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

Chapter 6: Eye of the War Goddess

(Continuing on from last Chapter)

Ryuu noticing that her friend was being too quiet turned in her direction only to blink when she saw the look on her face. “Are you all right Syr?”

Broken from her trance by the voice of the blonde elf, the Goddess in disguise blinked as she realized we were all staring at her now with various expressions on our faces. “Oh my, I’m so sorry for staring!” With a cute blush she apologized and gave me a small bow.

“I was just curious about that insignia on your arm.” Syr pointed to my left arm shamelessly lying to my face with a cute smile.

Blinking I turned to where she was pointing at and saw that I was still wearing the House Astrea insignia. ‘Should probably remove that soon.’

“I’ve never seen that symbol before in the city. Is that the emblem for your Familia by chance?” Finding an opening Syr continued with her lie not even paying an ounce attention to Est beside me or anyone else really.

“Syr, you’re being rude.” Ryuu intervened reprimanding her friend lightly before offering me a slight bow. “Please excuse Syr, she gets overly excited when she meets new people.”

“Oh, that’s right! We haven’t introduced ourselves yet huh?” Completely ignoring Ryuu, Syr smiled cutely and gave me a proper curtsy. “I’m Syr Flova and it’s a pleasure to meet you~ Sorry about staring again~” She finished her little introduction by giving me the classical ditsy girl response of closing one eye, sticking out her tongue and lightly hitting her head.

While her smile and greeting were real, I couldn’t help but notice that she didn’t sound sorry at all.

Sighing at being ignored, Ryuu nonetheless also offered me a curtsy. “My name is Ryuu, it’s good to meet you.”

“Please pay it no mind, all is forgiven.” Dismissing her fake apology, my manners kicked in again and I offered the two a knightly bow. “A pleasure to meet you Miss Flova, Miss Ryuu. My name is Reinhard and the companion beside me is Est.”

Straightening up again I noticed that Syr finally seemed to take notice of Est beside me offering her a small glance before completely dismissing her and focusing all her attention on me again. Est didn’t say anything at her behavior and just silently nodded at the two waitresses in greeting.

‘Obvious much?’

“As to your question, the insignia represents my family and has nothing to do with my Familia.” I figured there was no harm in revealing that much as it was useless information anyways though I did keep my full name a secret for now.

I had no idea how Ryuu would react to my last name and I didn’t want to antagonize the beautiful elf since she was one of my favorite characters from the little, I watched of the anime.

“Oh, so you come from nobility Reinhard? You certainly look like it.” Apparently not done with her questioning Syr continued eyeing me up and down.

Suppressing the shiver at having the yandere goddess checking me out I was thankfully saved from answering by Ryuu, who I was starting to like more and more as the conversation continued.

Looking surprised at her friend’s forwardness, Ryuu once again turned to the girl and reprimanded her. “Syr! That’s a rude question to ask someone we’ve just met.”

“Sorry, I was just curious~” Properly looking a little embarrassed now, Syr backed off from the questions thankfully.

“Well, it was nice to meet you two but I’m afraid we must depart.” Wanting to move along I made to excuse ourselves causing Syr to widen her eyes in panic.

“W-Wait!”

Pausing mid step, I focused my attention on the gray-haired girl. “Yes, Miss Flova?” I asked with a smile.

“Since you’re obviously new to the city, you probably don’t know any good places to eat huh? Well, you’re in luck~” Pointing at herself and Ryuu or more specifically at what they were wearing, Syr gave me a sales pitch. “Me and Ryuu here work at the most popular pub for adventurers in the city, the Hostess of Fertility.”

“Won’t you please come and pay us a visit?” At the end Syr had her hands in a pleading motion while looking up at me with a cute expression.

Knowing I wouldn’t be getting out of this conversation unless I agreed, I decided to humor her. Besides, I was already planning to visit the Hostess in the future anyway. “Haha very well Miss Flova. You have my word that after we finish settling in, I would be happy to visit where you work.”

