"Mr. Caelan is an awful boy," Lili commented as they stepped out of the main Dian Cecht pharmacy, "You're an enemy to all women."
She was merely referring to the flushed mess he'd left Amid in with his blatant flirting. It seemed the Dia Saint wasn't all that used to someone boldly flirting with her.
Which made sense, she was kind of a big thing, the best healer in the city and all that and Dian Cecht jealousy guarded her. Even when working, she only worked at the main pharmacy and hospital owned by them.
None of the low levels would have the balls to do it. And the population with the balls to do so, were drastically small.
Basically, she was sitting pretty on a pedestal for an evil villain like himself to come steal her away and make her part of his harem of beautiful and amazing babes.
She would look good in a belly dancer outfit.
"Hey, she wasn't complaining." He shrugged, in fact she seemed pretty okay with it. And he thought she warmed up to him a little bit first when he dropped the fact that he was helping out Miach and Naaza.
Right she had a crush on him or something right? Not that it mattered, Miach had no interest in dating mortals. If he did, he'd already be balls deep in Naaza every night.
Hiss loss was Caelan's gain though.
The same way he'd gained by walking in there and now walking back out twenty four million valis richer. Honestly, it was amazing to be able to make so much cash thanks to his skills. He needed to be careful not to flood the market though otherwise they'd go down in price. As it was, he only planned on selling ten phials of mermaid blood a month, with the two given for free.
Quite a hefty amount, but within the Dian Cecht's price range, they made quite a bit of money being the premiere healers of Orario after all.
"That's the annoying part," Lili pointed out with a roll of her eyes, "Mr. Caelan is a bit larger than life, you're like a hurricane that comes and does whatever he wants, before zooming off to go cause chaos somewhere else."
"Thanks," he smiled at her, taking it as a compliment, "Besides, you're just jealous I offered Amid a date and not you."
Her cheeks reddened and Lili clicked her tongue, while pouting up at him in annoyance, "It is annoying to see you do it in front of me you philanderer," she huffed, "I know you said I'm not the only special one you had your eye on, and I understand your point, but it's still annoying."
"My bad Lili," he apologised, "I should have offered you a date first. We can go on one now if you want." Caelan teased.
"…Miss Amid was correct, you're far too blunt and bold." Lili turned her nose up.
"That's not a no." he smirked, reaching down to casually grab her by the back of her top and lift her up onto his shoulders.
"Mr. Caelan!" Lili yelped, "You can't just grab me and put up up on top you out of nowhere!" she complained, her hands fisting in his hair.
"I just did, I'm a chaotic hurricane like that," he chuckled loudly uncaring of the stares from the various people in the street being sent their way, "Besides, you'll be spending a lot of time on top of me in the future if I have anything to say about it. And below me. And in a variety of other positions that aren't supposed to be talked about in public."
"You…pervert." Lili sputtered.
"Yup," he beamed proudly, "So, date?"
"….I'd like one," Lili confessed, fingers tightening in his hair, "But, shouldn't we go check on the store, it'll open soon right? And besides…you also lied to Miss Amid, I'm not part of the Hestia Familia." the last part came out in a whisper.
"You are in spirit," Caelan shrugged, before stopping, "Though, that wouldn't be a bad date I suppose."
"Eh?" Lili sounded confused and he looked up over the small but shapely thighs wrapped around his head to see her staring down at him, puzzled.
"How about we go get rid of that useless Soma Familia mark on your back, I kick them around a bit for how they treated you, maybe maim a few of them, that kind of thing," Caelan offered, "Then we can be at the store before lunch and make you officially part of the Odhar Harem Familia."
"Such an absurd thing to say, speaking of attacking an entire familia so casually," Lili shook her head, "So crazy, as if such a thing is easy."
"Because it is, I'm pretty sure I could have beaten them before I levelled up," Caelan snorted, the Soma Familia were just that pathetically weak, "Now that I'm level two, it'll be a cakewalk."
Hell, it wasn't like he'd been idle even just as they were walking around and doing business this morning. He might not have been doing much, but he was bit by bit acclimating to the surge in power his body had went through since levelling up thanks to his skill Typhon.
Just moving around normally thanks to it, was enough for him to instinctually understand the growth he'd went through and feel how he needed to limit himself when doing normal day to day activities.
