Is it Wrong for a Soldier to Take on Orario?

by bored peasant

I entered my eternal rest, only to find out it wasn't so eternal. Now I find myself in a world where I need to get strong quickly to survive and rise above. Monsters, adventurers and gods. Nothing will stand in my way to become the strongest. SI.

A/N I do not own the Danmachi franchise or its characters. Obviously.

Hi people. Welcome to an idea that started years ago that I left for ages because life got too hectic. Then I forced myself to get this chapter out there as a wildcard entry for my publishing schedule.

Life is getting a bit hectic again right now and I don't have time to write as much as I want, but I am still doing my best to give you quality work. I am going to be out of town for a few days and won't have my laptop with me to get this out, so I am posting this earlier than usual.

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CHAPTER 1 – Arrival in Orario

I blinked as I looked around, staring at the unfamiliar environment. The trees were not the ones I was used to seeing around my home. That meant I needed to look for landmarks to see if I recognized anything. Then I turned around, and there it was. Huh. Was this normal for someone after death?

I had been at the end of my previous life and was not ready for it to end. I had had a good life with my family. I had joined the army, fought battles, started a business and had lived a full life before I got hit by the big C. Bone cancer that spread to the brain. I had said goodbye to my children and ex-wife. My wife had married me after I had joined the military. Things had been good for a few years but after my transfer to Special Forces and deployments in Timor, Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan, things had just got too much for her once the kids had come. I will give her the credit that she hadn't cheated on me, she had waited until I got home before telling me that she loved me but couldn't stay with me while I was in the military.

Funnily enough, her leaving had been the kickstart for me to leave the military. I had stayed long enough to start setting myself up and managed to get out as a personal trainer, starting my own high intensity gym for those who wanted to train like military boot camp. It wasn't a massive amount of money, but I had been making more than I had in the military. Too much time had passed for us to get back together but we were friends and made things work for the sake of our kids.

I had dated in the years after my divorce but had never progressed beyond steady dating. I hadn't been opposed to marrying again, but I just hadn't found anyone that I felt I really connected with on that level before my diagnosis.

Oddly enough, my ex-wife had been the one that had introduced me to anime and I had enjoyed it more than I expected. I had tried a variety of anime, from the standard Dragonball, Naruto and Sword Art Online, through to some of the lesser-known ones that I had enjoyed but hadn't really gone past the anime and the wiki entries for. I didn't let it take over my life; I was no otaku. I had plenty of other interests and even played in a house band. But I still had no problem just watching stuff on Crunchyroll or Youtube in my free time.

I'm kinda glad I did because it meant that I recognized the giant tower sticking out of the large city in the distance.

I stared at the tower of Babel, not in awe or in fear, but in thought. It was extremely recognizable as the one that was in Orario from the Danmachi series. Ergo, Orario was the place that I had ended up in, but I was slightly concerned. My mind turned to mission mode and worked quickly to process what I was seeing so I could make a plan to proceed from here.

I had only seen the anime and read fics about it, even looking up some of the lore on the wiki, but I hadn't read the manga so I was likely going to miss a few things. One of the main things was that I had no idea where I was in the timeline. I could tell that my body was about seventeen or eighteen physically, being slightly more than half my previous age so if things were not too far in the future then I would have a little time to get stronger, if that was the path I chose.

Alternatively, if the timeline had already begun, I would either need to play catch up very quickly, or I would probably be better off skipping town and heading to the hills or something.

If there were years before the timeline began, then I would have more time, but I would need to see what my best options were. I have no idea how my presence would affect things but I figured that there were a few things I could bring to the table to make a few changes. Hell, some of the changes might not even affect the timeline for the adventurers. Some of the things I thought I could do would need to be thoroughly examined, and their consequences considered, before I tried to do too much. Ultimately though, I didn't care if my actions changed the timeline, so I wasn't going to go out of my way to prevent changes.

One thing that was very clear, and that everyone made a big deal out of, was that Bell had managed to get to level 2 within about six weeks. This meant that he would be strong enough because a lot of challenges came his way in a hurry.

There were the monsters of course. Then there were the 'villains' like the Ishtar Familia. That Familia that would kidnap the Xenos, led by that Dix character were another concern, though I was already planning on how to use that to my advantage. There were the assaults that came from the Soma adventurers who wanted their next fix of wine.

On top of all that there were the regular 'games' that the gods played, such as Freya or Hermes, that would lead to people getting into situations that could kill them if they were not strong enough. Really, the need to be stronger than all others in the city was truly something that I could latch on to. Bell had managed to get to level 2 in about six weeks and then level 3 a little over a month after that.

