Looks at the calendar with a bit of concern…

Well shit. Before I begin in the story itself, I apologize for my heavy absence in the past while. I have hit some major writing block as I did the one thing I told myself not to do, and tried starting up several drafts for stories that I really should get more experience in the worlds of first before even thinking about progressing. For that, I am sorry, it has clouded my drive, and this story as a whole even if it has been occasionally worked on over the past while.

This isn't to say I am making a comeback, no, as I lose drive pretty quickly at times, and I don't want to give too much hope to the readers that I will keep to some level of consistency. I am consistent in that regard at least. That being said, I will at least make an attempt to bring out a couple chapters out this year, and (finally) get working on the complete revamp of The Sapphire Empress since I have actually written a decently long draft for it so far as of typing this.

The main question is what brought me out of my writing block recently? Well I was looking through some emails about the reviews and PM's I have received since 2019 (damn 4 years already?), and I gave me a confidence boost knowing you guys actually like this story, as well as my older works to some extent. That being said, should probably answer some questions in regards to what was from chapter 2 of this story, shouldn't I?

KitsunetheWhite) Thank you for the compliments, I have fun whenever I write these, and it helps that I can visualize in my head how I want things to be done, if sometimes not translated best into words.

KingJGamer, AWACS Freeshipping, dresden12, and Pownbattle) You can all point and laugh at me now, I deserve it lol.

Frostmane101) Under normal circumstances, I would agree. I chalk it down to Itari-ten already having a lot of experience being set on fire, being poisoned, cut open like tissue paper on occasion… you know, normal Hunter things.

Skeletalrepublic) Yeah, I should have really asked that beforehand before simply deleting them. Might do that for the Original version of The Sapphire Empress if anyone wants to since I'm redoing it anyways.

Lastly, Truefortune) I'm glad you like how I'm adapting things. I've seen a couple where the Hunters are too overpowered compared to literal God given individuals like Ottar or Ais. Itari-ten by comparison is still rather strong, but it is more grounded in her reasoning by having her buff herself with the Kjarr Crusher horn to compete with Level 2's on more even ground.

My goal with this was to have a more realistic take, and that also blends into what I at least have a vague idea for in future chapters where Monsters from MonHun will have a unique effect on what happens to the local monsters. The Guild does have notes on what she has fought previously up to Fatalis in World. Whether or not more than just Fubuki will arrive will be a question that will be answered later.

With those out of the way, and a nice refresher on where I was, let's get the story going while I have motivation. I am the Opulent Neckbeard, having returned in the meantime.


Chapter 3: Drink Responsibly

(2 days later)

"Okay, so let me get this straight…" I said, having heard the recent events that had happened. "Apollo had challenged you to a War Game where if you lose, Bell has to be converted to the Apollo Familia…"

"Correct." Hestia said with a nod.

"… We have our crack team assembled, no offense to any of you, by the way." I continued with an apology.

"Considering the last minute nature of things, it does seem that way." Welf said with a lax tone.

"Exactly… and our ace in the hole has been Kidnapped by her own Familia because their God doesn't have the heart to interfere, or lacks the sympathy to? Is that right?" I asked with a quizzical tone, my brain trying to wrap itself around the fact that this happened in 48 hours since Hestia and I last talked.

"That is the gist of it, yeah…" Hestia seemed a bit hesitant when she saw my expression turn sour.

"With Bell training with those first classes, he won't be able to help. Have you tried talking to Soma when you came back? I would prefer not to fight if I can help it." I said, as hurting other people wasn't my M.O. Hestia facepalmed when she heard my suggestion, clearly that being a no.

"I didn't think to talk to him directly, but he seems too preoccupied with running his familia to make his wine." Hestia said with a somewhat saddened tone.

"Then we go and talk to him as this is an important matter we're talking about." I said with a serious tone. "If words fail to work, then we will go with the original plan, and fight our way through."

"I'm not sure about this, but if it has a chance to work, then I will try." Hestia said, standing up with a goal set in mind. Smirking a bit, I grab my Xeno Neqiina, slinging it over my back.