“Great! I hope to see you there soon~” Syr was all smiles now, looking truly happy at my answer. “Be sure to order lots and lots when you do alright? I’ll be waiting~”

“Of course. Now if you’ll excuse us, we must really be going now. Miss Flova, Miss Ryuu, it was a pleasure meeting you. I’ll be seeing you later.”

“Mmn have a nice day~ Oh and please call me Syr going forward.” Still hyper focused on me, Syr didn’t even address Est probably already having forgotten her.

On the contrary, Ryuu just kept gaining more points. “Take care Reinhard-san, Est-san. Welcome to Orario, we hope to see you soon at the pub.”

Once we were a good distance away from the two waitresses, I let out a sigh feeling glad that to be out of that situation.

“That girl was dangerous.” Came the soft voice of Est from beside me, the spirit no longer feeling tense.

“Yes, she is. It seems she has gained an unhealthy amount of interest in me as I thought she would. Haah, hopefully we can come to an agreement or something in the future. Having her as an ally would be a boon for us if I can manage it.” Switching to speaking mentally, I relayed my thoughts to Est and my hope of being able to handle Freya peacefully avoiding the disaster I somewhat knew happened in canon.

“Reinhard can do it. I know he can.” Hearing how much confidence my cute spirit had in me, I couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed.

“Thanks for believing in me Est.” Est only nodded cutely with her hold on my hand tightening in reassurance.

Without anything else to say, we finally made our way into our destination and spent the next half an hour searching for Hestia’s ribbons and a gift for Artemis.

Fortunately, we were able to find what we were looking for and made our way back to the church, using the portal to make our way into our Sweet Home. Opening the front door, I immediately braced myself and pushed Est behind me seeing a white and black blur heading straight towards us.

“REIN-KUN~ This place is amazing!”

As I let out a sigh of relief at not being knocked into the ground by the excited goddess, I caught the forms of Artemis, Lante and Rethusa watching us from a distance with the moon goddess sporting a small pout on her face.

A moment later Artemis walked forward and pulled her fellow goddess from my arms and set her down on the ground. “Hestia, you really need to be careful when you do that. What if you accidentally hurt Rein?”

“Hihihi as if that was possible. My Rein-kun is super strong~ You should know better than anyone Artemis.” Hestia dismissed her worries not noticing Artemis frown in jealousy when she declared me hers before taking notice of Est behind me. “Oh! You must be Est-chan right? Rein-kun’s sword spirit.”

“Mmn.” Not one for a lot of words, Est only responded with a small nod of her head.

“So cuuuteee~” Overwhelmed by Est’s cuteness, Hestia squealed in happiness. “Est-chan, would you like to join my Familia too?”

“That…That’s actually a good question.” Blinking, I thought about it for a little longer and realized that if Est received a falna, I would no longer have to worry about possibly hurting her in the future once I recovered my full power.

‘It would go even faster if she were to receive an augmented falna.’ I thought about one of the rewards for the She Needs a Hero mission.

Since Est was a sword spirit, we would both be benefitting from killing monsters meaning we would both be getting stronger at the same time.

“Though I think Est should actually join you instead Artemis-sama.” Pulling myself from my thoughts I addressed the moon goddess who blinked before a look of realization was shown on her face.

“Oh! You mean because of that.”

“What are you two talking about? Don’t leave me out of it!” Feeling out of the loop, Hestia started poking my side with a pout on her face.

“Ah, pardon me Hestia-sama. You see…”

We took the next few minutes explaining to Hestia what we were talking about. At the end Hestia had a jealous look on her face as she hugged me around the waist possessively. “Artemis, you cheater!”

Faced with such words, Artemis could only look away in embarrassment. “I-It’s not my fault. If you want to blame someone, blame Rein. He’s the cause of all this!”

And she threw me under the bus with no remorse. “Guh! I-I apologize.”

