Liliruca Arde, Level 1 Adventurer, Hestia Familia
A soft voice greeted her as she woke up, a gentle hand on shoulder nudging her back into the living world. "Lili-chan… It's time to get up, okay?"
She groaned, curling up for a moment and leaning into the hand to trap it under her. The bed was soft and warm, and the blanket was heavy. It was way better than her bed, ratty little cot with a thin sheet tucked into the corner. This bed practically hugged her from all sides with weighty warmth.
A gentle giggle. "Lili-chan… I need to go get breakfast ready. You need to get up. We have a lot to do today."
'Oi! Lili-chan~ Get your lazy ass up already, we have a lot to do today.'
Her eyes snapped open, body twisting away from the hand and throwing the blanket off herself. It was heavier than she remembered it being. Her practiced motions thrown off by a new variable, her tired mind couldn't account for the changes in time.
She fell flat on her face.
She did her best to throw off the pain, staggering up and doing her best to stand ready for whatever task she was required to do. Her bleary eyes peered through a blurry world, only to see a single figure with absolute clarity despite the sand obstructing her vision.
"Lili- chan! Are you okay?" The voice whispered softly. The voice was important, she needed to listen to it.
She slowly came to proper awareness, blinking the sleep from her eyes and taking in her situation. The unfamiliar bed. The unfamiliar room. The soft-voiced figure.
…Oh. That's right.
She was in the Hestia Home. Her heartbeat began to slow down once more as she took that in.
Her feet were on the stone floor. Stone that was cool in the warm air of the Hestia Home. The stone was still warmer than her old room was.
"Lili?"
Her head snapped up. "Lili-san is listening!" She quickly responded. She flinched slightly as she realized that Hestia-sama was much closer than she had been expecting, having moved up while Lili was distracted by other things. Gentle hands took hold of her face, causing her to freeze up.
"Hmm." Hestia-sama hummed inspecting her face for a moment with a concerned look. "You have a little bruise…" Before she could respond, Hestia leaned forwards and planted a soft kiss on her forehead, before drawing back with a gentle smile. "There, all better!"
Warmth suffused her forehead as she stared at the Goddess. Her expression was one of mild disbelief and vague offense.
D-did she think Lili was a little kid?!
"L-Lili is fifteen." She mustered herself up enough to frown, drawing back to rub her forehead vigorously. "Lili doesn't need her 'boo-boos' kissed better."
"I'd be a poor Goddess if I didn't pamper my cute familia every now and then, don't you know?" Hestia pulled back with a smile and a wagging finger, before retreating to the door of the room. "Breakfast is ready, okay? You need a big meal to start the day, so get dressed and come get some."
Lili watched her leave and close the door down to a crack, leaving the room in shadows once more. She stood still for a moment, thinking quietly for a moment. The Hestia Home was really warm. Much warmer than her old familia…
Her fist curled into a fist. Her lip trembled. She glared at memories.
She hates…
—
Lili was already familiar with her fellow former members of the Soma familia. Girls that came from the east, were offered a taste for free, and then told getting any more meant needing to meet quotas. They had been ensnared in an instant, and assigned one of her fellow Pallums. Coco was as old as Lili was, about as big as Lili was, and just as powerless. They might have been playmates, back when Lili was very young, but she couldn't remember enough to be certain.
Coco handed Lili a full bowl of stew as she sat down, now dressed in a formal serving outfit, a gift that Hestia-sama had bought the other day. Black and white and frilly, Coco seemed all too pleased to be wearing it, occasionally twisting into a little twirl and being enthralled with how the ends swished through the air.
She had stuttered out an apology and asked for easier tasks than what Adam-sama was outlining, he had told her to go help their Goddess instead, a flat dismissal from the delving group. Coco had seemed ashamed of that for all of one day. Now she seemed like she would fight against any position changing from where she currently was.
Lili shoveled another spoonful of thick potato and meat into her mouth. All-but wolfing it down.
Momiji and Kaede were very good people and very poor adventurers. An inseparable duo that had a tendency to pull each other into trouble with equal tendency, resulting in a pair that constantly messed up, scrounging out tiny victories and celebrating them with massively undeserved gusto.
Last time they had a major windfall they spent most of it on soma, then spent the next few days lying about their shared room in a daze. The door was locked, something they were wise enough to do before indulging in their new 'treat'. It was a very bad idea to sleep unguarded in the Soma house.
