Is It Wrong to Explore the Dungeon Even Though I’m Overpowered? (Danmachi SI- WC) (Patreon)

Chapter 1: A Talk with the Moon

(Artemis POV)

“Orion!”

Artemis found herself unconsciously shouting in worry as she just managed to catch the boy before he fell and gently lowered him to the ground bringing his head to rest on her lap.

Checking his pulse Artemis breathed a sigh in relief when she found one. Next, she scanned her surroundings to make sure no monsters were around them and finally allowed herself to relax when she found none.

Looking down at the boy on her lap, Artemis found that she had unconsciously been caressing his head causing her to blush and pull her hand away.

“You saved my life and possibly even the world yet I don’t even know your name.” Artemis muttered to herself softly as she stared at the face of the boy just barely holding back the urge of caressing his cheek.

“Orion, could you really be…” Artemis stopped midsentence when she spotted a black ‘spear’ with a turquoise ribbon wrapped around it lying next to them that definitely hadn’t been there before.

“Wha? How did this get here?” Artemis muttered in shock reaching for the ‘spear’ and inspecting it slowly finding that this was indeed what she thought it was which should be impossible.

Blinking, a sudden thought entered Artemis’s mind causing her to look down at the boy on her lap again and chewing her lip while thinking on whether she should go through with her thought or not. At the end her curiosity won out and she slowly reached for Orion’s hand blushing as their hands came in contact before slowly turning his hand around with his palm facing up.

Then taking a deep breath Artemis laid the ‘spear’ down on his hand and immediately let out a happy gasp as the runes towards the tip of the ‘spear’ started glowing a soft blue with the teen unconsciously gripping the handle.

“You really are my Orion.” Artemis whispered to herself as a smile slowly grew on her face and this time conscious of what she was doing, she began caressing the teen’s cheek. ‘He has soft skin...’

“Artemis-sama!”

Artemis was knocked out of her trance by the shout of two familiar voices causing her to freeze for a second before immediately raising her head and being met with the forms of two girls who should be dead.

“Rethusa! Lante!”

Gently setting Orion down on the floor, Artemis was quick to get to her feet before running towards the girls and pulling them into a hug as tears of happiness fell down her cheeks knowing that some of her Familia had survived.

After a tearful reunion with her children Artemis began asking questions. “How did you two survive?”

Rethusa and Lante blinked at her question before turning to look at each other for a moment and seemingly had a silent conversation for a bit. Then as one they turned back to Artemis and raised their hands pointing at something behind her.

“We don’t know the full specifics, but what we do know was that it was thanks to that boy.” Rethusa explained in a serious voice with Lante nodding in agreement beside her.

Artemis blinked finding no lies within their words before turning herself to look at the unconscious boy on the ground.

‘Orion, just who are you?’ Artemis thought to herself feeling that the mystery surrounding Orion kept increasing.

At the end Artemis dismissed such thoughts to the back of her head since Orion was still unconscious and looked back at the remainder of her Familia.

“I see, let’s shelve this conversation for later. For now, we have more important matters to deal with. Come you two, the others deserve a proper burial.” Artemis instructed walking back to the ruins of the place with her children dutifully following behind her.

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(A Few Hours Later, Regular POV)

“Mmn.”

I felt myself waking up letting out a soft groan as I did at the feel of my strength finally returning after overstressing my body in my last and consequently first battle.

Opening my eyes, I sat up noticing as I did so that I was lying on some furs with a makeshift camp around me. Curiously the vegetation of where I was lying on looked much healthier than the rest.

‘Is this because of my Divine Protection of Vegetation? Yeah, must be.’ I thought before shaking those thoughts and looking around for the blue-haired Goddess only to give up seconds later at not finding her within my field of vision.

‘Water, I could use some water.’ I thought suddenly feeling really parched and getting to my feet.

After making sure that both Reid and Est were strapped to my waist, with Est being on a makeshift sheath for now, I slowly let my instincts or Reinhard’s really, guide me to the nearest water source as I thought about my last battle.

‘That was too close for comfort.’ I thought in a mixture of worry and relief knowing that if it wasn’t for Reid seeing Antares as a worthy opponent, I would have died not even an hour into my second life. Then because of my failure Est and Artemis would have met the same end.

Even with my success, since I didn’t have all of Reinhard’s power, my body couldn’t fully handle all the mana I needed to absorb and I almost ended up blowing myself up along with the area around me.

