Is it wrong to have a quiet life as a Minotaur in the Dungeon? 3 (Danmachi, Minotaur SI)

Lunoire Faust was born in a certain territory of the empire, far from Orario. Before she was old enough to understand what was happening, she lost her parents in the war that led to the country serving the empire, so she became a street urchin, fending for herself without anyone's protection. Between theft, fights, and turf wars with other street kids, a day did not go by without some new bruises.

For Lunoire at the time, it was obvious to jump at the opportunity to join a Familia as soon as she found out about them. If she joined one, she would not have to worry about the bare necessities like food or shelter, and more importantly, she would attain the divine blessing that the gods were capable of granting.

Nothing was more important than gaining power. After she had a Status, her physical strength increased to a new level. Her struggle to survive became significantly easier.

The head god of the Familia was a confusing guy. It was said that he amused himself with a "coup d'état and revolution game". She had never really understood his will and did not enjoy how he used his followers like pawns in what he called "role-playing".

Maybe it was his way of showing love, but she did not really understand it. In the end, the Familia destroyed itself through infighting. After that, she began drifting from place to place.

To live an unfettered life was alluring and exciting. She started collecting bounties in order to earn money for traveling. Whenever she remembered to, she would provisionally join an appropriate Familia and have her Status updated. She had already had three Conversions. She had never really joined a particular Familia, never truly.

That wasn't to say that she wasn't tempted.

Every time she bumped into this kind goddess, she found herself overcome by the goddess's gentle smile. For all status updates and little kind acts that the good goddess had done for her, Lunoire had been more than willing to listen to any requests the goddess had in return, but the goddess who ruled over fertility had only smiled cheerfully without asking for anything from her.

Only ever showing concern for her, and countless attempts to give her what she yearned for yet denied herself over and over again, due to her guilty conscience.

"Eh? Lunoire, have you been um… working hard?"

"Hmm, yeah. I guess."

"You're alright, aren't you?"

"Yes? I mean, why wouldn't I be? Ah… well, the dungeon is a lot less stressful than my uh, job. Surprisingly. I complain about how I'm not cut out to be an Adventurer all the time but life has a way of surprising me, hahaha."

Lunoire was fortunate that she managed to make use of her new "spin doctor" skills that she gained from the fun "describe a situation from a certain point of view" word games she had played with Minos.

It wouldn't be right for her to accidentally burden such a kind goddess with her situation that could easily be misunderstood as something "undesirable". While Lunoire's views of willingly having sex with a monster shamelessly trying to impregnate her was anything but negative, the world wouldn't see it that way, and that would lead to a lot of problems for both her and her Minotaur friend.

"Have you been to the Pleasu- no, forget I asked, a woman is allowed to have some discreet fun~"

"W-what?"

"Fufufu, I am a Fertility Goddess you know?"

"D-Demeter!"

"Mmm, Lunoire can make a cute face too. It's alright to be like this more often you know."

Demeter had never asked what Lunoire did. There was no way she should have figured it out. Much less figure out about what she was doing in the dungeon.

"All right, you're updated."

"Oh! Thank you, Demeter."

"Congratulations. I must say, I haven't seen a Skill quite like this."

"No way!"

Taking the update report that had been translated into Koine, she started reading it without bothering to cover her chest in a hurry on the off chance it wasn't one of Demeter's tricks.

Lunoire Faust
Level 4

Strength: I 49 - H 111
Endurance: I 60 - H 130
Dexterity: I 24 - I 67
Agility: I 49 - I 99
Magic: I 0

Punch: H
Crush: I
Brawler: I

Faustian Pact of Tur

"Huh? What does it do?"

"I haven't the faintest idea. That's the best I can decode it."

"No way."

She was rather disappointed with the fact that there were no details.

"Leave it be Lunoire. I'm sure you will figure it out. Hmm, how about this, why don't you think about it over dinner?"

"Ah, no, I…"

"Persephone would like to meet you. We can talk about a lot of things over a nice new restaurant I found."

"That's… I'm sorry, I have something I need to pick. It's for my 'job'."

