Chapter 5

"Are you okay?" Aethon asked Bell.

While Bell had been off dating the goddess Aethon had been, as the man himself put it. "Asking Questions." What questions Bell couldn't ask, the man had left before Bell could ask.

Now he was facing the man, having exited from Hestia's church. Aethon was leaning on the wall outside arms crossed. "Fine at the moment, I had another… incident."

Aethon quietly swore, Bell could hear it because of his enhanced hearing. It was one of the helpful things about being a vampire, it was also really obnoxious.

"Is that the reason you were invited in?" Aethon gestured towards the doorway.

Bell nodded. "Yes, she invited me in once I failed to follow her." Vampires, for all their strengths, had a few weaknesses. One of them places of religion. They had difficulty entering places of worship, even destroyed as this one. Vampires were, apparently, unholy beings. So unless they were invited in they couldn't enter a place of worship.

Bell hesitated. "I told her. I'm not completely sure why but I felt like I could trust her. So I told her."

Aethon inclined his head forwards. "Very well then. I'll trust you then."

Bell felt their connection, their bond, it was as strong as ever. The two men truly trusted each other. "Thank you, Sire."

Hestia jumped when he talked to her. It was the morning after she had learned about Bell's… status, so to speak.

A tall man wearing a cloak and hood that covered his face. "Greetings!" He said with a wave of his hand. "I'm the kid's Sire."

What a way to introduce yourself.

"Uh, hi?" She hadn't been expecting a conversation, she was honestly pretty exhausted. "So you're his father?"

The man shrugged his shoulders. "In a way I suppose. I'm his Sire, his vampire father. Simply because I'm his vampire parent that doesn't erase any of his previous affiliations."

Right. "So then… why are you here?"

She couldn't see his face but the way his head tilted seemed to indicate that he was giving her a physical evaluation. "Some of the things that Bell said concerned me. I wished to speak with you about them."

Hestia shifted uncomfortably. The man felt intimidating. "Well, what do you wish to discuss then sir…?"

"Aethon." He supplied. "You may call me Aethon."

Hestia frowned… Aethon, the name sounded familiar to her somehow…

Almost as knowing her thoughts he cleared his throat. "What do you intend to do with the newfound knowledge you have of my charge?" Straight to the point.

Distracted from her thoughts Hestia shrugged. "Nothing really, continue to ask him what its like. Being a vampire I mean."

Aethon raised an eyebrow. "Indeed?"

Hestia nodded. "Yes." A moment of silence and then. "Indeed."

The man, Aethon, laughed. Hestia pouted. "What's so funny?"

Aethon held back a chuckle. "Yes, I think I can understand why he likes you. Though I don't feel the pull towards you that he feels." He gave her a look over. "I wonder why that is?"

Pull? "What are you talking about?"

Aethon frowned. "Nothing with a real answer, so I can't really say."

Hestia stared at Aethon. He shrugged his shoulders. She glared. He smirked.

His face became more serious. "So let's talk about Bell."

Hestia's face turned serious as well. "What do you have to say?"

Bell pinned another monster and bit into its neck drinking all the blood it could offer him. He was in the dungeon, again. His plan was to fill himself, to fill himself so much that the temptation to drink anyone's blood wouldn't ever hit him.

Of course, he knew that his plan wouldn't work. Despite vampires using blood as sustenance, they didn't actually get "full" really. It was simply that after a long enough period of time the urge to drink blood would appear, and slowly get stronger over time until it became overpowering.

Technically vampires didn't really eat though.

Bell stepped back from the now empty monster corpse and grimaced. Two days in a row. He'd had an encounter with a girl that apparently really really wanted to eat two days in a row.

Curse his luck.

Actually everyone always told him that he was really lucky. Maybe so, Bell could recall many absolutely insane lucky streaks he'd had. Out of everyone he knew though he'd also always had the worst luck. What had his grandpa called it again?

A rank luck?

Regardless of his luck the fact was that he still had to find some way to deal with this. He now knew who he was avoiding.

Loki familia.

More specifically their "Sword Princess" Ais Wallenstein.

He had to admit she was quite the popular character from what he'd heard. Mostly horror stories about her eating the flesh of mankind.

He had some very strange sources to say the least. Bell wondered what the man saying that would have thought if he'd told the man he was an actual bloodsucker. It was an amusing idea to say the least.

However, he had managed to learn a few other things. Like that she was the current record breaker for fastest level up. Another was that she rarely seemed to show anyone any emotions at all.

She was an interesting individual and Bell found himself curious about her. Which if he chose to act on that curiosity might lead to problems. Like him trying to eat her.

From what he'd heard aside from being a maneater she sounded like someone he'd like. He just wished she didn't smell so good.

More monsters appeared and he approached them.

He'd decided. He wanted to go to Rivira on floor 18.

He knew he was capable of it, though he didn't think he was strong enough to really move past it yet.

