Chapter 170: CHAPTER 170(In The Red)
Please read the author's notes. (Examples and explanation of moves and appearance+ Monster Sources)
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CHAPTER START---
"Is that mine?" Yang asks. Entering his living room early this morning he was wearing simple pants and a top. To his surprise, Freya was sitting on the rug sorting through piles of mail large enough for her to disappear into. One pile on each side of the couch and a small set of crumpled letters in the corner of the room.
"Have you ever checked your mailbox at the guild?" she asks, not even looking up at him as she opens another envelope.
"No, isn't it like illegal to open someone else's mail, and how'd you even get it?"
"I told the girl at the guild we're married and collected it so it's fine," she skims the letter and throws it into the crumpled pile.
"Married?" Yang groans and facepalms at the thought, "we only got back together last night, remember?"
"I'm joking. I just said you wanted it and persuaded her," she admits.
"Persuaded? You mean charmed?"
"Yes, didn't take much since everyone knows we're close. Oh, I may have confirmed you're a demon, just a fair warning," she says.
"H-huh? What?"
"Well she asked if it was true, 'The Demon of Orario' thing. I said it would explain a lot which it admittedly would and might have left it at that, everyone probably overheard, sorry," she giggles at the thought.
"You don't seem sorry..."
"You lack presence. Everyone knows you're powerful but you need a fierce reputation to go along with it. If you don't want to be King maybe Demon is a better fit."
"I'm fine with Elementalist, it's straightforward and accurate, plus it's ---"
"Boring, yes. Very boring, Blue Demon is so much more fun. But you've gotta admit demon blood would explain so much, like the fire and unique magic. Plus the fast level-ups," she stops sorting the mail a looks at him curiously.
"Sigh, for the last time I don't even know why I level up so fast, now I've gotta go. Anything interesting in the mail?"
"Boring things. Invites to party up with people. Invites to other familias with some weak contracts. Some letters of acceptance to a few countries, I've written a strong response to Kali. She wanted you to go breed some of her amazons, like having an entire country of them wasn't enough..."
"That's Telskyura, right? The amazon warrior country."
"Yes, I assumed you wouldn't be interested in her offer," she narrows her eyes at him, "I can send an acceptance letter if you'd like."
"No thanks. Kids aren't in my plan for a long time, I'm only 17, and besides, do you really want me to have kids with another woman. I'm pretty sure if someone tries to so much as kiss me you'd kill her," he says jokingly.
"Hmm, not if she has good reasons," Freya mutters then goes back to sorting the mail.
"You can stop sorting the mail now, I'll deal with that when I'm back."
"No no this is fine, I'm making a list of people interested in you just in case, for the future and all that," she says deviously.
"Jeez, and here I thought you were just trying to be nice. I'll be back in a few minutes," he says before exiting the apartment.
Walking to the end of the hallway he places his hand on the cool metal door with the Trifecta sigil carved into it. The enchantments are released and the door opens to their team conference room and armory.
With a table in the middle of the room hosting ten chairs, four at each side and one at each end. A door leading to Welf's forge at the far end and a vault built into the wall for all their high-value weapons and items. To the opposite end of the room, there were a few chalkboards for planning expeditions with battleplans from their last expedition still written.
Taking a spot closest to the head chair of the table Yang leans back in the comfortable seat and rests a hand on the table, waiting for everyone else to arrive.
Not long after the door to Welf's forge opens, for a brief moment blazing heat washes over the room, not that either man could feel it.
Welf was wearing his usual smithing attire with cloth wrapped on his head to keep his hair out of his face while he works.
He locks eyes with Yang for a moment before noticing the metal hand on the table.
"Hey, how you been?" Yang asks.
Welf gives him a curious look before responding," I should be asking you that, you lost a hand, then slept for almost two weeks," he says while taking a seat opposite Yang.
"Honestly, I'm not that torn up about it. My mom is probably gonna try to kill me when I get back but it could be worse," Yang says. Casually dismissing an injury many people would never mentally recover from.
"It's creepy how chill you are with it, you sure you're ok?"
"I got torn out of my world by an Angel and now I fight dragons for a living, what's a metal arm compared to that?"
"Uhh, well when you put it like that, good point."
"Besides, it's kinda my fault too. I had a warning this was gonna happen," Yang quietly admits.
"Huh, wha---"
As Welf is about to question what he means the main door to the room opens once more. Thalie walks in with a stoic expression, her lower jaw and her neck now sporting black metal. As opposed to blending in with her skin the prosthetic was jet black and stood out. The jaw and mouthpiece itself didn't even attempt to be natural, hard angles leaving a distinct impression and the metal lower jaw having an overbite that covered the upper lips like a mouth guard reaching just under the nose. For all intents and purposes, it appeared that she was wearing some kind of a mask on her lower face and neck.