The thing about Bell Cranel, is that I really didn't like his character. Maybe he got better in the later seasons, but the kid was fourteen years old and such an annoying whiner! Like really, everything he does is either so idealistic that it is completely unrelatable outside of anyone that has lived outside of a fairy tale, or it is just straight up crying. He was raised by a hedonistic rapist god in Zeus to want to be a hero in every single action, but there was no way to relate to Bell at all for me. Maybe I was too jaded, or purely too old. I had seen combat, the dark nature of people, death and rot. I had lived life outside of a fantasy book and so my morals and goals were coloured by that experience. and it annoyed me that Bell levelled up so far because he was a simp for Ais Wallenstein.

It was a thing I had noticed in a few anime actually. The protagonist male in so many of them was a simple, sweet, innocent idealist that just wanted everything to be perfect to fit their world view. It had been that way with Fate/Stay Night with Shirou Emiya, and I got so tired of his 'I want to be a hero of justice!' ideology that I related more to Gilgamesh than I did him.

Hey took it too far in Danmachi with Bell for me. And it annoyed the hell out of me to think now that I would be in a world with a person that annoyed me so much and in a stupidly short time that person would be a lot stronger than the majority of people, including me if I sat on my backside and did nothing about it.

Bell got to level 3 in less than three months. I needed to be faster, or I was just going to hate myself.

Not only that, I refused to be weaker than those who would probably make my life hard, maybe even seek my death, and there were plenty of them. The monsters in the dungeon, obviously. Then there were the douches like the Soma Familia that would attack me at any opportunity if it meant that they could get more money for their precious wine. Then there was Enyo, who I had read a little about in the wiki pages. That didn't even include people like the Apollo Familia if Apollo got interested in me for whatever reason. On top of all of that, there would just be the people that would hate me for just levelling up too fast. Honestly, if I didn't want to be attacked by anyone, I was going to have to get there ETA damned quick.

Luckily, I had my military training and gym training experience to help me with getting stronger. I wasn't stumbling along like most of the adventurers probably were. The best boot camp trainers Australia could produce had taught me to be an effective soldier. I doubted that there would be many better trainers from what was essentially a militia or a group of militias that made up the Familias.

That said, there were things I would be able to learn that my training hadn't covered. Fighting with a sword would be one. I highly doubted that I would be able to buy guns. I could design on easily enough. You don't field strip a weapon as often as soldiers do without learning all the parts of your weapon. But that meant that I would need to find a smith that would be able to build the thing. Knowing the parts and frame of a gun doesn't mean I could cast the metal needed to do it. Ergo, a smith.

I do remember that they did have gunpowder though. When Hestia's chapel was destroyed, I remember a cut away to the Maid of Fertility that had one of the cat-girls say that it smelt like gunpowder. I would need to check it out and see if the quality was good enough for what I needed though. And if it was smokeless. I didn't need to feel like I was firing a musket.

Now that I was thinking about it though, carrying large amounts of munitions into a dungeon for fighting on expeditions that would take days against monsters that spawn frequently, probably didn't make too much sense. It wouldn't take long to run out of ammunition fighting against a monster pantry and being stuck without a functional weapon would be a quick way to die. So maybe be melee as primary with firearm as secondary? Something to think about.

Unfortunately, the knowledge that I needed to get stronger led me to another problem. Joining a Familia. It wasn't getting a falna that was the problem. It was the gods. Because if there was one thing that I had learned from my mythology studies, it was this:

Most gods were dicks.

It didn't really matter which pantheon you talked about either. Though I did know the Greek and Norse the best, I had looked at the Egyptian and Aztec/Mayan mythologies too. And a little at the Japanese ones. Between the rape, murders, human sacrifices and bathing in human blood (looking at you Aztecs), there wasn't a whole lot of options to get a god that wasn't completely objectionable if you had any form of morals and a knowledge of history.

Zeus was a serial rapist, as were nearly all of the male Olympians, especially Apollo and Hermes. Loki was a murderer who killed for fun and also responsible for Ragnarok kicking off. Even the female gods were pretty bad, with Hera being the worst of the bunch. I mean, seriously, her husband cheats which led to the birth of Heracles. So, because she was mad at her husband, she causes Heracles to go mad so that he kills his own wife and then continued to make his life hell.

So, I was stuck in a conundrum. I needed a falna to get strong enough to make sure that no one was able to make me part of their games if I didn't want to be involved, but I refused to be in the Familia of a god who was a psychopath. This clearly would limit my options.

Sadly, I was mostly stuck to Norse and Greek/Roman deities. I didn't really know enough about the other Pantheons to make an informed decision, other than the occasional god who may or may not be in Orario. I mean, Ganesha seems like a good enough guy, but I don't really know anything about him, other than he is part of the Hindu pantheon, and I don't want to be a beast tamer. Same goes for Miach. He seems nice in the show, but I have no knowledge about him at all.

