In response to a question someone asked, no, you don't have to worry about Rosa getting maimed.

She might get fucked with occasionally, but she's not going to suddenly lose an arm or an eye or a leg or something...well, probably. The problem is that I don't plan stuff, so in future, I might decide that she needs to make a serious sacrifice for some temporary power.

I just don't know, but at least for the time being, her limbs are safe.

Chapter 12

Leaning back on her chair legs, Rosa watched placidly as iron ore poured down the coal chute into her basement.

The day before, she had visited the commodities exchange and set up a repeating order. Every day, one-thousand kilograms of iron ore was to be delivered to her house, and she paid a full 2 million Ryo as an advance payment for the next ten days. On top of that, she bought 250,000 Ryo worth of Pigskin, so she didn't need to worry about that any time soon. She had explicitly barred the shinobi from entering the basement aside from allowing Katsuki to inspect it just so she knew what the layout was like in case she for some reason needed Katsuki down there, be it because she was being kidnapped or something.

As for delivering the finished product, a courier had already come by and collected the kunai in a storage scroll, and would return the next day with the Ryo from the sale, as well as to pick up the next batch. In return, they earned 10,000 Ryo per trip. Sure, if they stole the scroll and ran with the money they'd make a cool 3 million Ryo, but that was at the expense that they would then be wanted throughout Hi no Kuni. It was the age-old saying of not killing the golden goose...though, that relied on the person in question not letting greed overcome common sense.

Standing after hearing the upper doors be closed, Rosa ambled over to her forging apparatus, positioned to be in range of where the iron ore fell, and swiftly crafted all 400 kunai, using up all the available iron ore and a portion of her purchased pigskin sheets, which she had piled up on the other side of the apparatus. She stacked the kunai on a metal table off to the side and cracked her back before heading upstairs.

She had gotten an idea in her head that she couldn't easily shake, and so she wanted to make a purchase. Considering the genin were training, she was debating waiting, but on the other hand, she was literally paying them. A pittance, the mission was only classed as a C-grade and had an accordingly low price, but she was still paying them. And so, she didn't bother putting on airs as she headed out into the garden, amused at seeing Katsuki put the three through their paces.

It was truly fascinating seeing the power behind their movements, their 'chakra' fuelling their abilities without them realizing it. Each swing was packed with more strength than an adult male could unleash, let alone a child, but that was from the perspective of a woman who lived in a normal world. Their endurance was also not to be underestimated, as even after such powerful swings, they continued to punch, pivot, kick and fight against the air without getting tired instantly. They still got tired, and she could see the mild relief on all three faces when Katsuki stopped watching them to face her, but it was still impressive. "Do you require our presence, Rosa-sama?"

Rosa nodded in response. "There's some things I need to pick up around the city, so I need to head out and about for a while. We'll be staying in Keishi, obviously, so you'll probably only have to be on the watch for people trying to mug me." She said cheerily, to which the woman nodded and began commanding the three genin. They would be around her, the same formation they had undertaken the day before, acting as a screen and not letting anybody get too close to steal her money, or to stick a kunai between her ribs. Katsuki would be stood at the back, watching them all as well as keeping an eye over the entire situation.

After cleaning themselves up a little, the small group set off from her home, and in the back of her mind, Rosa set a reminder to hire some permanent guards for her house, mainly to keep up appearances as a nouveau riche as well as to protect her house from being broken into and robbed. She liked how her home was set up, so losing all her stuff would really piss her off. Plus it'd mean even after the shinobi left, her home would still look defended.

It didn't take long for them to arrive at her first destination, a weapon shop. Not Mori's shop, but a different one, and inside, she purchased an assortment of weapons. A katana, a broadsword, a chainwhip, stiletto, dagger, all sorts of weaponry was purchased. Since she bought so many random weapons, she had to ask them to get the purchased items delivered to her home for an additional fee, spending roughly 300,000 Ryo on all the different kinds of weapons she could see, alongside buying a couple of different kinds of shields.

Next, she visited an armourer, who was more than happy for her business. Aside from the vests that Chunin and Jonin wore, shinobi basically wore no armour, so it seemed the armourer only saw business occasionally. She bought an assortment of items and again had them delivered to her home, another 200,000-ish Ryo spent in the blink of an eye. With those purchases, she could go back in order to perform her experiment, but instead, she decided to put that off in favour of wandering around town a little more.