By his estimate, through levelling him, his physical abilities and more had increased a bit over three times in total.
Three times stronger than the him who had eaten the magic stone of the Goliath and was already stronger at that point than the him who had fought and killed said Goliath.
"…Why are you calling it your harem familia instead of Hestia Familia?" Lili settled on asking, instead of agreeing or saying anything else.
She didn't want to ask him to, thought it was too much too ask. Yet, she may as well already have asked anyway.
it was a good enough go ahead for him at least.
"Because I plan on dressing you up in a belly dancer outfit, you know with the face veil and swishy see through skirt thing," Caelan happily informed her, even as he turned on his heel and changed direction, heading not towards the Tower of Babylon, but the home of a bunch of junky trash, "And a maid outfit, and a bikini, and cheerleader outfit, and a bunny outfit and a sundress, and lingerie and-"
"You truly are the biggest enemy to women that exists in this world Mr. Caelan." Lili cut him off with a sigh.
Yet there was a smile on her face.
"I told you, just call me Caelan."
"Lady Hestia…isn't this a bit much?"
Hestia looked away from the mirror she was admiring herself in, to look over at the other occupant of the room she was in, the back room of the store. The speaker was Naaza, Miach's cute little chienthrope familia member.
Clad in a maid outfit.
Light blue in colour, it had poofy shoulders and disconnected sleeves that left parts of her upper arms bare, before coming down to to the wrist in poofy blue sleeves, one of them covering her hand entirely, covering her prosthetic. A sad thing really, Hestia thought she was very pretty even with it and shouldn't hide it, though even if she had big boobs that were currently being shown off a lot by the low cut maid outfit neckline, they didn't compare to her own!
Naaza was at the moment toying with the hem of the very short flowy pleated skirt of the maid outfit with an awkward look on her face.
Well, it was probably a bit weird for her. She'd known the girl for near six months now since she came down from Tenkai and met up with Miach, and she'd always been fully covered beyond her head.
"Nah don't mind it!" Hestia merely laughed waving off her concerns, "You look great, you might even knock Miach's lights out if he gets a look at you in this!"
Caelan had really outdone himself with these maid outfits. They were super sexy! Granted, he just gave some designs he wanted to the people who made them and they did the rest, but still, he had good taste and blue looked real good on Naaza.
Though not as good as her own looked. Caelan had definitely paid special attention to picking out what he wanted his goddess slash girlfriend slash future wife slash something else she was forgetting at the moment, but Hestia didn't really care about that.
Her own maid outfit, maid especially by her loving Caelan was black in colour with white trim. The top of it had thin straps and had a deep cut that showed off a massive amount of her cleavage, while the skirt was short, flowy lacey. It didn't have any sleeves, but it did come to cute fingerless black gloves with white trim on each side that went up to her biceps, and sexy black thigh highs with a garter included.
Heck, there was even some sexy panties to go with that she was wearing underneath.
"Hehe!" Hestia turned back to the mirror and stuck a provocative pose. She couldn't wait until Caelan got here and saw her in this! Maybe they could even get some privacy and have Miach take Naaza and Lili to get some food?
And then….and then!
Sexy times!
Uwa, she couldn't wait to see how wild this sexy maid outfit drove Caelan. She could just imagine it now, him bending her over, his hands grabbing her long twin tails as he fucked her from behind, her skirt up over her butt and showing it jiggling and bouncing each time his hips smacked into her….and she could even look into the mirror and see the mess he was making of her, and admire the do doubt ferociously and sexy face he'd be making while rutting her like a beast!
Her cheeks blazed with heat and she couldn't help but cup them and giggle, 'I'm such a lewd goddess now.' she thought, thighs rubbing against each other as heat pooled in her core.
A knock on the door drew her from her thoughts, "Are you girls decent?" Miach called through.
"Yup!" Hestia happily called back, turning away from the mirror and the reflection of her super sexy self that Loki no boobs could never hope to compare with, "Come on in Miach." she said, bouncing over to wrap her arm arm Naaza's shoulder and beam at him as he entered.
They'd dressed first, so he was still in his usual, "They look quite good on you girls," he noted, chewing on a bread crust, "A bit revealing though, hopefully you don't catch a cold dressed like that Naaza."
