Is it wrong to hunt monsters in a dungeon and adventure outside it?

by krazyfelinelover

Fused/crossover worlds of Danmachi and Monster Hunter World with Gamer elements. Isekei/Self insert as Ais Wallenstein. Timeline will be before the 3 great quests of the Zeus & Hera famillias, so the distant past of the cannon story and just before the 5th fleet arrives and the start of Monster Hunter World. Will become massively AU from originals. Slow start, lots of set-up.

9. Ch 8: Settling In Orario

Sorry for the long wait between updates, I definitely like reading more than writing. At least it is my longest chapter yet I think.

I also went through a summarized version of the story in my head and typing out all the tedious details is very boring so I have only written out 3/4 of Ch 9 and a few scenes of Ch 10 as well as that summary in a separate file. Expect Ch 9 in a few days, along with yet more edits to the previous chapters since I recently reread them and noticed a few mistakes. I will also be taking out the few switch of POV I had in early chapters due to a review I got. I like the idea of switching POV occasionally, but will try writing the entirety of one chapter in a different POV rather than switching.

Warning! Minor spoiler/ summary of this chapter in my A./N.!

...

A.N.: They finally reach Orario! No exploring the dungeon just yet, but a few members from the mysterious Zeus and Hera familias are seen, and a third familia with a character from cannon Danmachi as a chibi child is introduced as well. This is mostly a chapter of Ais settling in, beginning the arrangements to pass off the vigor-wasps to someone else and learning more about this Orario. Ais is also introduced to many more Hermes familia members.

Ch 8: Settling in Orario; many introductions

The Hermes familia walked up to the nearest gate when they reached the walls of Orario. There was a very bored guard sitting in a booth right next to the gate. He took a glance at the large group, then said "State your business entering Orario." In a dull, uninterested tone.

"The Hermes famillia returning from a trade trip with a new member." Falgar stated.

The guard nodded, mechanically wrote that down in a notebook, glanced around at all the people and counted them, focusing on Hermes, though he raised an eyebrow when he saw Ais being carried by Robin. He then wrote down the number of people entering and moved a flimsy board from across the entrance and waved them through the gate.

"Welcome back Hermes famillia" he said with slightly more life, and a forced smile.

The gate was narrow so only two people could enter at once. Falgar and Tabitha stepped through first, then Meryl and Robin with Ais on her back still, then the rest two by two. Robin let Ais down to stand on her own two feet while they were waiting.

Ais had stared around in curiosity for a bit, focusing on the giant tower in the distance and her immediate surroundings. The area seemed a bit rundown, but there was what seemed to be a park not to far from them. Ais wondered where the Traveler's Inn was, whether it was in this area or through the small gates or ladders that allowed one to go through or on to the top of the small walls that seemed to split Orario into pieces like a pie. The tops of the walls had roads on them, so Ais was not sure if they were raised like that in case of flooding or if the ladders would be destroyed and gates blocked to really split Orario up and make it harder to get anywhere in case of attacks. The walls were higher than most people, but not by too much so Adventurers could leap over them easily going by how high the Hermes familia had jumped on the journey.

Once everyone was through the outer gate they started walking toward the Northwest, closer to the tower. After a bit on Ais left side she saw a fence and a field of short grass with lots of stones sticking out of it in rows. Ais was briefly curious what it was for, until one of Feline's memories suddenly intruded, of going to a place that looked similar for a funeral of her grandfather. Ais realized that this was a graveyard. It was huge, the rows of stones went as far as Ais eyes could see to the west and direct north until they reached the short walls that split Orario into those districts. On Ais right there were rundown buildings, narrow winding streets, with a few scattered rundowns parks until they passed a huge building in a bit better shape with a fenced in large yard, and some playground equipment with children playing everywhere surrounding that building.

Robin spoke up when she saw where Ais was now looking saying solemnly.

"That is Maria's Orphanage for all the children whose parents died in the dungeon. It is both cruel and convenient I guess that the Adventurer's graveyard is so close to them on the opposite side of this street.

No one really wants to live here in this district, since it would be so morbid to be so close to the Adventurer's graveyard.,though many do anyway because it is cheap, so this is something of a slum area and the streets are so confusing it has been called a 2nd Labyrinth..

We will pass through the Tower of Babel to reach another district, sure we could easily hop these walls or use one of the many ladders or gates, but our district is past the entrainment district as well and that would not leave a good impression on you. Seeing both the slums and the entertainment district all in one day would really give you the wrong idea. Using the Tower of Babel allows us to bypass the entertainment district at least."

They walked until they reached the Tower of Babel, which had a wide doorway with a metal gate that was open against the wall of the tower. There was a large hall that had multiple other doorways leading in all directions as well as a very big elaborate staircase leading downward in the center of the room. That staircase had a flimsy fence and more gates surrounding it. There was also a separate spiral staircase leading upward that was just to the right of the fence surrounding the downward staircase.

Hermes spoke up now and said

"That downward staircase leads to the dungeon, while the staircase leading upward goes to some shops catering to adventurers and even some housing quarters that are very expensive and generally only used by gods and their high ranking famillia.

We'll pass through that doorway to the left going south. The Traveler's Inn is to the left of the Entertainment district, although the entertainment district sort of spills over to our district as well, there are quite a few bars, clubs, pubs, and inns mixed in with us as well.

There is a massive garden and park near the center of our district, and the mansions of the Zeus and Hera famillias are closest to the tower of Babel. The Garden and Park are sort of owned by the Hera familia, but they allow others to use it for a small fee as long as they do no damage and clean up their trash. The garden part has tons of flowers, and the trees also flower frequently since they are fruit trees mostly. There are some olive trees as well near the center of the park and a large gazebo where weddings are held frequently with the olive trees surrounding it loosely in a circle. The Hera famillia mainly maintain the park and garden with a few Demeter famillia members helping because Hera likes presiding over the many weddings as a goddess of marriage.

We might be able to let the vigor-wasps feed on the nectar from the flowers there, but only with supervision since it is open to the public and there are too many that might try to steal the vigor-wasps once they realize how useful the vitality nectar is."

Ais nodded in understanding, and kept walking.

They walked through the doorway, and immediately there were two large mansions with large fenced yards on either side of the road that lead strait south. The Hermes famillia followed that road, then when they reached another fence with a gate leading to the massive park and garden they turned left again to parallel the fence for a while, then once the fenced area ended they went south again. Finally they came to yet another mansion with a large backyard and pretty but small garden in front, there was no fence but it was clear which part was the property of the mansion. The mansion had a huge sign saying Traveler's Inn above the main entrance.

It was a bit after noon now. Ais realized in surprise that despite all the difficulties on the way, as Hermes had hoped, it had not even been a full week since they left Asteria, though it was close since this was the middle of the 6th day. It had taken a day and a half to cross the Coral Highlands, with almost 2 days worth of travel through the Savannah due to facing those Killer Ants in the morning before they reached the Ralka Empire. They had ran through the Ralka Empire in the rest of that day. Then they had stopped in that inn at Meilstora. The next day they had taken that road that bordered the Seleo forest and Meilstora, as then Meilstora had ended and it had been all those farms. Dealing with the many monsters on the road or being sidetracked so many times meant that the very short distance had taken a full day to travel through. They had been forced to sleep in that one barn due to that farmer's request to deal with what turned out to be a fox that was killing his chickens and one of his pigs. They had technically reached Orario in mid morning.

Traveling through Orario was very slow. They moved at a walk that even Ais could keep up with when going through the city, but had not bothered to stop to eat, instead just getting out more rations and eating while walking because they had all wanted to reach their home as soon as possible without alarming people by running.

Now they were finally here, at the mansion the Hermes familia called Traveler's Inn that acted as their home. It was 5 stories high and pretty wide too. But it was not extremely fancy and looked both lived in and well maintained somehow. The walls were mostly brick painted pale brown with a wood varnish for all the borders and the door.. There was a narrow pathway through the front garden to the main door. When they reached it no one bothered to knock, Falgar just opened the front door and walked a few steps in then called out

"We're home! Hermes and our group are back from Asteria."

There was a long pause then a distant shout of "Welcome back! I'll start preparing a big dinner, so settle in your rooms or whatever and in a few hours be ready to feast! Though if he is not too tired I could use Pot's help!"

Pot chuckled and walked in, then put his weapons on a large rack to either side of the door. Pot then walked through an area with a lot of comfy looking chairs and couches through a doorway toward that distant shout.

Everyone slowly followed his example, though they headed toward a staircase leading up rather than that doorway and only some of them bothered to put their weapons on the rack.

Robin looked at Ais then said,

"You can bunk with me or take one of the rooms we rent for traveler's or keep for guests if there are any open, your choice. It will be free either way since we control whether we rent out those rooms or not. We mostly only have them since we got so many travelers wanting a room due to our sign. Renting those rooms does help pay for most of the servants we hire to help maintain this mansion though, so it works out."

Ais hesitated and thought. She knew it would probably be easier on the Hermes famillia if she bunked with Robin, but the idea of the privacy of her own room even if it was not furnished much appealed to Ais.

She then said "If it is not too much bother I'd like to take an empty room, that way when I wake up in the middle of the night and can't go back to sleep I won't have to sneak out, or just read quietly rather than wake you up."

Robin nodded in agreement, then pointed at the staircase everyone had gone up and said.

"All rooms are upstairs. This floor has our kitchen, pantry, offices, lounge area, armory, and part of the library. The 2nd story and part of the 3rd are for traveler's, servants, and guests of the Hermes familia. The rest of the 3rd is the map room and other part of our library. The 4th and 5th story is rooms for our famillia and Hermes. So lets see which room on the 2nd or 3rd story is open, if you join our famillia properly rather than just the contract we'll see about setting up a room for you on the 4th or 5th floor, since there is a little bit of space left.

Robin started walking forward and Ais followed. They went up the stairs and along a long branching hallway, with Robin briefly checking some of the doors. All had small signs around the doorknob that said 'occupied' or had a plaque with someone's name on it. So Robin went back to the staircase to the 3rd floor. This time Robin found a door with no sign or plaque, and tried the doorknob to find it unlocked.

The room inside had a single twin-sized bed with white sheets, with a set of drawers next to it. There was also a desk, lamp, and chair across from the bed. There was a bathroom with a curtain left open rather than a door, and a small balcony with potted plants on either end and a small chair and table right outside the doors. Robin nodded to herself in satisfaction, then looked on the inside of the doorknob for a small sign, and placed an 'occupied' sign outside the door. Robin then looked at the number written beside the door, 308 and told Ais,

"remember, your new room is 308, we'll get a key for you and you can start settling in, though we'll try to deliver some of the weapons today. We'll sort through everything else in your inventory and who will be cultivating the vigor-wasps tomorrow. "

Ais nodded. Then she followed Robin back downstairs to that lounge area, seeing a small empty desk in a corner once Robin headed strait to it. Robin then looked through the drawers until she found a key labeled 308 and a notebook. She wrote out Ais Wallenstein, 308 into the notebook and handed Ais the key.

"If you want to drop off your personal bag and great Jagras bag of vigor-wasps and rest a bit feel free to do so, meet me back here in 1 hour and we'll head out to deliver at least two of the weapons we were asked to pick up and deliver from Asteria, though hopefully we will have time to deliver more, then have dinner and sleep." Robin said.

Ais nodded and walked back up the stairs, wishing that Robin had just checked at that desk to see which key was free first rather than checking each door for those signs then going back down to the desk, since by now she had gone up and down stairs twice.

Once Ais entered the room 308, she placed her Great Jagras bag gently on the floor next to the bed, then retrieved the feeders and sugar-water and juice for the vigor-wasps from her inventory and spread them out around the room and balcony after opening the door. She did a quick check for sharp objects and corners near the feeders to be sure the vigor-wasps would not kill themselves, then opened a basket to let the vigor-wasps start feeding. She spent most of that hour feeding the vigor-wasps and checking their health and counting them. To her surprise there were 34 vigor-wasps still alive, 3 had probably hit the side of a basket too hard and burst their sac, but Ais had expected more to have died on the journey.

Even the middle-sized vigor-wasp was still alive, though it had not grown and drank the entire contents of 2 feeders and part of a 3rd when it was let out, so it had probably been close to starving.

Most of the vigor-wasps were reluctant to go back to their baskets, so Ais removed the feeder from the balcony and shut the door again, then refilled the feeders and just let the vigor-wasps fly around the room a bit while she lay on the bed watching them. They drank more from the feeders, but mostly just flew around the room exploring. Ais thought that they were enjoying the chance to actually fly around for once, even if it was in a limited space.

With a sigh after a glance at the angle of the sun, Ais went to her door and carefully opened it, while warding off any vigor-wasp from going through, then locked the door behind her as she carefully closed it. Aid knew the vigor-wasps would settle back into their baskets after a while, but decided to let them enjoy their limited freedom for now since their was plenty of food left out for them, and as long as the corners were not near a feeder the vigor-wasps had just enough self-preservation to avoid killing themselves by bumping into them.

Ais then walked downstairs again and met Robin, who led her out the door, along the same path they had taken, then stopped outside one of the two great mansions near the Tower of Babel and pressed a small button on the gate. These mansions were 6 stories high and even wider and more sprawling than the Traveler's inn, with a few smaller separate buildings in the grounds as well. Robin clearly announced "Hermes famillia delivering commissioned weapons from Asteria," to a small speaker then let go of the button and waited. Ais was again surprised, that was something she had never seen before, though a consultation of Feline's memories showed she had heard of devices like that from movies. Still, that was technology and used electricity, from Feline's memories and Ais own knowledge Orario used magic stones instead so it was strange that a device so similar to what Feline knew of technology would be invented and used here.

After a bit there was a crackling sound, then a voice came out the speaker saying "Enter and wait outside the main door, someone will be with you shortly" as a click sounded from the gate. Robin opened the gate and walked in, with Ais following again. They walked to the main door, following a path in a wild overgrown garden with lots of garish marble statues of muscled men that were naked or some fancy man with a long beard and curly hair wearing a toga. There was also a fountain with a marble statue of a naked woman in the middle of the yard, with water coming from her breasts and from between her legs. Then they waited a bit longer in front of the main door. After a minute a very large man, tall with a lot of muscles wearing tight clothes and bits of leather armor opened the door. He had light brown wavy hair and blue eyes, with a small beard and a very muscled squat build despite his height. There was another man wearing colorful clothes sort of like a short robe who had long curly white hair and a long white beard with bight blue eyes standing next to him. The large tall man frowned in confusion when he saw Robin and Ais, since Robin only had her spear on her.