Thankfully my cute spirit came to my rescue again as we all heard her stomach growl. “Reinhard, hungry.” She was now looking up at me expectantly erasing all other thoughts from my mind due to cuteness overload.

‘Was the original Reinhard into girls like Est or something? I swear, every time Est looks at me like that, I can’t help but immediately cave in and give her anything she wants.’

Ignoring my intrusive thoughts for now, I smiled down at Est and didn’t even hesitate on patting her head. “Of course, Est. Give me a few minutes and I’ll whip something up for all of us to eat.”

Then turning to everyone around me I ignored the jealous looks thrown my way and nervously smiled. “How about we save this conversation for after we eat?”

“You can cook Rein-kun?” Forgetting everything we were talking about; Hestia was now focused on me as if I was an oasis on a desert.

‘Geez, just what did she go through when she was living alone?’ Feeling sorry for the woman I decided I would go all out on this meal both as a reward for accepting me into her Familia and for everything she went through the past month.

“Rein is amazing~ Wait until you try his cooking Hestia.” Artemis gushed excitedly ignoring the fact that she had just thrown me under the bus moments earlier.

The other two girls also chimed in with their own compliments of my cooking so with nothing else to say I made my way into the kitchen with Est glued to my side and the rest following along behind me chatting excitedly.

=====

“Aaah~ That was delicious Rein-kun~”

“You outdid yourself again Rein~”

“As expected of Rein~ Not only is he extremely handsome, strong, a gentleman, the perfect knight in shining armor you grow up reading but he is also an amazing chef~”

“Good.”

“…nom nom Reinhard is the best nom.”

“Thank you, everyone.” Embarrassed at their compliments, especially Lante’s who while coming out as teasing, there was no hiding the truth behind her words with our new bond, I could do nothing but quietly mutter my thanks to everyone.

“Hihihi, this is the first time I’ve seen you so embarrassed Rein. Seems you do have a weakness after all~” The moon goddess teased me being able to feel my emotions.

“I think it’s cute~” Hestia joined her friend in trying to make me pass out from embarrassment.

“No bullying Reinhard. Bad.” Coming to my rescue again, Est looked up from her food and cutely reprimanded everyone with a blank look on her face.

Her words would have had more of an effect if she didn’t have a small mustache on her lips from the vanilla shake, she was drinking. Instead, all her words did was make the girls start gushing at how cute Est looked making the girl blink in confusion.

Letting out a sigh of relief at the girls having a new target, I pulled out my handkerchief and gently wiped Est’s face clean getting a thankful nod from the girl.

When I finished, I noticed that the table had gone quiet and looking at everyone I noticed that they were all sending jealous looks at Est’s way now making me sweat drop at how quickly they changed emotions.

“Mou, you spoil Est too much Rein-kun.” Hestia pouted with crossed arms with Artemis nodding in agreement beside her.

“I think so too.”

“By the way Rein?” Lante interrupted thankfully. “There was a stone door with an owl carved on it that we couldn’t open no matter how hard we tried down the hallway. Do you know something about it?”

“Oh yeah! I almost forgot!” Hestia recalled with a blink now looking at me with an excited look. “Knowing you, there’s got to be something amazing inside~”

“Stop pestering him everyone. If Rein wants to show us then that’s fine but you shouldn’t pester him otherwise.” Artemis came to my defense giving everyone a stern look.

“It’s alright Artemis-sama.” I dismissed her worries thankful for her words. “To be honest I had forgotten that door existed, that’s why I didn’t mention anything about it.”

The door they were talking about was the door to another world that came with Yuuya’s Template. I had at first thought that it would lead me to the world that Yuuya went to but that was not the case. Now that I had his powers, I could tell that the door just led to the cabin and small land that the barrier covered and that’s it.

While still extremely useful due to all the op weapons, items, plants and fruits inside that the sage left behind, I wouldn’t be cheesing my way to level 100 anytime soon by defeating a single monster from inside the barrier that patrolled the area around it.