"…That's about as expected." Naaza gave a sigh of defeat.
And Hestia winced.
Poor girl. He didn't even blink! She couldn't imagine what it would be like to have a first child she loved so much like Caelan, who wasn't interested in her at all!
That would be torture!
Shaking her head, Hestia let go of the dog girl and flounced her way over to the door to peer into the shop and whistled, "You work fast Miach!" Hestia laughed, patting him on the shoulder. While they'd been busy getting ready, he had already set up the shop for the most part.
Caelan had dropped off various sets of armour and weapons made from his monster abilities this morning before heading out with Lili to the Dian Cecht Familia.
The various full armour sets were already standing tall on armour stands, while separate pieces and weapons of all sizes and make from short swords, to broad swords to spears and even shields lined the shelves.
Caelan had been correct on his hunch when he was picking the Metal Working development ability. It had massively increased the control he had over shaping the crystal and such he produced.
He'd been busy playing around with it all night after levelling up.
The only thing really left empty in the shop, were the trays set up for potions. Everything needed to make them, including the massive barrels filled with the various powders Caelan had filled them with, was sitting in the back just waiting for Naaza and Miach to turn them into potions.
But they would soon fill up as well.
Hehe, things were looking good!
She and Caelan should totally celebrate by having wild dirty sex all night long!
Luckily for Naaza, she didn't need to really stay out front for the moment. She and Miach had brought along the equipment they would need, to craft potions out of the materials Caelan had brought to the store.
As it was though, this did present a good opportunity for Hestia before she opened the doors to the store officially.
"Hey Miach, can I ask you something?" the twin tailed goddess dressed as an uber sexy maid turned around to look at her friend who was dusting off the main sales desk.
"Yes, if you want," Miach looked up and replied, "What do you want to know?"
"It's about the falna," Hestia said, making her way over to the desk a serious expression forming on her face, "I'm still new to using it, but I wanted to ask, when going through the day to day events recorded in it, is it possible to see into dreams the holder of the falna has?"
…Last night, something odd had occurred. Not during her time going through Caelan's falna, but rather after, once she'd fallen asleep.
She'd dreamed.
But it wasn't a dream about herself, rather, it was of Caelan. As a young boy. Little more than a toddler. His hair was different, lacking the black highlights it had now, but she'd recognise Caelan anywhere.
She could recognise Caelan even if he didn't have a body, if he was just a mere soul. So she could tell without a shadow of a doubt, it was him.
Miach raised an eyebrow, "No I can't say that's something I've experienced," he replied, "Remember, when we first decided on the falna system, the majority voted that we could only see it like a story playing out in front of us, we wouldn't be able to read the minds of our children or see into their memories. The only way that should happen, is if they dream while awake, like an illusion or something along those lines."
He looked her in the eyes as he finished, "Any reason as to why?" her friend asked.
"I wanted to see if I could see what kind of naughty dreams Caelan has about me." Hestia giggled and gave a shrug in reply.
Miach shook his head, "Poor Caelan, maybe I should warn him that the obsession of a goddess isn't for the faint of heart."
"Blegh!" Hestia stuck her tongue out, "You make it sound like I'm one of those weirdo annoying goddesses like Ishtar or Freya, I'll have you know my love for Caelan is as pure as my divine flame!" she huffed, even as she was thankful he didn't show any suspicion.
After all, even a deity couldn't lie to another deity. She just omitted why she asked in particularly, because she actually was curious what kind of naughty dreams he'd have of her.
She may not have been a flat chested loser of a trickster goddess, but even she knew how to play the basics of the game, even if she'd rather not.
"Right, well I'm gonna open up then!" she then clapped her hands and turned away from Miach, heading over towards the front doors of the shop.
A frown appearing on her face.
'So it's unique to Caelan and me then?' she thought. Well, more Caelan than her. What caused it then? Was it his new Commander skill? Or was it…Vesta?
That skill of his wasn't normal. It was no mere enchantment. It was the divine flame. Not it in its entirety, but a manifestation of it. Her flame, the flame she guarded and watched over.
It was a connection to her beyond just the falna itself, beyond just her ichor on his back.
Usually she would have been very happy about such a thing. But that dream, of him as a small child, she didn't like it. Not one bit. Not only was it an invasion of his privacy, it was also a front row seat to him at his most vulnerable.