As she enters the room the woman freezes for a moment, her gaze caught on Yang's metal hand, the direct result of her actions.
Seeing her growing anxious Yang waves the limb at her, "Didn't even feel it, honestly. How've you been doing?" he asks with a small smile.
Walking to a seat beside Welf she makes way for Hephaestus to step into the room behind her, "I'm alright, all things considered, I'm glad you're awake now," she says.
"So am I," Hephaestus makes herself known as she takes the seat at the head of the table and slides some documents over to Yang as well as his Ring Of Odr.
As he begins looking through the pages she speaks, "your stunt couldn't have been at a worse time, honestly. My familia makes money with contracts mostly and you three chose the time between payouts to get us fined by the guild," she says.
"How much?" Welf asks.
"Forty billion?" Yang questions, seeing the bills in the documents.
"Try forty-four billion, just when we get paid at the end of last year you pull this. Before I can even use most of the money to pay for the supplies we got last week the guild takes most of it, now that wasn't much of a problem because I know you three can make it back..."
"But?" Yang asks.
"But, the guild didn't just tax me. They taxed the entire familia, which includes personal accounts! Everyone lost most of their money! You three idiots costing me is one thing, but I will not tolerate you costing my familia! That's why you owe me fifty billion fucking valis! Thanks to the goodwill I have with our suppliers they didn't completely cut me off, most of them at least. But we need to pay them back immediately and that's on you three," she says.
Sliding the documents over to Welf, Yang asks the pissed-off goddess a question, "if we can't go into the dungeon or leave this floor how do we get the money?"
"Figure it out! You managed to get us into this shit now get us out," she was fuming at this point, desperately massaging her temples to calm herself.
Welf and Thalie both made sure not to look up from the documents or the table respectively. Both felt the weight of this much more than Yang who was unsettled but calm in the face of this challenge.
"Fine, alright, we can make this work somehow," Yang says.
"Good, now let's talk about your Falna, I checked you two while you were sleeping off the surgeries," her words immediately get everyone looking at her, "Yang's dumb ass touched divinity, thankfully just his hand. Your Chaos Mark can't protect you from Divinity(Arcanum), only it can protect you from itself. Only a god can challenge a god after all. The spear is a divine weapon so it was fine," she explains.
"Did anything appear on my Falna?" Yang asks.
"Nope, what did you expect a new skill for being a moron. Your Endurance is at 1299 so it's maxed out for you, Thalie is the one with the big changes," she points at the documents in Welf's hand, "check the last page."
Welf flips to the back and pulls out the updated stat sheet for Thalie.
Skimming the page he slides it back to the woman, "so that's why I felt so weird," she says. Her voice sounded deeper with all the added metal to her body.
"Yeah, you just need to get used to being a level six now. That's the first thing, plus your magic...mutated? Evolved? I don't know, something like that, it's different now. Try it out when you get out of Babel, the problem is at the very top," Hephaestus says in an annoyed tone.
Taking a look at the very top of the page, true to her words there was a massive change. She had been too busy reading the new skill to notice, the usual black writing on the page was now gold with a black outline. The two jet black smithing hammers crossed that made up Hephaestus's sigil now had a golden spear between them pointing upward.
"What---"
"Your another little cheater, just like this one," Hephaestus points her accusatory finger at Yang. "Cheating on your goddess with another god, now two of you have another god influencing your Falna," she points her finger to Welf and leans forward, almost poking him in the face. "If you cheat on me too I'll castrate you," she threatens.
Welf sinks back into his chair and silently nods in agreement.
"Good, now I need to go talk to a visitor from Altena, thanks to you three we can't pay the enchanters I have on retainer over there and they don't want to sign new annual contracts," she says before getting up.
Leaving the scolded children in silence Hephaestus storms out of the room, an awkward atmosphere forms as they aren't quite sure what to do now.
"Alright," Yang breaks the silence. "We should see what we have to work with before making a plan right, so Thalie what's new on your Falna?" he asks.
"I-I'm sorry," she says, looking directly at his metal hand.
"Oh," he looks down at the limb, "it was worth saving you. Let's not cry over things we can't change and focus on this."
"Dude," Welf cuts in, "how are you this relaxed about losing a hand. You ok?"
"Because, if I cried about everything I didn't have then I'd never get anything done. Let's focus on what we can actually change. Plus, I kind of knew I was gonna get hurt," he mutters the last bit quickly.
"What?!" Thalie's eyes go wide in surprise.
"Urgh, there was this...oracle, maybe. She told me I'd leave the walls of Orario and get greatly hurt, that I'd never recover fully or something like that, I don't know, it was vague, but yeah I realized what was happening just figured if I got hurt it had to be for a good reason," he looks over at Thalie, "saving you is definitely worth it."
