Don't you just hate it when right as you're done for the day, you breathe out all the crap you're done dealing with until you regain consciousness, you lay down in an approximation of a bed, and then…the phone rings. Not the phone by your bed, oh no, that one is dead. Because you're a wizard. The magical kind, not the virgin. The phone in your living room that makes you have to get up, walk into the other room, and answer it. Because you just know if they're calling you so close to sleep, it's got to be important.

That's what happened to me, except what I laid down on was more of a sleeping bag, and instead of a phone waking me up, it was a massive evil aura that made me look outside to see a freaking titan falling from the sky.

And the super elite army that had been here just a few hours ago was already gone. Which was par for the course for me, but it didn't mean I didn't call the universe out on it.

"Oh, COME ON!" I screamed at the giant evil monster that looked like it was shedding other monsters on its way down before it crashed into the ground and made an impact big enough to wipe out the entire town that it had landed in. "One hour of sleep, just one fucking hour of sleep! IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?"

"Hey!" a usually calm and collected elf called out as she ran up to me in her tight shirt and thick green painties. Legally, they were considered pants, but anything that doesn't go past the part of the leg connecting it to the crotch were underwear in my book. "Does anyone know where Syr is?"

I looked around after I secured my potion satchel and saw two gods, six mortal girls of varying height and species, and one redheaded smith. "I think…I saw her with the rabbit kid when they were here last," I said. "They were going down to…the town." Then, I turned and looked at the giant impact crater before pushing down the unease in my gut. "Crap."

"Ryu!" Anya shouted as she ran up to us with the rest of her friends, worry covering her face. "Do we leave the gods here and go find Syr?"

Before the elf could say anything, there was a loud roar from the woods in front of us, and Ryu pulled out her wooden sword. "And leave them to be eaten by monsters?" she asked rhetorically. "Okay, same as how we got down here. Anya, you and me are in front. Mage in the middle with the gods. Chloe and Lunoire, take the sides and the rear. New guy in the back, Lilly, take the rear center and back him up. Asfi…those wings of yours, can you maintain them for the duration of a whole battle and cover our blind spots from above?"

The woman with the glasses nodded. "It's doable, but…" One by one, she put her hand in each of her pouches to feel around and take inventory by touch. "I burnt through a lot of my supplies on the way down here."

As we got into position, I looked over to Hermes. "You know, it would be really nice if you could throw out a miracle or two right about now."

"As much as I would love to," Hermes told me with a frown. "Any use of a god's true power in the dungeon will cause an unpleasant chain reaction that might end the entire world."

"HERE THEY COME!" Ryu yelled before she leaped at a large black furry creature that looked something akin to a polar bear on steroids.

-Bell-

"Down behind the tree, NOW!"

I followed Syr's instructions and found myself in a hollowed out mound right before I heard the giant goliath land with a boom that shook the ground. Above us, in the place I could see at any rate, rocks, wood, and all kinds of things flew thanks to the force of the impact. Then, as soon as it was done, Syr took my wrist as she stood up to pull me to my feet. "Come on, we have to move. That thing spawned adds as it was falling, so we can't let ourselves stay in one place or we'll get swarmed."

With an ease that seemed much too unnatural for anyone that had grown up in the city, Syr led us through bushes, fallen trees, and bunches of undergrowth that left several scratches on her legs thanks to her revealing outfit. Despite it all though, she kept going with an absolute alertness worthy of a first-class adventurer.

It took me several minutes to work through the confusion enough just to ask a question. "Ms Syr, what's going on?"

"The dungeon's cheating," she grumbled before pulling me along and getting right up against the back of a tree and hugging me as close as we could get. "We're separated from our group, surrounded by monsters, and I'm completely useless! I could have at least told one of those idiots to leave me a damn bow and some arrows."

I gulped at how close we were, but she barely seemed to notice. "I mean…um, how are you-"

"Shh!" Syr told me fiercely before she peeked around the corner of the tree. "Three of them…maybe level two. They've picked up our scent but haven't pinpointed it yet." She stopped talking for a moment, and I blinked as she frowned down at the ground for a few seconds before she looked back up at me. "Hamstring the first two, then let the third one chase me so it gets clear enough of the others you can kill it before you turn on the others to weaken them with your magic. You should be able to take out one of them before they get to you."

The way she just casually threw out her plan left me speechless. Both because she was so calm and collected, and it involved information she wasn't privy to. "H-How do you even know what kind of magic I-" wasn't able to finish, because she let go of me and ran out into the woods.

Then, I heard her whistle before she jumped up and down while running slower than someone should have been able to with a god's blessing. "Lookie here Yogi! FRESH MEAT!"

The large Yogi bears that I hadn't ever heard a description of before stopped sniffing the air and turned towards her. They let out an intimidating roar that sent a small chill down my spine before taking off after her.

With no time to waste, I ran after the yogis and let out a battle cry before I cut into the left leg of the first one I caught up to before leaping over to slice through the other hind leg at its tendons. The monster turned awkwardly to try and attack me, so I threw a Fire Bolt into its face and ran to the other one. The second monster was ready for me, so I had to use another Fire Bolt to block its vision so I could slide beneath it and cut the giant bear's back legs.

Once they were slowed, I saw the third yogi bear had almost caught up to Syr, so I charged after it and let loose another Fire Bolt right on its tail. It let out a loud yelp, which made it slow down enough to catch it in time before it could get to Syr. I leaped into the air to land on its back near the head, and began to slice at the monster where the neck connected with the head. Two strikes let the knife Goddess Hestia got for me cut through the bone and bring the creature down.

As soon as it disappeared beneath me in an explosion of dust, I turned around and fired three more Fire Bolts at the yogi closest to us as it tried to close the gap. It turned to dust on the third attack, but before I could charge in for the third attack, I felt Syr's hand on my shoulder. "Don't charge straight at it. The damaged hind legs means it can't turn very well, get behind it and kill it from where it can't attack."

I looked back at the girl for a moment as while current nightmare of an experience let me see her in a new light. "Ms Syr, I just realized something. I don't know you at all."

She looked back at me in surprise for a moment, then gave me one of her usual smiles. "Isn't that the point of a date?"

We didn't have time to speak any more, because the yogi bear was getting too close and I needed some room to do what Syr told me to. Which made killing it ridiculously easy. After the bear had been dusted, I ran back to her as she looked back to where we came.

As strange as it was, I looked to the girl I had only ever known as a barmaid for directions. "Um, now what, Ms Syr?" I asked while wondering what was going on. Had the god she served returned to Heaven? It was the only thing I could think of that would explain how someone like her could even think to do half of what we had together so far.

"Looks like the monster rex is going after the largest collection of people here," she mumbled as I caught sight of the goliath that was even bigger than the one that had spawned in the floor above us through a break in the trees. It was heading off somewhere to our right. "So we can just get rid of the adds on the way to the others-"

"And then we go help the people from the city?" I asked, guessing what she was going to say.

Syr turned her head away from the giant monster as it slowly made step after step, causing the ground to shake each time. It wasn't moving fast, but with its long legs, it didn't need to. As for the girl, she looked at me like I had grown a second head. "Excuse me?"

"The people from the city," I repeated. "Once we meet up with Ms Ryu and the others, we go and save them too, right?"

For several seconds, Syr just gave me a look of disbelief before letting out a long sigh. Then, she frowned at me in anger. "No. We let the people who tried to beat you to death die, using them as bait is our best chance of getting out of here alive. We go down a floor, wait for the monster to either despawn or go into a patrol route we can easily avoid, and then head back upstairs."

I took a step back from Syr in shock. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The girl in front of me was supposed to be one of the sweetest people I knew. A little mischievous, but otherwise a wonderful person. The fact that she could just so callously just throw away the lives of other people was just…unthinkable to me.

"Ms Syr…we can't do that," I told her through the shock. "How could you even think it's okay to just abandon people like that?"

She looked back at me with a vicious frown. "Are you kidding me?" she asked. And then, she took in a deep breath to let it out after holding it for five seconds. "Okay, Bell. You're sweet, beautifully innocent, and wonderfully naive. I absolutely love that about you, but now is not the time! They would have killed you if I hadn't…" The woman stopped and clenched her teeth.

The reminder of what happened made me remember something else. "And what was that skill you used?" That's what it had to have been. But, if she had skills she could use, did that mean she still had an active falna? "I thought you weren't an adventurer!" I said while my mind ran in circles with all its confused logic. "If you can take care of yourself. You can find our friends while I can go help the others."

Syr sucked in a breath and clenched her fists. "Please, don't make me make you come with me," she asked in a pleading tone as every part of her body tensed up as she lowered her head.

I stood there, confused at what she just said. Tears began to fall from her face, and I could only watch the girl struggle with something that I just didn't understand. "Syr?" I asked as my worry increased.

"And if I do…crap, it may just cause another reaction," she mumbled before looking at me with a frown. Her hands still trembled, and her breathing was off, but the tears weren't falling…as fast. "Okay, fine! We'll just do this. Amnesia…that option…I can do that when we're out. It's not as bad as…"

The confusing rambling from the girl made me grow more concerned. "Ms Syr, please tell me what's wrong!"

And then…she stopped being Syr.

I'm not exactly sure what happened. There wasn't some long-form change in her body where I watched her get bigger, and she didn't become a silhouette of light that reformed into another person. It wasn't like the magic Lilly showed me either, that just added a working feature or two; although she said she could even disguise herself as small monsters.

One moment, Syr was standing there, and the next, a gorgeous woman in full bloom was in front of me. She was taller than Syr, with longer hair that was even more lustrous and well-kept than what the waitress had framing her face. Her breasts were bigger as well, and her hips stuck out more, held up by longer legs. A pair of well manicured hands reached up and grabbed my shoulders as the woman spoke. "Bell, do you recognize me?"

I gaped at the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Every inch of her body, which I could just about see in its totality thanks to the amazon outfit she had on, was absolutely perfect. Impossibly perfect. Not extremely large in the places that would have made her overly sexy like I had seen with some goddesses. But the perfect expression of human beauty. On top of which, when I looked at her, there was the same muted sense of divinity that I detected from my own goddess when I saw her down here.

Her question shook me out of my daze and I closed my mouth to gulp down all the saliva that had built up. Of course I recognized her. I had never seen her in person, but everyone in Orario knew the goddess standing in front of me thanks to newspapers, posters, and several books of questionable repute that swore she posed for all the lewd images within.

"You're…the goddess Freya," I managed to say through all the shock.

Lady Freya gave me a little nod. "Good. Now, I need you to escort me back to our friends, so we can figure out a plan to get out of here," she told me before looking me right in the eyes. "Can you do that?"

For a brief moment, I looked at the giant monster and the direction it was headed. I wanted to go and save those people, but if I abandoned a goddess in the middle of a monster spawn…

Part of me wanted to believe that Syr was just using another ability to disguise herself as a goddess, but that idea was shot down by the divinity I felt coming from the woman. I didn't think a mortal could fake something like that.

I gulped and nodded. "Yes, Lady Freya."

Freya sighed and slumped. "Thank you. Now…one second," the goddess said before she stepped back, and then…she was Syr again.

Seeing the change made my head hurt a little, and by the time I was done rubbing my eyes, I saw the girl who was really a goddess turn her head back from where she was looking at her rear and remove her hands from behind her back. "Okay, let's get going," the disguised goddess said before she turned around and started moving through the woods again, her head trying to look in almost every direction at once.

"Wait," I said as I followed her. However, the goddess didn't slow down. "Why did you turn back?"

Syr…or, Freya…that was going to get so confusing…

not-Syr looked back at me with a little frown and an accompanying blush. "I'm taller and bigger when I'm in my goddess form, so…the amazon outfit was riding up my butt, and these shoes are too small for my actual feet. So I can't run very well in them. Now, quiet down."