One good thing that came out of my battle though was that I had unlocked my Divine Protection of Anti-Magic meaning I would now be able to use Est without worry. ‘I’m sure she’ll be glad to hear that when I tell her later.’ I thought with a smile gently caressing Est’s pommel for a moment feeling the sword vibrate for a second in apparent happiness.

‘Speaking of good things.’ I thought pulling out my Company Phone and seeing two notifications. One for the completion of a mission and another one for the completion of an objective of another mission.

With the completion of the She Needs a Hero mission I had gotten several rewards including the Divine Bow Aegis Eclipse from the Nasuverse improved for my personal use and the Spear/Arrow of Orion with the same growth power as the Hestia Knife.

‘No wonder that ‘spear’ seemed familiar.’ I thought recalling the black ‘spear’ that was lying beside me back at the tent.

Next with an Additional Objective completed under the Delve to the Deep Abyss mission, I had received 200 credits, company clones of Rethusa and Lante and the instant capture of Artemis.

‘I might as well.’ I thought immediately paying off my debt before putting my phone away. ‘I’ll see about what to buy later with the rest of the credits.’

Lost in thought I didn’t even notice when I reached my destination and came to a stop just before stepping into the water. Then hearing a humming sound, I looked up curiously only to freeze in shock and feeling my face heat up at the vision of divine beauty in front of me.

Artemis was currently taking a bath and had her hands raised up giving me a full view of everything but her most sacred part.

Realizing what I was doing, I immediately turned the other way unfortunately getting Artemis’s attention when my foot sent a small pebble flying away making noise when it struck a tree.

“Who goes there!?” I heard Artemis exclaim angrily behind me.

“My apologies Kami-sama. I did not mean peek at you. I was merely thirsty and made my way here unknowing you were taking a bath. I will leave now, please go back to what you were doing.” I explained myself somewhat calmly, still feeling embarrassed and a little guilty for not checking my surroundings more thoroughly.

“Wait!” Artemis yelled making me halt in my tracks.

I stood with my back turned to Artemis for a bit while I heard the sound of clothes ruffling letting me know that she was getting changed. A few minutes later I was finally given permission to turn around.

“You may turn around now.”

Facing the Goddess again, I ignored the blush I could feel on my face and the one clearly visible on Artemis making her look very cute to my eyes.

“You’re lucky you know? If you hadn’t saved my life and that of Rethusa and Lante, I would have shot you with my bow by now for looking at my naked figure.” Artemis muttered softly with a shake of her head now dressed in her regular outfit and standing across from me.

“Once again, a thousand apologies Kami-sama.” I said with a small bow of my head while in my head I felt wheels turning. ‘Lante? Rethusa? So, they were automatically transferred here after my battle?’

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it. You haven’t lied to me so far so let’s just move past this little incident. Anyways Orion, are you feeling better now? Oh, you mentioned that you were thirsty right? Here.” Artemis dismissed my apologies with a shake of her head before reaching into her side and handing me a waterskin.

“Don’t worry Kami-sama, I’m back to 100%. Thank you for your concern.” I dismissed her worries with a smile.

“And Orion?” I muttered in slight confusion taking the waterskin off her hand after offering her a small thanks and taking a swig of water. ‘While I knew that was coming, it still feels a little weird being called that if I’m being honest.’

“Of course, you’re my Orion.” Artemis said with a nod of her head as if stating a fact. “Oh, and my name is Artemis. Please call me that from now on instead of Kami-sama.”

“I’m afraid I’m still a little confused why you call me Orion.” I muttered with my head tilting to the side in honest confusion before shaking my head.

“Regardless, my name is Reinhard van Astrea. My apologies for not introducing myself before Artemis-sama.” I introduced myself giving the goddess a bow that felt natural to me after the many times I had done it on my memories.

“Astrea? Are you part of the Astraea Familia then? I didn’t know Astraea had recruited another member since the tragedy from years ago. Good for her. Anyways, of course you’re Orion. Only Orion would make my arrow react that way after all.” Artemis muttered coming to her own conclusions about my name and explaining a bit more about her name for me.

‘I see. She must have been there when the Arrow was summoned and reacted to me.’ I thought in coming up with the best theory.

“While I know of the Goddess Astraea, I’m afraid to say that I have no relation with said goddess.” I denied with a shake of my head.

“What!? Which Familia do you belong to then?” Artemis exclaimed with a cute shocked expression.

Feeling a bit nervous now about such a question even though I knew it was coming, I took a deep breath to steady my nerves and went ahead anyways. I didn’t want to start my new life based on a lie since I knew that one lie would ultimately lead to many others to keep the lie going.

“I…I don’t belong to any Familia Artemis-sama nor have I ever been blessed with a Falna.” I revealed softly with a serious look on my face.

I watched as Artemis first blinked in confusion before a small frown grew on her face no doubt not detecting any lies from me before what I said finally registered in her brain causing her to widen her eyes in shock and exclaiming in surprise.

“WHAT!?”

Offering the goddess, a sympathetic smile I took a seat on the grass and motioned for Artemis to do the same. “This might take a while to explain, maybe it would be better if we take a seat?”

Artemis looked at me for a bit with an emotionless face before she let out a sigh and joined me on the floor with her full body facing mine giving me her undivided attention. “Go on then.”

Taking another breath, I slowly let it out and turned to face the goddess properly as well.

Then, I began my story.

“It all started when I died one day…”

We spent the next half an hour discussing how I had died, been offered a second chance at life by something, given powers and then sent to this world. I explained what little I knew about the Company and about how the Catalog worked as a reward system for completing tasks or capturing people.

I left absolutely nothing out, sharing everything with her and leaving my fate in her hands. At the end of it we sat in silence for a few minutes before I heard Artemis let out a sigh and letting herself fall back on the grass.

“That’s a lot to take in. I detected no lie in your words but with your strange abilities, you might have one that let’s you lie to me without me knowing about it.” Artemis muttered in a slight daze as she looked up at the sky.

“That ability does exist but I currently don’t have it.” I said not denying her words knowing that with Information Defense, lying to the gods/goddesses of this world was possible.

“And how can I know you’re telling the truth? Can you prove it?” Artemis shot back turning her head in my direction and looking up at me with a raised eyebrow.

“Hmm,” Thinking for a moment I nodded my head before pulling out my Company Phone. “This device shows all the abilities I currently have and it will update itself whenever I acquire a new one.” I explained briefly getting Artemis to raise her other eyebrow now in interest.

Sitting up, Artemis crawled to my side and took the phone from my hands looking at it with a fascinated expression on her face.

“Whoa, what is this?” Artemis asked while fiddling with the phone and giggling every time something new happened.

“It’s called a phone. If you look here, you should be able to see my current abilities. I can even prove that it’s real by getting a new ability and watching as it updates itself.” I said leaning a little closer to her and pointing with my finger at my current build.

“Ok, do it.” Artemis nodded handing me the phone back and looking at me expectantly.

“Very well.” Agreeing to her request, I thought about it for a moment before returning the Company Stamp and buying the Shroud of Power seeing how I also got Body Tune-Up, Athletic Talent and Soul Talent for free.

Since I was trying to use my powers for good, I didn’t want to take the easy way out with the Stamp and just stamping my troubles away. Besides, the Shroud would offer more benefits in the long run even if getting all the perks would be really expensive.

Switching to my current build again I showed Artemis the changes watching as she eagerly took my phone and inspected it closely.

“Wow~ It did change.” Artemis muttered in awe. “Ok, I believe you. Now, what ability did you get?” She asked curiously looking me all over to see if she could spot any changes.

I couldn’t help but smile at her cute antics never knowing that she had this side to her but being glad nonetheless about learning about it.

“Unfortunately, I won’t be able to show you the new changes until a full 24 hours has passed.” I revealed knowing that thanks to the Delayed Response Intensity, there was a 24-hr. delay before any effects activated, sales vanished or delivery was received with the only exception being mission rewards.

“Aww~ Oh well. Anyways Orion I need you to show me your back.” Artemis pouted for a second then looked at me with a serious expression.

Figuring she wanted to confirm if I really had a Falna or not I readily agreed silently glad that she still considered me her Orion despite what she had learned.

“Very well.” I carefully took the next few moments to remove my white coat and then the black shirt underneath and folding them neatly to the side.

Then finally shirtless, I turned away from the moon goddess presenting her my broad back and waited.

And waited some more.

Blinking at not feeling anything at all I addressed the silent goddess behind me. “Umm Artemis-sama?”

“A-ah! Ahem, right! Please hold still for a moment.” Artemis responded sounded slightly panicked before I finally felt her fingers come into contact with my back.

‘Ah, how could I forget. This is probably the first time she has seen a shirtless man with her being a Virgin Goddesses and all.’ I thought in realization feeling a little embarrassed at the thought that I was the first man Artemis had seen with so little clothes on.

I was broken from my thoughts when I felt something wet land on my back making me blink in confusion before I widened my eyes in surprise. “Artemis-sama! Did you just…”