"Mikoto, and those who are more familiar with what Fubuki is… can I trust you to watch over her while I'm gone?" I asked those from the Takemikazuchi Familia who volunteered to help us.

"Of course, Lady Shiboku, we will treat her as one of our own." Mikoto said with a determined look in her eyes. Her captain seemed to shake his head a little at her antics.

"We will make sure your companion is in good health when you return, Ma'am." The Captain said, and I nodded to him.

With that, Hestia and I left towards the Estate that Soma resided in, leaving the care of Fubuki to those in able hands. Sure, she will panic not seeing me present, but hopefully she won't burst through the city trying to find me. At least her growth had stopped when she reached 8 feet from snout to tail, which was good as it was hard to keep up with her at that point.

While I did have my Light Bowgun with me, I didn't have it for the sake of using it to fight. Instead, I had it partially modified to be able to hold a Health Booster, and a Cleanse Booster. They were placed in a mount on the stock, where they were easily accessed, as well as being easy to deploy. I prefer using mantles, but considering that I didn't have any with me anymore, this was my best alternative for the meantime until new Mantles could be made.

Done with my inner thoughts, I looked to Hestia, who seemed rather tense at the whole ordeal. I get she is the Goddess of the Hearth, and by extension, family, but seeing her like this didn't sit well with me. It reminded me of my Handler when we were finding out the secrets behind Zorah Magdaros. That tension never lead to good things from what I could tell from experience, so I just hope that things panned out well…

"Halt! You are entering Soma Familia property. State your business!" A guard said with a slight slur, his breath smelling like he had downed three full barrels of the strongest moonshine in Astera on his own.

"We would like to speak with Soma about one within his Familia." Hestia said, doing much better to ignore the alcoholic stench and I expected.

"Hmmm, this doesn't have to do with the wine, does it?" The guard asked, and both of us shook our heads. "Very well… Don't cause a ruckus, else we will have problems." He said, leaning against the wall after opening the gate up.

Inside the gate showed a rather spacious courtyard of light grey cobblestone, with a few spots for trees to be planted. Many had wilted, unfortunately, likely due to neglect, as the area seemed pretty nice outside of that. This painted a bad picture in my head about Soma, and Hestia noticed as I was scowling slightly.

"It's okay, Itari… we will get this sorted out, I promise." Hestia said, doing her best to cheer me up.

"Yeah… he should hire better gardeners…" I said, and Hestia knew what I was going on about considering my life as a Hunter was all about Nature. Seeing it in ruins, even in a small scale naturally drove me up a wall.

"Anyways… Soma's workshop is where the Balcony is above. Since the doors are open, he might be working as we speak." Hestia said, and immediately regretted it when she saw me prep my Clutch Claw.

"You should probably hold on, we're taking the express route." I said, giving Hestia only a couple seconds to hold on for dear life as the grappling function latched onto the ledge just above the balcony, allowing us to launch straight up, and almost into the room. Hestia may or may not had yelped in fear in the process, but I will pretend I never heard anything.

Focusing on the main topic at hand, I looked into the room, seeing that it really was just a workshop for making wine. Inside was a single man, in simplistic clothes, and in need of a haircut, or at least pull it back so he could see properly. He was absent-minded in his method, stirring a specialized keg full of what I can assume is his wine. He didn't even seem to acknowledge our presence at first, but when he looked at the shadows that formed into the otherwise dark room, he noticed Hestia, and tilted his head slowly.

"Hestia… How long have you been there?" Soma asked, his voice slow and soft, yet he kept on brewing.

"Not long, but we wanted to ask you something since we are here." Hestia said, her mood calming a little bit. "Have you seen a Pallum named Liliruca Arde? We have been looking for her as she was hired by my Familia's Captain to be his Supporter."

"I don't know… Zanis might, though." Soma said, his slow speech not changing an iota. This rubbed me the wrong way greatly.