Despite the request being from a goddess, I couldn't stop talking. "But…I don't understand," I said in a whisper when I got close to her again. "If you're a goddess, then why are you-"

"I swear, if someone asks me why I'm a waitress again, I'm going to scream," Syr threatened me as she had us crouch low to the ground.

I gulped. That would not end well for us. "A…b-barmaid."

Syr let out a low growl, then she took in a deep breath before having us move under a rocky outcropping. "Ugh…okay, fine. Since you're not going to remember any of this, and you absolutely must know." She took in a deep breath, like she was bracing for some kind of heavy lifting. "I hate being a goddess," she told me as she peeked over the edge of our hiding place.

The admission made my mind go in circles. "Um, w-what?"

"I said I hate being a goddess. It sucks!" she told me fiercely in a whisper. "It's lonely, and boring, and empty. Everyone around me caters to my every whim and while that sounds good to someone under a hundred, it turns life into a meaningless malaise devoid of accomplishment or self-fulfillment. And I've tried to fight it, I got involved in public service and philanthropic ventures, I had my familia push themselves as far as a mortal can without breaking, and I've sought the most impossible treasures to display in my home. But even when I'm funding nearly seventy-percent of all charities in Orario, even when I have the most powerful familia, even when I'm the wealthiest woman in the world, everything in my life as Freya feels empty!"

As the divine woman panted heavily, I found myself remembering our date and what she said. "Then, what you told me back in Rivira, about you and the orphanage," I began before passing as my mind worked through everything again. "Was it all a lie?"

Syr looked back at me and smirked a little. "No. It was all true, from a certain point of view," she said before giving me a small snicker. "There was a girl who lived in an orphanage that Evilus burned down named Syr. When she was wandering the street, I found her and took her in. She joined my familia and developed a spell that allows us to switch identities because she wanted to be as loved and pretty as me, and I just wanted to get away from all the emptiness my life had become."

I felt a headache coming on. "Then, the goddess in control of Orario-"

"Oh!" Syr exclaimed. "That's still me. My stand-in just takes my place during parades, festivals, and likes to sit up in Babel from time to time. A goddess wouldn't be fooled by my replacement if they were at arms length, so I still have to go to meetings and involve myself as Freya, but she does take care of most of the busy work."

The absurdity of everything was just too much for me. The mischievous girl at the bar… "Wait! Who else knows about this?" I asked before I remembered something a little disturbing. There was more than once when I saw Ms Mia smack Syr upside the head with a try or cooking implement. "Does Mama Mia know?"

Syr snorted. "Of course! How do you think I can skip out on so many days of work and not get fired?" she said before her face became utterly serious. "It's her, the Freya Familia…well, minus Anya, and that idiot Dresden." Then she frowned at me. "And that's all who is going to ever know. Got it?"

I gulped. Syr could look very frightening sometimes. Doubly so now that I knew she had an entire army at her beck and call. "Y-Yes ma'am!"

"Good," she said before she peered back around the corner. "It's almost turned around. Wait ten seconds, then go and kill it from behind."

I blinked, had there been some kind of monster near us? With everything that had been going on, I hadn't even noticed it. It also struck me as odd. Freya was a goddess of beauty and love, but Ms Syr knew more about this kind of fighting monsters than I did. "How do you know how to do all this?"

"Bell, I've probably spent more time hunting in the breadth of my life than you have breathing," she told me simply. "Now go. And don't give some stupid battle cry this time. Save your air, approach quickly and silently, and kill it before it knows you're there."

-Bors-

I had to get out of the dungeon.

Nothing else mattered.

I ran along with the others, pushing the slower people out of my way if it helped me get to the floor's exit faster, or staying back so that a monster would have to deal with the guy in front of me while I ran along without any distractions. I just made the choice that got me through the woods faster.

Then, me and the rest of the level threes that had been in the town broke through the woods and made it to the grassy plains that signaled the way out was right ahead. Only, when I looked at the place where the exit should have been, there was a giant pile of collapsed rock in the way. It looked like some of the wall had come down and blocked off the way to floor eighteen.

I grit my teeth, but I was not deterred.

I had to get out of the dungeon.

Nothing else mattered.

"Come on boys, we'll dig our way out!" I yelled to the other adventurers that had been strong enough to keep up with me.

"Wait!"

I grit my teeth and held my axe tight, ready to kill the man who had objected.

I had to get out of the dungeon.

Nothing else mattered.

When I turned around, I saw a ratty looking cat boy with a missing arm and ear on his head. I didn't bother to try and remember his name, but a lot of people in Rivira considered him pretty scummy. However, before I could move to kill him for slowing me down, he held up a small lumpy object that had a mostly spherical shape.

"An explosive?" I asked.

Jura, that was the man's name, nodded with a smile. "I have plenty."

"Good!" I yelled before signaling the other men and grabbing the man's satchel that held dozens of the things. "Over here men! We'll blow the entire wall to powder, and make our way out of this dungeon!"

Nothing else mattered.

-Dresden-

From what we could tell, the giant was moving towards us in a veering off to the left kind of way. So, in our general direction, but it wasn't going to cross our path and got further away from it with every step. Which meant we were more focused on finding our missing party members than dealing with Goliath.

We made our way through the forest, following Ryu as she kept us going in the general direction of the town, but out of sight of the road to help keep under cover just in case the overgrown monster saw us and decided to turn to the side a little. Not too far into the woods though, we needed to stay in sight of the road just in case Syr and Bell used it as a guide for their way back to us. Something I very much doubted something as old as Syr would do, but I couldn't voice that opinion without outing her as unnatural.

However, it wasn't sight that let us encounter her.

"I can smell her!" Anya said happily before turning her nose up into the air. "Her scent is on the wind, so it's got to be close, meow!"

Chloe crouched down to the ground. "Are you sure you're not just picking up a tail she left on the ground?"

The question made Anya stop sniffing and look over to Chloe hesitantly. The girl with the cat features became tense. "Um…that's…not really…pawssible. I think."

Whatever she was going to say was cut off when a teenager's wet dream came running through the patch of trees ahead of us. The outfit Syr had on was something I expected to see at a sex party or the beach. On her, it was just…hell, even my muted Mantle got up and went "yeah, I'd hit that…in both meanings of the word."

"Ryuuuuuuu!" the frightened girl cried as she dashed up to the elf and nearly tackled her with a wail before she clung to the taller woman. "I was just so scaaaaaaaared!"

As the girl continued to cry into Ryu's chest, I saw the other missing member of our companions walk through the trees. He stared at the sight of the disguised goddess hugging her dear friend in absolute terror with a look of absolute disbelief. "…huh?"

Asfi landed a moment later and came up to the boy while digging through her satchel. "Mr Cranel, are you hurt? We have some healing potions left if it can't wait. But not many."

"I'm fine, but someone hit Syr back in Rivira, she might need something," Bell said as he pointed at the girl.

The crying girl immediately stopped her fussing as all of the maids from the bar gained looks that could kill. "What was that?" the two cats and the human asked at the same time.

Ryu separated from the embrace to look at Syr's face. "This is going to leave a black eye," she mumbled.

"W-Well, we shouldn't waste a potion for healing real injuries on me," she said with a nervous laugh.

"AND WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR ARM?" Anya yelled as she grabbed the wrist that Syr had cut and bandaged the night before, making both the girl and the elf wince.

Before things could get more out of order, I started looking through my bag. "Okay, we got the kid and the girl back. I've got enough potions to get the kids, the gods, and the bargirl out of here. The rest of us will just have to-"

"I'm afraid none of us are going anywhere, yet," Asfi announced, making me look over to her. "You said that potion turns someone into a gust of wind for a quick escape, correct? Well, from what I saw while above the treeline, when the monster spawned, it sealed off the exits. Airtight, unless I miss my guess. We're not going anywhere."

I looked over at the noncombatants for a second. "So we beat it to the exit where we came in, blow a hole in the wall and get the people who can't fight out."

Bell stepped forward and cleared his throat. "Except, Mr Dresden, that's where the black Goliath is headed," he told me as the ground shook with the massive giant's steps. "And so is everyone from the town. But if the way is blocked, I don't know how they're going to escape."

After letting out an uneasy groan, Syr added to the conversation in a reluctant tone. "They'll probably be crushed to death when the monster closes on them and they're trying to dig through the rock," she said before looking over to Bell. "Which, if you ask me, is what they deserve for trying to kill you!"

"Say what?" Hestia cut in.

"What do you mean trying to kill Master Bell?" the shrimp of a girl asked right on top of the goddess. Literally. She jumped on the taller being's back to also try and look Syr in the eyes, nearly knocking the goddess to the ground.

For his part Bell groaned. "Lady Syr!" he complained, getting a furious frown from the goddess before wincing and cowering under her gaze a bit. "T-That was only a few people that…tried to kill me. The rest just…"

"Forced you to participate in a bare knuckle deathmatch while I was held at knifepoint and they cheered for one of you to die?" she asked with a frown when the boy trailed off.

Hestia knocked Lily off her back to stand back up straight. "What in the world were you two doing in that town?"

Off to the side, Hermes let out a little chuckle. "Now, that's quite the moral quandary, isn't it?" he asked in a tone that sounded way too jovial for the mess that had fallen from the sky. "With this party, it would be rather simple for us to clear the way to the next floor, wait for the dungeon to repair itself, then let the kids and gods take the express way out before more experienced adventurers snuck past the danger so that the Guild can send an experienced kill team down here to deal with the threat."

Then, he held up a finger and wagged it at everyone. "Of course, that would mean a lot of people on the opposite side of the floor would die. A few level threes might make it out, but I doubt a bunch of level twos would deal well with all the adds that are even slowing our girls down, much less the monster closing in on them," he said before looking at Bell. "So, will we do the smart thing and save what we can, or the heroic thing, and save everyone?"

I let out a long groan. I should have punched the guy in the face before he managed to say that last part to shut him up. "Before I do anything," I said before I looked over to Syr. "What was all that about them trying to kill a boy?"

Bell tried to explain, but Syr cut him off and did it instead like I had asked. She was methodical and gave us a brief, but detailed explanation of what happened and what led up to it. Apparently, some guy that had picked a fight with Bell in a bar because of an inferiority complex before I even came to Orario did it again in the city with his friends as backup, and they had special rules down here that made it sound like an offshoot of the Winter Court. When Bell actually did the decent thing and showed the mob how horrible they really were, several of them attacked him and beat him bloody, so Syr ended up pickpocketing some potions to heal him back to normal.

"He won the fit, so I got let go, but…that was after they probably punctured one of his lungs and left him to drown in his own blood," Syr grumbled. "So…yeah. Let them get what they deserve."

"No!" Bell cried out before he looked at the lot of us. "They're not good people, I'll acknowledge that. But I've known bad people who when given a chance to change themselves for the better. A mob of people made a bad decision, and sure, maybe a few of them are rotten, but does that mean we have to just give up on all of them?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the little dog girl's ears wilt. "Bell's right. If there's something we can do to save them, we should do it."

As for me, mob or not killing a kid was crossing a line. I didn't care what these people said about age. Maybe Bell had a point about mob mentality and not wanting to swim against the grain, but that only worked when you were a weak vanilla human. These guys had power given to them by literal gods, and the ones that just let others do what they wanted…well, with power comes responsibility and all that…

Which also meant, we had to save them. If not all for the right reasons.

I groaned before this debate could continue. "Well, voting over this is a moot point. The people who are going to do this are going to do it regardless of what others want, and the people who don't want to are going to have to anyway, because we don't want the people who go to die," I said before I looked back at the guy with red hair and the shrimp. Since they were two of the people we were supposed to be saving, I didn't think their combat abilities were equal to the kitten maids. "So, who's going to stay back to keep the gods safe from the random wild animal, and who's going to deal with the giant?"