Upon hearing this news Thalie was frozen in disbelief. He'd knowingly accepted this risk just to help her, this was beyond anything she expected.
Welf on the other hand had a million questions, "when did you meet an oracle?"
"She was that girl, Cassandra, the one from Apollo familia with the staff we were talking to in the plaza," Yang says.
"Ohh, the one with the sexy long black hair?"
"Yeah, her, apparently she's an oracle but it's weird. I think it's a skill but her friend said her visions aren't a real thing, but she thinks they're real and they obviously are. I mean who would think a level seven could even get hurt on the surface, especially me."
"Especially as badly as losing a hand, we should keep her close just in case," Thalie adds.
"Yeah I'll send her a gift to thank her, now let's deal with the situation at hand," he smirk.
"Ugh, are hand puns gonna happen a lot now?" Welf asks.
"Eh, we'll see. So anyway what are we working with, Thalie what's on the Falna?" he asks.
"Uh," Thalie shakes her head to try and focus, "right, my magic changed. It's the same magic slot but the name is different, now it's War God's Blessing, and my new skill is Champion's Body. I think it works like a mix of Strong Body, Fist Strike, and Strong Defense. All-round physical boosts."
"That makes sense," Yang says. "But one question, the spear didn't work the last time I saw you, so when exactly did you become the champion?"
"When I went hunting a Rok for the claw, we needed the metal for your arm and my jaw."
"You? Hunting a Rok? Giant bird flying super high above the ground? Really?" he asks skeptically.
"I know, but I had to get over my fear and when I reached the top I found my devotion."
"So your fear was holding you back?" Yang asks.
"No, it's not that simple. Adrestria was all about building a champion with skill, Athena was all about devotion, but the spear needed both. When I devoted myself to something else it recognized me and made me the champion...and put Adrestria on the throne of war in heaven," she finishes bitterly.
"I see, so it was like a trick. Wait, that means Adrestria won?"
"Yeah, but at least now she doesn't have to make any more soldiers," she says. From the expression the top half of her face was making they could tell that had her mouth not been covered and metal Thalie would be frowning at the thought.
"I see, what were you devoted to?"
"To you two, and Hephaestus, to getting you home mostly. You lost an arm because of my selfish desire, I owe you that much at least," she says.
"You were fighting to stop Adrestria from killing thousands of innocent children, that's far from selfish."
"But it wasn't your adventure."
"I knew the risks and agreed to go, lets leave it at that alright. The only thing I didn't like was you trying to die at the end. Don't do that again," he says more forcefully.
"I won't, I need to get you home remember," she gives him a solemn nod.
"Good, now Welf. What can these new parts we have do?"
"Oh," Welf puts down the documents he'd been skimming and looks up at them. "Right well your hand can channel all your magic and grows with you in power, so does her prosthetics. Aside from that, it's just a regular prosthetic, well, plus your hand having the same functions as a message ring built-in."
"What? My hand can make calls?"
"Well, the guild gave Hephaestus a hard time about misplacing 'The most powerful military force in the world', so she wanted to make sure we couldn't do that again," he explains.
"That---fuck, they have a point, what's up with the designs for these parts anyway. I get mine but why is hers so obvious, I thought the point was to hide them?" Yang asks.
"I chose this," she says. "I didn't want to hide it, ever. It's a reminder, and it's more functional like this...plus I like the black," she says.
"That's...ok. And I'm guessing Welf chose the angular designs from the designs I showed him from my world?"
"Yeah," Welf responds with a smile, "the switch-axe and most of the other things you showed me have these hard angles. It looks less natural but is surprisingly functional, I've taken a liking to the style."
"Great, a medieval smith with a cyberpunk style, that's gonna be something strange. Alright, so any clue how we can deal with the actual problem of fifty billion Valis?"
"Hmm," Thalie is the first to speak, "I'm useless here. My main skill set is killing things. Without going out I can't make money. Maybe Welf can make me a Durandal weapon to use until we get our weapons back and I can sneak into the dungeon and get some items. I can use the invisibility badge to get past floor fifty at least, shouldn't have anyone there," she says.
"No," Yang cuts in, "Freya and Loki familias are down at floor fifty camping out waiting for an Elder Dragon, we can't afford to have you run into them. But what do you mean the weapons are locked away, and 'Invisibility badge'?"
"It's an item I made, when you pass magic into it you go invisible, and the guild locked up Mosoka and Liberty in their vault, so I'm pretty much useless right now," Welf says.
"You can't make another sword?"