"Could you bring him here then? We can keep an eye on your wine so that no one sneaks off with it." I asked, restraining my anger at Soma's apparent apathy towards his own children, but only barely.

Weirdly enough, he actually complied. This threw me for a loop, leaving Hestia and I in the room to keep guard over the so called infamous wine. It didn't change the fact that I didn't like him as he currently was, uncaring for those he could have genuinely helped. I didn't have time to say my opinions as he walked back in with who appeared to be a calm and collected gentleman with grey hair, a thin face, and wore glasses.

"I take it you're Zanis? Itari-ten Shiboku, Vice-captain of the Hestia Familia." I said, offering a hand to shake with him. He accepted with a calm, but firm shake.

"That I am. While I am a busy man, I can set a few minutes aside to hear you and your goddess out." Zanis said, though something felt off about him, like he was rehearsing a script to a play.

"Thank you, Captain. Itari and I were wondering what happened to Liliruca, she was hired as a Supporter to our Familia by our own Captain." Hestia said, and I noticed Zanis's eye twitch for a moment, but it was subtle. Just because he isn't a 20 meter long wyvern, doesn't mean I can't tell subtle queues when someone is planning something.

"And what business have you with her at this time?" Zanis asked, continuing to sound professional.

"Apollo challenged us to a War Game, and we need her for Team Hestia." I said, and he seemed surprised with the information given. "And if lucky, get her out of this environment. A kid like her doesn't deserve to go through this level of hardship if I'm to be perfectly blunt."

"We can make an agreement if that is what you want." Zanis smirked, the glint of his glasses flickering in the faint light. "You see, she has a quite sizable debt to the Familia, Ten Million Valis in fact. So far she has paid for about a tenth of that, so if you are to pay it off, then she can leave Scott free."

"Is that what her life is worth to you?" I asked, disgusted by his words. "And he just stands around doing nothing? What kind of fucked up world are we in where the value of lives are compared to some booze?" I then asked, hearing Soma stop to look at me. I gave him a cursory glance back before looking back to Zanis.

"Itari, I don't think it's wise to antagonize a God to their face." Hestia said, pleading me to relax a little bit. "We already have one challenging us, we don't need another."

"Your child is right." Soma said, surprising us a bit. "Not without reason, however…" he then trails off, looking to Zanis, who seems to understand why.

"Let me guess… Alcohol?" I asked, and both nodded, making me sigh. "Not the first time booze was the main culprit, but we came to grab Lili. It's extremely important that we do for whatever plan we have set up to work."

"While I would normally be more than accommodating, I'm afraid we can let her go at the moment. She needs to understand the debt she owes." Zanis said, and I grab him by the collar, my anger reaching a peak with the Captain.

"This is non-negotiable. We will leave with Lili even if we have to fight for it." I said, venom in my tone before letting him go. "I have a short fuze as is, don't make it any shorter, Captain…"

Hestia, disappointed in my lack of civility at the moment sighs before she takes charge, simply asking me to relax as her and Zanis go to retrieve Lili before I did something too drastic. Left to stew on my anger and stuff, I glance over to Soma, who was inspecting some bottles of alcohol on the shelf, seemingly looking for one to pull out. After a few moments, he managed to find what he wanted, as well as a couple of glasses, setting them on a nearby table before pouring one out for each of us.

"What's your game?" I asked, raising an eyebrow, having cooled off some in the moments leading to his finding.

"You seem quite stressed. I have some understanding why." Soma said, offering me a glass. "It is sake from Takemakazuchi. It was a gift of his during the last Denatus I attended."

"Sake? Haven't had any since I visited Yakumo Village a few years back." I said with a more reserved tone. "Apologies for my more… barbaric actions. I've been pretty on edge since I got here. You can tell a lot about someone by how they treat the life around their residence, and it painted a pretty grim picture in my mind of how things would go. All I see are a bunch of Alcoholics and Thugs working under an almost apathetic leader." I then took a sip of the sake, enjoying the foreign taste.

