Chapter 60: Soma's Trial, Interested in Making a Deal with a God? (Subscribe) (Patreon)

Soma Familia's Home.

Even though Rozz had dealt with this Familia plenty of times, actually standing at its Home left him feeling… strangely out of place.

Cinder Ella was "imitation." It didn't erase the target's existence outright.

"So this is the place."

He gazed at the medieval-castle-style Home in front of him. Compared to his own… barely-started Familia, it was undeniably far more lavish.

All he could say was…

In any world, the liquor trade was the most profitable business there was, and yet the Familia's only Lv2 Adventurer was Zanis.

Damn it.

Here he was, working himself half to death farming monsters in the Dungeon, with no idea how long it would take before his own Familia reached this kind of scale.

"This is brutal…"

Perhaps because he was wearing Simon's face, the Adventurer guarding the Home's entrance didn't stop him. Instead, he greeted him cheerfully.

"Hey, Simon, how's it going lately?"

"Got any solid intel on that Rozz guy yet?"

"Yeah, yeah." Rozz smiled and waved a hand.

He didn't linger. Mostly, he had no idea where "Simon" stood in the Soma Familia's pecking order.

The more he talked, the easier it would be to give himself away.

After all, today's target was only Zanis. Kill him, and there'd be no more safety worries.

Because according to Lili, once the vice-captain who controlled the divine wine was dead, these Adventurers, being the scum they were, would certainly try to seize power in the confusion.

The whole affair would come to a complete end.

"Zanis should be somewhere inside the Home. I hope there aren't any other Adventurers around when I find him… That's the only way to give him a proper surprise…"

With his mind fully steeled, Rozz pushed open the heavy wooden door in front of him. What rolled over him was air thoroughly soaked through with alcohol.

He frowned slightly.

The light inside the Home was dim, coming only from the Magic Stone lamps mounted on the walls. It was quiet. Nothing stirred.

Surely he hadn't come all this way for nothing?

Rozz's eyes swept quickly around the room. Just as he began to feel uneasy, footsteps sounded in the distance, and he lifted his head toward them.

Then—

A young man came into view, draped in a gray robe, his hair hanging over his eyes. He looked decidedly gloomy and androgynous.

A god.

The instant he saw the man, the thought welled up from deep inside Rozz, exactly as it had when he first met Hestia and Hephaestus.

Wait, that's not right, is it?

If he remembered correctly, Lili had said Soma didn't concern himself with the Familia's affairs and stayed holed up in the brewing room every day, immersed in his brewing.

"…"

Just pretend I didn't see him.

Since Soma had no intention of getting involved, helping to remove the root of the Familia's chaos would be like draining the poisoned blood from the Soma Familia.

Just, if it came to a fight…

He couldn't do it inside Soma Familia's Home. With a god as a witness, he'd be hamstrung even if he struck.

That was what Rozz figured.

But the gloomy young man standing in the second-floor corridor, Soma, the God of Wine, didn't leave. He was staring at Simon's figure in the distance.

Unfamiliar.

Even wearing a somewhat familiar face, Soma, as a god, could tell for certain that this was no member of his Familia.

It looked more like a disguise made through magic.

And the only one in the Familia who could do that was… Lili, the girl he had once pinned his hopes on, and whose illusions he had shredded with his own hands.

"Who are you?"

The gloomy young man's voice was so soft that unless you listened closely, Rozz wouldn't have known what he was saying.

Faced with such a pointed question, and knowing full well that gods can't lie, he stayed silent for a while before answering: "I came to make trouble for Zanis."

"?"

He might expect nothing from his Familia, but still, Soma was a god. Saying this right to his face… was that really appropriate?

Soma fell silent for a moment.

A flicker of interest stirred in him, and he said softly: "Come with me."

"…Me?"

This didn't seem to be going according to plan!

Rozz swept his gaze around again and found no trace of the gray-haired middle-aged man. After a moment's thought, he didn't refuse the offer.

Setting aside the score he had to settle with Zanis, there really was something he wanted to talk over with Soma directly.

The problem of Lili's Familia status.

Even leaving everything else aside, purely as a Supporter, she was a huge help to his Dungeon exploration.

And in the matter of Zanis…

She had taken on the risk of accompanying him into the Dungeon and lent him her magic, Cinder Ella. He couldn't just treat her help as a given, could he?

It didn't work that way.