It would hurt her dear Caelan's pride to know anyone could see him like that. Even now she could see it, him as a small child, alone in a house that was filled to the brim with people. Drugs, decadence, alcohol, violence, sex and more.
It was horrible.
She could see it in her minds eye as he awoke because of the noise, it was dark and he was scared and hungry. A fight had occurred in the home, he got up, terrified, shaking and made his way to the noise, childlike curiosity getting the better of him.
To find one grown man over another beating his face in with bloody knuckles over and over again, while people cheered.
He called for his mother, nobody cared to answer. Scared of the violence he went to her bedroom, only to find a friend of his mothers and a woman he didn't know in her bed, having violent drunken, drugged sex. It was nothing at all like the intimacy between her and her child, it was raw and it was disgusting to look at.
Clouds of smoke from people smoking lining the ceilings, people outright out cold slumped in the corners of rooms.
Nobody paid him any attention as he left, checking the third bedroom, only to find an orgy going on in it, disgusting and horrible, yet not understanding it at all as a child.
From there, he tip toed towards the living room that was connected to the kitchen in search of food and his mother. He found neither, only the unconscious bleeding form of the man getting beaten before, and his attacker and more people partying in the living room. She could see his eyes filling with tears as they landed on a small broken grey box, with some kind of wire leading to an odd hand grip thing beside a large black screen akin to a window.
She watched as his eyes lit up when he turned around and his eyes landed on an indent in the wall, a carved out square space with shelves filled with all manners of items at the entrance to the living room, watched as he specifically picked up a large glass bottle filled with orange liquid, the words 'Irn Bru' on the front.
He opened it, only to gag in horror and disgust when he drank it, his excitement disappearing, because, it did not taste like how he knew it should. Instead, it burned his throat.
It was alcohol, a strong one.
Yet he was so thirsty, and he drank it anyway, stealing away with his pilfered bottle of orange liquid to his bedroom, alone, scared, lonely and hungry. He drank it all, his throat burned, his vision swam, and everything went black.
That was a dream of Caelan when he was three years old.
'I don't want to see that again.' Hestia sighed, clicking her tongue in genuine anger as she opened the doors to the store.
If that was how bad things were that early, she shuddered to think about what else he went through growing up. What other horrible things had he been exposed to?
She'd seen worse in her time as a deity, seen mortals suffer much worse injustices. She'd saw children of the same age torn apart by monsters and shredded brutally into bloody pieces and pulp a thousand years ago. And she had felt for them each and every time she saw. But, she felt much more strongly in regards to this.
Because it was her precious Caelan who went through it.
But right now wasn't the time to focus on that. Today, right now actually, was the grand opening of-
Bestia Wares.
The first store belonging to her and the Hestia Familia. Caelan chose the name. And Hestia really wasn't going to deny the chance for it, even if it was a bit on the nose.
She liked when Caelan called her Bestia after all.
A lot.
The closest flatty flat flatties like Loki would get in comparison, would be a nickname like 'Broki', not because she was broke, but rather because she was so flat and boyish she could pass for one of the 'bro's'.
Heh, dumb Loki no boobs.
As she opened the doors of Bestia Wares for the first time, Hestia blinked when she found a familiar eye patch wearing, red haired goddess waiting outside.
"Hephaestus!" Hestia cheered upon seeing her bestest friend in the whole wide world, "What are you doing here?"
"What else?" the smith goddess raised an eyebrow and smirked at her, arms crossed, "With all the big fuss you made, my curiosity is peaked, I wanted to see the kind of things this child you brag so much about has made and meet him."
"Hmmm!" Hestia cupped her chin and stared at her best friend, but not her face, rather she stared specifically at her torso, and the white shirt she wore, that was left unbuttoned at the top to show off a hint of cleavage from her quite large breasts, "I dunno, that cleavage is looking extra seductive. What if once you see how amazing Caelan is you try to seduce him away from me?"
Hephaestus snorted, "Did my hair grow and turn silver without me noticing? Or has my chest grown a few cup sizes since I tossed my bra on this morning?" she asked sarcastically, before her own singular uncovered eye looked straight down into the canyon of cleavage Hestia herself was showing from the plunging neckline of her maid outfit, "Besides, are you in any position to accuse anyone of seduction? Or is that outfit just because it makes you feel pretty?"