"To most mortals, my wine is the only thing they crave. Child after child, I have seen the same thing happen. They take one drink, and they become hooked on it, as if nothing else matters to them." Soma said with regret in his tone, making my expression soften some.

"I'm guessing you use it as a right of passage to enter the Familia? If so, why not make an antidote?" I asked, and he was genuinely curious as to what I meant. "I mean, you know your wine like the back of your hand, right? Then you should know how to make something that reverses the effects just as easily."

"I… never thought of that before." Soma admitted to me as he took a drink of the Sake himself, noting the more rural flavor due to it being rice based. "It gives me much to ponder upon."

"I understand… and was also wrong about you. You do care, but seemed to feel powerless to solve the problem, instead going to what you know best. A surprisingly normal response, not something I would expect out of a god." I said with a chuckle.

"Awe! Itari is making friends!" Hestia suddenly blurted out with a rather nervous Zanis and excited Lili. What happened down there I shudder to think about, but I laugh more knowing I was caught off guard like that.

"Soma and I have had a chat is all. I admit I was wrong to be so pissed off with him." I said, putting my hands up. "You should still have someone tend to your gardens, it would liven the place up a bit." I took another sip of the sake offered, Hestia being mildly confused.

"Isn't that some of Takemakazuchi's sake?" Hestia asked, and I nodded to her question. "Oh, that seems fair, you do look from the Far East."

"Fair enough, what's got Zanis over here so flummoxed?" I then asked to the slowly composing Captain.

"I was… enlightened to how flawed my plans were." He said, not looking at me directly for a moment.

"Right…" I dragged on for a moment as I looked to the group. "So what now? Are we going to head out, or is there something else to do?"

"We can go unless you are willing to wait for a Familia transfer." Hestia suggested, and since I wasn't denying the free sake, I shrugged, offering Zanis to join. He reluctantly joined as Soma brought out a third glass for him.

We all watched as Soma shortly after did his normal test for Lili, all with apt attention. Lili hypes herself up for a few moments before taking the plunge, drinking down the whole cup in one go. She would give some hunters a run for their money with that amount of gusto, I will say that much. She collapses soon after, her face flushed, and eyes blurry. Lili occasionally mutters something aloud to herself in her lapse into alcoholic bliss. So that was what happened when they try his wine, that or she's never had a drink before and wasn't prepared for how hard it would hit.

A good couple of moments went by, and Soma's mood soured slightly as time went on. Lili managed to get on her hands and knees during this, likely a herculean effort on her end. I could see the tears in her eyes when I went to check up on her from afar, her expression becoming determined. She was fighting the effects with everything she had, and that made me smile a bit to see.

"Soma… please…" I heard Lili choke out, and I could see a faint glow in the wine gods eyes as he saw her struggling to get up. "Let me fight… my friends needs me… Bell needs me…"

"Impossible… how is she?" Zanis was speechless at Lili's resistance to the wine, and I couldn't help but chuckle.

"She's made of some tough stuff. Besides, Apollo will probably know about her, and make her likely the next target after he would get Bell." I said, Hestia looking to me with horror. "But! Now that she is proving herself to be quite the determined soul, none of that will come to pass."

"Itari, don't ever scare me like that again!" Heatia said tearfully. It was pretty comical, especially since I patted her on the head a little.

Lili struggled to her feet, but managed to do so with a little bit of a drunken wobble. I decided to help her get seated, rubbing her back some. This seemed to die down the nausea that was forming while I noticed the two gods left the room momentarily. Zanis, stewing in some self loathing and failed planning, was taking more of the sake. I looked to him for a moment, then reached for my weapon to grab the cleanse booster there. Placing it on the ground, the faint smoke made illuminated the room, the warm feeling from my chest vanishing, and Lili visibly looking better after a moment.

"Ya doing good, kiddo?" I asked, and the Pallum nodded, standing back up. Zanis seemed to be in a better mood too by the time it wore off. "Should see about getting these replicated or something for Soma as a temporary solution." I mused to myself mostly, holding the booster.