It took us less than five minutes to work out who was going to be doing what. Since keeping the three people who couldn't fight protected was paramount, Welf, Lilly, Lunoire, and Chloe got stuck with guard duty and would lead the three deities in the opposite direction from the monsters while Syr held onto my potion bag. That meant the combat team was going to be myself, Ryu, Asfi, Anya, and…Bell.

The last of which, I had some problems with. "Why exactly are we taking the child?" I asked as I tightened the belt on my lion's mane duster so it wouldn't go flapping around behind me and create a drag.

"What happened 'to people who are going to do something will do it anyway'?" Bell asked.

"That was before I knew we had enough people to break your legs and carry you away from danger," I replied.

As the boy blanched at my threat, Asi cleared her throat. "I take it we have some kind of plan?"

My genius tactical mind came up with the ultimate plan immediately. "I was thinking something like shooting it in the back of the neck while it's looking at something other than me and watching it die while laughing about how brave I am."

Bell looked at me in disbelief. "That doesn't sound very brave."

"Works for me," Ryu replied. "I'll take point. Dresden, you're center again. Anya left. Bell go right. Asfi, you're rearguard and cover for us."

Asfi dug through her bag and held up a trio of drinks with yellow liquid. "Anyone need stamina potions?" she asked before looking at me with a frown. "They are potions that restore your stamina. Which means you can exert yourself longer doing physical activity, understand?"

I frowned at the woman, and turned my smartass meter up to max. "Does it just replenish your stamina, so you're still overtaxing your muscles until they basically wear down and explode, or are there some minor healing properties involved to avoid crippling yourself midway through battle despite having plenty of energy to keep going?"

"...just drink the damn potion," she told me.

With the instructions being as barebones as they were, it took Bell a moment to fall in, but we were moving in under a minute and cutting a path straight for the giant. During his travels towards us, which Bell admitted were because Syr was able to correctly guess our general location based on travel speed and how she knew Ryu would react to her being in danger, the boy had wisely avoided more fights than he got into, so there were plenty of things to kill on the way down.

Halfway there, something happened I wasn't counting on. My senses expanded and I vaguely became aware of everyone else's position, along with what they were experiencing. I could smell how Anya took in our scents, the way Ryu knew what was coming past the next tree thanks to her years of coming down here, the anxiety Asfi had at leaving Hermes alone in this situation, the way Bell was just hoping he didn't screw things up.

"What the hell is this?" Asfi asked before she noticed a monster coming at us from Bell's side thanks to Anya's nose detecting it and threw a spike into its shoulder so Bell could swoop in and put his dagger between its eyes without any problem.

I gave her a nervous laugh. "Uh…sorry, that's me," I admitted. "It's uh…" It took a moment to find the right terminology so I could bullshit my way through an explanation. "One of my abilities. You know, like all the stuff everyone gets scribbled on their back? This is mine. It's called Banner."

Anya looked around at the others for a moment. "Everyone else can tell he's lying, right?"

"Of course," Asfi said.

"Yes," Ryu answered.

"Oh, so that's what that feeling is," Bell mumbled as he looked up and far to the right, like he was trying to see something behind him.

My nervousness increased slightly and I let out a groan. Now was not the time for me to have to explain that I didn't play by everyone else's rules. "Look, do you want an explanation that'll take the better part of a day, or do you want to fight as a cohesive unit with absolutely zero need for training together?"

Ryu, who had an inkling of what I really was, shook her head. "Whatever it's called, I don't care as long as it works," she said before tossing one of her eastern daggers at a monster without even bothering to look at it. "Which it does. So let's get going."

There was no further need for discussion as we went back to just cruising through the roaming monsters with the ease of an expert tactical squad. Although most of the group saw no need to ask any more questions, the nerd of the group wasn't just going to let something like this rest. "So…what's the downside?" Asfi asked. "There's no way something like this doesn't have a backlash effect."

I kept my cool as I did my best not to think about the worst case scenario. "It represses all the pain and emotional trauma you guys have to deal with, but I have to be the one to shoulder it. So uh…nobody die, okay? That really hurts."

I also didn't know exactly how it would mix with the enchantment they were wrapped up in, or how it classified the non-humans in the group. During the Battle of Chicago, I had been been able to psychically communicate with the malks who were my scouts. While none of the people with me were that level of inhuman, I did have a woman calling herself an elf and a pair of girls with cat features.

"Understood, Mr Dresden," Bell said before he dashed off to the left again to kill another bear and get back to the party with a burst of speed. Then, we all looked over to the boy when he started flexing his hand and I felt magic being collected in that area. It was another array, building up power, but it didn't take a fixed form like the elf girl's magic from earlier. It also looked like it was going to take a lot longer to charge than hers. The magic even had accompanying special effects that sounded like a church bell ringing as glitter began to collect around the boy's hand.

It was three minutes later that we broke through the woods completely.

Well, sort of.

There was a long patch of trees that had been knocked down or snapped in two. It looked like something akin to when companies needed to install a fresh power line in a rural area and there were some woods in the way. A trail of fallen greenery led right to the giant black monster with the long white hair in desperate need of a trim.

As opposed to my completely stylish and trendy hair that came down to my shoulders but was in no way of bad taste.

Like for the past three minutes, Bell's ability tolled…and the monster turned around to look at us right after the sound rang out in the clear cavern air. Then, it opened its mouth to roar, making us all wince. I felt something press down on me, making the air feel like it was thicker and my head swam for a few moments before I realized what was going on was some kind of mental magic attack akin to what a Walker might use.

Identifying what was going on was always the first part of countering such things. After that, it was easy enough to feel around for it with my magical senses and grab the magical net that laid on top of not only me, but the whole party. Then, with a moderate effort of my Will, I simply threw it aside.

With nothing holding him down, Bell pointed his ringing hand with the glitter effect at the monster. "FIRE BOLT!" he shouted, sending a blast of fire magic surrounded by the amplification matrix he had been cooking for three minutes at the creature. White hot flames flew through the air, intent on Goliath's head.

But by then, said monster had been given enough time to take in another breath and let out a loud yell. A wave of force impacted the projectile…that was designed to explode on contact.

The blastwave came at us and I just barely had time to raise my arm to put up a defensive shield that cracked under the strain of the force we were hit with as to let some of the heat through to sizzle our skin. The ground around us was scorched and several trees went up in flames at the same time that the wave of pressure actually pushed the dirt around our group hard enough to leave a circular indentation in the ground all around us.

Still, we held out, and as the dust blew past us so that we could see our opponent again…

I saw that it had more than just a second to prepare it's followup attack thanks to our need to defend. Bell's attack had an effect, judging by the hands that had been raised to protect its head and mostly burned away. But being swatted by something that would have more than likely fallen over if it tried to bend down that much to kill me wasn't something I worried about. What concerned me was the raw magical energy so strong it entered the visible spectrum that even the most mundane of normie muggles could see it plain as day shout out of the monster's throat that I didn't even have a chance to fire off the quip I had in the back of my mind.

HEY, I'M THE ONE WITH THE QUICKDRAW MAGIC 'ROUND THESE PARTS!

-Cecil-

Breakfast was always a time of togetherness in my familia's household. The rest of the day would be chaotic as we went about our various duties until the sun set, so it was important to at least start the day together. As captain, it was my duty to make sure everything was perfect, and that was what I did after setting out the five places at the table. Four for the mortals on the side, and one for our goddess at its head.

There was another member of our familia…supposedly. But, she wouldn't be coming.

Not for the first time, I looked around at our meager holdings we used to house the wonderful deity who had decided to mother us in what she had christened the Star-Resting House. Compared to the legendary accomplishments my forerunners had done, what I and the others had managed to provide for her could only be described as pathetic.

Despite being level two and a smith now, I had been rejected by my family and labeled an utter failure. Things only got worse after that, until a goddess came to the city of Solingen and took me into her care. With her encouragement, I was able to step back onto my path in life that I had fallen off.

There was a bit of noise as the other girls came in, and I noted how our resident werewolf was rather unkempt, despite having plenty of time to freshen up for the morning meal. A bit of light bickering followed before Schau stepped away from the table to portion out the food that I had previously prepared.

None of us sat down, though. Not even the wolf was that unkooth.

We waited another three minutes until our goddess entered the dining area in silence.

I noticed the ink stains on her fingers and frowned at what they meant. She had been up early, writing her letters again. It was a waste of effort, because she would always end up burning them. It was a process that had been going on for over four years.

I knew that the gods saw time differently. To her, this near weekly ritual was like someone who still thought about an old flame for a week. If it was my place to say anything, I would have asked her to forget about the woman that had turned her back on the goddess.

Everyone bowed their heads in respect to the goddess. We leaned over some, but not too much. Our goddess didn't like it when we went too low. She said 'children that can't stand in my presence aren't much good for anything other than picking dirt out of the carpet'. The sad smile she wore whenever she said that told me it was some kind of joke, if an odd one.

"Good morning, everyone," the goddess said in a motherly tone.

"Good morning, Lady Astraea," everyone else but me said at the same time before we all raised our heads.

Everyone but me sat down. I got behind the goddess to pull out her chair, then put it back so she could sit once she was in the proper position. Then, I poured the divine woman her tea, and fetched her breakfast that had been keeping warm on the stove.

"Thank you, Cecil," my goddess told me before she took the tea and started to raise it to her lips. It never made the full trip.

Lady Astraea let out a gasp before she looked up at the table with wide eyes. Everyone else froze as they noticed her reaction to…something. Some of us looked around, but nothing looked any different in the dining room than it had a moment ago.

"No," Lady Astraea whimpered as she lowered her cup, but ended up just letting the thing tip over to dump all over her breakfast. Her expression turned ashen, and I watched the normally vibrant woman wilt in her chair as tears formed in her eyes. "Oh Ryu…I…I'm so sorry."

Then, I watched my goddess break down in tears.

-Syr-

For hundreds of years, even before I came to Orario, I had been curious what it would have been like to experience the dungeon. It was one of the few, maybe even the only pleasure denied to me that I couldn't have just walked out and taken. Being so close to it on the surface, I could actually penetrate the malicious aura surrounding the place and peer inside of it, which was an impossibility from Heaven. So, that had satiated me for a decade. Especially since the one time I did mention the idea to my familia, they had threatened to tie me up in my room and not let me out until my insanity had passed.

Since it was the one thing they could all agree on without half of them trying to murder the other half, I had relented to their desires.

Then, when given the completely valid reason of needing to keep my date with Bell as Syr and a magical item that allowed me to escape the watchful eyes of my children, I dashed off with reliable guards on a mission for love and curiosity.

Yes, I had seen the dungeon through my scrying mirror, but that was like watching a sporting event on television back in the day. It wasn't the same as being there. You couldn't experience a real baseball game unless you actually went there yourself.

Which was the honest truth. You couldn't experience the sweltering heat, bad food, insanely loud noises, or the stink of the guy next to you that was camped out in front of the arena for three days for tickets and forgot to bring his body spray. Not to mention how far away everything was when you were watching it in person and how because of this, you needed to turn your attention to a giant television that didn't have nearly as much resolution as your flat screen at home!

And that's not even getting into the possibility of being killed!

Or The fact that the place gave off a murderous aura directed towards people like me that sent a nonstop shiver down my spine.

Not to mention the cold, stale food we had to eat on the way down and fact that there really wasn't anywhere for other people to go to the bathroom.

So, in my goddess given option, only idiots wanted to experience the dungeon!

Which was just one of the reasons as I frowned at the giant that was so far off, it looked like I could have squished it between two fingers. Something that I probably could have done at my 'actual' size, but that was just a sacrifice for pouring my divinity into a form that wouldn't melt the brains of our little children for looking at me.

But, from what I could see, the monster turned around to let out a roar before taking a blast from some kind of magical attack that singed its arms up to its shoulders and some of its chest after it protected its head from the blow. Then, it fired a second attack when the smoke cleared.

And…

The blessing we give to our children is a two way street. After inscribing their souls with the falna, we become connected to them. Creatures with the ability to perceive that connection usually see it as a golden strand that flows from my back to each one of the people who I am connected to as my presence on this earth allows us to enhance and bring out their natural talents.

When that connection is severed, we feel it. It's nothing deeply profound. The string is cut, and the tiny pull that the particular child it had been connected to stops tugging at us. There's no name or face attached to the loss, it's just gone.

That was what it was like when I felt Anya die.

A very small part of me said it could have been someone else, but the timing was just too perfect. There was a blast, and then, one of my connections was just gone.

But the pain in my heart, the thing that tried to work its way up my throat, and the tears that blurred my vision, those all came from me.

So, I clenched my fist and sucked in my breath to bite a bit of my inner lip. If I just broke down without any reason to, everyone would wonder why.

I couldn't think about the little girl I had found amidst a ruin, desperately clinging to her older brother's back. I couldn't let thoughts of how I held her when she was still small enough to carry in my arms overwhelm me, or the times I made sure she was getting the right kind of food to compensate for the malnutritious state my familia had found her in. I couldn't remember how I hadn't actually wanted to take her, but did so because her brother Allen had looked so promising, or how Anya became my absolute favorite after she had been purposely chased out of our home so that she could find a new one at the Hostess of Fertility and work alongside me.

"BEEEEEEEEELLLLLLL!"

The sheik of absolute despair made me look over to Hestia as the girl dropped to her knees. I watched tears start to leak down her face and she needed to hold herself up with her hands to stop from just collapsing into the ground.

Anger welled up inside of me at the sight.

"No, no! This can't be real," Hestia mumbled.

Shut up, I told the girl from inside my head.

"He can't be gone. He just can't," she kept going.

You knew him for less than two months, I thought. So why is it, you're allowed to cry over him in front of everyone, when I can't shed a tear for my baby sister?

The little pallum in her furry disguise came up to Hestia, and I looked away to find Hermes averting his gaze from the monster. He even pulled his hat low to hide his eyes.

Then, there was another roar from Goliath, and I watched the monster fire off wave after wave of attacks before it reached forward and down towards the ground.

At which point, I felt a small tug on me again.

-Dresden-

I was once asked to explain magic to a man of science.

Waldo Butters was one of those guys who just couldn't accept the supernatural part of magic. He tried to quantify it with big words I think he just invented on the fly and his understanding of the world. Some of which, he could manage. He understood that the Mantle worked on some level by just turning off a person's natural inhibitor and pain receptors. He managed to brew potions with the help of a spirit of intellect to provide the juice, and power all sorts of nicknacks using the same principle.

To him, magic was just another type of science. Just a type of chemistry, biology, or math. Certain chemicals could be brought together and always ended up causing the same reaction. Two apples plus two apples always had to equal four apples.

Magic…as science.

It was what limited him.

Because magic wasn't science.

Science was the exploration of the unknown and charting of the natural laws of the universe. Everything had an explanation that allowed it to fit into these laws that governed everything. There was no real mystery. In a world governed by science…there was no such thing as magic.

Magic was the antithesis of science. Magic was the power to twist and in some cases outright ignore those natural laws. Magic was the ability to go two apples plus two apples equals five apples that just appear in front of me BECAUSE I FUCKING SAY SO!

A magical duel between wizards was literally an augment about how the other guy was supposed to die. One guy would say 'you burn to death' while pointing his wand and the other guy would go 'no! you get electrocuted' while raising his shield and a staff as they threw fire and lightning around. Then, whoever shouted the loudest or talked the fastest ended up getting the other guy to agree with him. Kind of like little preschoolers playing pretend, only…for real.

But even that isn't a proper description of magic.

Because it implies you need words, tools, and elemental energy to throw at each other.

Rules…for magic.

But, magic is about breaking rules.

And wizards, we learn to cheat the system better than anyone.

So, when the big nasty doll of ectoplasm opened its mouth to shout at me and send a pure wave of kinetic energy towards where me and the others were standing. I focused my Will and imposed my own rule over reality. It went something like: We're in a circle, and you can't touch us nya, nya, nya, nyah!

There was no chalk or blood on the ground, so I didn't have very much reality to grasp hold of with my Will and make my desires manifest, but I didn't need to. If the monster had spit fire, acid, ice, or just threw a rock at us, I wouldn't have been able to stop it with a circle. Those things were too real and would have kept going even if I had made something with a solid wire of copper.

But it didn't use something real. It just attacked with a pure wave of kinetic energy that had no real source beyond the monster's desire to crush us all flat. So when the big gigantic black monster roared and went 'YOU ALL GET SQUASHED!' I just went 'Nuh-uh!'

The creature's scream hit my insta-circle and I felt it's almost total lack of Will crash and fold up against someone who actually had a real brain. It hit us again, and again, with the same result each time. The attack knocked the dirt on the ground around and cracked some of the already crushed trees, but everyone standing inside the defense screen that might as well have been toilet paper…

"W-What happened?" Bell asked in a panic, "Why is it so dark all of a sudden?"

"Did my nose get stopped up, meow?" Anya asked.

"I feel…strange," Ryu mumbled.

"Ugh! Why are my bags so much heavier?" Asfi complained.

…well, they had been in better moods.

As for me, I became as nervous as hell. Because I actually knew how magic worked most of the time, which meant figuring out what was going on took about two seconds. The super powers the gods provided to their mortals worked by establishing a connection to that person and empowering them beyond human limits. Most of the power lay within the person, but it still required a tiny trickle of power from the god, like a magical extension cord, to coax that power to the surface. My circle had completely shut off that flow of power, making their Iron Man suit enchantments just sputter and die.

If not for the Banner, they might have gone into a blind panic.

Then, with a great deal of nervousness, I dropped the poorly constructed circle and did my best not to whistle innocently. "Um…is everyone okay?"

The borderline breakdown that each of the others was experiencing abated, and the four people standing with me stopped concerning themselves with themselves to focus on the monster again.

"T-That was weird," Bell said, voicing everyone's concerns.

And alleviating mine. I had no idea if when I dropped the circle, the gods would have needed to plug the cords back in personally or not. Which would have meant fighting the big nasty giant all on my own while protecting a bunch of nearly blind civilians. Although the growing fires from Bell's premature detonation meant they wouldn't have been completely blind.

Having given up on its shouting, Goliath moved towards us at a slow pace. Several of us got ready to scatter, but something coming from Anya made us all stop before she even spoke. "Mr Dresden, can you drop everyone into a hole and seal the top up real fast in about thirty seconds?" she asked while I saw Bell flexing his hand and drawing in some labored breaths.

We didn't need to waste time on explanations. I simply did as asked, creating a large sinkhole behind us before she started talking and Bell got one of Asfi's potions to chug. "Oh grey sky of my vanished home in the black of fall, among the ruins. My headless eyes ask the bronze statue, why? Why? I am a kitten, a lost wheel. I am tears, a sobbing servant. I call out to my home, but there is no answer. I ask the crow, but it is uncertain. That is why I cry, all alone. So, I sing on your back. PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME-" was all I heard before I sealed the hole above us, blocking out the sound as the giant had covered half the distance between my team and his oversized ass.

Once we were underground again, Bell's hand started to emit a tiny sparkling light and I gave the girl a ten count, then I shouted and cleared the dirt blocking our way before the four of us rushed back out.

"Go for the joints!" I yelled as the enormous monster looked down at us. "Remove its maneuverability and then we hit it from behind where it can't counter attack!"

"We know!" Asi and Ryu shouted at the same time that the elf ran ahead of us before the girl with the glasses asked the question. "Wait, was that your idea, or were you just voicing something from one of us?"

I groaned. "This is the second time I've done this, and do I honestly look like a guy who reads the instructions?" I demanded before we split up, with Asfi going high while I went low.

The creature was moving slower now. Which let Ryu get between the giant's legs before pivoting and launching herself at the left leg, slicing through the achilles tendon before she jumped back and went after the back of the creature's knee while Asfi flew up past the monster's damaged hands to toss some vials of acid right into both its eye sockets.

Then, Ryu went to striking at other spots, slowing the giant down even more as she started talking to nobody in particular. "In the sky of a now distant forest…"

Monsters came in from the opposite direction we did to catch the titan, only to be intercepted by Anya. With her weapon's longer reach, she danced back and forth to keep them off of me and Bell. I was supposed to keep the boy clear of danger until he could get his shot off, but…

"How long does that thing take to charge?" I yelled as I looked over at the sparkling hand that was literally ringing the dinner bell to attract every monster in the area that it could.

"Uh…maybe another minute-thirty," he told me as we moved between the blind monster's legs while doing our best to avoid being crusted as he stumbled onto one knee from Ryu's assault.

I looked at him in disbelief before turning around to face the giant that was already struggling.

"Screw it," I said before I raised my staff and…

Well…

Look, I had time, and when in Rome…

"I am the servant of the Secret Fire," I actually chanted as I took aim and reached deep inside of me. "Wielder of the Flame of Anor! The darkness will not avail you, Servant of Udun! Now, go back into the shadows! PYRO FUEGO!"

Oh and, harkening back to my explanation of magic, emotion is a powerful tool when using it. The more you want something to happen, the more power you can put into it. And there's a reason people have fight songs for each of their sports teams. It helps pump you up and get you in the mood.

So, since I was thoroughly pumped up, the white hot lance of energy that shot out of my staff was twice the size of what I had used on the previous giant monster and at a much better angle than before thanks to Ryu forcing it into a crouch. Which meant it was just the right size to completely wipe out everything above the monster's collarbone before continuing on until, like the last time I cast such a spell, it also hit the ceiling.

My vision doubled, and I leaned over on my staff to stay upright as a whole day of activity caught up with me again. There was a cool tingling throughout my entire body, the Mantle's way of telling me I was basically falling apart. But at least it was-"IT'S NOT OVER!"

I looked back up at Afsi's shout and grit my teeth as the monster slowly started to get back up, despite the lack of a head. Steam rose from the wounds, and I watched with gritted teeth as they started to close while Goliath pushed himself off of the knee he took.

"Bonnie, what gives?" I asked our resident monster expert.

A second later, the little angel appeared beside me. "Don't ask me! Despite the copy and paste body, that's a completely different monster than anything in my records! They obviously moved the crystal!"

There was a new sense of confusion under the banner, and I turned to see Bell just staring in bewilderment at my not-daughter. "What…the?"

"Oh! Hi Argonaut!" she said happily with a smile. "Do you have any new stories for me this time around?" Then, she flew in close. "Don't tell her, but Ryuluu is lame now! I don't think she even knows a single poem!"

"...huh?" Bell asked as his head cocked to the side.

"LUMINOUS WIND!"

Thankfully, Ryu hadn't been slouching in the interval and released her magical attack, peppering the Goliath's half-healed wounds with a barrage of glowing wind orbs that kept it in place while also opening up a few new holes.

"Oh! There's the crystal! It starts below the middle of his torso!" Bonnie said, pointing at something none of us could see. "Quick! Blast it Argonaut!"

Despite his confusion, or maybe because of my banner, Bell still managed to raise his hand and point it at the small of Goliath's back, where a tiny shimmer of purple could be seen. "FIRE BOLT!"

A lance of white hot fire that bore a similarity to mine flew out of the boy's hand to plow through the middle of the monster's spine and strike something inside of it. I heard something crack before the middle of Goliath's chest bulged just a bit and before red flames came out of every hole in the monster's torso. Then, it froze, and slowly started to dissipate. At least until it fell flat on its headless body and broke apart completely.