She had never brought it up, but since he was about to meet Soma, he might as well ask what the god really thought.

Consider it doing a friend a favor while he was at it.

He followed the stairs up to the second-floor brewing room. The moment he arrived, Rozz saw all the equipment set out inside.

And…

The scent of medicinal herbs rolled over him.

As if he had anticipated Rozz's arrival, Soma was already waiting there. His eyes turned to the strange young man walking into the brewing room.

"Go on, then. Say your piece."

"Honestly, there's not much to say. Your Familia's members saw I was a rookie, wanted to give me trouble, and I killed them in the Dungeon. Then Zanis went berserk, and now he's coming after me."

Rozz dispelled the magical disguise of Cinder Ella and looked at the young god in front of him, asking calmly:

"So am I supposed to just take it?"

"…Sorry."

Soma had to admit his side was in the wrong.

He wasn't even surprised that Zanis would do such a thing. He looked at Rozz and said, "He is, after all, my Familia's vice-captain."

"Are you going to deal with him?"

"No."

A rare kind of Adventurer.

In the Familia, at least, Soma had never seen an exception like Rozz: open, unabashed, even a little matter-of-fact.

Not like the others.

When they met him, their fawning boiled down to one thing: begging for divine wine.

The gloomy young man raised his head and explained calmly: "But I can order him not to take any further action against you."

At least this god was… passably someone you could talk to.

But Rozz wasn't actually satisfied with that kind of settlement offer: "Do you know what he's been doing all this time?"

"What has he done?"

"Zanis ordered his Adventurers to tail me. He forced my friend Lili to move house, and every time I go into the Dungeon I'm on edge."

"Then what compensation do you want?"

"I don't want any compensation… You and money don't matter to me. But Zanis being gone… that matters a lot to me."

Make peace now?

There was no way that was happening.

Rozz couldn't be sure that Soma, the God of Wine in front of him, wouldn't favor Zanis in the end. Most crucially, even if Soma agreed…

No one could guarantee that Zanis wouldn't secretly make trouble for him anyway!

"I won't stop you… because I believe… even a little girl could defeat me. Since you've already made your choice, go and do it."

But at the mention of "Lili,"

the gloomy young man slowly raised his head, looked at Rozz, and asked curiously: "That magic just now… it belongs to Lili, doesn't it?"

"Yeah."

"Are you interested in making a deal?"

"Go on—"

Soma didn't answer right away.

He took a sealed bottle of divine wine from the display cabinet and poured it into a glass. At once, a rich, heady fragrance filled the whole room.

"Finish this cup of divine wine."

"If you can still tell me what you want after you finish it… and it doesn't really matter even if you can't."

The gloomy young man's tone was gentle.

As if he had seen through the Adventurer's nature, he added calmly: "I swear on my divinity that Zanis will not trouble you."

Divine wine.

Of course Rozz knew what this stuff was.

The root cause of the chaos in the Soma Familia was this very cup in front of him: crystal clear, giving off an enticing aroma without pause.

It was intensely addictive.

Delicious.

Drinking it would conjure up wonderful things and leave you thoroughly hooked. If this were back before he transmigrated, in powder form…

He'd have to give it a review: holy crap, that's ice!

"Any request at all?"

"Any."

Rozz looked at the gloomy young man and asked, "Say I wanted Lili to leave your Familia. Would that work too?"

"It would."

Having gotten a definite answer,

Rozz thought of his Forge Onward Skill, which let him ignore charm effects. Looked at from another angle…

Wasn't the ultimate pleasure of the divine wine's taste just a charm born of the appetite?

"Then what if," he said.

He raised his head. "If I don't drink this divine wine, what would Lili have to go through to leave your Familia?"

The gloomy young man didn't answer.

But the look Soma cast at the divine wine already said everything: she'd have to drink it and then state the same request.

Reason told Rozz:

Whatever you do, don't touch that stuff. Give up the urge to play helper. After all, today's goal was to deal with Zanis.

After this…

Without Zanis's trouble, Lili could still be his Supporter just the same.

But thinking about how they'd gotten along lately, she certainly could have dropped any urge to help and let Zanis hunt him down.

But Lili hadn't.

Sometimes, he felt, maybe you didn't need to weigh pros and cons so much.

Rozz stared at the divine wine in front of him. Reality had worn down his edges, and his habit was to avoid trouble.

But he had finally made it into the DanMachi world.