"No, I still don't even fully understand how Mosoka works exactly, the way it amplifies my spirit blood is still beyond me. The best way I can think of making money right now is to start making and selling everything I can. I've got some old requests I can check in on and maybe some new ones came in, I don't see us making money any other way with you two being stuck in here," Welf says.
"Shit, you're right. Thalie and I are useless without monsters," Yang says as he withdraws the message rings and finally returns them to his team, "Let's all go brainstorm and I'll check on you guys tomorrow, I could honestly still use some rest. Maybe I can figure something out with Freya, see if she knows any people that need something Welf can make."
"Freya?" Welf ask. "I thought you weren't talking to her since the breakup?"
"Oh...well, uh---"
"She's in your bed right now isn't she?" Thalie asks with a raised brow.
"Nooo, she's in the living room snooping through my mail," Yang says.
"Wow," Welf puts his hand out to Thalie and collects a handful of Valis, "knew you couldn't hold out. One more month and I lose that bet," he says while pocketing the money.
"So much for having faith in your leader," Yang grumbles.
"No offense dude, but we've seen Freya, we aren't gonna blame you for getting back with her," Welf says.
With a deep sigh Yang gets up and moves to exit the room, "I've got a few hundred million Valis in my inventory, I'll leave it in the living room so you can come and get it if you need it, I'll come check on you guys tomorrow," he says before exiting the room.
Walking back into this apartment Yang sees Freya angrily writing in a notepad, a fury in her eyes that couldn't mean anything good.
"What are you doing?" he asks while walking over to her.
Without looking up she responds, "you got a dozen love letters from bimbos all over Orario, I'm taking note of them..."
"Mhm," he picks her up earning a small yelp from her and drops onto the couch holding her on his lap. "No killing people over silly letters. If anyone should be getting jealous it's me. You've got the literal divine charm, remember?"
Freya couldn't argue with that logic, instead choosing to pout and lean back against him. "How was your meeting?"
"Uh, bad and less bad. We owe Hephaestus fifty billion Valis."
"All the familias in Orario couldn't pay that back, she told me they fined her when she was about to reinvest all her money but...damn," Freya says.
"Yeah, anything in the mail that has a nice payout?"
"No, not unless you're willing to move to the empire. They're willing to give you a title, lands, and a castle."
"Tempting, but that'd definitely cause more problems. Anything interesting at least?"
"Well there was a wedding invitation, it looked fun."
"Why would I have a wedding invitation, I don't have any friend outside Tibor and his family."
"Celebrity adventurers and gods are always bombarded with them. People far and wide think we bless the marriage by attending. You should see the thousands I get... the burden of being a goddess of love and beauty," she sighs overly dramatically and turns to drape her arm around his shoulder.
"That reminds me, I need to send a letter or something to Cassandra."
Freya's eyes immediately open wide at hearing an unknown woman's name," who?"
"She's some kind of an oracle, she predicted this," Yang raises his hand to draw her attention to it.
"Then why'd you go?"
"If I didn't go Thalie would have died, seems a pretty easy choice honestly. But also I kinda figured either she was blowing hot air or I'd just walk off whatever happened. Didn't think I'd actually get hurt this badly," he says.
"No regrets?"
"No regrets," Yang gives her a small kiss before pulling her closer to him," babe, I feel really damn useless here," he says.
"Locked in the tower with nothing to do, oh who could ever understand that," her words were drenched in sarcasm as she rests her head on his chest.
"Don't be a smartass, this whole money-making thing is all Welf without me being able to enter the dungeon. We just need to sit here and wait, it's annoying."
"Then let's go to a wedding, it's in a week. We can enjoy the village life for a bit then go to the beach and relax," she suggests.
"I've never actually been to the beach you know. Not to enjoy it I mean. Actually, the only time I've been on or in the water was when we were going to get Takemikazuchi from the Far East."
"Then you should definitely go, have you been to a wedding?"
"Nope, wasn't close to any family but my mom and dad so didn't have any weddings to go to," he says.
"Well then it's settled," she sits up in his lap and cups his face with her hands, "we'll go crash the wedding then spend some time at the beach, it'll be fun."
"After I figure out what's going on with my team and send the letter to Cassandra, then we can get out of here," he says.
"Right, after you do those things. It'll be fun..." she says, leaning down and giving him a gentle kiss.
'And maybe, just maybe. You'll see more reason to stay here with me...'
END CHAPTER---
Thalie level 6
50 Billion Valis Debt
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
keanu_eugene
keanu_eugene Have some idea about my story? Comment it and let me know.
---Hephaestus is pissed at the Trifecta, they owe her 50 Billion.
---They're relatively broke compared to how they were before.
---Thalie got new skills and her magic 'Evolved?'
---Freya and Yang gonna crash a wedding somewhere
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone