Quick note before start on Dexterity and Agility. As I previously said in chapter 2 (It is technically chapter 3 but I'm saying that the prologue is chapter 0), Nathan's Dexterity is his highest stat. This is because I view dexterity, in a very basic sense, as him doing something with his hands or legs. So swinging his sword in a technical or skilled way effectively will increase your dexterity. As he dual wields swords quite skilfully, his dexterity will be quite high. I'm saying this as a little teaser as well because I'm revealing his Status in this chapter, along with magic.
Enjoy and remember, Danmachi is not in my collection of items that I own.
KLANG! KLANG! KASH!
Noises echoed around a normally quiet room that was located in a usually untouched part of floor 13, in the dungeon, underneath the famous Babel Tower that is located in the city of Orario. As the noise echoed, the ears of Hellhounds and Almiraj sprang to life, darting back and forth, waiting to hear more noise in hopes of locating Prey.
"Can you not find anything?" A voice asked quietly, doing its best to not attract any unwanted attention.
"Not of yet." Another hushed voiced responded, this time belonging to a girl.
KLANG! KASH!
Another set of noises rang out as the girl got back to work at the dungeon wall. The room it was coming from was expansive and hollow, making the noise echo and bounce around.
"Are sure this is the place we are meant to mine at?" A deeper, gruffer asked while he swung his pick again just in case his question would be answered after the next chunk of wall was destroyed.
"Are you questioning Lili's information, of course this is the correct place." Lili responded as she followed suit of the unfaithful voice beside her, swinging the other pickaxe down, right next to where the other one had just punctured the wall.
"Welf, Lili, could you please try and be a bit quieter." A fourth voice joined in, another female voice and just like the first one, trying to keep her voice low and quiet, looking out in the opposite direction in the objective of keeping watch.
"Can you hear anything coming Nathan?" The first asked to seemingly no one.
"There are 3 sets of feet a bit away, all belonging to hellhounds. They don't seem to be moving much. Think we are still good for the moment." A quiet voice responded from somewhere beside him, even though no one could be seen.
"Why don't you go and help them Bell, me and Mikoto will be alright." The voice says to the White-haired boy next to him.
"Don't worry Bell, we will be fine." Mikoto added, urging the rubellite eyed boy to help their other two companions.
"OK, but I'm coming straight back if anything appears." The young captain stated, while walking off to help out Welf and Lili in looking for the Onyx stone they were sent out to find as part of a mission given to them by his dungeon advisor.
Nathan didn't see Bell walk away, as his eyes were completely closed. However, he heard and felt him walk away thanks to his heightened senses, which he was putting into use to help notice if a monster was heading their way.
Even though he was only a half-elf, his hearing was still better than most, and with his level 4 and development ability increasing his senses, he is able to detect a sound from over 3km away, that is if he closes off his other senses to help focus. This explains why his eyes are currently closed.
His ears are suffocated with a shout from behind though, drowning out any perceivable sound that could be made from the corridor in front of the party.
"Master Bell, you found one!" Lili exclaimed
"So this is an Onyx stone, never seen one before." This smith questioned; his brother also seemingly focused on the black stone he was currently holding.
"As expected of Sir Bell." Mikoto chimed in, turning away from her duties of lookout to also admire the object in Bells hand.
As the 3 miners started to pack away the equipment, Mikoto started to go back to lookout duty, only to be startled by a masked half-elf walking out from seemingly nowhere while rubbing his right ear.
"You made me jump Nathan, I'd ask you to stop doing that if it wasn't helpful." Mikoto said while moving her hand away from her Katana, her ninja instincts kicking in after the sudden appearance of her fellow Familia member.
"Yeah whatever." Nathan grumbled, finally releasing his ear from the quick massage.
"You alright Nathan?" Bell asked, turning around after he heard Mikoto quickly step backwards and noticing his bleached haired friend rubbing his ear.
"I'm fine now, but don't suddenly raise your voice when I'm trying to focus on hearing. You don't realise how sensitive they get to noise when I'm using them properly." Nathan said, his grumbling had reverted back to his usual monotone voice, but this time it was a bit sharper.
"Lili apologies for the sudden outburst." Lili quickly apologies for the problem she caused, bowing her head to Nathan.
"Don't do that, words are enough." Nathan quickly retorted.
Nathan then turned back around and drew out his swords, quickly surprising the others. Bell and Mikoto quickly realised what it meant and also drew their weapons in tandem.
"How many?" Bell asked.
"I hear 3 hellhounds and 2 Almiraj." Nathan stated, quickly deciphering the noise and pattern of the footsteps heading their way.
'They must be quite close if I don't need to listen properly to be able to tell what's what' Nathan thought. He was swiftly proven right as 2 sets of red eyes and 3 sets of orange ones appeared from the darkness.
"Mikoto, take out the Almiraj. They are faster and will be the first to attack. Nathan and Master Bell, get ready to charge at the Hellhounds. Welf, ready your magic for the hellhound attack." Lili stood up and quickly took charge of the party, giving everyone a role while staying completely calm.
"Understood." A unison of agreement shared amongst 3 of them, with Nathan nodding his head in Acknowledgement.
Just like Lili predicted, the Almiraj jumped at the party, both wielding a landform weapon. Mikoto blocked the first one and pushed it back, knocking the other off course. This allowed Mikoto to land an easy kill on the now disoriented rabbit monster, striking through its core with her katana.
Meanwhile, the 3 hellhounds split away from each other, focusing on the prey in front of them. The one in the middle goes for the signature attack of a hellhound, a fireball from the mouth. However, ordered by Lili, Welf had readied his magic.
"Will-O-Wisp". A dark mist stretched out from Welf's hand and wrapped around the hellhound, disrupting the magic it was forming, causing it to explode. This explosion only killed the one hellhound, but it had knocked the other two off balance. Nathan and Bell saw this as their opportunity and dashed straight towards their respective opponent. With a quick slice across the neck and chest, both hellhounds died. Mikoto had also finished off her other opponent as well, another stab to the core, causing the rabbit to disintegrate to dust.
The remaining occupants of the room stood still for a second before starting to go back to what they were doing, not wanting to stay here any longer. Making their way to the exit of floor 13, the only monster that they saw after that incident was the still remaining corpse of the hellhound Nathan had killed, slicing its throat instead of destroying its core like Bell had done.
"Might as well take it, a bit more money never hurts." Lili spoke while grabbing her supporter knife, ready to dig out the magic stone residing in the deceased monster.
However, just as they were about to go up to leave, Nathan whipped around, drawing his swords and standing in a defensive position.
"I feel something coming, the floor is rumbling a lot, coming from that direction." Nathan decisively explained while pointing one of his swords down a tunnel adjacent to themselves.
The others quickly prepared themselves too.
"Let's just run to floor 12 and hope it continues on this floor." Lili suggests, not wanting to deal with whatever Nathan had sensed.
"What if its an irregular or someone is in trouble." Bell responded, his thoughtful personality making him contradict the supporter.
"Let's just see what it is." Nathan said, taking up a position in front of everyone, almost like he is protecting them. Bell moves to stand next to him, also with the same intentions, shown by his stance as well.
'Wait, it's not one big thing, it's a lot of smaller things running towards here' Nathan realised as his regular hearing had now come into range to be able to read what was happening.
"Mikoto, can you do a quick scan?" Nathan asked, surprising the far eastern woman.
Without needing to respond, she quickly used her Yatanokurogarasu to search for any nearby enemies. To her shock, she detected enemies coming their way.
"I sense about 30 enemies coming this way, and fast." Mikoto said, confirming Nathan's hearing.
"Let's shift now, I don't want to get caught up in that." Welf exclaimed, Lili nodding in agreement.
"What if they are chasing someone though?" Bell responded, not wanting to leave someone to that kind of fate.
"And risk being pass paraded again, I'm good." Welf retorted, causing Mikoto to blush and quickly apologised a few times about the prior situation that they had first met in.
"There here." Nathan said, grabbing everyone's attention. It seems a decision had been forced upon them, and it wasn't them dashing away without seeing what the issue was.
To almost no one's surprise after Bell and Welf's quick back and forth, a group of adventures sprinted out the corridor Nathan had pointed at. And in agreement with Nathan and Mikoto's assessment of what was coming, a horde of over 30 monsters appeared behind the adventures, chasing them as fast as they could, not giving up in the hopes of grabbing prey. Not wanting to be dinner, the group of adventurers ran with all they were able to do. The leader of the party spotted the Hestia Familia on the pathway that they so hoped to reach.
"Hey.. you're Hestia Familia aren't 'tcha. 'elp us out 'ear. We will share the spoils" The man spoke, fear clearly etched into this voice.
"The Hell with that." Welf shouted.
"Everyone get running now!" Bell screamed, picking up Lili as he turned around and started to sprint away.
Mikoto grabbed Lili's backpack and set off after her captain, Welf just behind.
"Nathan come on!" Welf shouted back at the half-elf, turning around to see he had yet to move. The final member of the pass paradors had just ran past him.
"NATHAN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" Welf shouted. However, Welf didn't realise the slight movement of the neck muzzle that was wrapped around the bottom half of the half-elf's face, particularly the part that covered his mouth. Suddenly a burst of dark green wind burst out of the area around Nathan. The wind started to quickly accumulate around for key areas of Nathan's body, that being his two black gloved hands and his pair of black boots.
"what the.. LOOKOUT." Just before Welf could figure out what had happened, a giant Orc had gotten within attacking distance of Nathan, specifically within his 2-metre radius.
'4 giant Orcs, 10 smaller Orcs, 12 hellhounds, 10 Almiraj. 34 monsters all together.' After Nathan had finished with his magic chant, he completely focused all of his attention on the threat in front of them.
'Deal with the big orcs first.'
And Nathan did. As soon as the first big Orc entered his reach zone, Nathan did a spin kick. A direct hit contacted in the middle of the Orcs chest. The power sent the Orc flying backwards, crashing into the stone wall at the other end of the room. The wind magic that was wrapped around his boots not only added extra strength to his kick, it also had the added bonus of spreading out after initial contact. This meant that after Nathan kicked the Orc, his wind magic had expanded and smacked into the 4 Almiraj that had followed behind the Orc.
All 5 monsters had been immediately killed on impact; the power generated from Nathan's magic imbued kick was easily enough to complete this. However, Nathan thought very little of the task he just did, instead continuing to focus on the monsters.
'Three more Giant Orcs, 2 Orcs either side of them with the remaining 2 next to the pack of hellhounds. The 6 remaining Almiraj are on the left.'
After seeing their fellow Orc get obliterated as soon as it stood near the half-elf, the other monsters stopped their advance. Nathan, seeing this, simply moved onto his next tactic, this being using his wind wrapped arms. Holding his swords, in a way that when swung, an arc attack would be made, he allowed some of the wind magic to go from his arm and settle on top of the swords. Then, completing his motion, he brought forth an arc of wind. Half a second later, the 3 giant Orcs and 8 smaller ones beside them stumbled a bit backwards. Then, the 3 giant Orcs disintegrated into ash while a massive spurt of blood came from the top of the smaller Orcs neck, as their heads had been decapitated. The massive arc of deadly sharp, dark green wind, that had sliced through the giant Orcs tough hide like butter and destroy the magic stone it was protecting, smashed into the wall behind, making a visible, deep slash mark imbedded in to it.
'Giant Orcs down, 2 more smaller ones with the hellhounds standing 50 metres away.'
And with that thought, Nathan pushed off with his magic imbued left boot, reaching the pack of hellhounds in 0.2 seconds, slicing 2 of the nearest one's necks, then doing another 360-spin kick into one of the smaller Orcs head, putting his foot on its face. Using that as a platform, he pushed off, killing the Orc instantly, and jumped towards the other Orc, twirling in the air while swinging both his swords, collecting another 3 hellhounds along the way. He landed by stabbing the final orc in the neck with one sword and using his other hand to push off its body and land right in front of the 5 remaining hellhounds. Before they could disperse and fire off any magic, Nathan did another arc swing with his right sword and sliced their bodies, from head to tail, with another knife edge like wind arc.
Looking back, he saw the 6 Almiraj trying to escape via the 12th floor entrance, where Welf stood in shock.
'What's he gawping at' Nathan wondered while he flew through the air, landing on two of the Rabbit monsters heads. He then crouched down and did a low spin kick, sending out a shockwave of wind, blowing the 4 Almiraj into the same wall Nathan had previously sent the other Red eyed monsters about 12 seconds earlier. And with that, the threat had been diverted.
"what the.. LOOK OUT." Welf shouted, seeing a giant Orc approach Nathan.
'What the hell is he doing, and what is that dark green mist thing around his legs and arms?"
Welf's thought was quickly answered, with 3 further questions springing to mind straight after. The giant Orc that was about to slam its massive fist onto the half-elf, it was disappeared, with Nathan standing with his left leg stretched out. Welf looked a further ahead to see the Orc he had just seen standing next to Nathan had now taking up a spot in the wall 150 metres away. He looked back to see that some Almiraj that were behind the big green monster had also vanished.
'What just happened? What was..' Before Welf could think have a second question, Nathan swung his swords in a horizontal arc, sending out some of the green wind. Then, following the wind, he saw the other giant Orcs instantly turn to dust. Welf wasn't even given to chance to register the other orcs fate before Nathan suddenly appeared next to the hellhound pack.
Welf tried to watch the rest of the fight but he couldn't keep up with the speed the mask covered boy was going at. And somehow, Nathan was walking up towards him, leaving behind two Almiraj corpses that had their heads caved in.
"Yo Welf, you good?" Nathan asked, waving a hand in front of Welf's face, shaking him back to reality.
Welf tried to speak but for some reason he wasn't able to, just opening his mouth and closing it again a few times while pointing around the massive room ahead of him.
"WELF, NATHAN ARE HERE. ARE YOU ALRIGHT?"
Before Nathan could solve the puzzled look on the smith's face, their white-haired captain had come rushing back in search of his friends, Lili still in his arms.
"Are you guys alright, where are… the.. monsters?" Lili quickly asked the two men standing in front of her, but upon seeing the mess behind them, her questioning slowly came to a halt.
"What the hell happened here?" Bell asked after also observing the change of scenery.
"I took out the monster horde. Thought I should stop them here, stopping the risk of them attacking other people on the upper floors." Nathan responded plainly, his quiet voice not doing much to calm down his companions.
"What the hell did you just do?" Welf had finally been realised from his shock and thought to quickly get an answer to what he had just witnessed.
"I killed the monsters; didn't you hear me. Wait didn't you see me do it, shouldn't you know what just happened." Nathan answered, no emotion being shown through his face coverings, though an eyebrow was raised in confusion.
"It all happened so fast; I could barely make out what you were doing." Welf explained, backing up his previous question.
"Well I am level 4, so I would be too quick for you level 2 eyes. I also can take on this kinda stuff because of my level and stats. Shouldn't be that big of a shock." Nathan explained his own case in his monotone voice.
"So why are there monster corpses strewn about everywhere?" Lili asked, almost not wanting to hear the answer in fear it will make her feel more anxiety around the half-elf she experiences now and then.
"And what is that?" Bell said, asking another question while pointing at the massive slash mark that had been gouged into the dungeon wall, located on the far side of the room.
"Hmm, oh my magic did that. It was also the reason why some of the bodies are far apart."
Mikoto had just arrived, and before she could ask anything she was silenced by that massive revelation. The others had also joined her in complete silence, replaying what Nathan had just said a second ago in their heads.
"You have magic?" Lili asked, now having her anxiety levels increased once again.
"Wait, Hestia hasn't told you." A slow shake of heads was presented to him.
*Breathes* "Let's not talk about it hear, I'll explain things with Hestia. Will be a lot easier."
The others agreed, and with that the Hestia had finally completed all their missions for the week.
Back at the newly refurbished Hearthstone Mansion, Hestia had finished updating everyone's status.
"So this is your actual status." The prum girl asked.
"Yeah, its alright. Still only got one magic spell which, while its useful, is only useful for attacking." The half-elf responded.
"Yeah but when that magic is really powerful and with such a short chant for it, hell it might be more broken than Bells' firebolt."
"You also have three skills, and one of them is amazing." The white-haired boy exclaimed
"Bell's right, this resistance is basically makes you resistant to anything lethal. Its an improvement on the abnormal resistance ability. Does it really stop stuff like poison damage from being inflicted." Mikoto said.
"Yeah, but while it might sound call, it does nothing against physical attacks like punches or blades. It doesn't improve my defence stat either." Nathan replied.
"Why can't we read the last one? Do you know what it mean Hestia-sama." Lili asked, noticing that the last skill on the status sheet was unreadable.
"I also don't know, I tried to decipher it a few times now but no luck." Hestia responded
"And don't look at me, I don't about it either. I remember first seeing it when Hermes first gave me his falna. He also doesn't know before you try and ask him too." Nathan added to clear the rest up.
"Is this magic of yours really as impressive as Welf said it was Nathan?" Hestia asked. Of course she had seen he had magic when she applied and updated his falna, but she didn't realise it did what the smith said he saw happen. She also wanted to bring up the chant for the Magic, as magic normally represents a person's soul, as that is where it resides.
"Basically, it increases my damage on my kicks and punches. I can also use it as a sort of shield, but all it does is absorb punches and kicks. Blades will cut right through it. I can shoot it out as well from both my feet and arms, but only waves to push enemies back. I have been able to make what could be considered a throwing knife out of it a few times, though its quite weak. It won't pierce any armour or tough skin."
"So then what about the giant slash you did?" Welf asked, remembering when Nathan cut through the Orcs.
"Oh, I just added my wind magic to my swords."
"You can do that!" Bell jumped in quickly.
"Yeah but I can only do it because of the swords, it would most likely break any normal sword. Before you ask, the questions on my swords are for another day, I've answered enough today as it is. Same goes for my Development abilities, but they are kinda self explanatory so I shouldn't need to" Nathan said back to the captain.
"Ok fine, we understand. Let's call it day. I'm meeting up with take and Miach tonight." Hestia said, taking control of the situation.
"And waste more money?" Lili questioned; an eyebrow raised in annoyance.
"We have earnt a lot of money this week Lili, besides I haven't been to the Hostess in a while, so I thought we could go there while Goddess goes out with Miach-sama and Takemikazuchi-sama." Bell explained, thinking how he hasn't been to the pub since he got back from the War Game.
"So Master Bell can flirt with the cute Waitresses, I don't like it." Lili fired back.
"HUH, my Bell will not be flirting with any girls tonight, understood." Hestia exclaimed quite loudly.
"You guys also go to Mia's pub?" Nathan asked.
"Yeah, Bell has been quite a bit, me and lil Lili have been with him a few times. Why, have you been there."
"I went there a few times over the past year or so. Foods not bad to be honest, the waitresses are a bit annoying but I don't want to piss of Mia by calling them out on it." Nathan replied.
'Why does he find them annoying, I thought they are really nice and caring' Bell pondered.
"Anyway, I say we go there. Hestia-same we promise Bell won't flirt with the cute girls there." Welf said in a teasing tone while smiling.
"WH-WHAT, I don't fl-fl-flirt with anyone." Bell stuttered out, going bright red in the process.
"See to it that he doesn't, you three as well." Hestia said, pointing at the other three people.
"Of course Hestia-sama" Lili said while putting a hand on her chest.
Mikoto just nodded while Nathan had already started to leave the room, not caring for the nonsense that was spoken sometimes in this Familia. It did give a nice Family vibe though, which he wouldn't complain at.
'God, I haven't been to the Hostess in ages. Wonder if they remember me, I hope not." With that last thought, Nathan made his way to his new room to get ready for the evening meal.
Name: Nathan
Race: Half-elf
Lv. 4
Develpment abilities:
Instinct: F
Heightened Senses: G
Mental Fortification: F
Str: C685-687
Def: D589
Dex: B735-740
Agi: B701-703
Mag: D562-564
Magic: Wind Manipulation
Chant – Gift me the power to control the wind around me, so I have the strength to survive another day.
Skill:
Nightcrawler: Can hide in dark places undetected.
Self-activated.
Total resistance: Grants the person ultimate resistance against any mental, internal and external attacks.
%\&*#!?:
That was really fun to write.
The hostess is next chapter as I'm adding some juicy backstory in it as well. If i had added it in this chapter, it would have taken me ages and it would be massive.
We get back to canon afterwards, so Best fox girl ever seen in anime is coming up... Fight me!
Reviews:
wyatt: Thanks, and no where he lives isn't the Alfia and Meteria's church, but the church is not forgotten by me don't worry i have plans.
Jank7457: I'm also starting to prefer to write longer chapters too
mistalenny: IKR, why has no one done it. I have so many plans for that part of the story, can't wait to write them. The Hestia Familia are mainly made up of trusting people, excpet a certain prum, and that tested and thorughout the story, along with Lili's anxiety mentioned in this chapter.
And with that, see ya next time and peace