Everything she had said was true. She needed to pick it up quickly or the person she contracted would assume she was dead and sell the item away. It would certainly help with her work as a bounty hunter, although, nowadays she had been entertaining using it for exploring the dungeon rather than killing others.

Lunoire tried not to look back, she did not want to see Demeter's sad face as she left.

Making her way to the meeting place, she quickly provided the last of the money for the former Blacksmith of a first-rate Crafting Familia, who had been blacklisted for being caught making and selling weapons on the side to Evilus affiliated Familia's. The blacksmith had promptly joined up with those Familias to get back to work, and was now providing weapons to those that like her who worked in the Underworld.

The weapons were just as good as the "branded" overpriced weapons for a fraction of the cost. Criminals and "neutral" agents like herself wouldn't be able to afford First Class Adventurer prices, the blacksmith needed to cater to the market while also adjusting for the lack of additional costs imposed upon his work.

The amount of taxes a top-ranking Crafting Familia had to pay, a large cut of the revenue going to the Familia as part of the contribution of using the branding, on top of additional fees that would go into the Familia's rent of certain floors of Babel tower all contributed to the extremely inflated costs of "legal" equipment.

With the high demand and the low supply for top-of-the-line equipment among the darker elements of Orario on top of a higher profit margin, Lunoire was certain that the mystery blacksmith was wealthier than he had been when he was with his previous Familia.

Normally, Lunoire wouldn't even consider commissioning any high-grade equipment, as it just wasn't needed to crush Adventurers who often went without significant armor on a daily basis, as monsters past the middle floors tended to require more speed rather than defense to deal with, and most second to first-class Adventurers would simply forego armor in place of stronger weapons past that point.

But as someone that was more used to fighting men rather than monsters, getting more appropriate gear was necessary to spend more time in the Dungeon.

Minos had been the one to bring such a point up and had torn off one of his horns so that she could make some equipment out of it. He had reassured her that it would grow back in a week's time, but she was touched by the gesture of her friend giving up one of his most potent weapons in exchange for her safety.

Using the money that earned from a few contracts and the other drops Minos gave to her, she managed to pay for some proper Adventurer-grade gauntlet and greaves made out of the horn he gave her.

"Okay, this is where the fun beg- damn! I need to pay rent!"

She used up almost all her money and needed to pay the landlord before he got too nosy. Once the month was up, she would be leaving to find a new apartment to live in. Lunoire was certain that thirteen thousand Valis rent was overpriced for the room she got.

She could make do with less. Her rooms only ever had a handful of furnishings, the bare minimum: crude wooden bed, magic-stone lamp, etc.

The only thing of note was her work outfit, the blood-stained gauntlets, and battle clothes… and a handmade sandbag. Well, she now had new enchanted gauntlets and greaves, so those old gauntlets had to go.

Due to the number of people living around the area that she lived at the moment, it wasn't safe to pack her things and leave, especially when she had seen a few of those pesky Ganesha and Astraea Familia members loitering about that would most likely have a few demi-humans capable of sniffing out the blood on her gauntlets.

If she had some convenient magic that could burn away her old weapons so that she could pass off as an Adventurer with her new ones there wouldn't be a problem, but unfortunately, magic was something rare in her line of work.

Well, she could try washing her gauntlets, yet the idea quickly departed from her head when she imagined the color that the water would be stained with. She didn't need any more reminders of what she had done.

"One more before I see him…"

She went to a tavern on the outskirts of the city. Buried in a back alley, down a flight of stairs where several demi-humans were having secretive conversations. She always used this bar whenever she took contracts.

Lunoire wore a scarf to cover the bottom half of her face. Across from her was an Elven man who looked arrogant and pompous. Catching wind of her real strength, he had ignored the other people in the bar and brought the contract to her.

A detailed likeness was lying on the tabletop. The parchment showed the face of a werewolf.

"This mutt slept with my wife behind my back for a year and now I have a bastard coming along. My men investigated and found that he was part of the Horae Familia." The elf put a small bag with the advance payment on the table. He got up without waiting for a reply, letting his words and the gold speak for themselves. After the client left the bar, Lunoire took a deep breath.