"Where are the weapon's you are delivering?" the large man asked.

Robin smiled brightly, then gestured at Ais and said. "Our newest famillia member has an amazing skill to store items without need for a bag, just lead us to where you want the weapons placed and she'll retrieve them and place them.

Ais shot a surprised glance at Robin, since she had felt that the Hermes famillia would try to keep her skill a secret, and technically she was contracted to the Hermes famillia, not a member yet. Still, it was probably close enough to the truth and simpler to explain, but why was Robin just announcing her skill to these strangers.

Ais looked back at the two, and a fuzzy memory that Zeus was supposed to have a long white beard and blue eyes in most myths came to her from Feline's memories. Now that she paid attention, he did seem to have a thin sort of aura of divinity around him. The man with the white beard did not look like a god to Ais, but then Hermes didn't either. Hermes had said he was allied with the Zeus and Hera famillias, so maybe that was the reason Robin was so free with this information.

The large tall man had been looking back at Ais with surprise, but with a shrug the man said

"I don't mind carrying at least one, it is meant for me anyway. Give one great sword to me, and I'll lead you to where I want the other." as he held out his hand.

Ais double checked with Robin "The two really big swords right?" Robin nodded.

Ais said "inventory" to get her overlay, then looked in her spots for large items for the two swords. She reached for one of them, the one with a sheathe and held her hands over the man's and mentally retrieved the sword as she said "great sword". With a golden glow it came into existence right over the man's hand, positioned so he could grab the hilt sticking out of the sheathe.

The sword was truly giant, at 7 ft and 4 inches long, and 4 ft wide. Although Monster Hunters generally used larger then usual weapons this sword was large even by their standards.

Still, the man easily held the sword with one hand. Looking closer and comparing sizes, this man was actually taller than 7 ft, closer to 8 ft than 7. He was just proportioned so normally and Zeus was also so tall that he had only looked a little taller than normal to Ais at first. But now it was clear that he was a giant compared to most people.

The man then took a few large steps back from everyone and made a practice swing. He then smiled in satisfaction, and said.

"Those smiths did very good work, it is balanced well but also heavy enough to give me a small workout and deal a lot of damage if I swing with all my might. Even the great expense of having the swords delivered from so far away is well worth the money especially if the 2nd sword is as good as this one. I'll lead you to where I want the 2nd sword, since even I don't feel up to carrying both at once yet."

Ais nodded with slightly wide eyes. When she had seen those swords she thought they had been commissioned as decorative pieces, after all the swords were longer than most people were tall, and not thin or made from some lightweight material. They did have some decoration on their hilts and there seemed no way they could be wielded. Yet even though the sword was almost as long as the man was tall, he had wielded it easily.

Was this the monstrous strength that high level adventurer's gained? Ais thought to herself.

As the large man carefully began figuring out how to strap the sword to his back, the man with white hair, Zeus probably had been inching closer to Robin. Now he suddenly reached out and tried to grope Robin's breasts. Robin slapped his hands away, having been expecting something like that.

"Dear, beautiful, bountiful Amazoness Robin, why would you stop me? Its just a bit of harmless fun. And I'm one of the patron god's your people worshiped in the past and still sometimes do even now." Zeus whined.

"One reason is that this is not Telskyura, I left that place because I did not agree with all their views, so why would I follow their idea of worship? Another is that I like Hera much more than you, and she does not like when your hands wander. You are supposed to be her husband, fidelity from both sides is implied with that. Thirdly, I am not a normal Amazoness, I do not seek a strong male to sire children for me then plan to ignore the man afterward. I don't want a child of my body at all anytime soon, and if I ever did chose to have a child, I would want help raising her."

"Buts that's the point! As a descended god I can't sire children of my loins anyway, so there is no risk! We can both enjoy ourselves without any worry that there will be a child." Zeus argued.

"That does not address my first two points. I never worshiped the god Zeus even before I met you. Hera would still be unhappy with me if I agreed to anything. I feel no attraction to you anyway, and you have nothing I desire other than money from your famillia, and I am not some whore to sell my body for money. I might enjoy showing off like most Amazoness, but I only let others look, not touch me" Robin said

"Lets finish delivering Heracles sword and see if anyone is available to take our delivery for the Hera famillia, Ais." Robin said while turning away from Zeus to address Ais pointedly.

The large and very tall man, Heracles apparently based on Robin's words snorted in good humor, having figured out how the strap from the sheathe worked and adjusted it so he could carry his monster sword on his back at a slight angle while the argument was going on.

"Nice try, Zeus, a new argument at least, but no luck now either. Just give up already. This way then Robin, and Ais was it? Any chance I can get a discount on the delivery fee since clearly no one had to carry these swords in their bags?" He said as he started walking away, expecting Robin and Ais to follow.

They did so, though Zeus made one last attempt to stop Robin. "You don't need to go with them, the armory is not far from here at all. Why don't we get to know each other better while those two take the swords to the armory? Give me a chance to prove there is something attractive about me for you, after all plenty of other women have desired me, and what Hera does not know she can't be mad about." Zeus said with a smile that he probably thought was charming.

"No. for more reasons than I'll bother to say right now. No. Not happening. I am not letting Ais out of my sight and I do not want to get to know you better" Robin said in a firm tone with a glare at Zeus. She then swiftly walked closer to Ais and gave an expectant look at Heracles, who had paused and turned to look at the two at Zeus words. Heracles glanced at Zeus with another chuckle, then walked away with both Ais and Robin following.

As they walked into the armory Ais stared in wonder. There were more weapons and armor than even Eleanor had. The room was very large and somewhat organized. There were racks, stands, shelves, hooks and tables in rows and against the walls. Most of them were full of large weapons, mostly swords, and spears . There was also many kinds of armor; full plate, chain-mail, bracers, and guards for both arms, elbows, knees, shins and even cod pieces.

Although most of the weapons and armor were the silvery gray of steel, or the brown of normal leather or wood rather than the more exotic colors that weapons and armor made from monsters were, there were a few clearly made from monsters as well, they just were not common.

Heracles glanced around, then lead Ais to a corner where there was a rack full of great swords, some that were almost as big as the two he had commissioned, but all the silvery gray of metal where the sheath did not cover. He rearranged them to make space, then said.

"I'll get used to the one I'm carrying, but you can put my 2nd great sword there in the new open space."

Ais nodded and walked over, placing her hands near the rack, then saying

"Inventory, Great Sword" as she pictured how the sword looked and how it would look on the rack. Both swords were similar in shape, looking like a buster sword so only one had a sheathe. Thankfully that sheathe apparently counted as a container so it had stored with the sword as one item. The sword still in the inventory had a reddish color to the blade, and a flame design on the hilt along with the red veined magic stone in the pommel so probably had a fire element. Ais was pretty sure from the hilt decoration and coloring that the sword Heracles was carrying had a thunder/lightning element. Ais wondered if Heracles would commission swords with Poison, Water, Ice, and Dragon element next.

Once the sword was there, Heracles smiled briefly, then addressed Robin. "About that delivery fee, since Ais here clearly has little difficulty storing the weapons it was not as big an inconvenience as you mentioned when you listed the price, do I get a discount?"

Robin sighed, then said. "A small one I guess, I'll take 1555 Vali off the price. But don't forget we had no idea that we would be recruiting Ais or how useful her skill would be when we left for Asteria. We planned on having to lug those giant swords around, so did not bring as much money or trade goods as usual since those swords would take up a full quarter of the space even a great Jagras bag could carry. So there is less profit than usual from the trip.

If you want to commission more weapons, for when we know Ais will be traveling with us, we can talk about a reduced delivery fee. However Ais is staying in Orario for a while, she just received her falna after all. We made an exception to the rule of only those level 2 or above traveling with us on the risky journey because she is small enough to easily be carried, but it is still a great risk to take her with us so unless she chooses to go herself she is staying in Orario for a long while. Until that point, fees will remain what we have already stated."

Heracles chuckled again, "Always about profit with your famillia. What do you even use all the vali you make for? From what I've seen you don't spend it on fancy decorations to your mansion, it is quite plain compared to what Zeus insists on now that we have the vali."

"We mostly use it on better equipment, potions, and replacing equipment. After all traveling so much and fighting the large monsters outside the immediate surroundings of Orario puts a lot of wear on our weapons and armor, and we go through potions like crazy since no matter how careful we try to be, someone is always injured in serious fights unless only Nelly, Falgar or I are involved in the fight. Even then there are injuries sometimes. Falgar himself was bruised up and had his armor damaged in this last journey, since we confirmed the rumor that lyonfangs have a large monster version now the hard way when one attacked us with a group of normal but still pretty big lyonfangs." Robin said flatly.

"Fair enough, so the original delivery fee was V$ 915, 555. With your 'discount' I only owe V$ 914, 000 right?" Heracles said.

"That is right, since you already gave us the money for the weapons themselves when you commissioned them" Robin said.

Ais blinked at the prices stated. The discount was higher than the two weeks of food and camping supplies for Ais, though not by much. She did a few mental calculations, trying to divide the rental fee by her calculation for 2 weeks of food, then dividing that by the number of days in a year. The original fee was enough for at least 2 years worth of food and camping supplies in Asteria. Either food in Orario was very expensive, or the Hermes famillia was making much more profit than they were letting Heracles know. Although Ais knew weapons and armor were more expensive than food by a lot and she had no idea how expensive potions were. The Hermes famillia had used at least 10 potions on the journey that Ais knew for sure, and maybe repairing armor was expensive too.

It was confusing for Ais, even the calculation for how much food the fee would pay for had taken a bit of complex mental math that Ais was uncertain she had calculated right. Since she had calculated 2 weeks of food then divided by all the days in a year, which was clearly not the right way but was easiest. Still, that was a lot of Vali. Although maybe the conversion from Zenny to Vali or the reverse made it seem that way. Ais knew most merchants, botanists and Monster hunters in Asteria still used the Zenny, the currency of the old continent they came from. There was an established rate of 1.9 Vali as equal to 1 Zenny, and a few merchants accepted Vali without needing conversion now but it was rare. Ais had no idea why a Zenny was worth almost twice as much as a Vali, since Vali were gold colored and Zenny were silver colored but both were metal coins of similar sizes with various images on them for different denominations. It did mean that numbers of Vali could get ridiculously high even for commonplace items.

While Ais had been trying to calculate how much that high delivery fee was worth in food, Heracles had grabbed a pouch and started counting out Vali's for Robin. They finished, and Heracles led the two back to the exit of the mansion. Zeus was still there, and attempted yet again to grope Robin as they were leaving, getting a much harder slap to his hands if his wince and hiss of pain were anything to go by.

Robin glanced at the angle of the sun, then said.

"Lets hope there is not a long wait for a response. The Hera famillia ordered a lot of small and medium weapons and armor, as well as a few specialty items so it will take a bit to deliver them. Generally we have dinner a bit after sunset this time of year, though a feast takes more time to create and is sometimes served in multiple courses so we have a bit of time. There are a few more deliveries to make tomorrow, but the Zeus and Hera famillias ordered the bulk of the things we are delivering since they can afford our delivery fee on top of the price of whatever they ordered from Asteria."

"That seemed like a high delivery fee, how much do food and commonplace items cost here in Orario that you can charge that much?" Ais asked.

"A lot, although we are somewhat gouging people with our delivery fee, and that fee Heracles quoted is high even for us, but we really did not want to lug those two great swords around for a week or longer... Since so far only 1 or 2 famillias have even made the trip to Asteria, and no one is willing to make it as often as we do we can pretty much name any price. If you are truly curious ask me or someone else later though, we are short on time now." Robin said as she walked across the street to the other mansion.

There she repeated her actions from the Zeus mansion, pressing a button and speaking clearly into a small speaker beside it. "Hermes famillia here to deliver commissioned goods from Asteria"

This time there was a crackle and voice almost immediately. "Come in, someone saw you enter the Zeus mansion and guessed the reason since you have been gone so long. Hera and a few others are on their way to the main entrance as we speak." Then there was that click, and Robin opened the gate and walked along the path to the door.

Ais noticed the front garden was better kept, with no garish statues. Instead there was a bird bath and a few small statues of elegant looking birds with long colorful tails that had an eye symbol, peacocks according to Feline's memories. There was also a small fountain with a calf and a cow in the middle of the yard, but although water came from the udder of the cow it did not look nearly as indecent as the naked woman.

As they walked up, the door opened. A tall, beautiful woman with brown hair worn in an elaborate style with a crown and wearing an elegant green gown with a clear aura of divinity was standing at the front. There was 2 other women on either side of her, wearing nice dresses and one man wearing a suit that had clearly opened the door.

"Welcome to our home, although I do not see the items you are delivering or a bag big enough to carry them?" Hera said.

Robin smiled slightly and gestured at Ais saying "Our newest familia member, Ais Wallenstein has a skill to store items and retrieve items. She will deliver them to where you want them."

Hera nodded regally then said. "Ais Wallenstein these are my co-captains Hebe and Argus, and a high ranking member Tiresias." Hera gestured at the woman to her right and man wearing the suit when she said Co-captains. She gestured at the other woman when she said Tiresias.

Hebe stated, "Lets head toward the armory for the weapons and armor, since we ordered the most of them." Robin nodded, bringing out a folded piece of paper with a list from a pocket and said. "These should be everything you ordered. It might take a bit for Ais to find and retrieve everything, but the list will help a lot."

Argus briefly said, "I'll start bringing the payment if you think you can handle everything, Hebe and Tiresias." The two nodded agreement, and led Ais and Robin to the armory. Ais was not as surprised at how large the armory was, though she noticed there were a lot more daggers, bows, and normal sized weapons rather than so many huge weapons. There were also quite a few staffs, so the Hera famillia must have a lot of mages.