All around us, the fire illuminated the fact that the bears and other monsters that the big one had brought with him started breaking apart as it continued to burn. But, despite all the smoke that might kill us with the cancer it was going to cause, we stood over the quickly dissipating corpse of our enemy.

We had won.

-Syr-

I was dimly aware of Hestia making a racket, jumping up and down as she celebrated our children's victory before talking about how she always had faith that her Bell would come out on top. I…well, it certainly was something to celebrate, especially after I had thought I lost my little kitten, but something else I saw had frozen me many moments before that.

"Well now, isn't this amazing?" Hermes said as he casually walked over to me while Hestia had to be held back from just running down to where the monster was defeated by our guards several feet away and out of earshot. A few seconds later, the little ones went to working out a formation that would keep us all safe. "It's like after all this time, the age has finally started to move forward. It will be a new story, written by our children. A true familia myth."

"Hermes, did that annoying wizard do what I think he did?" I spoke up evenly before I turned my attention to the god. "Which would explain why you showed such interest in him the second you came through the door of my tavern."

A tiny laugh came from the man next to me as he pulled down the front of his cap. "Are we breaking character now, my dear Syr? Because as a DM, I may have to penalize you," he said with a smile. When I shot him a glare, the man gave me a nervous grin. "Hades was always big on security, including the latest in surveillance…well, not technology, but you get the point. And one of the things I saw was that the boy is now the last known wielder of Soul Fire."

I mind raced with the possibilities of just what that meant. Plans I had long since considered failed were rekindled in my mind. Hope that I hadn't dared to indulge in for more than ten years beat in my breast, and found myself feeling nervous about where such thoughts could go.

My face became a frown as I looked over to the young man. "He's mine."

"Well, first Bell and now the last living wizard. Aren't we the greedy one," Hermes said nervously before gulping as my frown deepened. "But, I have an interest in Bell Cranel due to…family obligations. Since I see that you're interested in him, I'll make you a deal. You leave the bunny and his goddess alone, I won't bother the wizard. Of course, we'll make a stipulation for world ending stuff, saving their lives, free will of the mortal that comes to us willingly and all that. But you don't meddle in my affairs and I won't meddle in yours." A small frown appeared on the god's face. "I heard what happened at Monsterphilia."

I snorted at the poor allusion. Hestia was never in any danger. The monsters I had Charmed were under orders to chase her. If anything had actually caught the girl, it would have just held her in place like an idiot. But, it did give me cause to counter. "Or I could have my children chop up your familia and drag you down here in chains so I could slit your throat so I can have both of them. We gods are greedy, after all," I told him before giving the man a nasty grin. "That's how you threaten someone."

The god shrugged. "Maybe I'd be worried if the old you was making those threats," Hermes told me before he got serious again as we started walking towards Hestia because she was calling us to hurry up. "But nowadays…the new you doesn't have it in her anymore."

I sneered at Hermes's naivety.

There was no new me.

And that was the problem.

-Ryu-

I sat down on a fallen log that the flames hadn't consumed as we all took a moment to catch our breath. The unexpected boss fight had been harder than my experience said it should have been. Which I knew because my old familia had downed the real Goliath over a dozen times.

A bit of fear ran along the back of my mind and I…blinked at how it meant nothing to me. The depression I had felt after seeing Alise, the terror at the thought of losing Syr that had gotten me out of that tent, the fear over the realization that the increased monster spawns and now a floor boss in a safe zone, it was all still there, but…distant. It was more like someone was telling me I was afraid rather than my mind actually feeling it.

Anya's spell had weakened the creature enough for a level four party to take it down. A party that was given instant coordination, at any rate. The fact that it all came from a special ability was actually terrifying. Would it work the same for a full-sized army?

"We did it, Ms Ryu!"

I looked up at the enthusiastic smiling boy with the white hair and couldn't help but return a shadow of his expression. It was obvious why Syr had become interested in Bell Cranel. He was a ernest, caring and all around good kid.

At least, it had been obvious. Until yesterday, Syr had been a huge unknown and possible refugee from the North, with a head full of knowledge that just wasn't commonly known in Orario. But last night, she knocked on the door of Heaven and got someone to answer. As far as I knew, that was the only time anything like that had ever occurred. Hestia had even said I was wasting my time, so did that mean even the gods were unable to replicate such a feat?

I didn't know if I needed to be thankful, or bow down in reverence to whatever I thought the thing that had been my friend was.

"BEEEEEEEEEEEEEL!"

A second after the cheerful calling out of his name occurred, I saw the short goddess nearly tackle the boy before she latched onto him around the waist. Bell just gave the impossibly old girl a nervous laugh. "Oh, hello goddess. I'm glad to see you're safe too!"

"What happened? I thought you died!" Hestia wailed as she looked up at the boy with tears in her eyes.

I blinked at the question. Bell was equally confused, and just stared at her until the short pallum disguised as another species ran up to try and separate them. "Hold on Lady Hestia! Bell could be hurt, you need to get off him before you aggravate his injuries!"

As the two of them got into an argument, my thoughts turned inward. It hadn't been my imagination, then. For an instant our falna had stopped working. If not for the Banner, I would have hugged myself in fear.

The blessing of the gods was the adventurer's only lifeline. Even though I was…separated from Lady Astraea, her falna on my back gave me the strength I needed to survive. If there was something wrong with it…

No, I told myself as I replayed the incident in my mind. All of us suffered all loss of our power at the same time. Had it been an effect of the monster? Some status effect it could cast? It had been absolutely terrifying.

No, it should have been terrifying.

But it wasn't. In fact, I had just casually noted how things had gotten darker and my muscles started to ache from being too strained. Then, those worries that I hadn't bothered to feel were cast aside because there was still an enemy to deal with.

Dresden's power was still active, I told myself as I looked around for the tall man and…

"What the hell were you thinking, you idiot?" Syr demanded as she continuously kicked the much taller man in his shins while Anya stood nearby, holding the potion satchel. Judging by the soot on Syr's cheek and how it was also smudged on Anya, the waitress with the light grey hair had been hugging the small kitten and checking over her like Hestia had with Bell.

Even Asfi was being paid more attention to by her god than normal.

Everyone was getting fussed over by their gods. Or…close enough, in Anya's case. She had been the first girl Syr had taken in, shortly after the Hostess of Fertility had opened up, according to their stories. The two of them had been together for nearly a decade.

I decided to lean back on my palms and let the matter go for now.

"Looks like we missed quite the party," Lunoire said as she and the other woman who tried to kill me when we first met walked up from behind. The pair of former assassins patted me on my shoulders, which made me tense up. Even though clothes, being touched by someone else still caused me stress.

"Mew should probably head for the ponds to get washed up, meow," Chloe added. "Even with all those idiots working on digging out the exit to the Middle Floors, it's going to be hours before they make any headway."

I sighed dejectedly. It looked like we were going to be on this mess of a floor for a bit longer. Which…may have been for the best. Once I got back to the surface, I would need to face something far more terrifying than a giant monster. Lady Hestia had a point, even if I wasn't sure about her claims in regards to my excommunication, I needed to see Lady Astraea again. I had hidden behind my guilt for Alise's death for long enough.

"And how are you doing, Ryu?"

Syr's voice made me look up at her to see the girl coming over with Anya not far behind. I opened my mouth to answer, when another question occurred to me. We were still beneath the banner, so the fear that sprouted at asking such a question was a moot point. My purely logical reasoning told me that keeping secrets of the magnitude that Syr was doing was a bad idea.

She was my family, and I deserved an answer.

"Syr, what are-"

My question was cut off by the sound of an explosion so massive, I couldn't even hear my own words. Above the treeline, I watched the rocks comprising the eastern wall of floor eighteen crack and split before they fell from their place and crashed into the ground below, prolonging the deafening racket. Nearly the entirety of the eastern wall just collapsed in on itself to the point that halfway up, I could see the rainbow-like glow that came from the Wall of Lamentation from the floor above coming through some of the larger cracks.

"Well, I guess that's one way to do it," Dresden said before I felt the emotional protection of his ability start to decline. "Although, did they just cause another cave-in on top of the other one? Is that just going to make the work worse?"

That level of destruction, added to everything the Golaith had already done…

I stood up, my eyes widening in fear as I looked at him before he could withdraw it completely. "Put it back up, PUT IT BACK UP NOW!" I screamed at him as I felt panic clawing at the outside of my rational mind, threatening to turn me into a useless cowering ball of emotion.

By some miracle, Dresden did as instructed as I felt my massing emotions get pushed to the side right before I felt more than heard a deafening scream that reverberated through my very soul. I felt Chloe and Lunoire's presence without even seeing them as they were added to our group to help shoulder the burden of my maddening levels of fear.

"Goddess, what's going on?" Bell cried out.

"HOW SHOULD I KNOW?" Hestia yelled.

"Lord Hermes?" Asfi asked.

"Um…this wasn't us," he said while looking around.

Out of range of my sight, I could hear a group of people cheering, coming from the same direction as the ruined wall. As they did, I looked back up above them to notice a new form falling from the dimly lit sky. Past experience and a strange hooded mage connected with the Guild had given me all the information I needed to know about the creature.

Like how to avoid ever seeing it again.

Compared to the first monster, it was tiny, perhaps half the size of his foot. Composed of nothing but obsidian black bones, it was completely curled up to one-fourth its usual size in a ball as it just fell from the sky, its long and deadly tail wrapped around its whole body two or three times. While it didn't look nearly as dangerous as the first one, I would have classified it as at least three times as deadly, if not moreso.

"Another monster spawn?" Bell asked nobody before he frowned. "It's going to land on top of all those people!"

"No, stop!" I screamed at him desperately, my own emotions actually winning out against whatever power was trying to keep them in check.

Bell skidded to a halt and looked back at me, confused. "What is it?"

Not far away, I heard Dresden groan. "Ah crap, another one of those things? I thought you guys said monsters were supposed to stick to particular floors."

I jumped up and moved over to him as fast as I could. "You've run into something like this before?" I demanded. "WHERE?"

Dresden groaned and broke eye contact with me as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Uh, the first one?" he said, making my mouth drop. "I-uh, just ran away from it and about a hundred other different monsters before I went through a tunnel and sealed the whole thing off with ice."

So, he hadn't actually killed the thing. And if the dates in my head were correct, the Dresden would have come back from the dungeon the weekend the dungeon had been closed to repair some problems with the gateway area. Meaning that nobody had been down on the first few floors. If what the Guild told me about the creature was true, it would have just run out of magical power and turned into dust on its own after failing to find anyone to kill for so many hours.

"Ryu?" Syr asked me, concern in her voice and on her face as she clutched the bag of potions Dresden had given her earlier. "What's going on?"

The godsend that was the bag of potions made my eyes widen. Dresden had mentioned a magical potion that would take whomever drank it away from danger. "Syr, how many escape potions do we have?" I demanded.

The girl blinked before opening the bag and looking inside at an angle that I could also see the interior. Six snow white opaque liquid contains the size of my fist were arranged in two rows of three. Sometime between when he handed them out and we got to the safe floor, Dresden must have recollected them, because six potions were inside the satchel. Six potions for twelve people.

I looked back to Dresden. "Please tell me each one of these has two doses."

He got a little nervous. "That's not how I brew them anymore."

The monster landed, and the screams started reaching my ears a moment later.

"We have to go help them!" Bell yelled before he took off again. What was worse was that when he went into the trees, I felt him leave the protection of the banner.

My cold, calculating, logical mind came up with the proper response to the situation: so much for him.

I had much more important things to deal with than the boy that ran towards his death.