"I mean it does?" Hestia shrugged unrepentantly, smirking smugly at her friend and crossing her own arms to push up her cleavage to swelling hills of jiggly flesh that Loki no boobs could only dream of and never in a million billion trillion bazillion gillion Caelandilwiltrillion years attain, "Besides, only Caelan's allowed to touch me and my babies!"
"Uh-huh," Hephaestus replied with a nod, deadpan, "Well anyway let's see what we have in here huh, maybe I'll buy a few things while I'm at it." she said and strolled right on in.
As if she owned the place!
…Well actually she did and they were just renting it out from her, but semantics!
"Caelan's not actually here at the moment," Hestia pouted and followed her friend inside the store who tossed a wave to Miach and greeted him, before her single critical eye roved over the gathering of weapons and armour, "He's off meeting with some people at the Dian Cecht Familia for something or other."
Her words went completely ignored as her friend almost robotically made her way over to a standing set of armour with a large glimmering crystal broadsword held in its grip, "This is…" she trailed off, lifting a finger to trail it along the edge, "Wrong." her brows furrowed.
"What?" Hestia blinked, "What do you mean wrong? Caelan uses these weapons in the dungeon all the time, actually they're even better now than the ones he used before."
"That's not what I mean," Hephaestus shook her head, "Just looking at this I can tell its wrong, everything here is. Don't get me wrong, they're perfectly forged, more or less, a bit off in proportion and a bit heavy, but perfectly balanced and perfectly forged. Just with a casual glance, I can say none of these are low level weapons, even the worst weapon or piece of armour in here, is more suited to a high tier level one at least, any normal level one would rely heavily on stuff like this and never truly improve."
Huh?
Hestia didn't really get it. But then, she wasn't a goddess of the forge like Hephaestus was. Sure normal level one's would rely on them, but being perfectly made weapons more or less was good right?
"It's like…he's completely skipped the manufacturing process, completely skipped learning what it means to be a smith and how to be one and learned how to make high class weapons and armour as a complete novice, no not even a novice," Hephy shook her head again, staring once more at the sword, before nodding once. Then she turned to look at Hestia, her gaze serious, "He's levelled up hasn't he?"
"…He what?!" Miach who was in the process of chewing on another bread crust coughed and spluttered, almost choking on it, eyes shooting wide open.
Oh poo. Damn Hephy and being all intuitive and stuff!
"How did you know?" Hestia asked.
"So he has, huh? I thought I had noticed the usage of the Metalworking skill," Hephaestus palmed her forehead, "I know you were bragging about how amazing he was, but this is absurd. Two weeks, that's all you've had him for as a child. Forget breaking the current record, he took it, smashed it over his knee and did a little jig over its grave. The idiots are going to go crazy over this. They're gonna hound after him."
"My Caelan is pretty awesome huh? Sucks to be them though, cuz they can't have him!" Hestia puffed her chest out proudly, "You wanna know how he levelled up? How he got to level two? He beat the Goliath, alone!" now that it was out of the bag, there was only one thing to do.
Boast about the grand awesomeness of her Caelan!
Suck it Loki.
Actually don't! There will be no Loki sucking of Caelan! The only goddess giving Caelan a sucking would be her!
"…That's just going to make it even worse," Miach weighed in, "A level one beating the Goliath? Levelling up after only two weeks? This is going to be rough on you Hestia."
"And I was beginning to enjoy the quiet around here lately." Hephaestus' shoulders slumped.
And here we are back with chapter 17.
Not got much to say on it at the moment cuz it's all pretty self explanatory and in a bit of a rush. Beyond that, if you wanna catch advanced chapters much earlier you can see them on the Pa-atreon like the newest chapter of Jordinio Version I finished a few days ago. On top of that, I've been uploading AI Art here and there for the stories and other things, like Hestia in the maid outfit, there's a bunch of images of her up on my pa-atreon as well.
Anyway, shameless Pa-atreon plug. I've got one, go by the same username on there, easy to find and all that jazz. Support me if you want, it'd be swell, but don't feel pressured lads and ladies, I'll be uploading my stuff outside it regardless and not keeping it all behind a paywall or anything like that.