Suddenly it struck him that all this time he had only been adapting… adapting to the dark-forest rules of the extraordinary world, trying to truly fit in.

Mindset.

Rozz didn't want to live like a worn-out old man the way he had in his past life either. When facing certain choices… following his own heart, being a little more open-minded…

might make everything a lot easier?

And so,

under the silent gaze of Soma, the God of Wine, Rozz picked up the glass from the table and shrugged. "A drink's a drink, right?"

The ice-cold divine wine was poured down his throat in one go.

He didn't savor it. He gulped it down whole, and then it hit him: the ultimate pleasure of taste.

It was hard to describe.

Rozz felt warm currents surging up in his chest without end, and the intense sensory stimulation made his vision drift and blur.

In his hazy state,

he seemed to feel Soma's look, the one that said this was only to be expected. But then the face of his own goddess, Hestia, came to mind.

Lili…

And the gods and friends around him who had offered him kindness and help.

"Mm."

Rozz struggled to lift his head, looked at the gloomy young man, and forced out a smile: "How should I put it… the taste of the divine wine…"

"It feels… it feels… like nothing special…?"

"Since the deal's done, I'll start making my requests… I'm going to kill Zanis, and Lili leaves the Familia."

"And last of all, some compensation for emotional damages."

The gloomy young man said nothing.

He raised his head and stared at Rozz in disbelief. In Rozz's eyes, there wasn't the slightest craving for the divine wine.

If anything, this guy looked like he wanted to squeeze him for gold coins.

But he had to admit that the rookie Adventurer in front of him really had managed to resist the divine wine's effect through sheer willpower.

"You truly surprise me…"

"I always believed that no Adventurer could resist the lure of divine wine, yet you managed it to this extent."

"Mm…"

Looking at Rozz,

Soma couldn't hold back his feelings and murmured, "I have no objection to any of the requests you just made."

Just then,

brief footsteps sounded in the corridor outside Soma's brewing room. It was clear that whoever it was had stopped just outside.

Then came a voice, one utterly unfamiliar yet heavy with menace. There was no need to guess who it was.

Zanis.

Through the thick wooden door of the brewing room, his voice carried a chill as he demanded: "Simon, I seem to remember telling you this before. No one disturbs Lord Soma without my permission, correct?"

Part-time work was a must, or where would she get the money to support Rozz?

Hestia changed into her form-fitting shop uniform and headed for the branch of Hephaestus's weapon shop. But the moment she reached the entrance,

the goddess spotted the Supporter Lili crouching by the door.

Lately, Liliruca Arde had been serving as Rozz's Supporter. By rights, she should have been exploring the Dungeon.

Hestia was curious. "Miss Lili, you… didn't go to the Dungeon today?"

At that melodious call,

the Supporter girl looked up. Remembering Rozz's instructions before they'd parted, she stammered, "Rozz told me to come find you."

"Then where is he?"

Lili stayed silent.

A sudden foreboding rose in Hestia. Surely, right after the Hero Cloud-Raising Plan's brand-new feature had just been unlocked, her boy hadn't already run into trouble?!

Once inside the weapon shop, she couldn't wait to open the translucent light screen. The first thing to greet her eyes was the Exploration Log.

"You have a new character Exploration Log."

"After realizing he was being tailed by Soma Familia's Adventurers, Rozz had no intention of sitting back and waiting to die. He decided to seize the initiative completely."

"Using the magic Cinder Ella, he reached Soma Familia's Home without incident."

"Rozz tried to hide his identity and carry out a decapitation strike on Zanis, but inside the Familia Home he encountered Soma, the God of Wine."

"Faced with the deal offered by Soma, the God of Wine, Rozz chose to abandon weighing pros and cons, followed his own heart in making his decision, and passed the god's trial through sheer willpower."

"Amid the ultimate temptation of the divine wine, Rozz held firm to his goal of becoming an Adventurer, and the glow of a hero's soul began to show."

"Note: Having been baptized by the divine wine, Rozz's various Potentials have increased…"

What was going on?!

Hestia stared at the sheer volume of information the Exploration Log had delivered. Her mood was too tangled to describe.

What on earth was that supposed to mean…

Rozz had passed the God of Wine Soma's divine wine trial, the glow of a hero's soul was beginning to show, and even his Potential had risen?

[Author's Note: PS: There are 2 more updates today. They'll probably go out a bit later. I'll try to finish this whole plotline in one go.]