Novels2Search

Chapter 10

x-X-x-X-x

City of Orario, Northwest Street

"God?" Shalltear repeated aloud while looking at the rather handsome looking robed man with blue hair that introduced himself as Miach.

"That is correct." The man nodded as he picked up the two remaining flasks on the road that did not break into thousands of shards. There were cracks in the containers, but the liquid did not leak out.

'How can he be a god? I barely feel any strength coming from him… Even a level one player is stronger than that. Could it be power concealment? If so, I might have to be a bit more careful with whom I pick up fights with.' Shalltear thought.

Miach seemed to have picked up on the vampire's confusion. "Do you not believe me?" He said, slightly bemused by this. There were so many gods in Orario that few would be surprised by seeing one.

"Erm. You don't feel strong at all~. Are gods not supposed to be strong~?" Shalltear asked to which Miach chuckled.

"You don't know much about gods, do you? Then, let us walk while we talk." He pointed in the direction he was going to and turned his back to Shalltear and started walking. She followed shortly after and started walking by the god's side.

It was night and the sky was already completely dark. The night streets were almost empty even though many were still awake. Most people usually spent this time in pubs and casinos. Seeing so many lights coming out of buildings at night was a first sight for Shalltear, who rarely left the tomb.

"So." Miach began, bringing Shalltear out of her sightseeing. "What do you know about gods?" He asked her, not taking his eyes off the path in front of him. While he acted calmly, the man wanted to know how this girl never heard about how the gods sealed their powers at least once in Orario. It was basic knowledge after all and the way she reacted by putting her guard up suggested that she did not know much about gods.

"Hmm… They're above commoners in strength and that's about it. They're usually raid bosses."

"That's it?!" Miach almost shouted in surprise as he turned to look at the girl with widened eyes. How could she not know more about gods? Moreover, what the heck is a raid boss?

"There is more~?" The girl asked, seemingly confused too.

Miach sighed and then continued: "Looks like I have a lot to tell you." While the girl seemed to genuinely not know about gods, Miach didn't know if she was playing with him because of how ridiculous her ignorance is.

The thing that bugged Miach the most was how his [Lie Detector] skill did not work on her. His power activated, meaning that the girl was not a deity, yet his power bounced off the girl due to some kind of enchantment. Could it be an inborn skill, or the girl already had a falna?

Pushing his concerns away, the god decided to that there was no harm in enlightening her. He proceeded to talk about Orario's history as they kept walking and how the gods descended on the lower world in a time of need to help the population of the lower world against dangerous monsters. While a huge majority of the gods descended due to being bored, some of them did care for their children and only wanted to do good. The gods helped the people by making them their 'children', thus a part of their familia by giving them their blessing. Children of a familia were blessed with the god's falna, making them stronger.

Most familias were adventurer types which revolved around killing dangerous beasts in the dungeon as to not let them get out. Some other familias were business types like his own, meaning that the children use the powers granted by the falna to make weapons, potions and other sorts of things while some simply have the monopoly over food, merchandise, housing or entertainment. The guild under the god Ouranos acted as the government and made sure relations between two familias in Orario did not end up in a civil war. In other words, the familias were controlling everything in Orario.

Throughout his lesson, he looked over at the girl to see if she was following and found that she was racking her brain the more information he gave. Miach concluded that if all of this was fake, then she was a very skilled actress and that the likelihood of her lying was very low considering it did not do anything.

When he finished his explanation, he turned to Shalltear and said: "That's a lot to take in, isn't it? I'm still surprised your paren- I mean, no one told you about it. It's a quite common knowledge in all honesty." The god quickly corrected himself when mentioning the child's parents. He didn't want to make the girl cry over the loss of her mentors right now. While he considered himself to be a kind and chill person, he would rather not have to do babysitting as he has a quite busy schedule.

His familia had only one member, so it was only him and one other that took care of the business. Running a shop with only one other member part of the staff made it very difficult, especially when you specialized in medicine. His shop, the Blue Pharmacy, sold healing potions as its main products and the process of making them was very difficult. When the lives of others depended on your products, you had to be extremely careful and make sure that your concoction would work correctly and not accidently poison someone.

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As the two of them walked, they came by a shop filled with weapons on display behind a glass window. A small white-haired boy had his face and hands stuck to the glass, almost to the point of licking it. He was looking at the displayed weapons with his mouth agape in amazement.

Shalltear was a bit surprised to stumble upon the same young boy she had saved earlier in the dungeon. She recalled him breaking his short sword or dagger upon fighting that Minotaur creature. Knowing that, it wasn't surprising to see him looking for new weapons, but wasn't the guild handing out those for free to newbie adventurers? Even if she couldn't read the tag prices, Shalltear was pretty sure that the weapons this shop decided to put on display weren't cheap.

