili thought Welf was bribing Bell with equipment in order to get the necessary experience to gain his blacksmith ability. She also gave Welf grieve for being from the fallen Crozzo family. However, after a little chat, Bell convinced the two to try being in a party for the day.

With Bell's level 2 status, they got all the way down to the 13th floor. Welf and Lili were getting along better though they still bickered a bit. However, as they were battling some monsters, a few adventurers ran by them. Lili immediately realized that they were being pass paraded...

With Lili's warning, Bell immediately used 8 firebolts in quick succession to rapidly eliminate the monsters they were fighting. While white sparkles started forming, Bell waited for the large herd of monsters to get closer. Just before the monster got with weapons range, he launched an argonaut firebolt with about 12 seconds of charge. The enhanced firebolt took out a large number of level 1 monsters, shocking Welf as he had never seen Bell's secret cannon. Even after the enhanced firebolt, there were still a lot of monsters, but Bell protected his party as well as he could. Fortunately, the big explosion also scared away a lot of the monsters, so Bell and his party were able to wipe out the remaining ones. Realizing they barely managed to avoid a bad situation, the 3 decided that they had enough for the day.

The return trip was relatively trouble-free, and the 3 went to the guild to exchange the magic crystals. As they were talking to Eina, several adventurers walked up to them. It was Mikoto, Ouka, Chigusa and Asuka of the Takemikazuchi Familia. Mikoto did a dogeza to apologize for pass parading them in the dungeon. Ouka was much less apologetic, but did say he was glad that they survived the situation. While Ouka and Welf were angry with each other, Bell made peace so the two sides agreed to maintain good relations. To help seal the peace, everyone went to the Hostess for dinner. In fact, the 2 groups agreed to go into the dungeon together the next day.

- The Next Day -

Everyone met at the dungeon entrance. With a party of 7, they had much less trouble getting down to the 13th floor.

However, as they explored the 13th floor, a bunch of amazons ambushed their party. They were out-numbered by higher level adventurers. It did not help that Bell found it difficult to use argonaut against a bunch of beautiful amazons. 3 amazons then jumped on Bell and overpowered him to get some taste of fresh rabbit. Welf and Ouka were knocked out, while Mikoto was beaten till she could not get up. Chigusa and Asuka were also beaten down while the amazons laughed at their weakness. Having beaten Bell's party down, the amazons tied up Bell and took him back to the surface...