He could wait however, first he needed to tell Aethon about his desire to go there. And he also wanted to take the goddess out on another day in Monsterphelia. To make up for his behavior in the Hostess and her church.

Goddess Hestia. Bell respected her, she was someone worthy of respect. He couldn't help his mistrust of the gods, it was ingrained into his being. But for some reason she seemed to be an exception.

His natural mistrust of the gods is what led to his "treatment" of the waitress goddess Syr. He didn't believe she was a bad person, even though she unnerved him.

Hestia though, he just didn't feel it with her. It was strange, there wasn't anything different about her as far as he could tell. She was just another goddess, and yet he immediately felt like he knew her.

And apparently that trust was well founded, she had agreed to not tell anyone that he was a vampire. That kind of promise, it wasn't normal, especially from a god. She was a great person, and if she needed anything from him he would try and deliver.

He finished draining the last monster and he sighed. Might as well collect some stones right?

Ais was staring blankly at her breakfast again.

Honestly yesterday had been bad enough, but this? This Lefiya decided, was downright creepy.

"Are you going to eat Ais?" The question came from Tiona.

"Huh?" Ais jumped surprised.

Lefiya exchanged a look with Tione, if Ais was feeling jumpy… Something was definitely weird.

Tiona leaned across the table. "Well it's just, that you're kind of just staring at your food, not eating it, so naturally I wondered. I mean, are you going to eat it? If not that's fine its just, y'know."

Ais stared blankly at Tiona. "Sorry." She grabbed her utensil and began to eat. After several swallows she said. "I've been distracted."

Lefiya's eye twitched as she felt a slight sense of Déjà vu. She had a feeling that the conversation would start to resemble yesterday soon. So she gathered her courage and stood up. "Shopping."

All three of them stared at her. "What?" Tione.

Lefiya wilted. "It was the first thing I could think of." Lefiya gazed directly at Ais's face. "I was hoping that maybe it might help you get your mind on track or something…" She trailed off.

An awkward moment, and then. "Sure." Lefiya felt shock rush through her, then she grinned.

"Great!" She glanced at Tiona and Tione. "You two as well?"

They glanced at each other, before Tione answered. "Of course!"

Hestia took a deep breath. She hadn't had any plans on attending, but she'd decided that she needed to talk to the other gods and gather information, and this was her least awkward method of doing so.

She glanced down at her outfit. It was nicer than she'd expected.

After their discussion she had commented on joining the event, and Aethon had gone and bought her a dress.

Considering his identity, it wasn't that much of a surprise, though she doubted any of the other gods would be able to place him.

She was honestly kind of glad that he had picked up Bell. The two were different sides of the same coin, it was good for him she could see that.

On the subject of Bell though. Yeah, she liked him, she was willing to attend this stuffy event out of concern for him in the first place after all.

She would help him, that she vowed to herself. She was inadequate with her knowledge, so ask a more knowledgeable god.

Hestia took another deep breath. She was honestly way to shifty, way to shady. Times like this she wished she could be more like Loki, Loki asking questions wouldn't be weird. But as she was now there was no way she could blend in. She needed another persona, she needed…

With slight hesitation reached deep inside herself. It was there, sleeping. She didn't want to do a full transformation, but she did want to call upon her, to let her out, to let her take control for just a little while.

She shut her eyes in concentration. She knew that she would get a lot of attention this way, probably too much attention, but this way no one would find her questions weird.

Then her eyes opened. They were colder, more detached. She still felt the same, she felt the desire to help Bell Cranel. She felt the attraction that was present associated with Bell Cranel, though that wasn't the reason for her actions. She felt the strong sense of importance.

She was still Hestia, but she wasn't.

A third deep breath, not out of nervousness this time, but anticipation.

Then Vesta stepped forwards and entered the banquet of the gods.

AN: Shorter chapter unfortunately. And I've also got some bad news. I unfortunately am going to have a chaotic few weeks ahead of me. So I probably won't update for a few weeks. Don't get too upset though, I still intend to keep writing when I have time. Hopefully I'll be back soon. [And by soon I mean within the month.]

But yeah, I hope you're just as exited about that cliffhanger as I am to be writing it. It probably won't be as climactic as I'm building it up to be but still.

Also I have another Omake, this one intended to be nothing but a joke.

Hermes grinned. He felt exited, he was back in Orario, time to get up to some mischief!

With a grin he started to walk down the street before realizing something.

There was no way. Hermes grin widened.

Hermes laughed loudly, a boisterous laugh. Beside him Asfi groaned in realization.

"I'm a trendsetter Asfi!" He proclaimed loudly. "People are wearing my style of feathered hat!"

It was true, everywhere you looked their were people wearing hats that looked to be a similar style to his.

Hermes laughter filled the city, along with a cry of. "THIS IS THE MOST BEATIFUL THING I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE!"