Hestia and Soma soon returned, both in higher spirits as they approached Lili and I. We were given a rundown that Lili would be transferring Familias to be on Team Hestia. Lili was surprised and excited to hear the news, giving both a hug, and nearly crying from the joy. Zanis was a little angered, but knowing what could have happened, he relented a bit mentally. That didn't stop me from being curious, though.

"So Captain… what would you have done with Lili if we didn't stop by?" I asked, mainly to sate my curiosity.

"We would have used her disguise magic to lure some monsters somewhere. Lady Hestia showed me that I was wrong in thinking to do so." Zanis admitted with a sigh.

"No matter where you're from, having Monsters in public like that is a one way ticket to disaster. Accidentally let an Anjanath loose in Astera when I was beginning as a Hunter back home. Luckily it was an adolescent, and was easily subdued by Commander Julius and his grandson. Spent the next two weeks unable to hunt, and was forced to clean the floors." I lamented, but felt nostalgic over the lessons learned.

"Anjanath? Never heard of it before." Zanis noted, looking to me. "A monster from the Far East?"

"Sort of. Anjanath is a Brute Wyvern, a classification the Research Commission designates for large, flightless, bipedal Wyverns." I explained, taking a sip of the sake. "Unlike monsters from the Dungeon, at least from what I've heard, Monsters where I'm from are naturally occurring, having evolved over millennium to what they currently are."

Before Zanis could ask another question, Hestia grabbed my attention, saying we could head out. Apologizing to the Captain for the abrupt end, I go over to Soma, thanking him for the hospitality. Hestia and Lili see this, and smile a bit, seeing how I was rather relaxed now compared to when we arrived. We make our final farewells from the Soma HQ, heading back towards where I had been staying since the Church didn't have enough room for Bell, Hestia, Lili, myself, and Fubuki all at the same time.

We stopped for lunch on the way, getting some takeout from the Hostess of Fertility before the Lunch Rush happened as they were just opening up. I saw the elf girl again, the one who was wary of Fubuki when I first arrived. She seemed more reserved this time as I waved to her in a laid back manner. Her Co-workers were fun to talk to as well, the one named Syr especially. Turns out she had a thing for Bell because he looked like a small rabbit. I couldn't disagree that he shared some resemblance to an especially adorable Lagombi. The mood was light to say the least, though the tab wasn't. I burnt through a good chunk of my Valis getting lunch, but it would be worth it.

Fubuki, bless her young heart, smelt the food first, and went into a full sprint when she saw it was me. I had to dodge a pounce, lest I lost the food. I had to get the food down before I let the Barioth tackle me properly, the young wyvern all but happy to do so. Again the atmosphere was light-hearted, and the lunchtime shenanigans was an excellent time before the storm as we had about a week before the War Game begun.

While that was going on, a trio of individuals, one male, one female, and something else were entering Orario for the first time, having had a long trek from the nearby mountains. The male held up a picture of what seemed to be a group photo, one of the faces circled with a question mark. Hopefully they were close, else they would have to give up on their search…


I wonder who those three are at the end, hmmm???? I kid, but in all seriousness, what do you guys want to see? The next chapter I want to have Itari's first Dungeon Crawl to get a feel for the Dungeon, as well as how the rest of the team works…

My question for that is twofold. The first is what weapon should she take with her? So far she has used the Kjarr Crusher Hunting Horn, Chrome Cross 3 Dual Blades, and the Xeno Neqiina Light Bow Gun. Should she use one of these, or do I go with something else she has with her?

I'm thinking either Great Sword, Hammer, or Switch Axe.

Second question is if there will be any Monsters from MonHun to show up to reveal Itari's Wyvern Tame skill. If any do show up, what should it be? Keep it to low rank stuff since she won't be going far, and small enough to fit in the dungeon.

With all that said, I hope you enjoyed this chapter after a long hiatus. I am the Opulent Neckbeard, signing out for now.