Granted, there could be complete differences to what I knew about the gods. For example, Hephaestus is a woman in danmachi. Loki was a shapeshifter anyway so he/she could appear however they wanted. However, the confirmed perverted nature of the gods in general told me that what I knew was probably not far from the truth. So I would prefer to go with an option that I believed was pretty safe; kinda like the best of a bad bunch.

I shook myself out of all my introspection and headed towards the city, seeing a large line of people who are moving in through the gates. I joined the queue and moved slowly towards the line where some guards who looked like they were part of the Ganesha Familia were checking the people entering the city, though they didn't look overly vigilant. Just the minimum amount to be doing their jobs.

I finally reached the front of the line.

"Hello," one of the guards said. "Is this your first time to Orario?"

I nodded. "Yes." No point in denying it.

"Why have you come to Orario?" the other guard asked.

"I came to be an adventurer," I replied.

They looked me over for a moment. "Do you have any letters of recommendation?" the first guard asked, a little more interested than before.

I shook my head in negative.

The guards lost their interest after that, though the second one gave me an all-over look that felt assessing. "Head to the guild to register," he said. "They will also have a list of familias that you can look over to see who you want to join."

I thanked him, feeling grateful that at one of them was helpful, and moved on into the city. The streets were somewhat busy as workers moved to leave through the gate and head into the fields beyond, or new arrivals like me headed deeper into the place. The city was interesting, but there was a conspicuous lack of technology that I was used to. There were magic stone lamps that were lining the streets, though they were closed due to it being daytime. Not a car in sight. No phones, no watches. Nothing. Just lots of people walking about the streets. The adventurers were easily visible as they were carrying weapons, staffs or wearing armour.

I really hoped that they had flushing toilets.

I asked a local for directions to the guild building and was directed towards the center of town, close by Babel. It was quite a large building in what looked like ancient Egyptian architecture, the kind you would see in movies like The Mummy. I had no idea though. Either way, it was a large building that had a decent number of adventurers all moving in and out of it. Clearly, I had found the place.

Looking up at the signs, I was grateful to see that I was able to read the language. Not sure how that worked, but I am just going to thank whatever being that put me here for that small mercy. Not being able to read or write would be more of a pain than I wanted to deal with.

I entered the building and made my way to the counter, glancing around to see how it compared to the anime. While the show had not been as detailed, I could definitely see the resemblance between the two. The desks where the guild workers would meet the adventurers, where a couple of familiar faces were greeting people and shuffling paperwork, the booth where adventurers would exchange magic stones for valis, the tables off to the right of the entrance where people could sit down and fill out forms. I'm not going to lie, it felt good to know that things were at least visually accurate to what I expected. I made me feel more confident, though I tried to tell myself that things could still be a little different than what I expected.

I made my way to the counter with a girl with pink hair standing behind it. She seemed to be more interested in reading a few sheets of paper in front of her than dealing with customers. The other option was to go to another line that was much longer and meant I would need to take a lot longer.

I waited as she seemed to actively avoid looking up, seeing that every time her eyes moved off the paperwork to look up, the immediately darted back down to the paperwork on the desk in front of her. The paperwork in question was only about three small paragraphs, so she was clearly trying to get me to move to a different desk. I don't really remember this girl, but I seem to remember seeing somewhere that she was pretty lazy.

I really hope she wasn't going to be assigned as my dungeon advisor.

Finally, I got tired of waiting. "Unless you have trouble reading, which wouldn't be the case if you were given a job here," I said drily, my tone telling her I knew exactly what she was doing, "then you can stop pretending to read the same three paragraphs over and over, and we can both get things done and move on with our day."

The girl flinched, before straightening up with a smile that wouldn't let butter melt in her mouth.

"Hello," she said, showing no remorse to having been caught out in a lie. "How can I help you today?"

"Yes, hello," I said, ignoring her prior laziness now that things were finally moving along. "I want to register as an adventurer, please."

"Ok," the young woman said, reaching below the desk to grab a form. "What familia are you in?"

I shook my head. "I am not yet in a familia."

A relieved and slightly smug smile briefly crossed the girl's face. "I'm sorry, but unless you are a member of a familia, I can't register you as an adventurer. It's guild policy."

Ah, so that's why she looked happy. Me not being in a familia meant that she didn't have to do any work. Jokes on her.

"Very well," I conceded easily. "Then can you please get me a list of all gods and goddesses that are open for a familia? And their addresses too, please."

The smug smile froze on the pink haired girl's face before it dropped in despair. "Fine," she huffed sadly. "I may be a few minutes. Please take a seat over at a table over there." She gestured to a row of booth tables against the wall.

I gave her a bland smile. I get that people that work in the guild are used to dealing with adventurers that will die and that cutting themselves off emotionally would help with the work, but this was not emotionless apathy, it was legitimate laziness. As a hardworking person, that was one of my least favourite people to deal with, laziness on the clock. "I will see you in a few minutes," I replied. "And once I am out of your hair, you can go back to pretending to work and I won't tell your supervisor that you are wasting time."