"…Well, I said I'll take care of anyone as long as I get paid, but… this is a first."

The job was over and done with rather quickly. It was only natural. She was talented and strong, although, in this den of demons, she was far from the top of the food chain. A far cry from her situation outside Orario. Back then Lunoire leveled up quickly and was acknowledged as superior wherever she went, but became isolated as a result. She provoked animosity and jealousy in her colleagues, naturally, she became unfamiliar with the concept of comrades.

She thought she was fine with that. She took pride in her ability to get by on her own strength. That was why she had decided making friends was unnecessary.

It was thanks to such thoughts that she ended up completely out of her element when she came to Orario. The Dark Age of the Labyrinth City was a scary time to live in.

For the first time in her life, she wasn't quite sure how to deal with isolation, she thought she was used to it after being acknowledged as superior wherever she went but the dangerous and insidious city began to wear her down from the moment she arrived.

And it all started with her first defeat.

For the girl who had boasted of her invincibility outside the city, her first total defeat was only the first shock. She would never look at the Pallums of a certain beautiful goddess's Familia the same way again.

Biting back her humiliation, she started to pick and chose her jobs for the first time. She was the type of person that hated to lose, and whenever she was wounded, she would scream and flail in frustration. She leveled up a third time after that.

She decided to test her strength in the Dungeon and suffered her second defeat.

A defeat that should have ended in her death, yet she survived. Or rather, she was spared, by a monster of all things.

An enemy of humanity. The thing raped her until she cried out of emotions that she hadn't recognized in her life as a fighting. Then the giant bull made her feel pleasure that she could scarcely comprehend, he filled her heart with a bud of joy with every thrust.

Whenever she found herself feeling uncharacteristically sentimental, she realized that little by little, it was as if she was being healed in all the ways that matter.

He was her first friend. And that meant more than anything else.

She found that she was comfortable with talking with him about all the things she had done, he soothed her guilt, reassured her that she too would find a place where she belonged. They could speak freely of their concerns and wishes. Lunoire didn't have to worry about him telling anyone of her secrets due to his position making him a trustworthy confidant.

Lunoire told him of a dream she once fancied, of getting married to a rich man who would provide for her to the point where she could laze around every day. And in return, he told her of his dream of seeing the sun once again, which further confirmed her own suspicions of what he was.

It was quite clear that he was abnormal among abnormalities. He spoke of things that happened on the surface as if he lived there, yet of other things only the gods have spoken about before. She certainly remembered that he used the same "role-play" word as her first god had did when Minos spoke with disdain at the senseless acts of violence that Evilus was committing on the surface.

Lunoire believed that it was entirely possible that he had been an Adventurer, or at least a civilian, that died in the past few years and had been reincarnated as a monster.

She couldn't imagine what kind of horrifying existence it would be to spawn as something like that. Thankfully, she didn't have to for long, as it seemed that Minos was the only of his intelligent kind, and was non-violent until provoked.

When she had properly rested, she ran all the way down to the 16th floor, to a specific pantry that Minos had claimed as his own. There the Minotaur danced to a tune of his own, a crushing sign of his crushing solitude that Lunoire empathized deeply with.

"I'm back Minos!"

"Lunoire, welcome back to Casa de la Bull."

The bull monster had a deep voice to accompany such a large form.

"That sounds like some cheap hotel on the way to another kingdom run by some bandits looking for gullible rich travelers."

"I'm just going to sulk over here now."

Why did she even try to attack such a harmless fellow in the first place?

Oh right, he's a monster, he should be dangerous, even if he's like this now there's no telling what he would do if he got more power.

"Or maybe I will do that later after you apologize to your favorite thing here."

Cock. Ah, there was his cock! She couldn't resist that thick musk and tasty pre-cum… before she realized it she was already on her knees, taking in his length all the way in her mouth.

After that, the usual happened, and she lost herself in a haze of lust until all her holes were leaking excessive amounts of his seed.

Would she get pregnant from this round? Would it matter if she got pregnant now? Worse comes to worst, she could take him up on his offer to live with him in the dungeon until she bore his children.

