Chapter 67: First Try at Elf Magic (Patreon)

"An expedition?" Renan was a little surprised.

If he remembered right, it had only been a little over a month since Justice Familia got back from their last one.

So why...

She seemed to catch his confusion, because the brown-haired goddess explained, "Honestly, this one comes down to you."

Renan pointed at himself. "Me?"

"That's right." Astraea gave a small nod. "Four days ago... oh, for you it's been nearly two months now. When you challenged Goliath for your level-up feat, Loki's Nine Hell was watching, wasn't she?"

"After she went back, she must have passed your information on to the Braver and the Heavyweight. Those three probably wanted to get more rune scrolls out of you, or maybe the magic items you make. But since they barely know you, they thought it over and decided to take a roundabout route, using Alize and the others as their way in."

"I see." Understanding dawned on Renan's face, and then he changed tack. "What did Loki Familia offer?"

He had never hidden his true nature in front of Astraea.

And the goddess of justice clearly didn't dislike the boy's real face, either. She just raised a hand and tapped the forehead of the person beside her. "Honestly, you. You really can't stand taking a loss, can you?"

"Don't worry. Since Loki and I came down to the lower world, we've gotten along reasonably well. The very night you confirmed your feat progress, she and her children came to find me. They promised that on this expedition, they'd help Alize and the others pile up enough feats to rise to Lv5 and Lv4."

Loki Familia's three heavyweights were the strongest active adventurers in Orario today, apart from Ottar the Strongest.

Working together, the three of them could even unleash combat power on par with a Lv7.

With them personally watching over the group, Alize and the others wouldn't be one hundred percent safe once they reached the Dungeon's deeper floors, but no random monster would leave them badly hurt either.

And with enough luck, there was every chance they'd gather the feats they needed ahead of schedule.

Seen that way, the reward Loki Familia had offered up front was indeed extremely generous.

But...

"So you agreed?" Renan looked at the goddess sitting beside him.

Astraea's lips curved slightly. "To the joint expedition, yes, I did. But introducing you to Loki Familia? I never agreed to that~"

As she spoke, the arm looped around Renan's tightened a little, and her tone grew even softer than before. "You may be half a member of Astraea Familia by now, but I wouldn't decide anything on Alize's behalf without asking her either, let alone yours."

Among the troublemakers and lunatics who filled Orario, the goddess of justice was one of the rare deities with a fairly normal personality, someone who could deal with the people of the lower world as equals.

Renan lowered his eyes at her words.

Respect others and they'll respect you back.

If Astraea had really sold him out without his consent, he might still have kept in touch with the people of Justice Familia, but it would never have gone beyond the stage of acquaintances trading favors.

But in a case like this...

The black-haired boy let out a long breath, then said calmly, "Next time someone from Loki Familia comes, tell them to look for me next door."

His meaning was plain: he was willing to repay Justice Familia's debt for this joint expedition himself.

Hearing that answer, Astraea's eyes lit up.

As a grown woman, she understood the subtext in Renan's words all too well.

From this moment on, the two of them would grow even closer!

"Hehe~"

In her excitement, Astraea turned her head and planted a "mua" on Renan's cheek.

Then she covered for herself. "Thank you, Renan. That's a reward from your goddess~"

...

With his Falna's level-up complete, Renan didn't rush back to the Pokémon world.

He planned to spend some time hunting monsters in the Dungeon, so he could summon the fourth, and even the fifth, version of himself from other worlds into the shared space.

As for what state they'd be in when they showed up... Having been through three power-sharing sessions already, Renan, to be honest, had stopped expecting anything.

The deeper you went in the Dungeon, the more monsters there were.

And the longer adventurers lingered inside, the more nearly certain it became that anomalies would strike: monster stampedes, enhanced variants wandering in, and the like.

By Astraea's reckoning, Renan's current strength, without Breathing Techniques or Meditate, was roughly that of an adventurer just stepping into Lv4 with all stats at S.

Add the ordinary person's 1x physical boost from Thunder Breathing and the Teleportation move he'd mastered in the Pokémon world, and as long as he didn't venture into the deep floors (below Floor 37), he'd basically never meet a danger he couldn't handle.

That said, Renan had never been someone who liked taking risks.

Even with strength equal to a Lv4 adventurer of Orario's upper and middle ranks, he didn't actually go down to the lower floors (Floors 25 to 36). Instead, he chose Floor 19, right next to the safe floors, as his temporary base.

Quite a few Lv2 and Lv3 adventurers clearly thought the same way.

So there were actually a good number of figures to be seen on this floor.

But a few dozen to a hundred adventurers, spread across a Floor 19 nearly as wide as most of Orario's surface, couldn't possibly eat through all the monsters the Dungeon spawned.

And that, if anything, worked in Renan's favor.

In one corner of the tree-covered Dungeon, the black-haired boy stood with a staff in his left hand and Astraea's Blade in his right, his whole body sheathed in silver full-cover armor.

He looked like a textbook melee mage.

Not far ahead, five Minotaurs charged at him, huge axes in their hands.

To any Lv2, it would have been a terrifying situation.

Renan, though, looked quite calm. He simply raised his left hand and gave the tip of his staff a light tap toward the Minotaur on the far left.

He didn't chant a word.

A moment later, an icy-blue ball of energy gathered in front of the staff, then turned into a beam of light and effortlessly froze its target into an ice sculpture.

That wasn't all. Renan twisted his upper body slightly and swept the staff tip across the other four Minotaurs.

Just one second later, the rest of the monsters toppled one after another under the Ice Beam.

Yes, Ice Beam.

It was a Pokémon-style move, built on the Freezing Charm and reworked through his Development Ability, Fantasy I.

In raw power, the Freezing Charm and Ice Beam were about the same.

Both relied on freezing the target, and since Ice Beam had an extra shaping step, it actually cost a bit more mana.

But precisely because of that, unlike the Freezing Charm, which could only hit enemies in one small area, Ice Beam could be dragged along with the wand to strike every target along the beam's path.

It was the second piece of spirit magic uniquely his own, developed by combining the supernatural rules of the Harry Potter and Pokémon worlds.

As for the first piece of spirit magic...