I have to admit, I took more enjoyment in her flinch than I probably should have. Still, I turned and headed over to the tables indicated and took a seat in a booth to wait.

Surprisingly, she was only gone for about five minutes as she came over with two books and a spare sheet of paper and… a quill? These people really needed to modernize. Maybe I should take a look into that. I was going to go mad if I was stuck with quills.

The girl, who still hadn't told me her name, even if I recognized her as Rose or something like that, put the two books on the table and opened one of them.

"Now, do you know what type of adventurer you want to be?" she asked, acting all business now.

"I am aware of three different types," I replied slowly. "Explorers, tamers and producers, like Demeter. Are there any other types?"

"Well, there are your blacksmith familias, like Lady Hephaestus," the girl replied. "We have other familias that do different things, like Lord Goibnu, who deals with the city architecture, or Ishtar who deals with… leisure activities," she hedged.

"I know who Ishtar is and what her familia does," I said simply. "No need to hide it from me. I'm also not interested in joining her familia."

The girl gave an embarrassed laugh and scratched at her cheek. "Well, no need to go on about it then," she said. "But other than medical familias such as Dian Cecht Familia or Miach Familia, those are the main familia types that operate in the city."

I hummed thoughtfully in acknowledgment. "Very well," I replied. "Can you tell me how many gods are willing to have familias but don't actually have any members?"

I had thought about it a little bit on my way to the guild. I didn't want to have any of these people be able to tell me what to do. If I joined an established familia, I would be bottom of the pecking order and basically be forced to follow an established command. It meant that I would also have access to less resources, of course.

Larger familias had more money usually, which meant they could buy better gear. I had plans of how to get around that though, so I wasn't too worried to begin with. There was probably also some reputation boost that came with being able to join a large and famous familia, but I didn't care about that. I wasn't going to ride off someone else's success. I was going to make my own way.

The pink-haired girl blinked at my request before frowning. "Uh, are you sure?" she asked hesitantly. I guess what I wanted was pretty unusual.

I gave a firm nod, looking her directly in the eye. "Absolutely."

"Well, if you're sure," she said, turning to the books.

She lifted the cover and started scanning the pages, jotting names down as she went. I waited patiently. Now that the girl was working, I wasn't going to stop her. She was also adding addresses and had even written the type of familia they were. Apparently, she was an efficient worker but motivation was the issue.

After about five minutes, the page was half-filled in small, neatly printed script with all the information I had been asking. There were only about a dozen names or so on the list and I didn't recognize half of them. One of them was Xolotl, an Aztec god of monstrosities that I recognized and I had already decided the Aztecs were a hard pass for me. but there was a name that I recognized that would be acceptable for what I was looking for.

"What can you tell me about Tyche?" I asked.

I wasn't expecting the flinch that came from that question.

"Uh, maybe you should consider one of the others," the girl hedged. "There is a bit of history with that particular goddess."

"Oh?" I asked. "What history? Would joining that familia be controversial?"

She looked a little uncomfortable. "Well, she already had a familia a while ago but she and a few other familias had made some claims against Ishtar and her familia. They weren't able to prove their claims and Ishtar countersued. It bankrupted most of them and they were all disbanded."

I raised an eyebrow at that. "So, Tyche can't have a familia?"

The girl waved her hands in front of her. "No, she can," she corrected. "All the fines were paid off and there are no outstanding charges or anything. It's just that there are not many people are interested in joining her familia because it has the reputation of being… tainted. And as a goddess without a current familia, she wouldn't be able to provide support for her adventurers."

Good enough for me. "That's fine. I will head to her and see how I go," I said, ignoring her stunned, open-mouthed stare. "Thank you for your help. But before I go, can I ask one small favour?"

She blinked at me slowly for a moment. "Uh, sure?"

I took the bottom part of the paper she brought and grabbed the quill, writing a single word on it.

"Could you hand that to your supervisor and tell him it is a message for Lord Ouranos's servant Fels?" I folded the piece of paper up and passed it across to the girl. "And please tell him it is quite urgent. Fels will know what it means. Any follow up information can be found at the Tyche Familia residence."

The girl looked at the piece of questioningly for a moment before looking back up at me. "Uh, sure," she said bewildered. "I can pass that on for you."

I smiled. "Wonderful," I replied, standing up. "Thank you for your time, Miss Guild Worker who never told me her name. I will see you around."

The girl blushed in embarrassment as I turned and headed out of the guild building.

Time to meet a goddess.

…

A/N Please review and Follow/Favourite as you please. Constructive criticism is appreciated, Trolls and flamers are ignored.

I hope that you enjoyed that new story. I am doing my best to keep to my update schedule. One chapter from my main story and one chapter (at least) from a 'wildcard' story every month.

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Until next time!