A system was swiftly set up, Robin would read an item and brief description from the list, then Hebe or Tiresias would find an empty spot or make one and point to it, Ais would walk over and then retrieve the item and place it where requested, then the next item was read out. There were 8 sets of 2 identical long daggers, 2 bows and quivers of arrows, 2 themed armor sets, 4 twin swords, and a short sword and shield that were called out and placed. All of the weapons had an element and were clearly made from monster parts. The daggers had 1 of each element with poison repeated 3 times so it had been stored as 1 dagger stacked to 6.

Finally Robin read out "Earplugs Charm, Blight Charm, Blessings charm. . ." and a short list of other kinds of charms. They were all in the form of jewelry that gave a resistance or aid in some way to the wearer. They had also all been stored stacked with at least 5 of each kind of charm, 15 for the Earplugs Charm and were in Ais small item storage. The group moved to a different room that had a number of chests with cushions or velvet lining the insides and Hebe and Tiresias found a few empty chest s and had Ais deposit all the charms into them. Robin had put a check mark next to each item as it was retrieved and placed.

Next Robin read out "Fireproof Mantle, Assassin's Hood, Ice-proof Mantle, Challenger's Mantle, Gillie Mantle. . ." among a short list of mantles.

After a pause to think Tiresias said, "for now lets put those by the coat rack by the receiving room."

Now they went back to the room they had entered, apparently the receiving room and by the front door there were two large coat racks that they placed all the mantles on. Since all the mantles had hoods they fit, although the Challengers Mantle was made of a thin metal so was too heavy, they folded that up a bit and placed it on the floor. Hera had been sitting down on a couch reading, and there had been a large pile of bags near the middle of the room for some reason.

Just as they finished placing all the mantles Argus came bringing a final bag from somewhere and putting it in the large pile of other bags of varying sizes. He asked "Were all the items delivered as promised?" to Hebe. Who replied, "yes."

"Then here is the payment, part in valis and but mostly in material goods such as potions ingredients, undine cloth, salmander cloth, and magic stone powered small appliances with a low grade magic stone included. Feel free to check, but there is V$35,000 Valis and material goods that are worth far more, V$400,000 worth by market values at the least." Argus said.

Robin did briefly check, opening some of the bags to glance at the contents, then asked Ais to store them all. Since a lot of small and medium spots were now open, Ais did so, although the only reason she had enough room was that so many of the bags stacked regardless of their contents since it was a very large pile of bags.

Everyone smiled a bit and thanked each other, the Hera famillia for delivering so many useful items and Robin for being so generous and understanding with the unorthodox delivery fee.

"Thank you, getting these material goods will save time and money for us buying them ourselves. Most of them will be going right back to Asteria in the hopes that they are unique and useful enough to start up a true trade, rather than the uneven balance with their Monster themed goods being more valuable than whatever we bring so us having to make up the difference in services or talking up our items to seem more valuable than they are to make a profit." Robin said.

With a brief warm smile, Robin then added. " A pleasure doing business with the Hera familia, as always. I hope you keep us in mind for your next order and have a good week. Goodbye and goodnight Hera, Hebe, Argus and Tireias, we'll be leaving now." She then slowly started walking toward the door out.

"Goodbye and goodnight Robin Nico and Ais Wallenstein." Hera said as she stood again and gave a regal nod.

"Goodnight everyone," Ais felt compelled to respond given the formality that Hera was speaking with.

They walked out to the relative darkness of night. There were plenty of lights out so it was still easy to see, but the sun was gone.

Robin asked, "Do you mind if I carry you on my back again Ais? It will be faster to get back to the Traveler's Inn and the food waiting for us that way."

Ais said. "Okay"

Robin then crouched down with her back to Ais, who latched on. Once Robin had risen again, she started jogging along the path, and arrived at the Traveler's Inn in only a few minutes.

Once they entered, Robin went directly to the doorway that Pot had gone through. Instead of being the kitchen, it was a dining room that had yet another doorway leading to the kitchen. Most of the Hermes famillia, including quite a few unfamiliar faces were already seated and eating bread as they waited for the rest of the promised feast.

Robin found two empty seats next to each other, and walked to them, letting Ais down to sit at one of them.

Ais sat down and swiftly grabbed a piece of bread, since she was very hungry.

Ais noticed Meryl was across from her, with Tabitha beside him. Robin was to the right of Ais, and an unfamiliar person was to the left of Ais.

After eating some bread herself, Robin noticed the other person next to Ais an took it upon herself to introduce him to Ais.

The person was teenage boy, with long red hair and silvery white fox ears on his head. He had a silvery white fox tail as well. The boy had green eyes and looked sort of delicate and pretty, almost like a girl but there were just enough features like an adam's apple on his throat and a square jaw to recognize him as a boy rather than very flat chested girl. He was wearing a loose robe that was varying shades of green with small red and pink roses with vines and exaggerated purple thorns surrounding them. There was also a pink shirt underneath the robe. So clearly the boy was not trying to seem masculine and manly.

"Ais, that is Kurama Suichi Minamo, a renart as you can see. He was originally from the Demeter famillia, and his mother is still with them so he visits often, but he wanted to focus more on adventuring than growing plants so asked for a transferal. Kurama still spends time growing plants in our front garden, but they mostly serve a purpose, to create poison he can use to coat his weapons or sell to others. Kurama, this is Ais Wallenstein. She recently gained her falna through a contract with Hermes. Ais is a half-elf from Asteria, and agreed to travel here carrying vigor-wasps in order to help establish a vigor-wasp hive in Orario finally."

"Nice to meet you, Ais." Kurama said politely.

"Same to you, Kurama." Ais responded.

"Actually, Kurama do you know anyone from the Demeter famillia or one of the familias that focus on healing that will be able to take over cultivating the vigor-wasps? Ais does not want to stay here permanently, so will be training someone else to take over cultivating the vigor-wasps. We planned on searching for someone in the next few days to strike a deal with, but you know many members of all the groups that will be most interested due to your past and selling the parts of your plants that can be made into medicine rather than just poison." Robin asked.

"hmm. . . There are plenty who will jump at the chance to have a vigor-wasp hive since many are very curious about them and would want to experiment to see if they can improve our potions. But I'm guessing you will want our famillia to still be able to access the vigor-wasps easily, and someone willing to work with Ais without ignoring her advice due to her apparent age. Hmm. . . I think the Miach famillia would be the best choice. They are not the highest ranked healing famillia so will be very grateful for the opportunity and willing to put up with more conditions. But they are established enough that they can afford to spare one of their famillia members from collecting ingredients, mixing potions, and manning their pharmacy long enough to learn how to cultivate vigor-wasps. We'll have to talk to Miach and the famillia members in person to be sure, but they seem like the best choice to me. The Airmed familia might also work, but they are so close to the Miach familia and so small that going to the Miach familia first will work best" Kurama replied.

"Its a good idea to start with. Thanks Kurama. Oh! Some of the food is ready. Lets focus on eating. All of us that went to Asteria are very hungry since we skipped lunch other than trail rations in order to get here faster."

Ais had listened to the conversation in some interest, but lost all focus on anything but food when mouthwatering smells started coming toward them. Then two people, one of them with long rabbit ears, so a hume bunny, came pushing carts with large platters of salad, big tubs of soup, and crackers with cheese and small pieces of meat on them. There were plates, bowls and utensils already at the table, but they had been empty. Now the people walked on either side of the table and filled bowls with soup, used tongs to place salad on plates, and moved the crackers to the middle of the table on fancy platters that had three levels with a central post holding up the three plates, spacing them out but leaving them in easy reach of most people.

Ais noticed that other than politely waiting until everyone in the immediate area had been served to avoid getting in the servers way there was no ceremony. Everyone started eating immediately. Ais decided to follow their example. This might just be more soup, but the salad and crackers looked interesting. And from what Ais could smell the soup was not yet more salty stew made from salted meat. The soup smelled of fish and looked creamy.

Once it was Ais own turn she waited impatiently to make sure she did not get in the way of serving the others, then dug in. She started at the soup first, but found that is was still too hot, so started eating the salad and crackers. Eventually the soup cooled enough to eat. Ais ate quickly, but found she was still hungry, since there had not been a lot of soup or salad. Ais looked for more, but the servers had already left. Ais was disappointed briefly, before Robin's words on the food being served in courses and Feline's own vague memories of reading about fancy feasts let Ais know there would be more, better food coming up.

Feeling curious, she glanced around for someone else near her who was also done eating, and found that Meryl was done. So Ais asked Meryl "What was in that soup, it was very good but I've never had it before."

"That was a seafood chowder, I think it was tuna chowder since that is the fish most easily fished near here, and it was definitely fresh rather than canned and cooked later. It is more Tabitha's favorite than mine, but I like it more than most other soups so I guess Pot has already started to come through on his promise of making my favorites in celebration." Meryl said happily.

The same two people from before came pushing more carts, but this time the food was whole steamed vegetables, some thick meat shaped sort of round like a meatball in an orange sauce over rice, and small bowls of mixed fruit. Meryl smiled eagerly, then said "Awesome, I can't see any details since we are near the bottom of the table, but I don't see any of the carrots I dislike among the vegetables, and that sauce looks like the kind I like most. "

Ais nodded at Meryl politely, smelling the food and waiting for her turn to be served. This time once Ais had eaten everything on the plate she felt full and satisfied. Meryl's favorites were very good. A desert was served after a bit, and Ais liked that a lot too, it was a pie with a fruit she had never seen before, and a cold thing that tasted sweet. Feline's memories informed Ais the fruit was cherry and the cold thing was ice cream.

Ais did wonder how so many of the foods that Feline recognized were the same, since Ais knew that many of the plants and animals of the world had changed to adapt to the constant presence of monsters. And the types of food were vaguely oriental and Asian rather than what Feline thought of as 'Western" other than the pie and ice cream. Since the Greek gods had at one time been the center of "Western Civilization" Ais would have thought they would prefer those types of food. The orange sauce was like the sauce that coated orange chicken, a Chinese food. And tuna was associated with Japan when it was not canned. Rice was associated with all Eastern countries in Feline's mind.

Maybe since Orario sealed most of their monsters in their dungeon more plants and animals from before the monsters started coming were preserved? And there were those islands called Far East Islands on Meryls map, so maybe his favorite foods come from there?

That was Ais own best guess, since she had never heard of or seen most of the foods other than the vegetables in Asteria, although some of it seemed vaguely like what her Momma had made just a lot fancier.

After the meal Hermes stood up and briefly announced. "Our Meryl Tear leveled up to 3 on the journey from Asteria, which is why the feast was a bit different than usual. We will probably announce that to the guild immediately rather than waiting, so no need to try keeping it a secret like some of the other level ups. We will likely make a good profit from the trip, with even more potential profit in the near future, so we can afford the increased tax and expectations of the guild of Adventurers."

There was a brief cheer and shouts of "congratulations Meryl."

After that people slowly started leaving to go to sleep or whatever they had planned. Ais went to sleep in her room as well, having to be careful opening the door just in case the vigor-wasps were still flying around.

Ais woke up in the middle of the night as was usual. Since she only needed at most 4 hours of sleep even when she tried to sleep more she became too restless to do so. Ais decided to make sure the vigor-wasps had all gone back to their baskets then practice with not just her Rathalos blades, but the Rathas rapier, and the daggers of 1 of each kind that had been sitting in her bag ignored. Then she would start feeding the vigor-wasps with null-berry juice and Vespoid honey, since it usually took a few days for the change in diet to have an effect and the vigor-wasps to start breeding.

After that she would meditate, and try to guess what she would be doing the next day and prepare for it.

Ais checked, and found a few stray vigor-wasps who had not gone back to their basket. A few had apparently decided to sleep underneath the desk, since it was made of wood and in the wild they tried to sleep in hollowed out trees or among the branches if there were no hollowed out trees. Since Ais knew they would wake up and fly near her seeking food, she shooed them back to their basket and closed the openings so no vigor-wasp would get itself killed flying too near her as she swung and stabbed her blades around. Then she practiced.

Ais found that the Rathas rapier and the daggers were actually easier to unsheathe, stab, slash, and sheathe, since only the Rathalos dagger had spikes, and they were much smaller. She decided to practice with a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other next, and found that it was much harder to coordinate herself, but she knew it might be a good style when she got used to it.

After a while Ais stopped training out of boredom and slight tiredness. Then she set up as much of a training course for the vigor-wasps as she could within the limits of her room, alternating sugar-water, normal juice, and null-berry juice in the feeders and bringing out strips of leather that she smeared with the Vespoid honey. The vigor-wasps were definitely excited at the change once she directed them to the null-berry juice and honey.

Then Ais meditated and tried to sleep a bit, but woke up an hour later. It was at least closer to sunrise so Ais trained, then fed the vigor-wasps again, then trained a bit more, then cooled down from the training by stretching and practicing flexibility exercises, then meditated more. Finally the moon had gone down and the sun started rising, so Ais fed the vigor-wasps one more time, then put them back in their baskets and left to see if anyone was making breakfast yet.

They were, so Ais ate an early breakfast and wandered around the first floor exploring, finding the partial library Robin had mentioned and skimming the books and scrolls to see what she might end up reading when she was bored in the middle of the night in the future. The books were guidebooks for the dungeon, random romance novels, scrolls about the mythology of the gods, and 2 handwritten books not bound properly yet with sketches and descriptions detailing monsters encountered in Seleo forest, and the plains/savannah. So at least Ais would learn new things when she read.

Finally more people started getting up and so Ais sought out someone she knew to ask what they wanted her to do, although she had already guessed that most of the day would be spent delivering the last commissions from Asteria, depositing the trade goods, tools for Dodon's smithy and camping supplies somewhere, approaching the Miach famillia, and maybe getting a start on harvesting some of the monsters that were stored in her inventory if they had time.

As Ais had expected, when she found Falgar eating breakfast, he told her to

"For now, find Robin to finish delivering our commissions, then Robin will take you to the storage building we have near our backyard and you two as well as whoever is available will sort out the camping supplies, materials for Dodon's new forge and whatever else. Leave the unharvested monsters in your inventory for now, I hope to schedule a trip with Asfl and the rest of the familia that stay in Orario to Melen and Lolog lake so they can see for themselves what monsters are like away from the immediate area of the dungeon, as well as getting help harvesting all those monster corpses. It will take a few days for that to be planned out. In the meantime sort out who will be taking over cultivating the vigor-wasps and start teaching them."