It was possible for Lunoire to subsist on his cum alone if she wished to. Like the offer to be part of Demeter's Familia, such an option was also very tempting to her. She would be able to rely on her big, strong bull to keep her safe and happy for the rest of her days-

"-what's the news on the Goliath?"

"Oh? That…? The other Familia's aren't coming down to fight it now."

Minos was keen on understanding the affairs of the surface world due to yearning for a connection to his past life and also for his own survival.

"What? Still?"

"Last I heard, Evilus had overrun and destroyed the town of rogues on the 18th floor, Rivira. And with all the troubles stirred up on the surface, there is currently a ban by the Guild to prevent adventurers from going past the 16th floor until a proper response can be organized. It would probably still take a few weeks till things calm down on the surface and for them to gather enough materials to rebuild the town."

Her friend comically fell face flat on the ground.

"Fuuuuuuuuuuck…"

"Hahahaha!" Lunoire laughed and pointed at him, "That's right, you've been worried for nothing. No one but a couple of "edgy, suicidal terrorists" from Evilus will be coming down here." She used the terms he used in order to tease him further.

"Uuuuuh… if I knew this earlier I would have tried running past or defeating the Goliath a week ago."

"Um. Alone?"

"If needed be."

"B-but how would I find you if you ventured in deeper without telling me?"

He placed his large hand around her body, lifting her up into the air before hugging her tightly, with just enough strength so that it wouldn't hurt.

"Will you miss me?"

"What do you think?"

"I would miss you. I would have gone back up and waited for you, then you know… give you a nice tour of the floors down below. Oh, and the loot too."

"If you haven't eaten it all."

"I will have you know that I can eat in moderation too!"

He huffed until some smoke came out of his nostrils. Sometimes he could be such a clown to the point where everything he did look funny to her.

In the end, they challenged the Goliath together and won pretty decisively.

Granted, Minos did most of the heavy lifting, while Lunoire had slowly crushed parts of the Goliath whenever she could by darting around its slow gigantic body.

As Lunoire couldn't really exchange broken parts of the Goliath's magic stone (it was huge and was often broken up to be shared among many adventurers) without getting fined by the Guild for going against their decree, she sat on the sidelines and watched Minos eat the giant crystal chunk by chunk at an increasingly fast speed!

It was quite clear that he powered up a lot from it.

They went down to the eighteen floors and spent a good amount of time admiring the beauty of the place… until they were attacked by monsters from the lower floors that had overrun the place.

Lunoire got a bit of a better fight than she did with the monsters of the middle floors. Minos had managed to gather up all the remaining monsters by using some kind of "shout" ability, then released a burst of flame from his body a good distance away from her (other side of the floor) to kill most of the monsters, trapping the rest in a ring of fire where he killed them off.

She was kind of jealous that he could gain strength in such a rapid manner. They met up once more and went deeper into the Dungeon. And finally met their match when they encountered a being similar to Minos.

It began when they spotted a few cloaked Evilus members suicidally charging at the "enhanced" Troll while carrying magic stones with them, and were swallowed along with their loot, further powering up the mid-Level 3 monster to new heights.

"What the hell are they smoking?" Minos shook his head at their rather depressing actions.

"I don't know. It's probably some random crap cooked up by their gods to motivate them into believing that life is meaningless." Lunoire replied her friend.

"Well, the afterlife does sound pretty arbitrary and dreary, I mean, it doesn't really incentivize "goodness" and "kindness"...

"Hey… is it looking at us, from way up here?"

"I think it just jumped at uUUUS!"

Lunoire was pulled away by Minos just in time for the irregular monstrous-looking Troll to land where they once stood.

"ARRRRGH!"

"Koine motherfucker, do you speak it?"

Her one and only friend was trying to engage in intelligent conversation with a monster that looked ready to eat them both.

"Do you understand it?"

"No, do you?"

"Of course not!"

The monster than began to overpower them both! It had to be at least the equivalent of a first-class adventurer!

"Lunoire! Head up to the surface! Don't worry about me, I'll hold it off."

"What? No! Since when did you try playing hero?!"

"... good point. How about this? I toss you all the way up to the ceiling, go all out with my flame power-up down here, try to fight it and hold it in place so that you can drop down and crush its brains?"