As for the six potions, I knew what needed to be done. Anya, Chloe, Luniore, myself, Syr, and…one more. Dresden, the man Syr had shown such interest in. We needed to drink the magical elixirs and just leave the others to die.

After all, they were just a worthless smith, a lousy pickpocket, a pair of gods with no connection to me, and Asfi. Not a single one of them held a candle to my family. I'd feel guilty for a little while when I got back home, but it was nothing compared to the loss that would crush me if any of my girls didn't make it home.

Then Syr reached into the bag, and gave a potion to Lilly. "The gods and the people the rescue party came for should leave now," she said in a tone that brooked no argument. Then, she looked over to Asfi. "Can you fly up to the next floor through those cracks near the ceiling?"

"I think so," she said before turning her gaze towards the crack of light. "It may be big enough for someone to slip through. I don't know if two people can fit at the same time, but I should be able to at least. I can ferry the others up after I go up and find a route through. I've got some acid left in case I need to widen a crack. Don't know how long it'll take, though."

"But I want to stay and help Bell!" Lilly cried out when Syr handed her the escape elixir.

Welf put a hand on the girl's shoulder as he wore a mood of depressed resignation. "We'd just be in the way."

After a bit, the two of them drank their potions. It was an interesting experience to watch them just vanish. It was like they just…blew away into the wind before completely disappearing after a second. Hermes was the next to go.

"Hurry and fly home, little bird," he told the girl with the blue hair.

Asfi blinked in surprise as she watched him vanish. "Oh…shit," she mumbled before looking over to me. "This is really bad, isn't it?"

I didn't see any need to sugar coat it. "This is the same type of monster that wiped out my familia," I told her. "We were an exploration familia specialized in combat, and it killed half of us in less than five minutes."

"You next," Syr told the goddess as she handed the girl a bottle.

"Not until Bell drinks his!" Hestia replied fiercely.

The instance made me grit my teeth. "He doesn't get one. The last potion is for the girl holding the bag."

"But there's still two left!" Hesia yelled back at me.

I looked over to the bag and frowned. Two potions remained, not counting the one Hestia still had.

Had I miscounted?

"Hm?" Dresden noised as he looked at the bag with a frown, then to Syr.

"I want to make sure Bell gets out of here too," Syr said as she took the last two vials and dropped the satchel.

If my emotions had been deciding things, I would have knocked Hestia on the head and sent Anya back with Syr by porting the magic potions down their throats. "Fine, usual formation. Chloe, distract it as soon as we engage. If we're lucky and there's a clear tunnel waiting for us to get out of here, we'll circle the monster while holding it off and then escape. It shouldn't leave the safe zone."

-Bell-

I ran towards the screaming as fast as I could with no other thought in my mind. I must have outpaced the area of effect that Dresden's ability had, because as soon as I did, I really started to wonder if what I was doing was a good idea. Lady Freya didn't exactly like these guys, and they had tried to kill me. But saving people was what a hero did, right?

Even if they were attempted…murderers?

Stuck in my moral quandary, I cleared the woods and started to think I made a mistake.

In front of me, nearly twelve adventurers surrounded the strange monster that looked like a walking skeleton made of smooth black rock in the shape of a prehistoric beast. Twice as tall as a man and as long as a single person rowboat, it had four legs with sharp claws shaped more like large knives than anything in the animal kingdom. Then there was its tail, which was as long as its body and then some, snaking its way through the air behind it with a stinger that was more akin to a manmade sword than anything natural.

Behind the adventurers was a ring of…well…corpses wasn't the right word. A body had to be in mostly together to be a corpse. What was in front of me was a red ring that had bits and pieces of people scattered all around it. The sight reminded me of tales about how people used to throw the organs of dead animals in the water to attract sharks.

And the monster was the shark.

"If we don't kill this thing, we can't get out!" the adventurer leading the group said, making the rest of the twelve warriors cheer in agreement.

Then, the monster flicked its tail in a blur of motion I could barely see, and there were only six warriors left. Everyone behind it had been bisected.

"Bell! Come back!" I heard the goddess's voice from behind me call out.

Immediately, the monster turned to my direction, and I put up a guard on instinct, despite the fact that I was well outside its range. Then, it looked like it stretched from where it was to me in a blur of motion and time seemed to slow down as I found myself in the air while the world turned upside down.

Something caught my attention at the edge of my vision, and I looked over to see an appendage holding an ashen black knife turn over and over in the air.

I blinked at the sight. Is that…my arm? I asked myself before I felt something slam into my side and speed time back up, or maybe I was just moving faster, and I lost the feeling in everything from the waist down before I hit the ground, rolled, got into the air again, hit the ground again, bounced one last time to finally landed before I slid to a stop in front of Hestia.

She looked…scared…for some reason.

And…why was she crying?

I reached up to try and dry her tears and…

Oh…right…my arm is gone… I told myself as I looked at the bleeding stump that had been there before.

I just had to use my other one then. So, I reached up with it and…she took it before I could reach her. "Bell, Bell…it's going to be okay, it's going to-to…b-be…"

"Goddess Hestia…I can't…feel my…legs," I told her as everything started to go dark.

Then, Ms Syr was there.

Or was it Lady Syr? Since she was really the goddess Freya.

Wouldn't have been better to just call her Lady Freya then?

That was so confusing.

"Stop being useless you idiot!" not-Syr scolded Hestia before I felt something hit my chest.

It was my hand.

Lady Freya had given me a hand.

Then, she shoved something white with a long neck down my throat. "Drink fool!" in a very not-Syr way before she looked back behind her. Not at Hestia, the goddess was on the left, and she was looking to the right and frowning before she started talking in a much quieter tone through her teeth. "Shut up you idiot! I don't care how relieved you are. Get Heith to the dungeon entrance, now!"

And then…everything went black…

-Dresden-

When Afsi left the group, she packed up the mental awareness we had of her and took it with her. I didn't need to be a genius to know she wasn't coming back, even if she did find a way to a higher floor. More than likely, that last line Hermes told her was some kind of code to get the hell out of dodge and just let everybody die.

I couldn't blame her either.

I really wished that I could have gotten the same 'emotions off' ability like everybody else under my banner had. It made me feel like Picard in the Star Trek movie. You know, the good one, when they're all facing certain death and the robot just goes 'Okay! Not afraid anymore'. But no, the guy giving the 'buff' as they called it here, didn't get to benefit from it. I'm sure Butters would have lectured me on the finer points of party raid mechanics and why the most vital member for group cohesion was also in the most mental danger of a breakdown, but he wasn't here anymore.

Which was a shame, because when running up to the danger zone and getting a briefing on our target, how it had impossible reaction time, long jumping range that let it go from zero to nine-thousand in an instant, was equipped with an anti-magic shield, and automatically reflected any spell cast at it…I really felt like just saying 'fuck that' and heading in the opposite direction. A magical weapon that was powered by an angel would have been real nice right about now.

But, it wasn't the first time I had run into nigh-impossible odds and come out on top. In fact, I tended to go up against a heavier hitter every time that was way worse than the last and still win!

Which…really made me wish I hadn't thought about that. The last thing I went toe to toe with was a fucking proto-god that laid the smackdown on Odin.

Still, that didn't mean I couldn't think up at least half a dozen ways to get around that little problem of an inability to attack it with magic directly.

When we got to the field of battle, I wasted a precious second to see Bell Cranel's corpse lying on the ground. It was missing an arm, and most of his guts had been spilled out along a trail that ended at his body. The goddesses behind us let out a scream upon seeing him and attracted the thing's attention.

I didn't pay it any real mind out of a need for survival. There was a brief pang of sympathy, but I had lost people I had known for years just last week and managed to struggle through the toughest battle of my life. One child dead because he ran ahead instead of staying with the team didn't affect me that much.

Since a direct attack with magic wasn't going to work, I focused on the ground beneath it. "GEODAS!" I cried out before a hole appeared beneath the monster that caused it to fall part way before it lashed out with its tail. But before it could alter its trajectory and try to climb out, if it wasn't going to pull itself out with the xenomorph-inspired limb, I cast again to push the earth together and slam the hole closed when it was trapped halfway within the earth.

I felt pleased with myself for a whole two seconds before Ryu hit me with the horrible news. "That's not going to stop the Juggernaut."

I looked over to the elf that had named the creature in disbelief. "You're telling me this now?"

-Hestia-

The potion worked.

Twice. Right as Bell disappeared, I drank mine in one gulp. It tasted disgusting and made me want to puke, but it did its job, transmogrifying me into one of the base mystical elements of the universe before responding to my desire to get to safety and sending me through eighteen floors of tooth and claws. A human probably wouldn't have been able to perceive much of anything, but me…I saw all the monsters I passed, the Goliath that had respawned early and Asfi as she flew like mad to avoid it rather than going back to help the others, the Loki Familia as they argued about going back to see what the two earthquakes were about or report back to their goddess and get further instructions on all the weird happenings, the top members of the Freya Familia as they hurried down floor twelve without bothering to pick up magic stones from anything they killed while practically running over anyone who got in their way, and all of the mess that was being caused by a huge monster spawn happening everywhere between levels sixteen to six.

Then, I was flesh and blood again, standing on the bottom of the long stairwell that connected the first floor of the dungeon to the entrance of Babel. What some liked to call Floor Zero.

Bell was at my feet. His breathing had stopped and it looked like the only thing that connected his legs to his upper body was his spine. His severed arm was still in his remaining hand, with the Hestia Knife in a deathgrip, but…everything else was just gone. Whatever magic drove the potion had decided that the organs between Bell's ribcage and his pelvis weren't a part of him anymore.

The few midmorning adventurers that were getting a late start, a group of four humans I didn't recognize, stood halfway down the stairs, just looking at us in disbelief.

"I NEED HELP!" I screamed at them in desperation. "Potions, magic, something! Please!" I begged the four men just staring at me.

"Is that a goddess?"

"Where did she come from?"

"Isn't this against the rules?"

"Uh…Ms Goddess…that guy…he's-"

I didn't let him finish. "HE'S NOT DEAD!" I said to the man who was too blurry to know what was going on. Stupid blurry people never knew what was going on.

Knowledge from my previous life in the previous world came to mind. That Hestia had been some kind of playwright star about cooking in front of people or something. I didn't really bother to go through all those old memories since they were stupid and boring. But, she had known a lot about the human body, more than most people today did. Like how you can keep someone alive by pressing down on their heart and keep it beating.

So, that was what I did. I put my hands on Bell's chest and started forceful compressions. One. Two. Three. Four.

One. Two. Three. Four.

One. Two. Three. Four.

I stopped when I remembered something else. I had to breathe into his mouth.

Only…more memories told me that breathing into his mouth to create oxygen flow was useless.

SO WHICH IS IT? I mentally asked the old me.

I heard something from above, and looked up in surprise at the three new appearances that stood over the unconscious forms of the four adventurers who had just stood there while I asked for help. I didn't feel too sorry for them getting knocked out.

The three newcomers frowned at me and Bell. There was a short young man with blue hair and two swords at his hip, dressed in a black military uniform with gold trim. A woman in white with pink hair done in pigtails very similar to mine held a staff over the two of us while a third woman with silver hair that covered one of her eyes stood in a black dress behind both of them.

"Well?" the woman in black asked.

"He's there, if barely…one moment," the other woman said before the crystal on her white staff lit up. "My name is Gold. The arm of the Goddess who took an oath of immortality. Burned thrice, pierced forever. The flaming spear prison, the light that kills death. Curse, Curse, Curse. My body is gold. Now, here comes the endless struggle under the reviving light!"

"Tch, can't believe we're supposed to save this runt," the man with blue hair, who was about the same height as me grumbled as I watched Bell become enveloped in the light of the healing magic.

