Chapter 49 - Returning Home
The next morning, with the defeat of Enyo and Revis, everyone packed up to return to Orario. That included Welf who finally recovered from his mind zero. However, there was a small matter of revenge for his mustache while he was unconscious. The revenge took the form of capturing and tying together Bell and Ais and then making their lips touch while many were watching. After that fun, the group left for Orario. An additional benefit was the new log cabin, as they now had the use of a vacation place in the mountain for group gatherings. To get back to Orario, they decided to walk back. Without an emergency, there was no need for Wiene to make repeated flights and causing panic in Orario. It would instead be a long trek back home.
Along the way, there were little stops to check out the vistas, but fortunately there were plenty of leftovers so food was not an issue. Hestia did call to let them know that Revis finally woke up but she refused to talk. So now it would take a little time for interrogation techniques. Furthermore, Hestia said that Revis had lost most of her power after Enyo was banished just like all the other familias. On top of that, Revis would never be released from the moon again. Now the focus would be finding a way to free the gods, Gros and Lyd from the timeless dimension. That would also enable Lili, Haruhime and 3 of the boosting group to return to Orario.
By the end of the day, everyone was home. It felt good to be home with the familiar beds... Bell, Ais and Mikoto were also glad that no one broke in. As a new member of the familia, Wiene would be staying so she used Haruhime's room, though Welf suggested that Haruhime just use Bell's room that is rarely occupied...
The next day, Bell went to visit Hestia on the moon, but no one else could go because there would be no way to return. He would be listening in on Revis' interrogation. First, Hestia got to provide Bell with some maternal nurturing, and they got to enjoy some Jagamarukun together with Lili and Haruhime, who was normal now that uchide no kozuchi was stopped. Once they were done catching up with each other, they joined in on Revis' interrogation. Revis was in shackles, and she was little threat with her powers lost from Enyo's stasis in the timeless dimension. With Hestia's divine powers, Revis could not lie. Furthermore, she was forced to answer question by tickle torture.
After two hours of on-and-off tickling, Revis revealed a lot of information:
Enyo was an elder god that disagreed with other elder gods about the world they were forming. Enyo wanted to create children that fiercely competed to achieve excellence so they were worthy of creation. Other elder gods wanted to create children who would strive for excellence through beauty and love. This difference drove conflict that banished Enyo to the dark dungeon as the world was forming. The dungeon was took on Enyo's belief about ruthless competition. Enyo was essentially the god of the dungeon where resources were extracted by the strongest and only the strongest survived.
Enyo was first amused by the Falnas and the children that adventured in the dungeon because it followed the rule of competition and winner takes all. However, as time went on, the dungeon became less competitive and more about friendship and cooperation. These eventually made Enyo unsatisfied but yet there were too many gods in the surface world to fight. Thus Enyo started to corrupt adventurers and created an underworld society of strong eats the weak.
Revis was among the first of those converted by Enyo. She was the strongest and preyed on monsters as well those of her own kind to get stronger. Thanatos also wanted power and was willing to merge with mutation magic from Enyo to become more powerful. However, he was overconfident and eventually defeated by the 8 gods collectively, partially ruining Enyo's plans. With Thanatos' defeat, Revis and Enyo accelerated their planning to build up an army capable of defeating the best of the surface world. With the plan to invade the dungeon, it gave Revis and Enyo the opportunity to checkmate the gods by end-running around the major force. Once they felt that the army was deep enough, they headed up the dungeon through the vertical holes, leaving their forces to either defeat or delay the army from the surface world. After reaching the surface, they were able to track down the gods by detecting small amounts of the divine auras. The time trap bubble was a magic that was used to quickly trap the gods before they could activate their own powers. Orario's gods fell quickly as most were not in the city. They then detected a huge presence of divine auras in the secret headquarters and went there to trap all the gods there before they realized what had happened.
When Hestia asked about how to free the gods from the timeless dimension, Revis simply did not know. While this confirmed a lot of their theories, there is no solution to free their friends. Hestia decided to think over what was learned and talk things over with the team in Orario. After a little more nurturing, Bell returned to Orario. He then went to meet with his familia, the Loki familia, leaders of the other familias and the Xenos to brief them on what he learned...