Ais nodded and looked around for Robin. She did not find her at first, and assumed that Robin was still asleep since in was relatively early in the morning even if the sun had already risen. Ais decided to go to the 'backyard' to see if she could find the storage herself, or at least know what else was there. She checked in with Pot first, saying "Robin and I are supposed to sort through everything in the storage near your backyard. I'm going to explore the backyard to see if I can find the storage, so when you see Robin tell her that is where I'll be please."

"Do you want a snack and packed lunch just in case sorting everything takes a long time" Pot asked.

"Sure" Ais replied.

"Then wait just a few minutes and I'll arrange that for you. By the way, everyone else you see in the kitchen are part-time servants here at the Traveler's inn and supporters or adventurers for the dungeon, I'll introduce you to the two that are in charge so they know to give you food when you request it. Other than dinner meals are informal, and we make many packed meals for those who are staying in the dungeon through lunch or going out to patrol the farmlands surrounding Orario."

Pot then moved over to a hume bunny and asked

"Can you make up a quick snack and packed lunch Velvet? And by the way this is Ais Wallenstein, she is a half-elf that is technically only contracted to our familia right now, but we hope to convince her to join us full time someday. For the duration of her stay here in the Traveler's Inn please make food when she requests it at no charge, as long as it is reasonable.

Ais, this is Velvet, a hume bunny who also acts as a supporter and is trying to create a style of fighting based on copying others. Between her and Keaks they run the kitchen when I'm gone, with aid from the full-time servants who are busy elsewhere for now, and sometimes these two run the kitchen even when I'm here if I'm too busy."

"Nice to meet you Ais, any preferences for the lunch?" Velvet asked.

"Anything but more jerky and trail rations please."Ais requested.

Velvet laughed, then said. "Does a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, carrots, and a few fruit sound good then, with maybe celery filled with peanut butter and raisins as a snack?"

"Yes, that sounds very good" Ais said with feeling.

"While Velvet is making that, not that it will take long, I'll introduce you to Keaks. He's making quick breakfasts for everyone as they wake up. I alternate who I help out based on need." Pot said.

Pot then walked over to the stove where Keaks was making scrambled eggs in one pan and bacon in another and said, "Keaks, this is Ais Wallenstein, you probably overheard, but she is a half-elf staying with us as a contracted member for a while at least if we don't manage to convince her to properly join the famillia. Please give her food if she requests it. Ais, this is Keaks, he is a human who acts as a supporter and part-time cook for now, but hopes to become a full-time adventurer once he is a bit stronger and more skilled. "

"Nice to meet you Ais, I hope to speak to you more later, but as you can see I have my hands full right now." Keaks said as he reached over to place two pieces of toast that had finished toasting on two different plates, then dished out some of the large pan of scrambled eggs and flipped the bacon with a spatula.

"Okay, Keaks looks like he needs the most help, when I see Robin I'll tell her where you are if she does not find you herself first, so grab your lunch and snack from Velvet when she is done, then unless you want to help in the kitchen shoo." Pot said.

Ais nodded, then turned and walked a few steps to Velvet, noticing she had a dull knife that she was using to spread peanut butter on a piece of bread opposite a bread that already had jelly. There was also a small bag of a thin net-like cloth full of chopped carrots and some clean cut celery on a cutting board.

Ais looked and found another dull knife in the area, then asked "Do you want help filling the celery with peanut butter Velvet?" Since that was one of Feline's favorite snacks so Ais knew how to make it.

"Yes please Ais, just move the celery to one of those small plates on the counter so I can use the cutting board for other things." Velvet said with a quick smile.

Ais nodded, then started the process of filling the celery with peanut butter. It was a boring but time consuming job so Ais felt that helping out would speed up the time it took to get out of the kitchen, although since she was mainly waiting for Robin to wake up maybe helping Velvet a bit to make more packed lunches would not be a bad idea. Ais mainly wanted to be occupied so her mind did not wander and make her lose track of time or be lost in the random memories from Feline that were still coming even with Ais trying to meditate and sort them out every single night.

Since Feline had lived for over 30 years she had accumulated a lot of memories, especially since Feline had been proud of having a very good memory when she thought something was important. Although most of them related to the classes in school she took, the many stories she read or watched, or her family since Feline's work was so repetitive other than the people she served or minor disasters when technology or machines needed for the work broke down.

Ais finished filling the celery of an entire plate, then looked and saw that Velvet was done with the sandwich but making another in preparation for someone else. The sandwich, carrots, and an orange and apple were sitting in a small pile next to a large carton of raisins, the sandwich had a thin brown paper wrapped around it. There was also more celery cleaned and cut up on the cutting board. There was a roll of a thin waxy paper next to the carton, and a stack of paper bags on the opposite side of Velvet. Ais added the raisins to the top of the filled celery, then put the wax paper around the plate of filled celery. Ais then grabbed a paper bag, finding that everything just fit in it.

There were more small plates and another jar of peanut butter next to the cutting board, so Ais asked, "Do you want me to make more celery filled with peanut butter to help with snacks for others?"

"That would be a great help, but are you sure you have time?" Velvet said.

"I'm mainly waiting for Robin to wake up and eat breakfast so we can go deliver the last of the stuff and sort through everything else I was storing. I was going to search for the storage that Falgar said was near the backyard of here, but that was mainly because I was already getting bored of waiting around. Robin will know exactly where it is. As long as I have something to occupy my hands or feet and am not just sitting in one place I don't care what I do while waiting." Ais said.

"Then feel free, as I said that will be a big help. Not everyone likes the celery filled with peanut butter and raisins, but a surprising amount do like it either as a snack or even a substitute meal if they don't want a sandwich, but it is time consuming to make and from what I've seen you are good at it." Velvet said with a warm, happy smile.

Ais nodded and stored her own packed lunch in her inventory, it stored as a small item so she had plenty of room for it. Then Ais set to making more small plates of celery filled with peanut butter and raisins, pushing the plates to the side to wrap up later. Ais mind did wander a bit while she did that, but thankfully it was mostly minor memories from Feline, speculation for how the day would go, and even a bit of excited imagining of the time Ais finally got the chance to go to Orario's dungeon.

Ais pictured herself fighting small monsters like Jagras since that Dungeon lizard in that one farmer's field looked sort of like a Jagras, just somewhere between the size of a normal one and a great Jagras. Or maybe groups of rabbit beasts smaller than a Jagras with giant fangs and thin sharp horns since Tabitha had said the newly named Jackalope Rabbits had mutated from something called needle rabbits. There would also be goblins and more of those kobolds too.

After a while Ais ran out of celery, and looked to see if more was on the cutting board only to find that she now had a large stack of those small plates with celery, so Velvet must have kept bringing more celery and wrapping the plates up while Ais was mindlessly filling the celery with peanut butter. Velvet may have run out of celery to cut up herself given just how many small plates there were.

Ais wrapped up the final plate and started eating a single piece of celery that had not fit on the plate. Then put the lid on the now nearly empty jar of peanut butter and put the dull knife in the sink.

Velvet noticed Ais was done and smiled at her again. Saying "Thanks for all the help, I think I saw Robin wander in and grab a plate of breakfast while you were working so if you go over to the dining table you should find her finishing up her breakfast."

Ais nodded with a a quiet "your welcome, bye for now." and left to look for Robin.

Robin was where Velvet had said she would be, so Ais checked the angle of the sun coming through the window to see the time and asked, "do you think I have time to feed the vigor-wasps real quick? They don't really need to be fed every two hours, unless we want them to breed fast, but I figured I'd start the process to help whoever takes over if I had time."

Although there were clocks that ran on low-grade magic stones, they were rare and expensive in Asteria since the low-grade magic stones were hard to find in the small monsters so Ais had gotten used to judging time by the angle of the sun.

Robin smiled at Ais, and said "I am almost done, lets get the last deliveries out of the way first if they don't need to be fed right now. After the deliveries you can feed them, then we'll start putting everything else in your inventory where it needs to be, then we can head over to the Miach famillia with you carrying the vigor-wasps to see if Kurama was right about them being the best choice.

If he was, then you can start showing whoever will take over how to feed them since it will probably take at least 2 hours to put everything stored in your inventory where it needs to go. If not, we'll head over to the Dian Ceicht famillia, Airmed familia, or Demeter famillia to see if there is someone there willing to make a good deal."

"okay" Ais said.

---

-_-scene-break and short time-skip-_-scene-break and short time-skip-_-scene break-

---

Although it had been boring at times, Ais was satisfied that her Inventory was now much emptier, after the deliveries, putting the camping supplies into a large storage shed, then going to an empty workshop and setting up Dodon's forge.

He had apparently been sharing forge space with Elily, a full dwarf female that had taught him the basics but was too set in her ways to learn new methods of forging. Elily had created most of the armor and weapons of the Hermes famillia, after transferring from the Hephestes famillia. But she only used metal and the occasional drop item from monsters in the dungeon that were usually already ideally shaped and cleaned to make weapons.

Dodon wanted to learn the ways Monster Hunter smiths forged monster items; melting bone, blood, and scales and mixing in bits of metal and crushed magic stones to create something that had special abilities almost like the fabled magic swords the Crozzo family used to make.

Dodon also wanted to be able to make at least minor repairs in the field, since he enjoyed adventuring and how raising his level also increased his developmental ability to forge better quality weapons, so had set out to buy a portable forge and learn what he could in Asteria. He planned on continuing to go on those trips to keep learning from the smiths there.

Now after a stop to pick up the vigor-wasps they were heading to a different district to visit the Miach Familia.

When they arrived, Ais was surprised to see the famillia home was actually 2 small homes connected by a walkway and awnings and a large 3 story pharmacy shop. Each of the homes had small gardens growing flowers, a few berry bushes and vegetables with a large green house behind all three buildings.

Robin and Ais entered the pharmacy and found a chienthrope woman behind the counter, and a small playpen with a young chienthrope child playing in it. "Welcome to Miach Blue Pharmacy, how can I help you today?" The chienthrope woman said. She had very pale blond hair with light brown dog ears and a bushy dog tail that was half light brown and half that pale blonde. She was wearing a professional looking white collared blouse with a small flower embroidered on the sleeves and a long skirt with flower patterns.

"Its a bit of an odd request, but would the Miach famillia be willing to make a deal with the Hermes famillia to establish a vigor-wasp hive and give us either a percentage of profits or discounts on any products that use the vitality nectar from the vigor-wasps. Establishing the hive and cultivating the vigor-wasps will be time consuming and require that you learn from Ais here," Robin gestured at Ais with those words then continued.

"Ais is our expert on vigor-wasps since she is from Asteria who have the most knowledge of vigor-wasps due to them being native to that area of the continent." Robin finished her request. The woman's eyes widened in surprise, and she said. "Let me go get Miach, but I am personally interested already, manning the counter and making potions was getting boring, but I was enduring it for Naaza's sake, since I'm her mother and needed something safe to do while raising her.

"I'm Tsuki Erisuis by the way, the chienthrope child is my Naaza, she is four years old. Wait right here while I get Miach" Tsyuki said. She then quickly rushed to the back and up some stairs.

Naaza had abandoned her toys when Robin drew attention to Ais, and now pointed at her and said

"Play with me? I'll share my toys." in a pleading tone. Ais blinked in surprise at the request, having not thought about 'playing' for what seemed like a long time now, but was probably only around 6 weeks.

A lot had happened in that time, especially the death of her Papa, likely disembodiment of her Momma, and being transported hundreds of years into the future to a dangerous place. Then there were the memories of a 30 year old woman being shoved into her head, and spending so much time training or traveling after that.

Ais was curious and felt a surge of nostalgia at the thought of playing despite knowing she would have to focus on demonstrating how to feed the vigor-wasps if the deal was struck, or following Robin to another famillia if it was not.

Ais walked closer to Naaza, but warned her "I won't be able to play long since I have other things to do, but maybe I can play for a minute or so as the adults talk about business matters."

Robin watched this interaction in surprise and sudden realization. Ais was so mature and serious all the time that it was easy to forget that she was a child herself. Even when Robin had introduced Ais as 'a half-elf child' and not just from a race that was naturally short like the pallum. Robin had mentally thought of Ais as an older child, almost a teen. But Ais had told Hermes she was still only 5 years old and some months hadn't she? That was only 1 year older than the child in front of her that was in a playpen to keep her out of the way but within her mother's sight as she worked.

Robin felt briefly conflicted, should she start treating Ais as the child she was or continue treating Ais as the mini-adult that she acted like?

Robin decided to compromise. She would continue to treat Ais the same way she had been, but try to give Ais a bit more free-time and consider her limits more carefully, making more allowances for the fact that Ais was physically a child even if she did not act at all like one.

Ais had walked up to Naaza and saw that there was a coloring book and crayons with lots of papers with childish scribbles on them in one corner. Naaza herself had a mini tea set and stuffed animals that she had been pretending to have a tea party with. There were also colorful building blocks, figurines of endemic life, animals, and mini-people, and a few fake houses made of blocks that connected together in yet another corner. There was a lot for Naaza to do when she got bored of one thing, but Ais still felt that staying in one place like she was would be very boring. At least when Ais had been at home before the black dragon attacked she could roam the entire tree house, and the immediate area around it as long as she was within her Momma's sight.

Naaza was not truly imprisoned in the playpen though, as she proved when she unlatched the door to let Ais through.

. . . Ais stared awkwardly at Naaza, uncertain of how to start 'playing'.

Naaza had slightly darker and longer brown dog ears than her mother that were perked up in interest but also matched her hair so blended in with her brown hair. She had large brown eyes wide with interest and hope. And a short bushy dog tail that was wagging frantically and making her own childish shirt and skirt imitation of her mother's clothing move about.

Ais had only had her mother to play with in the past, and for once even Feline's memories were not much help, since Feline's own childhood was fuzzy in her mind. Feline vaguely remembered playing with figurines of cute animals with a friend, creating stories of the lives they lived, but her friend had always taken the lead in what to do. Feline remembered more clearly playing in the playground of her school, mostly swinging on swings to go higher and higher or running around using plastic water guns at each other in the summer when there was no school, but none of that really applied to here. Feline had also taken up reading during breaks very early in her school years so there were only a few memories of 'playing.'

In desperation Ais asked Naaza. "So what do you want to play, that won't take much time since I will have to leave soon."