It was so bright, even I had to look away for a moment. But, when it was done, my Bell was completely whole. The whole thing had taken less than ten seconds. I couldn't believe my luck at running into one of the few healers in the entire world that could have saved my Bell.

Which…meant it wasn't luck.

"Van, retrieve him," the woman in the dress said.

I stood up to get in their way. "Wait a minute."

The short blue boy's mouth twisted in annoyance and he actually looked like he was going to strike me, a goddess, but the woman in the white dress spoke up. "Lady Hestia, my spell may have repaired the damage, but it takes a toll on the body and does not refill lost blood or nutrients. Bell Cranel is still in a great deal of danger and will need several days of carefully monitored care if he is to have any hope of recovery."

Then, the second woman spoke. "Our goddess has decreed that boy is not allowed to die today. Now, move aside, or you will be moved."

I looked back at the child on the ground and gulped. "Oh, Bell."

-Dresden-

There was something I was coming to learn about the new world I had woken up in. The gods had an overwhelming sense of nostalgia that even trumped their sick sense of humor. In fact, it usually mixed with that sense of humor to become something dark and disturbing, if a little predictable.

So, when a monster called the Juggernaut appears, the last thing I'm going to do is try and repeat a movie scene from an underrated franchise that never got its proper swan song. Because, as predicted, in less than a minute I trapped the monster in the earth, it looked at its predicament and let out a roar as if to say, "I'M THE JUGGERNAUT, BITCH!"

Then, the earth erupted in a flurry of dirt and stone as the monster ripped its way out of my filled sinkhole to flail around at us.

However, some things did occur in the meantime. The girls had managed to get Bell out of danger, and the small army of backup we had…promptly ran away to start chipping away at the rocks that still blocked the exit, or started trying to scale the massive wall that promised those who went on a strict diet of liquids might have been able to wiggle their way through the exit all the explosions had created.

With coordination born from magic and years of togetherness, the four women I had seen delivering food and wiping tables more than cleaning house in monster filled caverns moved in together before separating to come at the beast from three different directions. With the banner, I could feel the maddening panic on the edge of Ryu's mind that would have turned her into a gibbering mess upon seeing that thing get pushed to the side as she followed Lunoire in the charge as the cats came at the monster's head from opposite sides.

The Juggernaut swiped at the girl who relied on martial arts more than weapons nearly too fast for me to follow, only to have her dance backwards and allow Ryu to move in and parry the blow so that Lunoire could launch herself back in on the monster's face and land a trio of strikes. At the same time that Ryu was knocking aside the claws in her followup maneuver, Chloe finished casting a spell that created two illusionary doubles and went in from the right. Juggernaut struck out at her with its tail, spearing a mirror image and allowing Chloe to nail it in the shoulder of the front arm that was holding the front of the beast up while Ryu was blocking its claws. Then, Anya came in and used her spear's reach to stab at the tail while standing near the arm Ryu had occupied, keeping the deadly appendage from redirecting its momentum to skewer Chloe from behind a second before all four of the girls pulled back.

The whole exchange took less than eight seconds.

"Are we hurting this thing at all?" Lunoire asked.

Ryu pulled out one of the short Japanese knives she had on her belt and tossed it to the woman without weapons. "It's not built for physical defense. Go after the joints. Wear it down and pick it apart piece by piece. If we fight like this…we might actually be able to bring this monster down."

The Juggernaut crouched and then the girls tensed.

"It's charging, meow!" Anya yelled. Her voice was a scraggly thing compared to what it had been at the start of the Goliath fight.

"Against what? We're all right…" Ryu's voice trailed off when she looked back at where the monster was aiming.

I did the same and grit my teeth. Where the boy had been moments ago, Syr was still crouching in the grass while Hestia and Bell were long gone.

"SYR!" Ryu screamed in a panic before, instead of going after the girl without any hope of making it to her in time, she launched herself at the Juggernaut again without the help of the others. She went after one of the legs and barely managed to get her wooden sword up in time when Juggernaut brought its tail around to try and bisect her. The magical wooden sword was turned into splinters and Ryu was sent flying off to its side before the creature launched itself at the silvery blonde girl.

Still, the two seconds Ryu had gained us weren't wasted. I had time to raise my hand and focus my Will in a very specific action. "INFRIGA!"

A carefully crafted block of ice appeared in front of Syr to take the hit from Juggernaut's attack. And, just like many heroes in the comics that I took inspiration from, I didn't try to stop the Juggernaut. I had crafted my defense to take advantage of the momentum that such an attack needed. The block of ice I made was extremely lopsided in both shape and density. When the Juggernaut struck it, the ice turned his harpoon of a nose rather than take the blow head-on. So, the speeding death machine slid off to the right and missed the girl before crashing into the woods off to her side.

With the creature momentarily stunned from the unexpected redirection, I ran after it to keep it in my sights while putting everything I had left into my next move.

When it came to the resources I had at my disposal, there was three of them. The first was my natural magic talent, further augmented by the things I wore and used. My staff was carved from a tree taken from an island overflowing with dark magic and made by me just a few years prior, using all my experience and frustration over previous setbacks when I had a year of time to kill. Then there was Soul Fire, something I had been given permission to use by an angel of the Lord Almighty, something that had the power to turn my suggestions of how reality should be into practical universal law. Then, there was the Mantle of Winter, a combination power boost, physical enhancement, and all around means of slowly turning me into a psychopathic killer on the level of the Joker.

Mixing and matching my natural talent with one or the other usually turned out pretty well, even if it winded me for a bit. The only time when I had mixed all three was when a clan of giant flaming…well giants from the old Norse legends had decided to stomp their way across Chicago and burn the city down simply by walking through it. It had nearly frozen me from the inside while burning me alive from the outside.

And now, I had the stupid idea of trying to one up myself.

I reached down into the dark depths of my mind where I did my best to keep the wolf that was Winter locked away so it couldn't devour my conscience and opened the cage to draw on it as much as I could. Frost formed on my hand and I watched the air I breathed out make ice crystals from the moisture in the air that turned into short lived snow as it fell.

Then, I turned my attention to something deeper inside of me. There was no physical place where you put a soul. It was all around you, and yet nowhere at the same time. Beyond the physical, someplace literally spiritual that we carried around in a way that science couldn't hope to explain. I took a piece of that flame and added it to the cold sensation covering my body, mixing the two in ways both natural and its opposite. Like last time, it felt like my head was going to explode and the saliva in my mouth boiled before I spit it out to watch it freeze into a bit of hail on its way to the ground.

I drew in a deep breath and…really wished I had more in the way of ice puns I could fire off when I didn't have the time to think of any on the spur of the moment. "INFRIGA" I shouted before my Will and Winter told reality that the was a fucking glacier standing in front of me, ammount of moisture in the air be damned.

Then, to complete my finishing move, I held up my staff and drew it back. Like my rings, my staff was a container of physical force. It was a cannon that I carried around with me for times when hitting someone with a speeding truck wasn't enough to put down the bad guy. Rings of runes that spiraled down my staff some thirty-seven times came to life in a green light as I called up the stored power within before I slammed it into the mass of ice in front of me. "FORZARE!"

And I hit the Juggernaut with a goddamn avalanche.

Tons of frozen death fell upon the creature, burying it in an icy tomb that was held together by magical power that told physics ice wasn't that easily broken.

I fell back, literally.

But, before my ass could hit the ground, someone caught me in a pair of powerful arms, and I looked up to see the blonde girl from the bar that had literally punched dinosaurs to death a few floors up take me in a bridal carry like I weighed nothing as my staff clattered to the ground. "Time to retreat, Mr Dresden."

The land around be blurred with speed, and the next thing I knew, I was looking at Ryu as she clutched an arm covered in blood and glaring at a nervous Syr. "WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU STILL DOING HERE?" she shouted in a panic even my banner couldn't keep out of her voice.

Syr looked around nervously. "I…um…well…"

"You had a potion!" Ryu screamed at a lower volume as she couldn't maintain the air needed to berate her friend at that volume.

"But Bell didn't," Syr said, making Ryu pause. Then, the noncombatant collected herself. "I knew Hestia wouldn't leave without him. So, I took Hermes's empty bottle before he disappeared. Then, I made her think we had enough for everyone. I was going to give it to him so she would leave but…when I saw him…I couldn't just let him die, Ryu."

Ryu seethed at the girl. "He's still going to die!" she said before pointing at the bloody trail of ick that Bell had left on the ground. "His liver is right over there!"

"He can still be healed," Syr told Ryu evenly before she took in another breath and glanced over at me while Lunoire helped me stand on my own two feet. "And what the hell do you think you're doing? Use the spear and kill that thing already!"

I…blinked. "Um…what?" I asked.

Syr frowned at me. "Fine, the Dagger of Destiny then," she said before taking a step towards me. "Take it out, turn it on, and…hell, scrape the damned monster! That alone will turn it to dust."

Everyone in the group started to look confused as I started to catch on a little bit. "Didn't you say it was worthless without an angel?"

"What the hell do you think angles are made of you idiot?" Syr screamed at me. "So take it out, fire it up, and stab something!"

I blinked again. That…made a good deal of sense.

But…there was one tiny problem with Syr's foolproof plan.

"Um…I didn't bring it," I admitted.

Syr gaped at me. The kind of gape where the body just goes limp, and you think that the only thing holding someone up is a little string attached to the back of the neck.

"You said it was worthless!" I told her in self defense, again.

"That was before I knew you had the Fire of Creation, moron!" Syr yelled at me before her expression actually became one of worry. "Oh Heavens, we really are going to die!"

Behind us, Anya let out a gasp only someone who was part cat could manage. "We can't let Syr die!" she said before looking over to the elf. "Ryu…think of something!"

The question made her reach up and grab her sword arm. "I used all my magic healing myself, and we're on the second day without any sleep. Maybe if we ran into this thing yesterday, but my body has about ten minutes of fight time left, that's not enough to take it down."

"My throat hurts too much to cast my spell again," Anya complained as she rubbed the front of her neck. She must have been out of it if she wasn't using her cat puns.

"Well, don't look at me-ow," Chloe said when some of us turned in her direction.

Lunoire cleared her throat. "Can you uh…bury it some more, or something?" she asked me.

I groaned as my body protested at the question. "I'm out of gas," I told them before realizing that particular analogy probably meant nothing to them. "Lantern oil." Except, they didn't use oil for lanterns. "Whatever the hell you people use for fuel, I'm out of it."

"Coal or firewood," Syr absently told me.

I turned towards Syr. "Hey, you're the genius here, you think of something."

My comment got a frown from the goddess in disguise. "Like what?"

"Something that turns the tide and avoids the ending where we all die!" I told her. I had pulled so many people out of the fire at the thirteenth hour with plans devised on the fly, I deserved someone to do the same to me every one in a while dammit!

Ryu groaned. "Dresden, leave her alone. We might be able to hold that thing off long enough for Syr to find a hiding place. If she's lucky, that will keep her safe until the dungeon either unblocks the exit, or someone comes to kill it."

Syr was silent as I saw her frown and look at nothing. The kind of looking at nothing that just screamed she was doing some heavy thinking. Then, she slowly turned her gaze to each of the girls and I could almost see the scales behind her eyes going up and down. "...Dresden, do you know how to draw mystical energy from a leyline?"

I saw where she was going, and threw the idea away immediately. "If you think I'm stupid enough to try summoning and binding the dungeon's genius loci-"

"No you idiot!" she snapped. "I'm talking about my well of power!"

I blinked. That was…something I hadn't considered possible. "Uh…I can do that?"

Well, there was using magic in a ritual, but even Syr's quick preparation type of ritual would take too much time to do. Plus, I would be a sitting duck. And, I had never heard of anything like combat magic being cast as part of a group while linked in such a way.