Lili envied their optimism and pitied their naivety. The two of them yawned out noises of thanks as they stumbled into the room, rapidly beginning to chow down on their own bowls with little growls of appreciation and bleary squinting at nothing. Momiji was holding her spoon backwards, like a little kid. Lili made a note of that, ammunition to tease the girl later.
Quickly Lili finished her bowl of stew, and politely handed the empty vessel back to Coco. Coco took the bowl with a serious expression, immediately moving over to a tub of water next to the fireplace and beginning the process of rinsing it off before setting it onto a small pile on the side. Said pile included two other bowls already.
"Adam and Bell are outside." Hestia-sama answered a question no one asked. Turning from her careful and meticulous tending of the hearth to give a smile at her. The backdrop of the fire cast a warm halo around the Goddess. "They're doing morning exercises, if you want to see."
Lili nodded, pushing herself up and walking outside. Outside she was met by the two males of her new familia engaging in a strange ritual chant as they performed push-ups, bricks laid upon their back by the fat blacksmith woman, watching with a smile.
"M-I-C, K-E-Y, -M-O-U-S-E." Adam-sama chanted, pushing up in time with the apparent song and glaring at nothing. "We play fair, and we work hard, and we're in har-mo-ney."
"M-I-C, K-E-Y, -M-O-U-S-E." Bell-sama struggled out, the simultaneous effort of the exercise, the weights, and the singing something he was barely keeping up with.
"Mickey Mouse." Adam-sama growled.
"Mickey Mouse!" Bell-sama echoed.
"Mickey Mouse." The line was repeated.
"Mickey Mouse!" Bell-sama straining to keep his push-ups in time with the chant.
"Forever let us hold our banner high." Adam-sama brought himself low to the ground on the next push, readying himself for something. Bell-sama did the same with a strained expression.
"High!" Adam-sama snarled, pushing up enough to lift himself off the ground, clap his hands together, and landing without unbalancing any of the bricks on his back. Bell-sama did the same, hands not quite clapping together properly and taking a moment longer to recover.
"High!" The same push-off and clap was repeated. Bell-sama lost a brick along the way, elbows wobbling fiercely.
"High!" Adam-sama snarled out a final time, finishing the exercise and bending to perform another push-up.
Bell-sama collapsed under a pile of bricks, unable to recover the last time he attempted to clap his hands together and face-plating. Adam-sama turned a brief unimpressed look towards the kid, before snorting and transitioning to a one-handed variant of the exercise.
"Almost made it to two cycles that time, brat." It wasn't encouragement, not really, but Bell-sama seemed to take it as such regardless, shifting to get the pile of bricks off his back and push himself up.
Bell-sama was the one that asked her to join, a bright smile on his face and hand reaching out for her. He didn't know that Lili was a murderer. He didn't know that Lili had lied and scammed and cheated dozens of adventurers for her own goals before. He only saw little Pallum Lili, carrying a bag entirely too big for her and meekly following his group out of the Dungeon.
She might have stolen from them too, were it not for their captain.
'Good girl.'
Adam-sama pushed himself with regular intervals, one hand brought up to his chest and the other pushing the weight of himself and a dozen or more clay bricks up from the earth. Face unbothered by the strain of his muscles and the dripping of sweat. Thinking about it, Adam-sama was usually pretty sweaty with how often he exercised.
She knew, because she got really sweaty under her armor too. She didn't know how he managed to do flips and whatnot in it for hours at a time.
He glanced up, burning blue eyes staring at her through tangles of sweat-soaked hair. "Oi, Pipsqueak. Cut out the tree impression and get to warm ups."
She squeaked, before softly chanting to herself.
Her form blurred. Her skin darkened, her body filled out, her steps grew heavier. Lili faded from the world, and Amazonlili took her place. It seemed so obvious in retrospect. Just turn into something stronger than she was. Her disguises let her be someone she wasn't, so why not be someone who wasn't weak like Lili was?
Lili was a stupid girl, as it turned out. She moved over and got on the ground, starting to do the exercises that Adam-sama had shown all the new recruits the other day. Things to limber her up and get ready for the Dungeon.
Lili wouldn't be able to finish them all, but Amazonlili was able to breeze through them. Not nearly as well as Adam-sama, though.
"Ah, so cute~!" The fat smithing woman commented, hugging herself as she took in the scene. "You look very cute as an Amazon, Lili-san!"
Lili glanced at her for a moment, before huffing and looking away, ignoring the pink on her face as she did stretches.
Amazonlili was absolutely not cute. Cute things weren't strong enough to fight monsters.