"Well well, if it isn't Bell." Miach said in his usual calm voice as they both approached the boy. Bell jumped at the mention of his name and turned to look at who called out to him. He relaxed slightly when he saw who it was.

"Oh, Mister Miach… Sorry, I know I can't buy one, but…" The boy said, his head hanging low in shame.

Miach chuckled. "There's nothing to apologize for."

"Mister Miach, why are you out so late? A-and w-who is t-this?" Bell became red like a tomato when looking at the girl standing by the god's side.

Miach let out a smile at the noticeable sentiments the boy had for his temporary employee. "I've been busy morning and night mixing wares for my little familia. I don't have much time to sleep if I want to keep the business going. As for her, she will be helping us out at the Blue Pharmacy for a little while."

"I-I see…" The blushing boy said, trying to avoid looking into Shalltear's direction. Miach found the scene quite amusing, so did the girl beside him. The girl had a look as if she was proud of herself? Or as if she expected that kind of lust? Miach didn't expect the small girl to be this narcissistic. Even so, the god was against torturing Bell with pretty girls like that, so he thought it would be best to end this awkward conversation.

"Anyways, Bell, take these." Miach said as he handed the two semi-broken potion flasks he had picked up earlier.

Bell had a look of surprise on his face. "Oh, no. I couldn't possibly take-"

"Please, I spilled these potions earlier and they are now too fragile to be sold to customers. I would've had to throw them away anyways… Just consider it a small token of my many thanks for doing business with my familia." Miach handed the two potions with a warm smile.

"Th-thank you very much." The stuttering boy bowed slightly with the two potions in hand.

He gave a light tap on the boy's shoulder. "You take care Bell." And then went on his way with Shalltear by his side.

They kept on walking in silence for about a minute until the boy was out of sight. Then, Miach snickered "Looks like someone got herself a lover already. You looked like you were used to this kind of reaction. Would you happen to like him too?" He playfully taunted the girl.

"Ahh~... No~. I am more interested in other girls…" The vampire admitted. While that wasn't a lie, it wasn't entirely the truth. Shalltear was only in love with the supreme beings, but when talking about humans or other inferior races, she had a fetish with torturing and raping other pretty girls. Even so, this cute boy's body looked quite feminine, so he may very well be an exception.

Of course, Miach interpreted this piece of information differently and thought Shalltear meant that she was a lesbian, not a rapist… a conclusion that any sane person would make. "Oh, I see. There is nothing wrong with that. Anyways, we've almost arrived, and I didn't get to know your name yet. Mind telling me?"

A name? Shaltear hadn't thought about that... Using her real name would not be a smart idea...

"Hmm~… My name…" Making the girl recall her name seemed to hurt her and made her mumble most of it. "Mmgh… Aura Bella Fiora~."

Miach frowned. 'Why did she act so sad all of a sudden?'. He knew very well that he was an easygoing type of person, someone that people like talking to about friendly stuff, but the man didn't think he was the best candidate to deal with depressed kids. Perhaps Hestia would as she is a goddess of the heart?

He was, however, brought out of his thoughts as the two of them already reached their destination, the Blue Pharmacy.

"Here we are." Miach said as he walked towards the old building and reached the door. He unlocked the door, which once opened, triggered small bells. He then proceeded to lead Shalltear inside. "This is our shop. Here we sell potions and other medicinal products."

As they made their way across the room in the darkness of the night, a woman came into the room from behind the counter. She had brown hair, dog ears, and a tail. The sight did turn Shalltear on, but she knew that it wasn't the time to think about animal people. Moreover, this animal girl looked to be about in her thirties. That was a bit too old for Shalltear's taste.

The half dog woman rubbed her eyes. One of her arms was made of silver. How strange. Seeing her sleepy face, Shalltear reckoned that the animal girl probably had been sleeping before they entered and was woken up by the jingle of the bells at the entrance. While Shalltear had no way to tell what time it was, she knew that it was indeed getting quite late.

"Lord Miach, who is this?" She asked curiously with a small hint of surprise.

"Evening Naaza, this is Aura. She's going to help around the shop for a little while in exchange for housing and food."

"Ah, I see that's good… We really do need help around the shop…"

Miach nodded. "Indeed, even so now is a bit late for small talk. Naaza, would you be so kind as to lead Aura to one of our guest rooms, please?"

"Of course, follow me." Naaza told Shalltear.

"Goodnight, Aura, Naaza." Miach told the two girls before the they left the room.

'She's quite a strange girl, not knowing much about the gods when living in Orario… And that skill of hers that hides her words from the truth or lie is interesting. I do hope she gets better eventually or else it could turn out very badly… I might have to talk to Hestia for advice on this matter.' The god thought as he added talking to Hestia to his in-head to-do list.