Syr took in another deep breath and gulped as she became visibly nervous. She swept her gaze over the girls and gulped before looking back to me. When she spoke again, it was like she was pulling out her own teeth. "You can…if there's a mystical connection between us, l-like a…falna."

I blinked when what she was getting at hit me. The falna connected the people to their gods. A link like that might work as a way to draw power from them as well, as long as you had someone who knew how to use it and a god willing to give a little. But…it also sounded a hell of a lot like a leash.

The more paranoid part of my brain sprung up and connected the dozen things Syr and I had done in the past few days to show me how she had manipulated everything in order to put us in this moment. But, when I actually looked at the conspiracy theory with my more rational mind…it fell flat rather quickly. Especially when Syr only saved Bell because she had thought I was packing something of equal power to a divine sword.

"What're you guys talking about?" Lunoire asked.

Anya snorted. "Uh, Syr's a goddess, duh!"

All of the girls, including Syr turned to just stare at the catgirl with a mix of dumbfounded expressions. Ryu was the first to break out of the trance and smacked her face before shaking her head and mumbling something along the lines of 'I'm an idiot'.

"Oh! That's why she doesn't have any sweat stains on her uniform in the summer," Chloe reasoned.

"Plus," Anya said as she raised her hand and started counting off on her fingers. "She doesn't take any bathroom breaks, I never smelled her fart, her underwear doesn't stink like butt-"

Syr didn't let the kitten finish. "That's how you figured me out?!"

After letting out several laughing 'mews' Anya crossed her arms and smirked. "Never underestimate Detective Anya!" she said before becoming a little more serious. "Plus, you don't age."

"I made this body to look like I'm eighteen!" Syr told her.

Anya didn't let up. "Which you've looked like for over six years!" she countered before frowning. "I've got a falna that slows my aging! What's your excuse?"

Lunoire looked around, completely confused. "Okay, I'm willing to buy Syr's a goddess since, you know, she clobbers us at cards all the time when it comes to betting chores," she said before pointing at me. "But how in the hell is he slinging spells WITHOUT A BLESSING?"

"...I don't suppose you'd take it's magic, as the explanation?" I asked. It was my usual goto for explaining the unexplainable. Only, judging by the glares of three girls, it wasn't going to work this time.

Chloe pointed to Syr. "You owe me about fifty dirty dish days!" she said before her hand moved to me. "And mew-"

Our discussion was put to an abrupt end when I caught the noise of ice cracking and being moved around. Then, something broke out of the small mountain of frozen boulders that had melted together to try and trap the creature beneath them. Once it was out again, Juggernaut shouted his one and only line in an alien language. "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!"

It made me wish the damn thing would learn another catchphrase.

Ryu let out a sigh and slowly stood up. "How long do you need?"

"I um…maybe five minutes," Syr told him after thinking for a moment. "Um…Ryu…"

"We'll talk later…Lady Syr."

I could almost see the painful arrow pierce Syr's heart at the comment as she flinched at the title. The other girls got up too and equipped their weapons before taking a place in front of us.

"Hold on a second!" I cried out before I looked at the goddess. "I didn't agree to this!"

Syr frowned back at me. "Then, do you have a better idea? Because I will gladly take anything that doesn't involve us dying!"

Up on the arctic mountain, the Juggernaut crouched and made to leap forward. Only, when it tried, the melting ice gave way under the force it tried to use, and it ended falling on its face before it slid down the hill that was quickly becoming sludge.

I wracked my brain to pull something out of my ass as some last second plan to save us all and…came up with nothing that didn't involve the use of magic. So, I looked over to the armband hidden under my coat. "Uh…Bonnie, I don't suppose you have any ideas."

The spirit was silent for several seconds. "Take the deal, old man. Death isn't an option for you. Going to Heaven isn't going to end well either, right now."

Well, that didn't sound very appealing. I gulped at the news and…I cursed at the situation. It wasn't like the last time I had been in such a tight spot. I could still use my legs for crying out loud! There just wasn't anywhere I could have run to.

As the girls charged off to battle, Syr worked to get my jacket off before she pulled up the back of my blue shirt. Once it felt the touch of the open air on my skin, I looked back to see Syr bit her finger and wince with a curse. "Just so you know, I'm not going to be your personal butler or anything after this."

The goddess snorted and rolled her eyes. "As if you'd fit the uniform."

The blood of a goddess on my back felt weird. All tingly and warm. Syr bled red, which made me raise an eyebrow. Hadn't the titan I dealt with had golden ichor running down her skin when someone did manage to make her bleed?

"Uh…is there some kind of oath I need to take, or something?"

Syr let out an annoyed groan. "Do you swear to shut up and let me do my work?" she asked as I felt the beginning of a picture being drawn on my back. I wasn't an expert, but it felt like the head of a woman…holding…something?

Was Syr's godly brand seriously the picture of a waitress carrying a pair of food trays?

While I waited, I could hear the sound of battle going on and felt the banner continue with the updates. The girls were in a worse way than before, more tired and nervous as they fought more as a holding action. Something was off with Juggernaut as well, its movements were slower and less precise. Setups that should have been killing blows ended in near misses or just light wounds.

Still, the girls were taking hits while they didn't risk an attack against the monster that wasn't a feint to draw its attention. Chloe got her leg sliced up, Anya broke the haft of her spear, Lunoire barely avoided getting her arm sliced off three separate times. Out of all of them, only Ryu managed to get away with light scratches.

"And…done!" Syr said before she slapped my back and I felt the magic slam into me, carving itself into my soul.

I…

Well…

I actually didn't feel all that different.

There was a strange awareness of the woman standing behind me. Not 'Warden of Demonreach' kind of awareness, but I knew she was there. And…terrified.

Not of the monster, but what came later. She was mature enough to put it in the back of her mind for now. What the goddess was in genuine fear of was what her friends thought of her now that they knew about her divinity.

"Hey, cut that out!" Syr said before it was like a door slammed between me and her and my emotional awareness of her state of mind was toned down to the point I could barely tell her general direction. "Stupid wizards and their sensitivity."

I stood back up easier than I had before. So, maybe I felt a little less tired. My body was a bit easier to move as well…lighter, I guess you could say.

"Now what?" I asked.

Syr sighed. "Right…virgin," she said before taking my hand. "Don't worry baby, I'll be gentle."

The flow of mystical power was nothing like I had experienced at Demonreach. But, that had been an island for supernatural convicts who wanted to devour my soul at best. The magical energies I had gleaned from them had been the snippets near the surface that were up for grabs and even then I had been warned by several wizards far older than me not to mess with that stuff too much. I also couldn't imagine the power up for grabs had been offered willingly.

Syr's was. Not only that, it was gentle and…invitingly warm. Like a cup of fresh tea on a cold winter's day, a cozy blanket, or the touch of a friend in all the intimate places?

A shiver went up my spine as my pants told me they weren't quite big enough in the crotch before I looked at Syr with a frown. "Hey!"

"Sex goddess, remember?" she asked with a small giggle. "You want my power, this is what it feels like."

My body shivered with absolute pleasure, and I fought to remain on my feet with mostly clean pants. "Okay, let's just…let's just get this over with!" I said before I got closer to the fight and…found myself a little lost.

The girls were too close for anything too flashy, and if they backed off, the Juggernaut would use the opening to come after me. There was also that magical reflector Ryu had told me about. I couldn't just blast the damn thing. "Um…any ideas?"

"Seriously?" Syr asked with a distaste before she sighed and looked at me with a grimace. "Fine, just…use what you got," she said before I felt something akin to what I had experienced when we broke into the afterlife, if with a much more gentle touch that came from more inside me than out.

Syr traced the way my magic needed to go, and I felt some distaste radiate from her as I followed along the guiding line before I figured out what she was hinting at and did the rest myself. I could almost hear her grumble about my lack of fine touch before the magic struck the Juggernaut and its anti-magic defense kicked in. A field of transparent green energy surrounded the monster to defend itself against my attack before duplicating the effect and sending it back at me.

However, what I was doing wasn't anything flashy. It didn't have any real range. I just Willed it into existence around the monster. So, its defense system reflected the same magic right back to where it was coming from. Which was the area it was currently occupying.

Although, perhaps reflected wasn't the best word. My magic still had an effect on the monster itself, but that effect was less magic, and more science. It lowered the temperature of the air immediately around the Juggernaut. That was it. I was effectively using the primordial magical power of nature as a supernatural air conditioner.

When I had used the power of Winter before, I had done so like a Marvel comics superhero. I made ice by 'freezing the moisture in the air' even when there was nowhere near enough moisture to create glaciers. I just Willed them into existence, physics be damned because, well…ice magic should create ice, right?

What Syr had me do was something far more deadly.

It was an attack the big flashy defense the Juggernaut used hadn't been designed for.

Cold is death.

There is no better way to describe it.

It is the lack of movement, of energy, of life itself.

When people die out in the cold, it's not because they get snowed on too much. It's because the warmth inside of them, the energy, the ability to keep their hearts beating is slowly drained away by the transfer of that energy into the frigid universe around them.

So, using my magic with Syr's guidance, I made it cold in the area around the Juggernaut.

And he reflected the magic back at the surrounding area, making it even colder.

The grass around it froze and broke. Although the magic around the Juggernaut from being affected directly, it was a moot point when the frigid cold sucked all of the energy from around the creature in less than ten seconds.

Limbs slowed down. Joints froze. Bones cracked.

Making it easy prey for the four expert warriors that surrounded it when the air was approachable again. Chloe's curved knives shattered more than cut the limb on its right before Anya did the same to the front left arm. Lunoire leapt over the creature's head to barely twist out of the way of the tail and grab onto the thing before she twisted and ripped the thing off.

Then, an instant after all three girls moved to disable the best, Ryu let out a beastial scream of pure rage and hatred before she launched herself onto the thing's head and began striking it over and over with remaining sword that she hadn't leant to the boxer. Then, when that wasn't killing the beast fast enough, she tossed it away and simply started shattering the creature's weakened head with her bare hands.

Ryu completely embraced the emotions the banner had no repression effect for, the emotions that helped you kill things. She screamed at the monster over and over again. "Die. Die! DIE! DIE!" the elf cried out before it collapsed beneath her and blew apart in a big show of black dust that made the girl drop to the ground and roll onto her back.

"Uh…are mew okay, Ryu?" Anya asked nervously.

The question was answered with a little giggle that slowly built in volume until she was laughing as loud as her voice could manage.

"I'm going to take that as a no," Lunoire said.

After a few more seconds, Ryu managed to calm down and I let the hold on my banner finally disperse. "So, you're not insane, then?" I asked as I walked over with the revealed goddess, who…felt like she was using me as a shield when she hid behind my back.

"You don't understand. That monster, that was the thing…that killed my old familia," she said before going into a brief explanation as to what had happened to her old group. The girl I had caught a glimpse of last night, being their leader. The whole incident had been caused by Evils-R-Us, but it had been the monster that actually killed everyone.

When she was done, Ryu laid on the cold ground and smiled. "And this time…it didn't get a single member of my family."

Several more seconds passed, and Anya helped Ryu up as Chloe went to look for my staff, and Lunoire turned towards me. Or rather…Syr. "So…goddess, huh?" she asked between pants for air. There was no followup though.

Syr flinched at the question and practically cowered behind me as her friends turned to look at her. "T-That's right," she whimpered.

"Okay…" Ryu said in a breathless voice before she gulped for more air. "Before I pass out, or…whatever. I have to ask…"

"Yes?" Syr squeaked.

"...why a waitress?" the elf asked.

Syr's trembling stopped. She looked past Ryu in disbelief. Took in a deep breath. Then, in a rush of noise that had a volume that made my ears ring, she screamed. "WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME BEING A WAITRESS?"