—
Lili was used to using crossbows, just about the only weapon that she could use. Even for a Pallum she was small, which meant that almost nothing she could use would hit hard enough to take down a monster. Crossbows were one of the few exceptions, hitting as hard as normal no matter who was using them. Steady, aim, account for drop and distance, fire.
Her bolt sunk into the face of a kobold, causing it to drop to the ground and slide for a few feet. Two other bolts zoomed forwards, both going wide and leaving them with five more kobolds to deal with. Momiji and Kaede were not good at using crossbows, or spears, or pretty much anything as far as Lili could tell. Momiji had some spells, and Kaede was supposedly better at using the curved eastern sword on her belt, but Lili hadn't seen her use it yet.
She quickly hooked the crossbow on her belt-hook and put both hands on the halberd resting against her shoulder, raising it up to ready a downwards swing. Downwards swing into thrust, Adam-sama had told her.
One of the kobold's collapsed, head bursting like a big fruit as Bell-sama slung a stone at it. Only four more kobolds.
The halberd was almost twice as tall as Lili was. It wasn't too heavy, but swinging it around would throw her off if she wasn't wearing this very expensive armor the familia had bought for her. Lili wasn't heavy enough on her own to stay still swinging bigger weapons. Lili also wasn't strong enough to swing it with any real force, she would have trouble cutting vegetables with a weapon, let alone monsters.
Amazonlili was strong. She stepped forwards towards the monsters.
She swung down, the axe blade chopping down into the kobold's shoulder. It cut through flesh, crashed through bone, and into the ribs. Like cutting the ribs off a bony fish. She wanted to hit the head, but the kobold fell down anyways.
She stepped back quickly, using her whole body to yank the weapon out of the corpse quickly, and stabbed forwards. The kobold dodged to the side, avoiding the thrust and leaping forwards. Lili wanted to get away and shoot her crossbow again, but Amazonlili wanted to punch the stupid dog in the face.
They compromised by raising the shaft of the halberd, the kobold biting down in the middle and unable to get through. The kobold was taller than she was, furred and snarling, claws reaching up in an attempt to get at her visor and helmet and eyes.
She kicked it in the shin, making the kobold yelp in pain and fall back. She raised her halberd.
She kicked it again, making it dodge backwards to avoid her, rolling briefly to reorient itself and turning to growl at her again.
She swung her halberd down, axe-blade cutting into the dog's stupid head and making blood splatter around. Stepping backwards to yank her weapon out, she did her best to check up on the state of the battle.
Momiji and Kaede were using their spears like sticks to bash a kobold on the ground over and over. It wasn't doing any particular damage, but it was forcing the kobold to stay curled up on the ground. Lili stared for a moment, seeing the other kobold was dead, and they weren't injured as far as she could tell.
…Did they forget they were using spears? She glanced over to see Adam-sama's blank helmet, now with a new featureless visor, Bell-sama's embarrassed shuffling, and the Supporter Squad stifling chuckles behind stoic professionalism. She glanced over again, Momiji and Kaede still hitting the kobold with their spears like they were smacking a wild dog with sticks.
Lili walked over and stabbed it with the top of her halberd. Momiji and Kaede glanced up at her, pausing in their assault. She jabbed the kobold again, stopping it from moving. They then remembered they were using spears and started stabbing with her until it stopped moving.
"Ehehe!" Kaede started, leaning back and resting her spear on her shoulder. She had a small confident grin on her face and eyes closed. "Emergency Quest : Slay the Encroaching Kobold Pack, completed! We're getting faster and faster at this as we go along! That was six whole monsters and we got it done really fast!"
"You wasted twenty-two seconds smacking one ineffectually." Adam-sama rumbled out from a few feet away, helmet featureless but expression reading clearly through it all the same. Kaede and Momiji flinched briefly, curling in on themselves in shame. Adam-sama continued, ruthless in his critique. "It should be almost impossible to fuck up using a spear. It's a sharp stick. You somehow forgot that it was sharp."
"I-I'm used to using a katana you know! It's how gramps taught me! The best weapon in the world, or so he used to say."
"A katana is a niche weapon for cutting things that aren't wearing proper armor." Adam-sama grumbled out, being met by an offended gasp. Kaede had a hand pressed against her chest and had reeled back with wide eyes.
"How could you! You may be a fellow countryman, but the Katana is a symbol of honor! Even the gods praise its design and forging!" As Kaede spoke, transitioning into a boast, Momiji had seamlessly begun a foreign dance to emphasize her friend's words. Kaede twisted into a wide gesture, legs apart, hands on either side of her face and palms facing towards the rest of the group as she finished her boast. "What do you know about the Katana, and its thousand-folded steel?! You dare challenge this daddy?!"
Momiji performed a hop into a twist and her own pose, mimicking her friend and finishing on the same step, a serious expression and frown plastered onto her face.
Dead silence.
"...'You dare challenge this daddy'?" Adam-sama rumbled out, a questioning echo coming from his helmet.
Kaede relaxed her pose and scratched her cheek. "Oh, did I do it wrong? I heard that was a thing you said to pick fights in Abandon, while we were traveling through."
Adam-sama snorted. "It's 'come to daddy', not whatever you said. As for what I know about Katanas…" He walked over, and raised a hand. "Hand it over brat, watch and learn."
Kaede blinked, before unsheathing her eastern sword and handing it over by the handle. Adam took it in one hand, flipping it around to let the back of the blade rest against his fingers in a loose grip, before walking forwards.
After a few moments, seemingly predicted, a group of kobolds rounded the corner, pausing briefly to observe them, before rushing forwards.
Adam-sama held up a hand to indicate the rest of the should wait, stepping forwards with a deliberate pace in his step. Kaede gasped for some reason, and Momiji's face slowly twisted into vague recognition.
"...What's he doing?" Miss Rosalyn quietly asked Bell-sama, who responded with an equally quiet whisper.
Four kobolds raced forwards, moving to surround their target. Adam was still walking forwards.
"Showing off, he does it every now and then."
One kobold leaped, Adam fluidly side-stepping and moving into the fray. The kobolds were surrounding him. Another leapt to bite, which he twisted around, waiting for some unseen signal.
"You know I don't think I've ever seen him use a sword before." Mister Finlay was scratching his chin. "You think he knows how?"
Another kobold leapt, which Adam-sama twisted around again, hands on the borrowed sword in the same pose. Visor hiding all indications of expression from being seen.
"I'm sure he's used one before, at least. Most people ha-" Miss Susanna began. She was cut off by sudden unexpected motion. Lili's eyes were locked onto the scene.
Adam-sama had swung once, using his loose fingers as an improvised sheath to draw from. His blade went up and to the side.
He hit all four kobolds, starting from the one that was recovering from its leap and ending with one that was in the middle of its own leap.
The four kobolds collapsed onto the ground around his feet, motionless. He brought the sword down to his side, then sharply flick-twisting it in either rotation, and pretending to sheath it in his fingers yet again.
Silently he walked over to the stunned Kaede again and absentmindedly tossed the sword back, utterly clean of any blood. Kaede fumbled to catch it, before staring at Adam-sama with an awestruck expression.
"Big Boss!" She cried as the rest of the group prepared to move on again, the Supporter Squad already making quick work of the monster cores. "You didn't say that you were a master! You- that must be- Renshi-level at least! No! Kyoshi at minimum! I've only seen Gramps do moves like that before!"
"Old Man Arasaka wouldn't leave me alone until I was, brat." Adam-sama grumbled. "Yojimbo! I will not allow my Oni to swing like an unskilled thug. You are Samurai! You will fight like it!" He quoted with a grumble.
"YOU'RE A SAMURAI?!"
Apparently that was the wrong thing to say by Adam-sama, because Kaede and Momiji were both completely useless except to ramble about how cool it was that their captain was a real Samurai. His blank visor was very good at conveying his feelings on the matter as they walked close to him stumbled over themselves in excited chattering.
Lili made a note to ask what that was later.
"Oi, Pipsqueak."
Lili straightened up, nervously gulping as that blank white visor and thin eye slits was turned towards her. "Lili is listening." She answered.
The visor glared at her for a moment.
"Be quicker about stabbing if you see these two fucking up. You're wasting time glancing back for permission."
She nodded vigorously, taking care to avoid smacking her head into the handle of her weapon this time. "Lili understands!"
Lili had killed three monsters that time. She was stronger than three monsters.
It was hard to not feel giddy about that, behind the safety of her concealing visor.
She could fight.
She made a note to thank Adam-sama again, later on. Even if he was just going to glare and grumble at her for it. It was all very obvious to him, after all, she was thanking him for pointing out the sky was blue. For the longest time, Lili couldn't see the blue sky. It was all cloudy for her.
Not anymore.
"Oi, Pipsqueak!" Lili looked up, to see the rest of the group had started to move on. Adam-sama's visor was glaring at her from the front of the group. "Get your ass moving, we got more things to kill!"
Running to catch up and nodding vigorously, she knocked her helmet into her pole again. She was thankful no one commented on it.
Lili felt like she was on an adventure for the first time in years.