"Tea Party! This is Mister bunny gray, Miss bunny white, Mister doggie papa Nech-ten, and Miss doggie mama Moon. We were all drinking tea and gos-sip-ing about the scan-dol-us Miss Foxie who tried to steal Papa Nech-ten away from Mama Moon. You have pointed ears, so you are Miss Elf from a far away land and will tell a story while we all drink tea and eat cookies."

"Right."

Ais glanced at Robin to make sure it was okay for her to keep playing when she saw Tsuki and a god, Miach walk downstairs, but Robin mouthed that "we will be busy negotiating a deal so there was time."

Ais then took up one of the plastic cups, that was empty of course, and made a slurping sound, giggling slightly and saying in her version of a fancy accent. "This tea is quite good, just what a weary traveler from a far away land needs to quench my thirst after my long travels."

"Your welcome!" Naaza chirped happily.

Ais hesitated, not sure what story to tell, then decided to tell a 'Disney' version of her own story where everything ended happily ever after rather than what really happened.

" I come from a far away forest, where I lived in a lovely house that was in the branches of a large tree. A terrifying dragon monster swooped down and attacked while my family was having a picnic in a meadow near our house on my birthday. My own Papa told my Momma and I to run for help while he held the monster off. We ran . . ."

Ais paused again, trying to think how to create a happy story then decided to pretend the other elves had come to help after all rather than her Papa dying alone, her Momma likely turned into wind to escape, and Ais sent far away to a different time.

"We lived on the edge of a village of other elves, so help was close by. Momma ran like the wind itself, even carrying me, because she was a wind mage. Help! My Momma and I shouted as we ran, and the other elves with their keen hearing heard us and ran by to help my Papa fight the dragon monster. The dragon monster breathed fire and started burning down the forest, but one of the elves was good at water magic and called up a huge rainstorm to put out the flames..." Ais improvised, remembering Suicia and her own water magic.

"The other elves shot arrows and spears at the dragon monster, hurting it and blinding one of its eyes..."

Ais said when she remembered the title One-Eyed that the Black dragon was given in Feline's memories.

"Then the dragon monster flew away in fear and pain, this was not the easy meal and territory to take over it had hoped for! We all cheered, but even though the forest was saved, a lot had burned down before the rain called up by the water mage elf put the fire out, and our home had burned down too, so after my Papa recovered from his injuries he had taken while holding off the dragon monster we decided to move to someplace better and safer to live happily. . ."

Ais paused again, she did not want to have to explain where her parents really were, so decided to improvise again and claim her parents were in Asteria and she had chosen to come here to have an adventure and help her parents make money.

"We settled in Asteria, which is a village still very far away from here. When the Hermes familia visited asking for help moving the wonder-full magic vigor-wasps here to help heal their adventurer's, I, who had been learning how to care for and raise the vigor-wasps, volunteered to come because it sounded exciting, would help the Hermes famillia, and would help my parents, who were still trying to make enough money to support us all in the new place." Ais finished triumphantly, then remembered that she was pretending to have a tea party so continued, trying to fake an accent again.

"We just arrived last night, so this tea party really helps while the adults talk about money and how exactly selling the vigor-wasps and using my knowledge will work, dear." Ais complimented Naaza.

"Wow, that was an awesome story, was it real? Is that why you are here now?" Naaza asked excitedly.

"Most of it was real. . .just a few details were changed to make it a better story. I am really here to help teach someone, your Mama Tsuki most likely, how to raise and breed vigor-wasps to collect their vitality nectar which can heal wounds at least. And I did come from the far away land of Asteria, my Momma and Papa and I lived in a tree house in a forest before that. We were attacked and our home burned down by a dragon monster..."Ais said, not willing to lie, but still wanting to avoid telling the terrible true details she had hidden with her 'Disney' version story as Feline remembered many stories that were modified to be more child-friendly were called.

"Still so awesome! Ahem, that was a wonderful story during our tea time Miss Elf, please feel welcome to visit anytime. Maybe next time we meet for a tea party we can finish telling the scan-dol-ous story of when Miss Foxie tried to steal Mister Nech-ten away from Miss Moon." Naaza said quickly in a fancy accent when she saw Tsuki and Robin approaching. They had apparently come to a quick agreement on the terms of the deal they were making. Tsuki choked in surprised embarrassment when she heard what Naaza was saying, since clearly Naaza did not have the best imagination when it came to names, given the other stuffed animals so the story was likely true in some way, whoever Nechten was. Although Tsuki was Japanese for Moon and that was easier to say so Naaza might just call her Mama Moon. . .

Ais smiled in genuine interest with a bit of mischief, and replied. "I'd like to hear that story Miss Naaza sometime, but I need to leave now, thanks for the tea!" and left, standing up and bowing slightly then unlatching the playpen door.

Ais smiled at Robin and Tsuki, and said to Tsuki "Your Naaza invited me to a tea party, and I could not resist, thanks for waiting for me. So did Miach, you, and Robin come to an agreement? We need to feed the vigor-wasps soon anyway so I can start teaching you while feeding them if you have. If not, maybe we can borrow your greenhouse for a bit and you can at least see the vigor-wasps while I feed them before Robin and I go on our way."

"We did come to a tentative agreement, although you will have to help out a lot in the beginning until I have Boann, my aid, fully trained in how to sell potions in the store in my place. I just can't commit to leaving every two hours to feed the vigor-wasps for the entire day, but I do really want to experiment with the vitality nectar so will need the vigor-wasps breeding fast to replenish their lost numbers. If you don't mind Naaza coming along? We can all go to the greenhouse and you can demonstrate how to feed the vigor-wasps now." Tsuki said to Ais.

Ais looked to Robin for agreement and permission, and at her nod picked up her pack again from where she had leaned it against the playpen, then opened the latch again as she had seen Naaza do and made a grand wave toward the door. "You will get to see the vigor-wasps in person, we are all going to the greenhouse to watch me feed them!" She said to Naaza in her own answer of Tsuki's statement and half-question.

"Yay! I almost never get to visit the greenhouse! And those magic vig-or-wasps sound awesome!" Naaza cheered as she stood up and ran out of the playpen. Tsuki quickly grabbed Naaza's hand to slow her down, then they all walked to the greenhouse after Miach flipped a sign to show 'closed' on the door.

The routine of setting up a feeding course, with an emphasis on the null-berry juice and Vespoid honey helped Ais calm down from the intensity of telling even a 'Disney' version of her story and reliving the memories yet again.

Then Ais released the vigor-wasps, one basket at a time, and directed the vigor-wasps to their feeders in specific orders, as well as the vespoid honey smeared on strips of leather. She explained as she worked

"You probably don't have to train them this way to listen to orders and gestures if you don't intend to take the vigor-wasps to battle and direct them near wounds, but this training is meant to get vigor-wasps used to following orders in preparation for just that, since Palico do take their vigor-wasps into battle, and direct them to wounded Monster Hunters to heal their wounds and revitalize them. I am training in the Palico way, so this is how I was taught.

It you just want to train the vigor-wasps in when to feed, and not to fly away when you puncture their sac for vitality nectar that is much easier and quicker to do, since it is a natural part of their instincts to find food, and if you make it clear you are the source of the food they will fly near you anyway in the absence of food even if you are puncturing their sacs for the vitality nectar. In the wild Vespoid feed on vigor-wasps, but let some vigor-wasps feed on their honey in turn, so that kind of relationship is not new to vigor-wasps. It is strange but somehow works out for the vigor-wasps. "

Ais had saved the middle sized vigor-wasp for last. She made sure to refill some of the feeders and smear more honey. Then she said dramatically.

"With time and lots of null-berry juice and vespoid honey, some vigor-wasps even grow to be big enough for a Palico or child to ride! These are called great vigor-wasps! This vigor-wasp is only mid-way to that size, but you can see how much bigger than normal it is. The vitality nectar of a great vigor-wasp is also extra potent, and there is a lot more of it so it can be sprayed for almost a full minute of healing before the vitality nectar runs out." As she spoke Ais was letting the mid-size vigor-wasp out and directing it, even moving her fingers over it's back in her directions to get the vigor-wasp used to that.

"Wow! Big magic vig-or wasp!" Naaza cheered from where she had been staring in wonder with her mother holding her back from chasing after the vigor-wasps. Once she had let the vigor-wasp eat and drink to being full, Ais gently directed it back to it's basket as she had the other vigor-wasps.

Then, feeling a bit silly and happier than usual with Naaza staring in wonder as if she had been putting on a show. Ais made a dramatic bow while spreading her arms and said "Shows over folks, see you next time!" before she placed her bag onto her back again. Naaza clapped and cheered enthusiastically. Even Miach, Tsuki, and Robin were infected by Naaza's happiness and clapped with indulgent smiles. Everyone then walked back out the greenhouse, with Naaza quietly whining, "already... I didn't even get to explore."

With a pout on her face once they were back in the Blue Pharmacy Naaza went back to her playpen and immediately started retelling what she had seen to the stuffed animals.

Tsuki then talked to Ais a bit.

"Thank you for playing with Naaza and indulging her, I've been considering sending her to a daycare just so she can interact and play with other children, or slowly trying to train her as a supporter for the dungeon just so she is not so very bored when I am at work.

This has made her day more interesting at least. It will take a bit to train Boann in how to operate the shop so do you mind keeping the vigor-wasps with you and feeding them for now. You can visit frequently to start teaching me how to do so myself and I'll try to take the vigor-wasps for some of the time. I'll also see if I can get anyone else to help out with the vigor-wasps so it does not take so very much time to cultivate them, the Airmed famillia has a large closed off garden/orchard that they grow herbs, fruit, and flowers in and might be willing to help out with housing some of the vigor-wasps that don't stay in the green-house. They even have a bush of null-berries from seeds grown from a previous trip the Hermes famillia made.

I am very excited to experiment with adding vitality nectar to potion mixes, so do want as many vigor-wasp as can be bred. The samples of Mega Potions and high-grade health potions made with vitality nectar from the Monster Hunters that the Hermes famillia have brought are slightly more effective than even our own high grade potions or elixers, and other than the cost of vespoid honey vigor-wasps will be much cheaper than some of the hard to find ingredients for high quality potions and elixers. So with the vitality nectar of the vigor-wasps we should be able to provide better quality potions at less cost. Which is a very good thing! So thank you again!" Tsuki rambled happily.

Ais blinked and smiled slightly at Tsuki's thanks, then nodded in understanding when Tsuki mentioned needing time. Ais had expected to stay in Orario at least a month even before she decided to try exploring Orario's dungeon to train. Now, although Ais was not sure when she would make the trip back to Asteria, Ais expected to stay in Orario at least 2 months, since the Hermes famillia would have already made the trip to Asteria and back at least once by the time she felt she would be ready to leave herself.

"Okay, I'll keep the vigor-wasps for now, but we will need to move them to a safe place keep them once they start breeding, I can only fit so many baskets into my great Jagras bag after all. The greenhouse might be okay, but there are a lot of sharp looking plants, and vigor-wasps will try to eat/drink anything so if you have anything poisonous they will kill themselves that way too. So we might lose as many as we breed for a while if they stay in there. It is enclosed though, which is good since we don't want the vigor-wasps flying away as they might if they are not constantly trained." Ais responded.

"Nice talking with you Tsuki and Miach, I hope this deal helps both our famillias make a good profit. We'll send Ais over sometime tomorrow to start teaching you how to set up a course and feed the vigor-wasps and any other stuff you need to know. When is the best time?" Robin said and asked.

"I think late morning is best. It is a lull time for the shop, after most adventurers have restocked on potions before venturing into the dungeon, but before they start coming back with pouches full of Vali." Tsuki sad.

"See you tomorrow around 9 am then?" Ais said as she and Robin walked toward the door.

Tsuki hesitated, then nodded agreement of that time.

The two then traveled back to the Traveler's Inn. It was late afternoon by now, but still 4 or so hours before sunset.

Robin then said,

"I don't think we really need you for anything else right now, but I can introduce you to more of the famillia that had been staying in Orario if you want. Most will still be in the dungeon, but a few might be having a rest day or have been assigned patrol of the farmlands and already be done. There are also some who rarely venture into the dungeon at all, like Elily the dwarf smith. There is even a group who venture into the dungeon mostly at night and sleep during the day to avoid the crowds of other adventurers. But we have been asking for a lot of your time recently, so if you just want to spend time resting or playing that is fine too."

"That group who go to the dungeon at night sounds great, that way I can actually do something at night other than read or repetitively do quiet drills with my weapons. I also want to keep improving with my bow and arrows, so if Thane or anyone else who is good with them can help that would be nice. Since I noticed my aim and ability to pierce monster hide is not the best without the Avenger skill helping out." Ais replied.

Robin blinked then smiled ruefully. She had added that last line when she remembered that Ais was a child after all, but Ais had then started proving Robin's original idea and way of treating Ais was the best when she had requested to meet the group who ventured into the dungeon at night or help with her archery skills. That was mature but with a hint of child-like impatience since Robin thought that Ais wanted to go into the dungeon this very night.

"Let's go see who is available. Going to the small training yard in the back might be best to find help with your archery, since we have a target range set up. And those who venture into the dungeon at night are probably just waking up and having their version of breakfasts now, so looking in the dining room might be good to find them. Although I don't think it is a good idea for you to join them in the dungeon tonight. We should check over your equipment and you need to register at the guild and read their orientation materials first."

"Lets go to the archery range 1st then, I can also meet the people later if you want to do something other than guide and introduce me to everyone. Robin, since just as you have asked for a lot of my time, you have been right there with me as well." Ais said.

Robin nodded in agreement and pleased surprise at Ais consideration, and they headed to the back of the Traveler's Inn and to a small archery range and training yard. No one was using it or even in the area so Robin suggested

"Well, you can either practice mostly on your own with a few tips from me, or we can track down someone to help. Pot is good at the bow too, and for that matter most of the Hermes famillia knows at least something about using bows since they are so useful. Even I know a little, and I use a bow very rarely since my spears can serve as long range when I throw them as well as middle range."

Ais thought for a few seconds about her options. Practicing alone had no appeal at all though. Although Ais did want to improve with the bow, none of those targets were the kind that moved, and that was where Ais wanted to improve the most. Ais knew that her arrows just would not have piercing power until she got stronger and could use a bigger bow and arrows. And she needed to have someone throw things for her to try hitting them in the air to improve her aim further, or actual live targets like monsters in the dungeon. Ais also did not want to force Robin to spend time just throwing things for Ais to try hitting.

So. . .Ais decided to go to the dining room to meet other famillia members...

"Lets head to the dining room to see who is there. If we find someone good with a bow I can ask them for help, and if not you can introduce me to the other Hermes famillia members, especially those who go into the dungeon at night. I want to grow stronger fast but know I will be busy during the day tending to vigor-wasps, helping harvest the monsters in my inventory, and whatever else comes up. I like being busy and productive but it will mean less time to train and grow stronger unless I use some of the wasted time I have at night due to only needing 4 hours of sleep." Ais said.

Robin's eyebrows shot up at that last comment "Do you really only need 4 hours of sleep or do you usually only manage to sleep that much because of not wanting to waste time? You are a growing girl, you will need plenty of good food and sleep if you ever want to be taller than you are now." Robin said.

"It is not as cool as my inventory skill but I have something called Resilient body as well. I probably don't even need a full 4 hours of sleep at once unless I'm injured or use a lot of magic, since the skill says I only need 3 hours to be fully refreshed and heal minor injuries.

I try to sleep at least that much and meditate for at least an hour with my eyes closed to be sure I'm rested and have time to grow, but I have not slept over 4 hours for over 6 weeks now, even before I got my falna from Hermes. It did affect me a little at first. . .and it was not natural at first either, I would sleep restlessly and be afraid to go to sleep again.

I now spend a lot of time meditating and pretending to sleep, or reading and doing drills with my weapons when there is enough light or space to do that. But it does get boring being wide awake and too restless and full of energy to even pretend while everyone else is asleep. So I really like the idea of meeting other people who are awake and doing things at night."

"Okay then, you are just full of surprises, and very determined as well it seems." Robin replied dubiously, not sure if Ais was making up having yet another rare and useful skill to mask insomnia or if Ais was really that lucky and with such a strong will it manifested as so many skills. Hermes would know for sure, but Hermes also knew the value of a good secret. Hermes had only shared the Inventory skill so widely because it was too useful and convenient to hide, and even then he planned on only telling close allies like the Zeus/Hera famillias to keep the secret as long as possible.

The two headed to the dining room and found a few people there eating or just sitting nursing coffee.

Robin then went up to them one by one to introduce Ais.

First she went up to another pallum wearing fancy silk clothes while talking to Ais quietly to describe what he did and who he was. "That is Silk, a pallum that acts as a spy mostly on the criminal elements, and occasionally steals from rich people and sells the objects to the criminals so they think of him as 'one of them' and have looser tongues around him." Robin said before walking to stand beside him.

"Hello Silk, this is Ais Wallenstein, a half-elf who is considering trying to join the night adventurer party, although we will have to register her at the guild and make sure she has the basic information first. She is technically only contracted to our Famillia rather than a part of it, but as you know the guild does not really have something set up for that yet since only Hermes uses contracts.

So she will be registered as a famillia member. She is here in Orario as a service to pay for her Falna; she brought a hive of vigor-wasps and is going to make sure they can breed here. Since that will take up most of her days, night is probably the best time for her to venture into the dungeon anyway. When we do get her registered I hope you will help look out for her in the dungeon."

"Hi Robin, and nice to meet you Ais, and yeah when I go to the dungeon I'll help look out for her, but I don't go every night since I keep busy with my messenger job to cover up my spying and thieving. Though I might go more often soon so I can finally level up and get a chance to join some of those trips to Asteria" Silk replied.

He had been gesturing with his hands at the same time, seemingly for emphasis, but Ais recognized some of the gestures as similar to what Falgar had used when he was signaling the famillia to change formations or about possible dangerous monsters so thought that he might be communicating in a sort of sign language the same time as he was actually speaking.

Ais wondered if it was habit or he was silently trying to communicate more with Robin to give private information. Ais thought that knowing sign language was cool and did not want to be left out of any private knowledge so decided to ask if he could teach her sometime.

"I'll leave you to the rest of your meal then Silk and introduce some of the others." Robin replied, silently moving her hands as well, confirming for Ais that there had been a private conversation in sign language.

Next Robin moved to introduce another female cat person, with a lot more cat features than Tabitha. This cat girl had orange furred ears with a tuft of extra fur at the top, slit pupil yellow eyes, and light orange fur with small stripes of blonde covering most of her body other than her face and hands. Those hands even had strange claws on them instead of normal fingernails.

She was wearing a provocative nearly translucent red short shirt that barely covered her breasts and a similar short skirt with an elegant long thin orange furred tail coming out, but since she had fur it was not nearly as indecent as it first appeared. Robin did not bother to quietly inform Ais of the basics before approaching her. Instead she walked up and made proper introductions of both at the same time.

"Nyara, this is Ais Wallenstein, a half-elf contracted to the famillia visiting here as part of a service to start up a vigor-wasp hive, but who also wants to try venturing into the dungeon at night with your night exploration party. Ais this is Nyara, she leads the night exploration party the most when Silk, who has the highest stats of level 1 without being level 2 yet or one of our other level 2 adventurer's are not available. She acts as a 2nd in command when they are there to lead the party. As you can see, Nyara is a cat person, but also something of a were-cat permanently beastified, due to some events in her past that she does not like speaking about casually."

"Nya, nice to meet you Ais, I hope you are willing to work hard if you join us in the dungeon, although what do you specialize in or plan on doing out of curiosity? You seem a bit young. . ." Nyara said while trailing off to leave Ais a chance to respond.

"I don't have a true specialty yet, but I can act as a supporter, since I have a special skill that helps with that, as a ranged attacker with my pukei bow and arrows, or as an agile aggressive attacker who deals a lot of minor damage that accumulates over time with my twin Rathalos blades, Rathalos and Rathas daggers, or Rathas rapier." Ais said proudly.

Then continued sheepishly.

"At least that is what I hope to be, I'm not sure how well that will work in reality since I have not had much chance to put my training into practice and already realized my skill with a bow and arrow are not good enough when I barely maanged to even hit a wounded Legiana on the journey here. . . But I did manage to do much better against the Coral Pukei Pukei with my avenger skill helping and managed to deal with some of the Killer Ants, so even just a little time saw me improving a lot at actually hitting moving targets. And I did manage to kill that one goblin with my Rathalos blades that Falgar let me fight with supervision so clearly I'm not hopeless."

Nyara blinked slowly a few times in surprise.

"Nya, that must have been a very event-full journey since you listed those two strange monsters and a few that I recognize as well. Maybe you can tell us what all happened during that journey on a break when we are in the dungeon or leaving it. It sounds like you have a good idea of your limits but do have some useful skills and have trained very hard, so once you have a chance to get registered with the guild and read a bit about the dungeon I expect you will become a very valuable member of our Night Adventuring party. Nya. I will look forward to seeing you join us soon and will help look after you if you get a bit too cocky and try to fight too many monsters at once. Nya"

"Thanks Nyara, I just saw Remus and Sirius walk in so I'll introduce them as well. No sign yet of Blake, but I do also see Shippo and I already introduced Kurama last night. Sometimes I really wonder if Hermes planned all this, a famillia split into 3 major groups like we are when he chose to add so so many beast people and pallums to our famillia, but then again they all had their own reasons to join as well. . ." Robin trailed off.

"Nya, I think Hermes was just letting his 'secret' perversion influence his decisions when he added Tabitha, Blake and I, but also added all the boys to try to cover that up. You and all the other females in our famillia are good looking as well. . ." Nyara trailed off very meaningfully with a suggestive look at Robin, then glanced at Ais apologetically when she realized what she had implied.

Ais blinked and tried to look at Nyara with wide 'confused' eyes since she should not know what that meant, while also suddenly privately worried that Hermes really was a secret pervert. Feline's memories of the many perverted stories she read all implied that cat people and elves were very attractive to perverted people for some reason, and since she knew Tabitha was also a cat person that implied Blake was too. . .Suicia was an elf and Ais was a half-elf, and according to an image of the original series of Danmachi and Feline's memories would be quite attractive when she was older. Robin was definitely pretty as well.

Was Hermes trying to create a harem for himself, hidden by the other members? Hermes had not showed obvious signs like Zeus had, but if he was trying to be a 'secret' pervert and make a good impression on Ais who was still a child then he would not show signs for years. . .Ais had wondered why he was so quiet for most of the journey, maybe he had not known what to say that was not perverted. . .

"Lets go see Remus and Sirius now, before they get too into their meals. We can talk later Nyara, but thanks for agreeing to look after Ais in the dungeon." Robin said briskly, obviously trying to get away from that awkward conversation about Hermes potential 'secret' perversion.

Robin then lead Ais over to what seemed to be two wolf-like Chienthrope. Maybe were-wolves?

"Remus! Sirius! This is Ais Wallenstein, a half-elf that is likely to join the Night Adventurers after a few days to get registered, she going to help establish a vigor-wasp hive during the day and is from Asteria so is technically only contracted to our familia, but might as well be a full member while she is here.

Ais this is Remus, a were-wolf and best friend of Sirius; a cheinthrope, elf, were-wolf hybrid mage. Remus is the saner of the two with some minor magic skills of his own, but also very good with a sword and shield and keeps Sirius insanity in check as best he can, although he also aids Sirius in pulling off some of his insane stunts. . .Sirius is a half-insane mutt but very good at magic." Robin introduced, her voice taking on a teasing note when describing Sirius supposed insanity as she gestured at them both in turn with the descriptions.

Remus looked tired, with a lot of scars on his face and arms and bits of gray in his light brown hair, With gray wolf ears and a bushy gray wolf tail hanging discretely and politely below his chair that was holding still. But Remus did not have wrinkles or visible veins and age spots like most old people had. He also did not have a beard and did not really look old other than being tired and having that gray hair and those scars. He was wearing brown mage robes with dark red borders with a stylized gray wolf howling at a large white moon on one of his sleeves.

Sirius had wild wavy black hair, sort of long but not as long as Kurama's had been, wide almond shaped blue eyes and a thin almost gaunt face with a very defined nose and chin. He had black pointed dog ears shaped like a wolves, but closer to the side of his head than the top, and a long black bushy wolf/dog tail that was wagging slowly and curled high up coming through a designed hole in his clothes. He wore black robes with red and gold borders, and a bright red shirt was peeking through underneath the robes. He was definitely a teenager rather than an adult, since he did not look like he shaved and was not nearly as tall as most adults seemed to be.

At Robin's teasing words he scowled in exaggerated anger and said

"Oi! I'm not insane, I just like having fun! It's only stuck up people who get a taste of my 'insane' act so they don't blame the famillia much when I prank the ever loving shii- umm. . . when I prank them to get the stick out of their . . . butts. . ." Sirius started out clearly intending to curse and caught a frowning glance at Ais from Robin so tried to modify his words to be more appropriate. It was clear that cursing was a very common habit for him since he clearly was about to curse again and substituted a more acceptable term butt for what he intended to say at the last second.

Ais felt herself laughing at those words and that reaction. From Feline's memories she knew what Sirius had intended to say and it was very funny that he had tried to correct himself. She was not sure why Robin had bothered trying to correct him if his habit of cursing was so common though, he was bound to slip up sometime and Ais did not care about a bit of cursing.

Ais also felt a strong sense of familiarity at the names Sirius and Remus, weren't those the names of some of the characters from one of Feline's beloved books? For that matter Silk was vaguely familiar and Nyara was too, Robin was even more familiar now that Ais thought about it a bit. . .all characters from some of Feline's stories. How was that possible?! Ais deliberately tried to ignore her nagging curiosity and the sudden onslaught of memories from Feline.

Ais could meditate on the matter later, she was talking to people now! Ais thought furiously to herself, determined not to space out. It only worked somewhat and Ais knew she had probably laughed and then trailed off in thought for too long when Sirius self-consciously cleared his throat and continued.

"Seriously, some people think they are too important, the stuck up as...jerks think they are way above us all just because they are rich or from important famillias. I just try to teach them to stop taking themselves so seriously and hopefully humble their arrogant attitudes a bit with my pranks.

And imagination is a good thing, trying random sh-stuff to see if it works is how we progress and learn. If we don't try new things we'll stagnate. That is not insanity.

Insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, insanity is going all murder-happy on random strangers or even family, insanity is fuc-. . . well causing harm to yourself and others without a good reason, without caring that what is being done is wrong or believing it is okay when everyone else is terrified out of their minds.

I make sure my pranks do not really harm anything other than pride and maybe the money pouch of arrogant sons of. ..snobs. I am not insane, really I'm not. . ."

Sirius trailed off realizing that his words could help an argument for his insanity instead of clearing his good name. There were a few more cut off curses in that speech as well.

Remus who had been silently observing this in amusement now spoke up.

"Lets ignore Sirius questionable mental state for now, Robin introduced Ais because she will be joining us in our not so little Night Adventuring club that everyone with keen senses in our famillia has seemed to join at one point or another. Ais, welcome to our club. We will have your back and help you get used to things in the dungeon, and hopefully help you get used to being in such a strange place so far from home as well.

Be careful of the monsters and dangers of the dungeon but don't try to live in paranoia or solely for any one thing and try to enjoy life too. . .We only have one life as far as I know, it would be a shame to waste it just doing what is necessary or focusing solely on material things like gathering massive quantities of Vali. You should try to enjoy the little things in life too. Sirius and I can help with that if you ever want to join us in our pranks sometime."

"Well, that went well, thanks for those educational and amusing speeches Sirius and thanks for agreeing to help Ais out without my asking Remus. I think I'll just introduce Shippo to Ais and maybe Blake whenever she shows up, those are all the regulars of Night adventuring other than those of us who she already met on the trip from Asteria since I introduced everyone else already. Ais, lets move on to introduce Shippo, that young renart over there. After that feel free to talk in more detail to whoever you want. I don't think we have time to help you out with your bow today, introductions are taking up a lot of time, but tomorrow morning someone will be free to help out before you head over to Miach's to start teaching Tsuki."

When Robin lead Ais over to Shippo she realized that finally here was someone close to her apparent age, just a few years older maybe. Shippo had a face that was still chubby with baby fat. He had reddish brown hair pulled back in a short pig-tail, large brown fox ears, large brown eyes and an enormous bushy brown and creamy white fox tail almost as big as he was. He was wearing a reddish tunic with a furry long scarf that was half reddish brown and half creamy white around his neck and loose brown leathery pants, with a slingshot strapped to his belt. He also had a large bag that looked like a great Jagras bag sitting beside his chair.

"Shippo, this is Ais, she might be helping lighten your burden in supporting the others on the Night Adventuring, helping the group with another ranged attacker, and who can attack up close as well. She is trying to be very versatile. Ais is a half-elf from Asteria that will be busy for a while during the day helping establish a vigor-wasp colony as part of her contract with our famillia. But she wants to grow stronger as well and supposedly does not need much sleep so figures joining the Night Adventurer's would be a good way to do that.

Ais, this is Shippo. He is a renart that is only 8 years old, but has a unique illusion magic that can be very useful and mainly acts as a supporter for the group. He is handy with his slingshot as well. He joins Sirius and Remus in their pranks, and is quite friendly and cheerful most of the time. Blake has still not shown up so feel free to get to know each other before dinner starts up in a few hours.

Shippo can introduce you when she shows up if she does Ais. Then after dinner I'll show Ais the copies of the orientation material the guild gives out, so we can also get her registered with the guild tomorrow. Feel free to talk to Shippo or anyone in the Hermes famillia about your skills or plans." Robin said with a strong hint of wanting to be elsewhere all of a sudden.

Ais had no clue why, but figured Robin had been very patient and spent a lot of time with Ais before this so deserved a chance to be free of Ais own company for a while. Ais nodded and said. "I'll be fine, bye for now Robin, thanks for introducing me to so many people. I'll see you after dinner."

Robin smiled briefly and briskly walked out of the room. So Ais turned to Shippo and gestured at the seat beside him, saying, "Do you mind if I sit down and talk to you a bit?"

"Not at all! It will be nice to talk to someone close to my age for once! How old are you Ais? What did Robin mean about helping 'lighten my burden? What is your favorite food? What is your favorite thing to do or play?" Shippo said very quickly in a very excited tone of voice.

Ais laughed in joy and amusement at the deluge of questions and said.

"I'm actually 5 years old, but very smart and mature so most people treat me like I'm much older thankfully.

I have a super rare skill called Inventory that lets me store tons and tons of things in a magical room that only I can see or access, but is somehow always connected to me and that does not have any weight rather than Artel Assist like most supporters.

I'm not sure what my favorite food is. . .maybe the special pancakes with lots of blueberries mixed in, strawberries on top and a berry syrup that Momma made for my birthday. . ."Ais trailed off mournfully when she remembered that she had never finished those pancakes and her Momma might never be able to make them again.

Then forced herself to ignore that to try to think of something positive. Her Momma was probably not dead! and what was Shippo's final question? Ais asked herself to try to distract herself from her brief period of sharp grief.

"My favorite thing to play used to be. . .tag with Momma and Papa when he had time. My favorite thing to do now is. . .shadow fighting with my swords against imaginary monsters." Ais forced herself to finish.

The joy was gone from her voice though, since she realized all over again that she had not really been enjoying her life ever since that attack by that dragon. Playing 'tea party' with Naaza earlier in the day and showing off the vigor-wasps for her had been the closest thing to playing Ais had done in a long time other than shadow-fighting with her swords.

"Are you an orphan too?" Shippo blurted out, then winced and explained. "My Mother and Father died in the dungeon, I stayed in Maria's orphanage for a while but ran away because I wanted to be a strong adventurer like they were. The Hermes famillia and one member in particular took me in and have been training me and letting me act as a supporter."

Ais impulsively decided that she would respond with the full truth. She refused to lie any longer and who better than this Shippo who was young enough to not hide anything to test the reaction to that truth but not old enough to immediately think she was crazy?

"Its complicated. Momma is probably not really dead, but she is probably not really alive like how most people think of it either. Momma was/ is a wind spirit. Somehow she got a physical body to have me with Papa's help. But she never hid that one day she would turn back into a concentrated mass of magic wind, that was her true form.

She planned on keeping her physical form until I was an adult, since as a wind spirit she was basically immortal so 20 years was a short time for her. But then on my fifth birthday a ginormous black dragon, that I later learned was probably an Elder Dragon attacked us. We originally lived in Ryumillua forest.

Papa told my Momma and I to run until help came, he would stall the black dragon . . . but no help ever came. So the dragon killed Papa and started burning the forest since it could breathe fire. It swooped down on Momma and I and picked us up in it's front talons for some reason, maybe to eat us later?

Momma had been carrying me since there was no way I could run very fast. A short time later, after the dragon flew over the spot it had attacked and we saw all that blood and fire I started realizing that maybe Papa was dead. As we got closer to the edge of the forest Momma gave me one last message, that she loved me, and then told me she would slow my fall with her magic so I had a chance to survive, then let me drop. . .

There was a really bright light that surrounded me as I fell, Momma's magic and maybe something else. Then I woke up in the middle of the Ancient forest, and everything I knew was gone."

"Ooh, so sad. I'm sorry for you." Shippo said sympathetically to show he was still listening and give some awkward condolences. Ais nodded in acknowledgment of Shippo's words then continued. Now that she was telling the full story she did not want to stop.

" When a monster hunter rescued me from being eaten by a monster and tried to find out where my home was I learned that Ryumilua forest, where Papa and Momma said we lived, had been burned down hundreds of years ago by an Elder dragon that surviving elves said looked like what had attacked us. I think that Momma is probably in her wind spirit form, since she had no reason to let the dragon eat her if she could just turn to wind. She also maybe in the burned remains of Ryumilla forest for some reason.

But she might as well be dead, it will be a long time until I am strong enough to go there and search, and even longer still until I have enough magic to help her get a physical body again, if she even wants one since for her it has been a long time since she was my Momma.

I'm pretty sure there was more magic than just Momma's wind magic involved in my being here in this time, since while it would be possible for her magic to fly me to the ancient forest where I woke up, it is not that far from Ryumilua forest after all. But I don't think even a wind spirit can control time or keep someone safe, asleep, and not growing for that long. It is a big mystery to me how I got here in this time, but there had to be a reason it happened."

Ais finished telling the full story and her suspicions of what had happened to her Momma. She felt more grief at re-living those memories yet again, but also lighter, as if a heavy burden had lifted slightly. She had finally told the full truth, and now realized hiding part of it had been bothering her a lot.

"You are the first one I told about Momma being a wind spirit, since I know it was rare even during the time when I was born, and from what I've read although there are many distant descendants no elemental spirit has tried to get a physical form to have children for a long long time. But I don't want to keep lying by omission like I have been. I'm proud of who Momma was, and I don't want to keep saying I'm an orphan when it is more complicated and not entirely true, probably.

I have been privately clinging to that fact to stop myself from wallowing in my grief for more than that first night when I woke up from a nightmare of reliving that attack and cried until Elaine, the palico of the Monster Hunter that rescued me and took me in, comforted me.

I have been clinging to the idea of getting strong enough to Avenge Papa's death and rescuing Momma if she is trapped somehow in that burning forest. But it is hard to cling to hope when I can't explain what I am hoping for, and I know I might never become strong enough to kill the Black Elder Dragon alone, so I got a Falna from Hermes and plan on helping whatever group has the best chance of killing the Black Elder dragon when I am strong enough to at least help.

I have been obsessed with that, constantly training and learning things that can help me, but I remembered that Momma wanted me to be as happy as I could be without her, that was part of her last words to me, and other than moments of triumph at learning how to use weapons properly and managing to hurt some of the monsters we encountered on the journey from Asteria to here, I have not really been happy. . .

I met a young chiethrope girl named Nazza, the daughter of the woman I'll be teaching how to cultivate the vigor-wasps. Naaza asked me to play with her while the adults were busy. It was fun and I was happy for a little bit.

Then it was back to business. . .until I met Remus and Sirius just before Robin introduced me to you. Sirius was very funny and Remus said some wise words about enjoying life that got me thinking. He said it to defend the pranks that Sirius apparently enjoys playing, but it applies to me as well.

So . . .will you be my friend and help me re-learn how to play and be happy as well as both of us helping each other in the dungeon Shippo? It is a lot to ask, and strange that I have to ask, but other than that girl Naaza you are the first one close to my age I've met, and you are probably a better choice than a 4 year old chienthrope who still has her mother.

You were so cheerful and excited to meet me, but you said you are an orphan so you understand how everything is different and harder when you don't have actual parents to keep taking care of you."

"Wow, that is a long, complicated and sad story Ais. I did not expect that at all from my simple questions.

But I agree to be your friend! You might be a girl and younger than me, but other than the other orphans in Maria's orphanage I don't have any friends my age to play with and they seem to be forgetting their parents already.

I don't want to forget my parents. I want to make them proud of me in heaven where they are probably watching me. We can make training into a game to have fun and improve at the same time. We can also help Remus and Sirius with their pranks. They are not really adults, they are teenagers so it is fun to hang out with them and really fun to see the faces of the people they prank or hear stories of their pranks.

We could also just play sometimes, maybe we can even visit Maria's and join one of the many games the orphans play. It is sort of odd since I am not living there anymore, but they think of me as just an adopted kid and are glad I still visit them and tell them stories of all the cool things I see as a supporter in the dungeon."

"That sounds really good to me Shippo! Thanks for agreeing to be my friend!" Ais said with slightly forced enthusiasm, but with real emotion beneath it.

She was very grateful that Shippo had agreed to be her friend, and promised herself she would learn how to be the best friend ever to repay him. Ais had realized her obsession might have ruined her life and cased her to have different regrets than Feline but regrets none-the-less if so much stuff had not happened today to force her to realize what had been happening to her.

Training to pursue her goals was a good thing, but everyone needed time to relax or have fun sometimes. Flying whenever she learned how to do it might have been that way to relax for Ais, but since she would need a lot of magic to fly it would probably be a long time until she had that method of relaxing.

This friendship with Shippo might be the perfect way for Ais to re-learn how to relax and enjoy life again but still be able to train and grow stronger, since Shippo wanted to grow stronger too.

After those mutual declarations of friendship Ais felt warm and happy, but also awkward, what could they do as friends? She decided she had talked a lot, and she knew very little about Shippo after all, so she would turn some of his questions back on him.

"So. . . What is your favorite food? What is your favorite game or thing to do? Umm. What is your favorite color? Mine is either sky blue or gold. Gold because that is the color of my magic, my hair and my eyes, it is also the color of Momma's hair. Sky blue because it reminds me of Momma. She had those color eyes and she loved looking at the clouds in the sky and using her wind magic to try to make them take on different shapes, since she used to do that all the time in her wind spirit form." Ais asked and briefly answered one of the questions she had thought up.

"My favorite food it sweets! Candy! I love the taste of it. I love the rush of energy it gives me when I eat a lot of sweets! I also like fruit because it is sweet too. My favorite fruit is strawberries covered in chocolate or apples covered in caramel, although those are very very rare treats. My favorite game is hide and seek! I am very good at hiding due to my special illusion magic that lets me look like I have transformed to something else! I still can't completely hide my tail for some reason though, and a bush looks very silly and is obvious if my tail is still sticking out."

Shippo briefly pouted after enthusiastically ranting about sweets for most of his answer. He then hesitated and touched his furry scarf. Then he said a bit more solemnly

"My favorite colors are red-brown and creamy white, since that was the colors of my Mama and Papa's fur and hair. This scarf was made partially from the fur of their tails and threads that matched those colors. Which was the only thing that was retrievable of their bodies from the dungeon. It is morbid that I have a scarf made from their tails, but it helps me remember at least a little what they looked like. And many of us orphans have to be a bit morbid, we lived next to the graveyard set up for most of our parents after all, but knew most of those graves were empty since monsters ate most of their bodies. Keepsakes like this are the only way other than a stone with their names that we have to remember our parents by. The lucky ones have pictures, and I have one I keep safe in my room as well. So I am very lucky." Shippo continued.

Then he shook his head and forced a bright smile on his face.

"Enough gloominess, want to pull a very minor prank? I saw Blake wander in reading her book a bit ago but was too busy listening to your story. We can try to sneak up on her to scare her! If that fails, which is likely since she has keen hearing just like we do, then you can 'innocently' ask what she is reading.

Blake is a teenage cat girl, and her face gets all red when her smutty books are mentioned. She tries to hide them in other books sometimes. But I managed to use my illusion magic to help hide once when she was very interested in one of her books and read over her shoulders. So I know most of her books are all about these weird people called Ninjas that don't act like the real ninjas from the Far East Islands.

Instead they go around in scanty clothes and show off to impress each other. The ninja girls all have crushes on the strongest and most pretty ninja boys, and the boys have the same on the girls. But they often like people who like other people in something called love triangles. It is very strange and icky, but Blake loves those books but is ashamed to admit it to me because I am a young boy who should not know about all that icky stuff. She dresses sort of like one of the girl ninjas too. And it is very fun to tease her, she often bribes me with sweets to get me to go away too! So lets have a bit of fun right now!" Shippo exclaimed after rambling in his explanation of the 'minor prank' he wanted to pull.

Ais was not sure pulling a prank on one of the people she would need to depend on in the dungeon was the best idea, but she was getting bored, and she had promised to become a best friend to Shippo. It sounded minor and clearly something this Blake was used to as well.

So Ais nodded. Then looked around for a new face and another cat girl. She did not see anyone at first, until she followed Shippos's eager gaze into a shadowy corner. There she saw a cat girl that blended into those shadows. She had black hair and black furry ears that were mostly hidden by a gray ribbon in her hair. She had amber-yellow cat eyes and wore dark gray or black clothing that covered most of her skin, but was skin-tight and had many holes or slits in some areas to give glimpses of her light brown skin. A thin black cat tail also slowly flicked back and forth at her side.

Following Shippo's exaggerated example, Ais tried to walk slowly on her tiptoes as he was doing toward that shadowy corner. Ais felt that this did not really work very well, she was sure walking normally might actually be quieter, but it was fun to try anyway.

At Shippo's silent gesture she walked ahead of him a bit to get closer to Blake, this time walking almost normally just carefully lifting her feet higher and using her ankles more to walk heal to toe. This was actually a lot quieter. When Ais was only a foot away Blake suddenly looked up from her book sharply in annoyance, her eyes then widened slightly when she saw Ais. Suddenly she said "Who are you? How did Shippo rope you into trying this silliness?" when she saw Ais instead of Shippo as she was probably expecting.

"Umm. . .I'm Ais Wallenstein, a half-elf who recently got my Falna from a contract with Hermes. I lived all the way in Asteria but traveled here to help establish a vigor-wasp hive as part of my contract. It has been been all work and training for me for a long while now. I never had friends before. So when Shippo agreed to be my friend after we had shared stories together and then suggested a minor prank it seemed like a good idea. . .

I also want to join the 'night adventurer's in the dungeon soon since I'll be too busy during the day for a while. I want to get stronger, but I realized today that I need to have fun and relax too. So. . .sorry for trying to sneak up on you while you were reading. Shippo really wanted me to try though...and it sounded harmless since even he expected us to fail eventually." Ais said.

She also remembered Shippo's comment about asking what Blake was reading, but felt it would be too obvious right after she admitted to going along with Shippo's idea of a prank. Ais would engage Blake in conversation and then casually ask while mentioning that she enjoyed reading too but had already finished the book she had brought from Asteria.

"Sigh." Blake actually said that word rather than just sighing.

Then continued. "Well, I'm Blake, a cat-girl who joins the night adventuring party. I got my falna a few months ago and Shippo continuously tries to bother me. I have a special skill that lets me make illusion shadow copies of myself so I guess he feels we have something in common. Plus, he is a kid and there are no other real kids in most famillias including this one. Teens like myself, Remus, Sirius, and Kurama are the closest to Shippo's age. I am also working on gaining a stealth skill and mastering a complicated weapon and love to sleep and read so that does not leave me with time to explore the dungeon during the day.

I did start out trying during the day, but I hated those crowds of other Adventurers. Sometimes the first 4 floors seemed almost as packed as a marketplace. And since I am so new unless I join a party I can't go lower yet. The night adventuring party is the best fit for me and I enjoy it. I don't really blame you for going along with Shippo, but maybe in the future you can do something else? I get very little time to just enjoy reading and it is irritating to be interrupted."

"Okay, I can understand that. I'll try to think of something else Shippo and I can do as friends that does not bother you. I can understand not wanting to be interrupted. I enjoy reading too, mostly when everyone else is asleep and I have to be quiet to avoid waking them up. I am lucky enough to need very little sleep so I have read a lot. I got through all the story type books fast though and have been limited to mostly boring educational books.

Although Monster Encyclopedias are interesting in a sort of scary way when they describe how deadly some monsters are, their teeth, claws, poison or special element/abilities that make them even more dangerous than their sheer size.

They also sometimes have pictures of a monster eating a bloody corpse of another monster when it goes into their eating habits which is cool in a gross way. I finished the last book I brought from Asteria already while on our journey here though. Do you have any suggestions for good books other than the orientation material for the dungeon? Maybe a book similar to what you are reading or the first book of that series?"

Ais responded, making sure to make her question about Blake's book casual and indirect. Despite that Blake blushed a bright purplish pink color.

Blake then said hastily,

"'you would not like this book, or series it has a bunch of adult stuff in it. I can't remember a good book in our library off the top of my head, but I can help you look sometime after you get through the boring orientation materials. If you join the night exploration party you will spend less time reading while everyone else is asleep though, so there is no hurry I think."

Ais nodded in understanding and agreement, hoping that was close enough to a prank for Shippo to be happy but not enough to alienate Blake.

Ais wanted to have fun, but was really not certain that this was the time for it or that having fun at Blake's expense would be a good idea. Since Ais already knew what sort of 'adult stuff' was in the book based on Shippo's description and Feline's memories of similar books Ais felt no desire to tease Blake by pursuing the matter.

Ais belatedly verbalized

"okay then, I'll focus on orientation material first then just search the library for reading material if I somehow have enough free time to read."

Then Ais also added on a "Thanks for being understanding Blake, I'll leave you to your reading now. It was good speaking with you. I need to feed the vigor-wasps now anyway and by the time I am done it will be close to dinner-time. So I'll see you sometime late tomorrow or the next night if I get permission to go into the dungeon by then."

Then Ais backed away from Blake as she gave a relieved "Bye for now, I'll see you soon." and went back to reading.

Ais turned to Shippo and said, "Well, I guess that went okay. I introduced myself after getting pretty close to Blake and Blake did blush when I mentioned her book. But I don't really want to keep bothering her. Maybe we can play a quick game of tag or hide and seek. And then I can show you my vigor-wasps while feeding them, although I guess they will become the Miach familia's vigor-wasps very soon."

Shippo nodded enthusiastically and said

"You got very close to Blake before she noticed you! That was great! And it was pretty cool how you casually added your question to the end of your introduction. Blake was very surprised and embarrassed rather than irritated like she gets with me. I'm not sure we have enough time for a game and feeding those vigor-wasps before dinner time since we were talking for a long time. So just show me how you feed those vigor-wasps and tell me a bit about them maybe for now. We can play sometime in the afternoon tomorrow when I wake up from sleeping in, since I'll be in the dungeon with the night adventurers tonight like usual."

"Okay then. . ." Ais responded, planning out how to try to make feeding the vigor-wasps interesting.

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To be continued in Ch 9

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Review Please! Even if it is just a few words of praise or constructive criticism.

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A./N.: Here is a list of all the Ocs and some of their background.

Kurama Suichi Minimo is an OC based on the character from Yu Yu Hakushu who was a a human, with the soul, memories, and weak abilities of a fox demon who started out as a minor antagonist that helped steal valuable and dangerous items from the boss of the main character. He called himself Kurama after the fox demon he had memories of. But the main character discovered Kurama had a human identity and only stole to get access to an item that could save the life of his dying human mother. Later Kurama became an ally. His main ability was controlling existing plants or growing them from seeds very fast and his favorite weapon was a rose whip with extra long thorns.

This Kurama is a renart rather than a fox demon spirit, with his magic skill being influenced by the original family he was born into; the Demeter famillia so he can grow plants very fast and hopes to make that into a combat skill.

Tsuki Erisuis is a minor OC I created not from any one fandom, but as her first name implies I decided to make her from the Far East Islands and thus loosely related to those legends instead. Later you will find that Nechten and many of the rest of the Miach famillia are loosely based on some of the Tuatha De Duann legends that I looked up. Since I read on the character page of the Danmachi fandom that Naaza was based on Nuada, a silver armed king related to the Miach and Dian Ciecht legends and then decided to fill out some of the other characters with more names related to those legends .

It was very confusing with all those names and so many had multiple names that I decided to make use of many of them but have Tsuki as an OC rather than Eithne or Boann or one of the other names of Nuada or Nechten's wife. Nechten is an alternate name for Nuada so I figured having him as Chibi Naaza's father made sense. Boann was the wife of Nechten or Nuada but also had a different husband with a different name, Elcmar in some legends, and cuckolded him with Dagda the patron god of the Tuatha de Duann as well so I decided to use her as an aide who might harbor a secret crush on Nechten but lost out too Tsuki.

Eithne will be a renart from the Airmed famillia that tried to seduce Nechten since that is yet another name for one of Nechten's possible wife or wives, or an alternate name for Boann in some legends. As you can see I am making Nechten into something of a ladies man, but since he was originally the first king of the Tuatha de Duann or a minor river God in some legends it makes sense to me. He'll be an unintentional ladies man though, loyal to Tsuki for the most part other than the natural looks that all men give to pretty women and very busy as the Captain of the Miach famillia.

Silk is from the Belgareth series by David Eddings. In that series he is a Drasnian prince, spy, thief, and sometime assassin. He is a prophesied companion to the Child of Light, the main protagonist. The Drasnians invented a special sign language where slight movements of fingers and casual gestures can convey whole conversations including curse words. This is taught to Garion and many of his companions over the course of their journey so they can hold silent and secret conversations when surrounded by those they cannot trust. Silk is shorter than everyone else in the group seeking the Orb and defensive about it due to Drasnians living in fens and having a naturally short average height, so a Pallum fit him best.

Nyara will be a major OC and is based on a character in the Heralds of Valdemir Chronicles, specifically a trilogy that does not take place in Valdemir but a magic twisted part of the mysterious Pelgaris forest bordering Valdemir. Nyara had a very twisted terrible background as the daughter of the main villain of that series that was used to experiment with partial shape-changing that painfully made her into something like a cat changeling, with the villain then proceeding to use her changes as a template to change himself faster and with less pain. Then her villain father sexually molested her and mildly tortured her while using magic to make her feel pleasure even when he was torturing her. She hated him and feared him especially since he had made no secret of the fact that he planned to make her into a broodmare in the future once she was 'old enough.'

She escaped his hidden lair, found the main protagonists, who were Heralds seeking aid for their country from another group that lived in the forest, and gave detailed information on her father's crimes, location, and weaknesses. Then the Heralds and some of the group that had been preyed on secretly by the main villain all worked together to try to kill him. He escaped twice, albeit with injury due to his paranoia and immense skill, leading to further books, and eventually it was learned that his body was not even his, he had possessed it in a Voldemort way to escape death by age.

The villain was actually the spirit of an ancient mage from 1000 years in the past who had possessed many people and committed many crimes and atrocities over those centuries. His current body had originally been an 18 year old young man from a nomadic tribe, and the soul of that young man managed to somehow communicate more of the ancient mage's secrets and plans using an indirect method involving praying to his people's goddess while the ancient mage was weakened from the two times the group nearly killed him.

This villain's possession had specific limits. He could only posses male descendents of his lineage who had magic. He had anchored his spirit to a void dimension closely connected to the physical world. His spirit would flee when the physical body started dying, to wait until another appropriate vessel was ready. He had made it a habit to rape many women and father many children in every incarnation of his so his descendants were spread widely.

Eventually the spirit of the evil mage was exorcised when Nyara plunged a magic sword into the gut of his body and the spirit fled before the body died. Then another mage related to the original group used a special magic to tear and burn that spirit, while the magic sword partially healed the body he had been possessing. The goddess worshiped by the clan that the young man had been from then finished healing the body, and changed that boy back to his original age and shape, leaving only cat-eyes as a reminder of his time, changing Nyara at the same time but leaving a few more of her features as cat-like since she had those features from her early child-hood and would not know how to move properly if she was fully human.

Some details will be changed for this version of Nyara of course, but her father being behind her permanent beasification using shady magic will remain the same. Her father was from an Evilus group, and was experimenting with beastification see if he could increase combat potential of the Evilus group members or even create beserkers. I have an actual back-story for this Nyara in my head that will be loosely based on the original story, just altered to fit Orario instead. Nyara will give a summary of her tale to Ais at some point since she will become an important character.

Remus and Sirius are of course from the Harry Potter series by J.K Rowling, but more from the Marauder years. In case anyone has been living under a rock or deliberately refused to read those books: Remus was a werewolf allowed to go to Hogwarts, the magic school despite prejudice against werewolves. James, Sirius, and Peter became close friends with Remus and learned how to change into animals to keep his werewolf form company during full moon nights. Sirius could change into a large black dog. The entire group were known for playing massive pranks in school. And James and Lily, the parents of the main character in that series will also be teens in the Hera or Zeus familias. Peter might very well have secretly joined an Evilus group. The actual main character's in the Harry Potter books are not born yet, though some of their teachers and parents might be more members of the Zeus and Hera famillias.

This version of Remus is still a teen were-wolf, who will have a magic skill to enhance his speed, strength, or senses even when it is not the full moon. Sirius will have a special magic skill that allows him to change into a dog-like form as well as some other magic.

Shippo will be another major OC and is based on the character from Inuyasha, an Anime that aired and finished a long while back, though it had a huge amount of filler episodes so I only know the ending from spoilers. It was mainly about a girl, Kagome from modern Japan traveling through time through a magical well attached to a shrine, to the Feudal Era when demons still roamed, gathering a group of misfits to aid herself and the main character, a hanyo called Inuyasha that was half dog-demon/ half human. They sought out shards of a magical jewel called the Shikon no Tama that was said to be able to grant any wish.

Negative emotions and demons could taint the jewel and make it grant corrupt damaging power. The group fought all the demons who also sought out that power or were corrupted by tainted shards. There was one powerful antagonist demon who frequently used other demons as minions. The main comic relief was a perverted Monk and Shippo, a young child fox demon who begged to be allowed to join the group due to his parents deaths at the hands of a demon corrupted by a tainted shard of the Jewel. He acted like a spoiled brat sometimes, and played pranks on Inuyasha frequently, but was cute and did occasionally help out with his illusion magic and foxfire so the group tolerated him. Although mostly Kagome agreed to let him join the group, and tried to protect him. She tried to act like a substitute mother to him somewhat badly since she was a young teenage human girl.

This Shippo is a renart, and his parents died in the dungeon rather than being killed by other beast people.

Blake is a modified version of the Blake from RWBY, an American anime-style web series started by Monty Oum and finished by the company Roosterteeth when he died before completing it. The Blake in that story was a cat faunus, Huntress in training, and a former member of the White Fang; a terrorist group fighting for faunus rights that became patsies and muscle for the main antagonist.

My Blake is part Amazoness as well as being a cat person. She is a former member born into an Evilus group that left when she realized just how terrible they really were, just as the Blake of the original series left the White Fang

A./N 2: As you can see from the backgrounds of some of my Ocs, dealing with Evilus groups will be one of the story arcs, although Ais will not be heavily involved until after the 2nd story arc involving the One Eyed Black Elder Dragon is done. Some groups were already weakened in the past but this is set during the period when there are still many out there so this will be a re-occurring conflict. This first story arc is mainly set-up and 'growing stronger' for the arc involving the Black Dragon, and the main conflict is mostly internal, Ais fighting her own emotions and fighting to become stronger. Although there is of course conflict with the various monsters of the dungeon and a few conflicts with large monsters from the Monster Hunter World when Ais goes back to Asteria a few times. There are also minor conflicts with the 'adults' who want to keep her an innocent child and safe rather than letting her fight.

Review Please!

Expect Chapter 9 and a few chapters to be minorly edited in a few days. I have given up the idea of completing one chapter before writing another and don't expect to update that often, although updates will likely come in spurts when I can't find enough good fan-fiction to read.

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