‘Wait, didn’t I technically already do that when I defeated Antares?’ With a blank look on my face, I pulled up my Menu for the first time and stared silently at the level reflected back at me.

Level 240.

Never mind. Seems I ended up cheesing Yuuya’s template after all.

Pulling out my Company Phone from my pocket, I inspected my current stats and saw that Yuuya’s Template was now at tier6.

“If you’re curious though, we could check it out after we’re done eating.” I proposed putting my phone away again and addressing everyone with a smile.

Smiling at my answer, Artemis agreed with the others quick following. “Mmn, sounds good.”

“I want to see too!”

“Me too!”

When we finished lunch, we made our way to the stone door and without preamble I stepped forward and opened it wide showing a wooden cabin beyond it.

Turning back to the girls, I gave them a bow. “After you ladies.”

Lante immediately stepped forward sending me a teasing glance as she did. “Fufufu always the gentleman.”

Hestia followed after her with a smile on her face giving me a small hug as she passed me in thanks.

Rethusa was next offering me a nod in gratitude before only Artemis and Est remained with the former stepping up to me and giving me a kiss on the cheek.

“Thank you again for offering your home to us Rein. I really appreciate it.” With a blush on her cheeks, Artemis quickly walked away and followed the others leaving me with a similar blush on my face.

“No fair Reinhard. Me too.”

Too distracted to figure out what those words meant, I felt a small hand pull the front of my coat down forcing me to bend forward before I felt something soft and sweet meet my lips for a moment.

Pulling away with a satisfied look on her eyes, Est grabbed my hand and pulled me forwards and I unconsciously followed her my mind still processing what just happened.

I had just lost my first kiss to my sword spirit. A sword spirit that had gotten jealous at a genuine goddess for kissing my cheek. A sword spirit that enjoyed sleeping mostly naked next to me every night.

‘Haah, why do I get the feeling that Est is going to end up stealing a lot of my firsts?’ Sending a worried look Artemi’s way, a thought suddenly hit me. ‘I just hope she doesn’t end up being a yandere like her Fate counterpart.’

=====

 (Following Day)

Early dawn the next morning, I found myself walking towards the Guild with Est sheathed at my side, the spirit having chosen to sleep for a little longer.

The previous day we had explored the Sage’s house from top to bottom and I had added his arsenal of weapons to my Item Box along with making a slew of potions from the Cure-All Herbs growing on the back yard. Something that both Artemis and Hestia had warned me repeatedly to never reveal the contents due to how valuable the potion was.

I could understand too. The potions I could make from them had the ability to cure every injury, illness, replenished magical energy and restored lost limbs. Something that was impossible in this world as the most powerful potion here could only cure wounds and status ailments.

That’s not to mention the other op items and plants that grew on the small property. Chief among them the Bottomless Watering Can which produced limitless water, revived plants, cured exhaustion and increased magical energy.

It had been honestly amusing watching the girls almost break down in hysterics at what we had found. Though at the end, they were also happy since they would also be able to benefit from them.

Wanting me to be extra prepared for my first trip down to the dungeon, Artemis and Hestia had demanded that I take a bunch of potions with me and water from the Bottomless Watering Can. Artemis had also wanted Lante and Rethusa to accompany us but I had put my foot down wanting to experience my first dungeon dive with only myself and Est.

Reaching the Guild, I made my way inside and it didn’t take me long before I found Rose already waiting for me off to the side.

“Good. You’re on time.” Pleased at my arrival, Rose signaled me to follow her to a private room after greeting me politely.

“Good morning, Miss Rose. I’ll be under your care.” Following behind her my mind couldn’t help but wander to the dungeon.

‘I can’t help but feel my heart beat in excitement at all the challenges awaiting me in the dungeon. Huhuhu seems I have Reinhard’s reckless nature to thank for that.’