A month went by quick. Bell was hard at work for Ouranos, keeping watch over the suspected familias. Those being Ikelos, Ishtar and Apollo. The last being the least threatening as the first two had more accusations against them and overall were shady. One time he was worried about going into Orario, but Ouranos told him that Fels designed the mask to hide his soul, so people like Freya wouldn't be able to recognize him. Speaking of her, she was in a frenzy of sadness and rage when she learned of his death. Many of her children avoided her room out of fear. Ottarl himself was sad to learn the boy died. He was far too young and he had high hopes Bell would be the one to push him when he got older, but now he had to move on like always. .With Bell...The boy was currently in the 33rd floor where the Xenos had built another village. This granted them closer access to the best spots to train in the deep floors such as the Coliseum. Bell and Asterius would make frequent trips there, and today was no different. The two were rampaging through the area once again. The Coliseum is special in that the monsters never stop spawning, so monsters like skull sheep and barbarians are in high abundance. This lets Bell and Asterius train to their heart's content. Some other Xenos would follow them and collect the magic stones that drop. Right now, they had finished for the day and were going back to the village.
Bell: Phew, that was a good one today.
The bull huffed in agreement.
Asterius: (I feel so much stronger than last time. Our next fight will be glorius.)
He grinned to himself as they finally made it back to the village where Lyd welcomed them.
Lyd: Hey, you're back!
Bell: Hi!
Lyd: Great, you can put those stones in the usual place.
The Xenos carrying the stones sounded off before leaving to do that. A round orb on Bell's gauntlet began reacting and Fels' voice could be heard.
Fels: Bell, can you hear me?
Bell: Fels?
Fels: We've been called by Lord Ouranos. Meet me in his chambers soon.
Bell: Ok, I will.
The connection was cut and Lyd spoke.
Lyd: Guess it's another mission.
Bell: Yeah, well I'll be going. Tell the others I said Hi.
Lyd: Will do!
He gave the boy a thumbs up as he left. This month had taught him many things, one of which was the many routes to the guild that could best conceal him. Ten minutes and he was there where Fels and the old god were waiting for him.
Bell: I'm here.
Ouranos: Thank you for coming. Now, onto the matter at hand, Fels.
Fels: Yes.
The specter brought out a white orb with what looked like a red eye in the center.
Fels: You remember that hidden door we found after dealing with Ikelos members?
Bell: Yeah, there was this hard door that we couldn't open.
Fels: Well this is a key that will open that door. Now we can access the man made dungeon, Knossos.
This was good news for Bell. He had been foiled two attempts at the Xenos' safety when Ikelos members were trying to capture them. Everytime he did, they would retreat and he couldn't continue chasing them.
Bell: Should we prepare to move in and stop them?
Fels: No, it is too soon. We don't have the proper tools yet either. We need Lyd and the others to grow a little more before hand. As for me, I need to prepare for any counter measures they may have.
Bell: You're talking about their captain, right?
Fels: I am, Dix Perdix is one to be wary of. He's level 5 so only Asterius can safely take him on, but the curses he's able to cast make him even more dangerous.
This complicated the situation which is why they won't act right away. Ouranos decided to ask what Fels would do.
Ouranos: Do you have everything you need? As I recall, you planned to make capes for the others with the same anti curse properties your robe has.
Fels: That was my plan, but I'm still lacking in some materials that can only be found as low as floor 40. Bell has been that low before, but the monster is quite rare and his luck stat has only helped in forcing drops for when it's found.
Bell: So what do we do?
Fels: I made plans to assign it as a quest to the Astraea familia. I've learned that they plan to dive to floor 43 so it will match well with their goal.
Ouranos: I will assure the guild has full support should they accept the quest.
Fels: If it doesn't work, I'll have to ask you to go down and search for it yourself.
Bell: I'm fine with that.
A few days past, and as it turned out, they had turned it down. Rewards aside, they didn't want to get sidetracked looking for rare monsters. Bell had ended up needing to go, but he was fine with that. He and Asterius went along with some others as supports to collect any drops. It took almost 4 days, but they were able to return with what Fels needed, as well as many high quality magic stones for everyone to eat and power up from. Bell would have a simple daily life doing the same thing until the time came to deal a significant blow to the Ikelos familia..Timeskip 2 Months.The day came, it was time to attack Knossos. The Xenos made massive leaps in the last 2 months. Asterius was now past that of a fresh level 6, but not yet in the middle. Lyd, Ray and Gros were now on par with level 5 and others like Ranye and Foh were high end level 4. Everyone else who was joining was level 3 except for Alulu and Helga who were almost past level 2 in power. As for Bell, his last status update had him climb to new heights.
Bell Cranel
Ouranos Familia
Level 4
Str SS-1087
Vit SS-1033
Dex SS-1059
Agl SSS-1183
Mag SSS-1169
Skills
Liaris Freese
Thunderlord
Blaze
Argonaut
Development Abilities
Luck H
Abnormal Resistence G
Aero Mana I
They had all arrived at the entrance to Knossos and prepared the attack.
Fels: Let us begin.
Fels walked forward and held the key up which glowed before the door opened for them. It parted ways before everyone went inside. They had snuck around the labyrinth before coming across a massive room with cages. Inside were many of their captured comrades along with the Ikelos members that Fels had anticipated. Bell and the others made note of where they were, and Dix was at the top of a set of stairs talking to some of his crew. Bell and the Xenos used the element of surprise to charge in there.
ROAAAAAR*
This caught everyone off guard as they wondered how a bunch of monster had gotten inside.
Dix: Gran! How did they get inside?! I thought you closed the door!
Gran: I-I did, I'm sure of it!
He held up another key which Fels saw and took out his.
Fels: Another key!
Dix looked through his goggles and saw the key Fels had. He scoffed.
Dix: Now what kind of idiot did you get that from?
He walked down the stairs as the rest of his men ran down to fight back against the Xenos. He grabbed his cursed spear and went to smtry and stab Foh, a fomoire who was preoccupied with another adventurer, but Dix was blocked by some masked man.
Dix: ?!
Bell: No you don't!
Dix: (Strong! Not that tall either. Is this guy a prum?)
He tried to find a way in, but Bell kept blocking and knocking the spear away from him.
Bell: (Fels said I shouldn't get touched by that thing. Better be careful.)
Bell ducked under another attack before slashing at the man's face which drew blood. Dix grunted before rushing back to the boy.
Dix: (Damn it all! There's no opening for me to cast my curse spell!)
Dix had his curse spell as a back up ace for his comrades. It would allow him to cause those afflicted with it to go berserk and attack each other, but he would have to greatly reduce his stats as a trade. That was something he couldn't afford. He looked and saw them being pushed back by the monsters.
Bell: HAAAAH!
Bell had activated his blaze skill and
The fighting had raged on and it was very much against the Ikelos familia. This only got worse for them when a war cry brought them out of their fight.
UUUOOOOOOOOOOHH*
They hardly had time to figure out what that was before a giant black minotaur had charged and knocked many of them off their feet. Asterius cleaved through many of them like butter, and before long, he relieved the Xenos of enough pressure that they were able to free the rest of their comrades. Dix saw this and scowled before calling out to what remained of his crew, which was only around fifteen including him which was about half of what they started with.
Dix: (Oh to hell with it!) Hey, we're falling back! Retreat!
They heard this and began to run.
Gros: Don't let them escape!
Lyd: No, don't chase them!
The adventurers ran as some of the Xenos started to give chase before Lyd stopped them.
Gros: Why, Lyd?!
The gargoyle asked the lizard man why he'd gone made before Fels spoke up.
Fels: We can't afford to continue. There are too many injured Xenos to continue. We will have to go after them again another time.
This didn't sit well with many of them.
Lyd: Look, I want to rip them apart as much as you do, but we can't with all of the weight we're carrying. Everyone there is too hurt, so we have to go back.
He pointed to the Xenos they rescued, many of which had various injuries on their bodies. This caused the gargoyle to grunt before they all pulled out of the labyrinth. After some time, they were able to get everyone back to the village and tend to their injuries. Fels went to work to heal as many of them as he could.
Fels: Bell, are you injured anywhere?
Bell: No, just some bruises. I'll be fine.
The mage nodded and moved on to the next one. Bell went to where Lyd and the others were talking about what happened.
Lyd: Gotta say, at least this worked out for us. We nearly doubled our size with this rescue.
Ranye: It was quite fortunate that we attack when we did. I heard from some of them that those bastards planned to sell some away the following day.
Gros: I still don't like letting them go.
Ray: We had no choice. We'll have to go for them again next time.
Lyd: Yeah, and we'll be much stronger then.
Gros grunted before turning to Bell.
Gros: I have to say, all of the training we've done with you has paid off. There were no casualties on our side, so thank you.
Bell blushed a bit and waved his hands at him.
Bell: N-No, it's my pleasure to help you guys.
Rayne: Hard to believe you're giving up this much for a bunch of monsters.
Bell: You guys aren't monsters, please stop lowering yourselves like that.
The lizard man laughed and slapped the boy's back.
Lyd: Haha! Well, we're glad to have you with us, Bellchi.
Bell: Happy to be here.
They day went on as they finished healing their comrades and celebrated their victory...
Somewhere else...
???: My lord, they've arrived.
???: Good, let them in.
The hooded figure bowed before leaving and what remained of Dix's men entered.
Dix: Thanatos...
The man now known as Thanatos looked at Dix with concern.
Thanatos: Oh my, you don't look well.
He looked down at them and saw them covered in cuts and blood. Most of their clothes and armor were destroyed.
Dix: Grr... A bunch of those talking monsters ambushed us. They took our cargo and killed half of my men.
Thanatos: I see.
Dix: To make things worse, they're allied with some adventurers.
This drew the death god's attention.
Thanatos: Adventurers are helping them?
Dix: Yeah, just thought you should know, especially after you lost practically most of your organization.
Thanatos: A setback, nothing more. Besides, I still have one key piece left, hehehehehe.
In a dark room, there was a red haired woman eating magic stones.
???: More... I need more...
AN: Okay, that's the next part done. Things are going to get more complicated for Bell now that a certain god has been tipped off on his existence.
Hopefully you enjoyed this. Thanks for reading and see you in the next one. Christmas special for Universes and Reactions is coming up next.