In her apartment, in one of the higher floors in Babel, Freya swirled her burgundy wine and looked out at the throngs of masses going about their business on the ground. She sneered down at them, though her mind was actually far away.

Her contempt wasn’t directed, this time, at the people scurrying antlike from some job to another. No. It was against an adversary that she had only heretofore dealt with in her imagination.

“How could another mortal, a man, stand against me like this?”

She grumbled internally as she thought back to the party. Grinning at Hestia as she toyed with her. Only to hear those irritating words.

“I have a new Famillia member who provides me with everything I need…He has outstanding talent.”

When she said that Hestia’s eyes practically shone with pride and happiness. This man had captured Hestia’s heart.

A heart that was supposed to be hers.

Even now, Freya thought back to that meeting with a bit of pleasure as well.

“Oh Hestia. So cute when angry. Especially when angry. If only you would give in, and just let me take care of you…”

She blushed a bit as she thought back to their little standoff, only to have the moment soured a bit as she thought of this unknown adventurer. She didn’t know if he had garnered Hestia’s romantic interest or had captured her heart in some other sense. Either way, he was in her way.

“Ottar”

“Yes, my lady?”

Her most powerful servant, an enormous Boaz man in black armor, sat at the entrance to her chambers. He gazed at her with his yellow eyes, animal ears perked and ready to hear his mistresses’ orders. Freya herself was dressed in a casual black and purple dress, the contrast with her pale skin designed to draw the eye to her and keep it there. She smiled at Ottar, before giving him his marching orders:

“Find out all about the new member of Hestia Familia. Don’t do anything to damage him. Yet. Simply observe for weaknesses and potential vulnerabilities.”

He nodded and stood up, before giving one last respectful bow and leaving. He would do a thorough job in his scouting, as he did with everything else. And when he had finished, she would use the information he generated to remove this troublesome obstacle.

There was little the most powerful Famillia head in Orario could not do, after all.

…

When Adama woke up, the morning sunlight was streaming through his open hospital window. Curtains billowed on the morning breeze as his eyes jumped open and he sat up rapidly, wincing a bit as pain shot through his bruised ribs. He looked around frantically, but no one else was in the off-white hospital room. He looked down and saw that his hands and body were covered in bandages and shook his head.

“Where am I?” He wondered, “Who patched me up?”

He ignored the pain in his chest and got up, looking out the window in his curiosity. People moved past him a couple stories below on the streets of Orario, making him realize exactly where he was. Eina had told him that Babel had medical facilities, so he must have either walked himself to those facilities or been carried there. He didn’t remember much after he fought his way through a small mob of War Shadows and reached the 4th floor, but he had gotten out of the Dungeon somehow. He gave a small sigh of relief.

His moment of tranquility was shattered by the loud sound of his hospital door slamming open.

Hestia stood in the doorway, eyes wide with worry, breathing a bit like she had been running.

“Tim!” She cried out, giving him a worried hug and reminding him uncomfortably of his mother, “What happened to you?”

He looked to the side, a bit uncomfortable with her worrying, “Yeah, I might have pushed it a bit too far this time.”

Her eyes narrowed a bit, then, “The doctors say you were out for a full day. I just got back. What happened?”

He then realized with a start that she didn’t actually know about his training methods while she was gone, only that he had been seriously injured, so he thought fast.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“I was roaming around some of the upper floors and ran into a Monster Party. They gave me a thorough beating but I managed to get away. And that’s about the size of it.”

Technically, this was all true. A Monster Party happened when the Dungeon spawned a truly sizable number of monsters all at once and in a specific location. That was likely exactly what happened with those Killer Ants. The fact that he was only in that extremely dire situation because he had neglected her advice on taking things easy and chosen to do more extreme training was not relevant.

Her eyes narrowed further, and she pulled a piece of paper out from behind her back:

“The doctors say that you had acute Purple Moth poisoning, and that the cuts on your body seemed to have mostly come from Killer Ants.”

He nodded mechanically, though she was miffed at him now, hands on her hips as she lectured him:

“You’re already going to the seventh floor? Your stats are still far too low for that. What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that I want to get stronger. Not sit around as my self-styled mother feeds me grapes!”

Tim had raised his voice in response to her lecturing, his temper starting to boil over in turn. He was tired of being fretted over and lectured. He certainly wasn’t used to being told what to do. He had tried to keep the peace, but there was only so much a man could take. He continued:

“It’s not real training unless you feel like you’re going to die, and unless I get real training…”

“…I’ll probably die for real, again.”