It was a stupid plan that would have gotten them killed but ended up working anyways.

"Done! It was harder than I expected, but it sure felt good winning against that thing."

"Hey, I did most of the work."

"But I got the last hit."

"Fine, fine. Now then, you take the drop item and I munch the magic stone?"

"The usual."

The after-battle sex was even better after he used his version of "status updates" to improve the quality of his seed. She could still taste his thick intoxicating cum in her mouth after making it all the way back to the surface with her loot.

"Hold up, you, over there! What do you have in your bag?"

Two tiny girls, or two Pallums, had started to tail her.

"Heh. Adult things. You know, money."

It was kind of true. She would be able to sell all these things for money later. And with the current ban in place, the supply for the items from the Large Tree Labyrinth area that Minor and Lunoire explored would have shrunk a lot.

If she sold her loot now, then she would be able to do so at two to three times the market price.

One of the girls nodded to the other girl, that looked to be a Pallum, as if they were passing a message to one another without saying a word. The Pallum had a sour look on her face as if she was biting back some humiliation of her own.

"Did you just get back from the dungeon, onee-chan?"

Come to think of it, Pallum girls were quite cute! Especially when they use those Far Eastern ways of referring to big sisters like her!

"I sure did! Got a nice haul of loot. Ah, since I will get some money soon, want me to treat you and your sister to something good?"

Lunoire normally wouldn't do this, but the after-effects of mind-breaking sex with Minos tended to make her feel a lot happier, at peace with herself, to the point where she would even consider interacting with children and people she would normally not interact with out of guilt.

They both shook their heads adorably.

"It's alright big sister! Mmm, you didn't see any scary men down there, did you? Mama said that Evilus are doing bad things down there…"

"Mmm, I did see one or two of them, but this big sister is pretty strong so those guys didn't scare me!"

The silent little girl nodded twice, and then the Pallum grinned in a rather devious manner.

"Funny. From the reports given to the Guild, Evilus members couldn't be found at all at the upper and middle floors. I guess that "big sister" had went deeper in than she should have~"

"... Um…"

"Lyra, I think that's quite enough."

Just as the other girl spoke, Lunoire felt the previously hidden divine aura emanating from the young girl, and realized that she just got caught out.

"I understand that you were most likely trying to earn a living, and we won't report you to the Guild, that is, if you are willing to co-operate and tell us more about what you saw."

She heard several figures drop down from behind her, she had been surrounded!

"We suggest you follow Lady Astraea's instructions."

They will most likely force out information on what Minos called "Enhanced Species" from her, unless of course, she gave them just enough to investigate while giving them too little for them to actually come to any logical conclusions.

If she could get them to enter the dungeon without making an official report to the Guild then there was a chance Lunoire and Minos would get out of this clean!

Lunoire wouldn't betray her friend's existence to the people living above the dungeon, not truly, but Lunoire did some quick maths in her head and decided that the situation could still be salvaged... so long as Minos could get the jump on them and she could betray them at the right time.

Also, it's better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission. And quite frankly, she wouldn't mind "begging for forgiveness" and receiving some "punishment" from her Minotaur friend.

"I-I'm not sure if you'll believe me, but… I saw some of the Evilus… feeding magic stones to a monster." She kept to the "facts" about how she managed to get a lucky hit that ended the life of the first monster after barely surviving against the vicious attacks of the enhanced monster, "-I'm honestly not sure whether it was actually the magic stones that made the monster so strong, it could have been some other magic. But, maybe, if it was that Minotaur…"

"What about "that" Minotaur?"

"I last saw a Minotaur on the 22nd floor or was it the 21st? It was my first time ever going so deep and I can't say I'm familiar with the Dungeon, seeing that I'm not from Orario."

The goddess nodded to her Familia, confirming that Lunoire had told them the truth, which also explained her strength for someone so unfamiliar with the Dungeon.

"Would you be able to guide us there?"

"If it will help ensure peace and stability then, of course, I would love to help."

Peace and stability for her lovely life together with her sex friend in the dungeon, that is.