Weapons, shields and armour, those three things were a combination, but she kept an eye out, and after a while, she spotted an...well, it wasn't an 'antique's store' but it was close enough. Inside, she bought fancy detritus that served little purpose aside from looking mystical, but that was the entire point. There were candle-holders that looked like snakes wrapping around empty space, incense-burners that had the appearance of a screaming mouth, weird and old-looking items that would be perfect. The price was negligible, only 20,000 Ryo for all the random stuff she bought, and she was able to carry it all in two bags, so that was a plus. With that all in hand, she and her guards returned home.

Entering her ritual pocket, Rosa laid out the items she had discovered, replacing her generic candle-holders and incense-burners with far more occult ones. She added and replaced other items as well, with menacing-looking statues, twisted scales and things that she would honestly describe as demonic in nature. A little later on, after finishing up in her pocket and settling in her comfy sofa to read, the couriers arrived and delivered the goods, and Rosa immediately took all the stuff down into the basement.

From there, she began moving it all into her ritual pocket, every weapon, every piece of armour and every shield. Once she finally had it all inside, she headed in herself, piling it all up in the ritual circle, setting right anything that got knocked over, and marveling at the armory of items she had collected in just a few hours. Kneeling down, she placed her hands together, interlacing her fingers, bowing her head and closing her eyes. "To the Undefeatable Ares, Ancient God of War and Spirit of Battle, I beseech you to lay claim upon this mortal's humble offerings, to take these meagre possessions and to use them to satisfy your endless hunger for battle, bloodshed and brutality."

This time...this time was different. When she felt that overwhelming presence wash over her, it was...violent, filled with endless rage and a bottomless lust for conflict. She could feel it, she could feel him. Ares desired nothing more than to watch her raise up arms and fight every single living being on the planet until either she or everyone else was dead...and that was terrifying. She had gotten used to the feeling of beings above her comprehension glancing over her as if she didn't even exist, and to have the full focus on a literal, bonafide god was horrific.

It mercifully only lasted for a second, and it was the longest second of her life. Once his presence was gone, her knees slid out from under her and her ass hit the ground with a gentle thud, her upper body twitching in residual fear as her soul itself desired nothing more than to submit after the sheer presence that Ares had exuded directly at her. She...was suddenly all too grateful that she hadn't tried sacrificing something to a deity like a Chaos God...the thought of which would have possibly made her wet herself...a question that wouldn't be answered considering Ares had already caused her to do so.

Shivering uncontrollably, Rosa forced herself to her knees and then upwards, standing on shaking legs and trying to recover some semblance of normalcy. It...he...was terrifying, and even after the fact, she still felt the aftershocks of his gaze. She wasn't a warrior, not in his eyes. She was just a gnat making offerings to him in the pursuit of power. That wasn't what Ares was about, he was about battle and slaughter, not about pursuing power.

He already had power in spades.

When she was finally able to actually stand and move without shaking uncontrollable, Rosa went back into the basement.

From there, she headed upstairs into her bathroom, stripped off and then showered herself clean, her body covered in sweat and her thighs burning from where she had soiled herself. She didn't reprimand herself for it though, a literal god of slaughter had focused his attention on her, a fucking deity, and all she'd done was piss herself. Once she was cleaned up, she took out some clothes from her inventory and put them on, taking her soiled and sweaty clothing and chucking it into the washing machine.

Walking into the living room, Rosa collapsed bonelessly into her comfy chair and curled up with the blanket she'd placed on said chair, suppressing the occasional unconscious twitch as the aftershocks continued to run through her body. Though she was terrified, that didn't mean she was stupid. Whilst she was showering, she contemplated why Ares had exuded so much power where before, none of the gods could do more than impressions. Powerful impressions that spoke to her very existence, sure, but never anything so direct as to cause her to piss herself.

And her conclusion was that the items she'd added had increased the value of the ritual circle. That in turn allowed Ares to push more of his 'essence' through the circle, his very being presenting itself in far more clarity to her. She was very, VERY fucking sure she was going to be sticking to benign gods for the time being. Hephaestus for instance, or Hestia. Hestia was actually probably the very best choice, she saw no reason why Hestia would terrify her to such an extent.

After all, Hestia was the Goddess of the Hearth, of home and of family. Rosa...was fairly confident that Hestia wouldn't try to terrorize her or force her soul into submission. That didn't mean she wasn't going to test herself against Ares again in the future. When her Mysticism and her Endurance were both higher, she was definitely going to be getting whatever kind of payback she could out of Ares for being a cunt.

Thoughts of her stats prompted her to check her ritual report, blinking in surprise as she did so.

Ritual Completed - B+1

Environment - B-1

Items - B

Sacrifice - B+3

Incantation - C+2

Other Effects - A-3

There...was an A-rank in the list.

Other Effects...was at A-3. That was not what she expected, not at all. Immediately, she went to work brainstorming exactly why that were so, and quickly, she came to a conclusion. She had just faced the essence of a literal deity, and instead of collapsing, of gibbering apologies and prostrating herself, she had knelt there and taken it, and all that she had to show for it was a puddle of urine and some residual shaking. If that wasn't the reason why it was rated so highly, then she had no fucking idea.

And the ritual itself was B+1, that meant...9,280 ritual points, so long as her system held true. 9,280...that was enough to upgrade all of her stats to F+3 and have plenty leftover. Before, she would have hesitated, afraid of the effects. But now she had her Stat Control Menu. If anything she unlocked scared her, she could just tone it down, and so, she spent a full 9,120 points, and realized she was far, FAR too hasty.

Her Strength, Perception, Intelligence, Foraging, Healing and Carrying Capacity were all increased to F+3...and that cost her 9,120 points. A B+1 ritual was good, but it wasn't quite as much as her brain had assumed. With the 340 points she had left, she belatedly increased her Mysticism from F to F+1, leaving her with exactly 40 points. She made a mental note to find some things to sacrifice to Hestia, some firewood and warm furs perhaps, tacking on the need to upgrade her Mysticism next time she performed a ritual.

Before she exited her menu, she checked her Stat Control Menu, looking through all the different things she had increased. For Strength, she removed the effect it would have on her physical musculature. Her actual physical strength would be increased still, but visually, she would look the same. All the other upgrades didn't change her visually, and nor did they have any freaky influences she didn't like, and so she only had to change that feature before exiting her menu.

Flexing an arm, she could tangibly feel the difference going from F-2 to F+3 was. But, alongside that, or maybe thanks to her increased Perception and Intelligence, she was able to control it, not having any incidents where she crushed the arm of her chair as she got up, nor crumpling a door handle when she grabbed it. Whilst she was in the menu, she took note of the fact that Intelligence...didn't actually have any sliders.

She took that to mean that it didn't actually influence her intelligence itself, or else it'd let her reduce her own intelligence in order to not suddenly be a brainiac, but, if that was the case, she could only assume it was to assist her Mysticism and any other mental-strength-related things she got in-future. She still wanted to try and see if she had the same 'chakra' that the shinobi had, and if she didn't then, it wasn't the end of the world. Physical empowerment would come from her Agility and Strength, whilst Mental Empowerment would be given to her through Mysticism.

That didn't mean she didn't want to walk up walls though.

A week passed by quickly, and through it, Rosa settled comfortably into a routine.

Every day her kunai were picked up, money was dropped off, and then iron ore was delivered. She steadily increased her wealth, and used said wealth to perform another sacrifice, this one to Hestia. The ritual itself was only a C-rank, but 'only' was the definition simply because she had gotten a B-rank before. The points from the ritual were used to upgrade her Mysticism, leaving her with 2,480 points.

The increase to Mysticism meant she unlocked more spells, most notable of which was a spell named Lesser Float, which, naturally, gave her the ability to float. It was only that though, floating, locking herself at a certain altitude and being able to maintain that, but that was still really fucking cool. Since she didn't want to showcase her abilities, once she had crafted a pile of Float scrolls to test the ability, she used the basement to do it in.

When she jumped up in the air and activated the spell, at whatever point she activated it, her height would become locked. She could control herself and move at about half her normal walking speed whilst in the air, and the spell lasted for about five minutes before wearing off. She understood though that it was only a Lesser Float spell, so the fact that it only lasted that long and only let her float at a pretty slow speed was completely acceptable. Other than that, she unlocked more tomes and staffs for the different, fairly useless spells, but she put off buying the materials needed to make them.

What she did not put off was hiring permanent guards for her home. Three guards who would take 8-hour shifts guarding the front entrance, all of whom were paid 500 Ryo an hour, a pittance compared to her income, but a fully-respectable income for a civilian guard job. They weren't meant to be there to actually seriously protect her. No, they were there to stop people casually breaking into her home while she was away.

On top of that, she hired a second trio of guards who would patrol inside of her fence in 8-hour shifts, for a little extra security. Considering shinobi existed, they didn't exactly make her feel secure against people who could breathe fire, walk up walls, spray lightning from their hands and pull off insane Darth Sidious impressions, but it was more just keeping regular, non-shinobi out of her house.

As for dealing with actual shinobi, well, that was a problem that she was still tangling with. Her personal strength was high, sure, all her stats were F+3 or above, but that meant nothing really since she had zero live combat experience. Even if her stats were higher than her opponent, well, she had no idea how to throw a real punch, let alone perform serious combat with swords and daggers and all that kind of stuff.

That didn't mean she was defenseless though, she had spent a full 1,000 of her precious points on a repeating pistol crossbow. If she had to define it in regards to a fictional weapon, it was very similar to the crossbow from Dishonored. It was able to fire about two bolts a second, and they had some punch to them, but, being honest, she knew it wouldn't help against a serious shinobi who wanted to kill her. She'd seen how fast Katsuki could move, having watched the genin train and seen her stop them from injuring themselves by moving too fast for her F+3 Perception to follow. If she couldn't even track her opponent with her eyes, there was no fucking way she could shoot them with a crossbow bolt. The main reason she got it was for protection against civilians, as well as the fact it was rather concealable.

However, putting her thoughts of that aside, she had another problem to deal with, which was the case of acquiring acolytes. Thanks to her income stream, she had outright purchased her house, and on top of that, she had purchased herself a small warehouse in the city. It wasn't very big at all, calling it a warehouse and not just a large storage shed was already a compliment to it, but it suited her needs. Her plan was that she would utilize her Charisma, even though it irked her to do so, in order to speak with the homeless and destitute, and she would try to convince them to join her.

To do that without many questions asked meant she needed her escort to go away, and since she didn't want them to get suspicious of her canceling their mission, she decided that the best thing to do was to be patient. Three weeks of waiting and their mission would end, leaving her fully able to do whatever she wanted to do without a Jonin-Sensei watching her every move. During those three weeks, she was going to establish herself better. Thanks to her sacrifice to Hestia, she knew that so long as the gods she chose to sacrifice to weren't ones that had any malevolence, she would be safer.

Hestia herself, well, during the sacrifice her presence could only be described as motherly love. It was...as though Hestia saw the world as her family and wanted to protect them all. It made her wonder what Artemis would be like, perhaps it'd feel like being in the eyes of a predator? In any case, her intentions were to collect home-making items, and sacrifice those to Hestia in exchange for points, which she would use to level her direct stats, those being Strength, Perception, Intelligence, Charisma and Endurance, to E-3 at a minimum. When she upgraded her Dexterity and Agility to E-2, it was a qualitative change, and so, her theory was that when her other stats went to E-3, they too would undergo a qualitative change, becoming more than the sum of their parts.

Even if they didn't, and she was only moderately stronger, that would still be enough to help hold her own. She highly doubted she would come into conflict with a shinobi, more likely than not only civilian organizations would go after her, but there was always the chance that somebody rich and greedy would hire a Chunin to fuck with her, and so she wanted to improve her personal abilities in order to stand at least something resembling a chance against them. On top of that, if she could hold her own against a shinobi, that would be a double-edged sword.

On one hand, a woman without chakra beating a shinobi would draw all kinds of negative attention, and on the other, it would prove her power. Still, her plan to remain low-key was still in full effect. Step one, build a 'civilian' organization and acquire acolytes. Step two, use said acolytes in some capacity in order to establish a circular path of personal improvement through sacrifices. Step three was a literal period of question marks, and step four was that she would be powerful enough to openly do whatever she pleased.

As for what it was she wanted to do openly...well...she was still working on that part.