As he was now, he was low on the totem pole of strength in the world. Any Level 2 could come by and splatter him against the wall. He was at the mercy of others. And he hated that.

It wasn’t so much that he deeply feared death. He didn’t want to die, but above all else he didn’t want to die shamefully. If they did snuff him out again, it would be after he had trained with all that he had and gone down fighting as an elite warrior. He couldn’t stand the prospect of losing because he had taken it easy, sat on his hands, and gotten fat and lazy.

She was looking at him sadly now, anger having cooled as he yelled at her. He didn’t expect that or expect what she had to say next.

“Do you really want to die because you were careless, Tim? Will you leave me behind so soon?”

Now that rocked him on his heels. That was exactly what had happened to him in the past. He had died while being careless and left the people he cared about the most behind him. Shame crept up his neck as she continued:

“Your work ethic is admirable. It really is, and I hope you never lose it. But please, I’m begging you, be more careful. OK?”

He nodded and she clapped her hands, a smile returning to her face as she wiped away a single tear:

“Why don’t I give you a Status update, hmmm? I’m looking forward to seeing how you’ve grown!”

A couple minutes later, and she was reading his back with a gaping mouth.

Timaias Adama,

Strength: G-227 -> E-478

Defense: H-198 –> E-424

Dexterity: G-214 -> E-454

Agility: H-172 -> F-384

Magic: G-210 -> E-458

Spells:

Rippling Sword

* Swift Strike Magic

Skills:

Predator

* Increased Growth

* Killing Monsters provides increased Growth.

* Killing more Monsters in a short period of time results in an even greater bonus

Almost absentmindedly, she wrote down his stats and handed them to him, still lost in thought.

“E-rank? What on earth had this boy done?”

She had seen the records of his various fights and triumphs, and they were extreme to be sure, but increasing his stats by a total of over 1000 points was…unprecedented. He had nearly catapulted past the F-rank entirely. There wasn’t a single stat where he hadn’t skipped a rank. He had really pushed himself while she was gone, but that alone didn’t explain it.

It had to be that skill at work, to be sure.

As she was contemplating the bizarre monster in front of her, he gave a satisfied nod after reading his status and he turned around to give her a lopsided grin.

“Think I could handle the seventh floor now?”

“Yes,” she thought to herself, “Yes I do.”

Maybe she really didn’t have to worry about him too much after all.

…

Later, as they were walking home from Babel, Adama turned and asked Hestia:

“How was the get together? Meet anyone interesting?”

Interesting was definitely a word you could have used for her fellow partygoers, but she didn’t comment on that immediately. Instead, she got a twinkle in her eye and gave him a sly smile.

“That reminds me. I have a surprise for you when we get home.”

That left him puzzling until they finally descended the trapdoor into their little room in the basement of the ramshackle church. She picked up something that was sitting on the central table and turned around to present it to him.

It was a sheathed sword, the scabbard a milky white leading up to a pure silver cross guard. The emblem stamped in black on the scabbard was of two crossed hammers over a raging fire. The blade made the slightest of whispers against the scabbard when he unsheathed it, catching the light and almost shining in this dim basement. The doubled-edged blade was a pure, bright white that dazzled the eye, with hieroglyphs running up and down the edges on both sides. He gave a low whistle as he admired it, shifting his fingers on the dark black wooden handle in his hand.

“Even as it is now, it is quite strong. But it can grow even stronger. It has a status inlaid within it, thanks to those glyphs, which means that it will improve as you do.”

Hestia was prouder than a hen with six eggs as she watched Tim examine the results of her efforts with a small grin on his face:

“What will you name it?” She asked him.

He turned to look at her, slightly quizzical:

“A sword’s a sword. Doesn’t need a fancy name to cut things, now does it?”

Now it was her turn to be incredulous:

“What? A good sword needs a good name. That’s just common sense. I’m sure you can come up with something.”

He looked back at it, then looked back at her, then back at it, then back at her, before saying:

“The Hestia Sword?”

Her cheeks colored a bit at that, and her response was equal parts embarrassed and confused:

“No! That’s a terrible name. I mean I’m flattered, but still. That’s a ridiculous name.”

Then she continued, considering the idea a bit, “Though if you did want to credit me when naming the blade, which is very sweet by the way, then why not name it something like…Hearthblade?”

“Fits like a good sheathe.” Adama replied, sheathing the blade in emphasis.