Hello everyone! Sorry about this, but this looks like it'll be a shorter chapter today as I just got back from vacation. I literally got back on the 2nd so props to me for writing this much in a couple hours. Also, there's something I want to ask you all about at the end of the chapter. It's about another story I may do. But first things first, I know you're here for todays chapter so here we go.
And also, hope you all had a great holiday!
"Come on! Let us in! It's important!" Lili and Welf were currently arguing with the guards of the Loki familia get to let them in. They needed to talk to Loki about what was going on with Bell and Ais.
"For the last time No! Now scram!" One of them said.
"You don't understand! This matter deals with your familia and we have to talk to your goddess about it!" Lili yelled at them.
"Unless you have permission from a higher up, no one is allowed to speak with our goddess! Now get out of here!" The other yelled.
"Ugh! This is getting us nowhere!" Lili yelled in frustration. "Wait Welf, use your leverage with Hephaistos to let us in!" Lili whispered to him.
"I don't think that'll be enough to convince them." Welf said.
Sure enough, it wasn't.
"See?" Welf asked.
"You're worthless." Lili said while facepalming.
"What's going on?" A voice was heard.
Everyone turned to look and see that it was Lefiya, Thousand Elf, that the voice belonged to.
"Yo!" Welf said casually greeting her.
"Ms. Lefiya! You've got to let us talk with goddess Loki! It concerns Bell and Ais!" Lili yelled.
"Mrs. Ais? What's wrong with here?" Lefiya asked worriedly.
(Small question: Am I doing the Ms. and Mrs. correctly? Been a while since my last English class.)
"And Bell too." Welf added.
"We'll explain it to you too on the way, just let us in!" Lili yelled clearly losing her temper.
"Ehh. Alright. You get this one pass. Move over guys." She said motioning for the guards to let them pass.
"Yes ma'am!" They said in unison. One thing they learned was to not get on the wrong side of the Elf that could kill them with any elven spell.
"So what's happening?" Lefiya asked the two.
"In a little bit. Where's the captain of your familia or Loki? They should hear this first." Lili explained.
"Oh, uh Finn I think is busy talking to Tsubaki of the Hephaistos familia and Loki should be in her office." Lefiya responded.
"Alright. Let's explain this to Loki first!" Lili said.
….
"WHAAAAT?! You really left Mrs. Ais with that weirdo!?" Lefiya yelled at the 2. They had explained everything that happened Loki and Lefiya.
"That Ais." Loki said already getting a headache. "And she dragged Bell into it too." She muttered to herself.
"Well if anything, it was Bell that dragged himself in it." Welf said.
"Yeah that's true." Lili agreed.
"So that guy just so happened to sneak up on Ais?" Loki asked suspiciously.
"Apparently. Neither of us knew he was there but both Bell and Ais saw him." Welf said.
"There's something that bothers me more goddess Loki. He said 'we' a few times, which means that there's someone else that's with this mystery person." Lili said. That's what she noticed that the other three didn't pick up on, or just didn't comment on it.
"Oh yeah, he did say 'we' here and there. Great job Lil'E!" Welf said complementing her.
"You would've noticed it if you used your brain more." Lili replied.
"Hmmm." Loki took note of Lili's intuition. 'Heh. She's like a younger version of Finn, and female. If she can pick up little hints like that she might just become the second coming of Finn. Better not let Tione know of her though. She might kill her.' She joked to herself.
"Okay. So, anything else? Oh, how did you meet my Aisy-poo anyways?" Loki asked.
'Aisy-poo?' The both of them questioned mentally.
"Agh! It was of that stupid party!" Welf groaned.
"AGGHH! LILI FORGOT TOO!" Lili yelled after being reminded of why they had originally ran.
"Party?" Loki asked.
"Yeah." Welf answered after calming down. "We were holding our own in our first trip to the 13th floor when another party ended up pass parading us, forcing us to retreat." Welf explained.
"What?! How could they do something so shameless?" Lefiya asked.
"To be 'fair', they did have an injured party member, BUT THAT'S STILL NO EXCUSE!" Lili cried out.
"Wait, wait, wait. You're telling me, that some idiot decided to pass parade one of my familia members? MY FAMILIA MEMBER?!" Loki said getting a dark look.
"Well, yeah?" Welf said unphased.
"Alright. Time to murder some fools." Loki said while getting up.
"Wait Loki! We don't even know who it was! And more importantly, what are we going to do with Mrs. Ais? And Bell." Lefiya asked trying to calm her goddess down.
"Hmmm. Lefiya, who is here right now?" She asked her.
"Oh uh, most of them are out right now. I think Bete is around here somewhere." Lefiya told her.
"Agh. Great. Well go get him and get your stuff ready." She informed her.
"Yes Loki!" Lefiya said and walked away.
"Huuh. I wonder how Ais is doing." Loki said.
"Yohoo!" A voice called out.
Everyone turned around and saw a god followed by a female elf.
"Oh? What do you want now, Dionysus?" Loki asked.
"Hehe, can't an old friend just stop by and say hello?" Dionysus said.
"Besides, I smell trouble brewing!" He said quietly.
….
In Rivera
'Well we got here pretty fast.' Bell thought to himself. It only took them about an hour to get through the rest of the middle floors, mostly due to Ais taking charge and slaughtering all the monsters in her way. Bell killed a couple of monsters here and there, but most of them tried their best to stay away from the Sword Princess.
"Hey, Aiz? Do you know where we're supposed to be going?" Bell asked her. He still did not know where anything was in Rivera as this was only his second time here.
"Ah, it should be this way." She said. Their orders were to go to a bar first and meet up with others before checking out the pantry.
'Though, I didn't know that there was a bar way down here.' Ais thought to herself.
After a few more minutes of walking, they finally reached their destination, the Golden Cellar Bar.
"Alright, this looks like the place. So this is where we meet the others?" Bell asked.
"I think so." Aiz replied.
As they entered the bar they saw all sorts of adventurers there from all races ranging from prums to even a war tiger. The bar was lively with chatter and laughter as everyone was having a good time drinking away.
"There's so many people here." Bell said quietly as he looked around the room.
"Hey, sword princess! And little Rookie! What a coincidence seeing you here!" Both of them turned to see lulune sitting at the bar.
"Miss Lulune?" Bell asked in surprise.
"You guys helped me out a ton the other day! Let me buy you guys a drink as thanks!" She said.
Remembering the robbed man's instructions, they sat at the two seats they were told to.
"Huh? Wait, those seats..." Lulune started.
"What can I get you?" The bartender asked.
"Can we get two fried potato flavored green tea?" Ais asked.
Lulune immediately fell from her chair in shock.
"YOU'RE THE REINFORCEMENTS?!" She yelled.
'Don't tell me, the person we're working with is all the customers here?!' Ais thought.
"Are you sure you aren't mistaken about them, Lulune?" A voice asked her.
"Asfi…" She said.
'This person. There's no mistaking it, she's the captain of the Hermes familia, Asfi Al Andromeda' Ais thought.
"You got this quest too, Lulune?" Bell asked as he helped her up.
"Yeah. A couple days ago that person in the black robe appeared and asked for our help. At first I said 'No more!' but, he threatened to rat me out for lying about my level. So…" Lulune started
"In the end, we all got dragged into this." Asfi finished while trying to suppress a headache.
"YOU IDIOT! STUPID FOOL! YOU CALL YOURSELF A THIEF?! YOU SHOULD HAVE JUST STOOD YOUR GROUND INSTEAD OF BEING THREATENED!" Asfi shouted at a quivering Lulune. The other two just slowly backed away from the furious Asfi.
"I'm always dealing with Hermes's selfishness and now I have to deal with thiiis." Asfi groaned. As grateful as she was for her god, he left her with a lot of work to do and plus she always had to be around to make sure he didn't do anything stupid.
"Uh, sorry you had to see that. Anyways, let's go over the quest. Our destination is the pantry on the 24th floor. Our objectives are to find out the reason behind the large amount of mosters appearing and to eliminate it." Asfi said quickly regaining her composure.
"Yes." Ais confirmed.
"Well, there's no time like the present. Let's go!" Lulune said wanting to get this over with.
"Quiet you!" Asfi yelled.
'Will this party be alright?' Bell and Aiz simultaneously thought.
They took a few minutes to introduce everyone from the Hermes familia and to prepare themselves.
"I feel more confident having you along, Sword Princess. However, I think this will be a short party either way." Asfi said.
"It's a pleasure." Ais said.
"However, please refrain from revealing our secrets." Asfi warned and got close.
"Okay?" Aiz said.
"Good. Now, let's go." Asfi ordered and the party took off.
Okay, this is where I'll end it now. Sorry for the short chapter but I just felt like posting a quick update to ask you guys about a possible story. And probably hate it lol cuz I want to do my take on the whole "Alfia what-if" story. I was joking around with a buddy of mine while trying to brainstorm ideas and he asked how I'd do a what if and it got me thinking how I'd do it and I actually have a few ideas for it. I know, I know, it's already been done before, and I've read them too. However, it felt like the good ones were discontinued. I plan to have both Alfia and Zard in the story and for them to have a kid. I know they aren't a thing, but why not? I could see it happening. Maybe. I'd have Bell in the Hestia familia with Alfia and Zard as well but them mostly acting as teachers for Bell rather than adventurers as they'd be more focused on raising Bell and their kid than going down into the dungeon. We talked more about it a lot and I think I have like 40% of the story done in my head. I have a lot because when I was starting this story it was a toss up between this one and the Alfia story but I had more ideas for this one so I started it. Now, this doesn't mean that this story would be put on hold. I would be able to work on both as my work process is a mess and when I think of a scenario that won't work for one it could work for the other. Idk, I'm a mess lol idk how other great authors do it. Would you guys like to see that story? I think you all would enjoy it too so it wouldn't be a waste. I already started a rough draft so it won't be too long of a wait for the first chapter and like I said I'd still be working on this story so no need to fear it being abandoned. Oh yeah, it will be BellxAis again. If you hadn't noticed, I'm a huge fan of it. I'm also gonna include a couple of funny moments with Alfia just bonking girls away from Bell for jokes XD.
I really think I can make it work and I'd love to hear what you guys think. It may slightly be similar to this in a few instances but nothing more. I might steal a thing or two from here but it won't be too important.
Anyways, thank you all so much for reading this and once again hope you all had a great holiday. And Happy New Year!