Hero Chapter 45: No time to bask in warmth, let's grind! (Patreon)

In this world, a skill is tied to the user’s experiences.

Hestia knew that well—but when she actually saw the effect text, the smile on her face froze.

Steals the target’s overall stats.

Can surpass the S cap, reaching SS–SSS ratings.

“?”

The second line was easy to grasp.

For most adventurers, pushing any stat past S is extremely difficult—yet Keyaru’s skill could do it outright. That was something to celebrate. Reaching SS–SSS in any stat was, in its way, the potential of an ancient great hero.

But…

You have to look at both sides.

“Steals the target’s overall stats.”

No matter how Hestia read it, the core function set every alarm bell ringing.

An adventurer raises stats the blunt way: high-intensity Dungeon training and grinding the body.

Keyaru, however, could skip the normal steps and take other adventurers’ stats by skill alone. The very thought left Hestia conflicted.

After descending and crashing with her best friend Hephaestus, she’d inevitably heard bits about the dark faction in idle chats.

Even they didn’t go this far.

“Keyaru.” She looked up, eyes complicated. “About this skill…” She hesitated. “Can you tell me the details?”

“Of course.”

After unlocking Looting, Keyaru had expected this. Hestia’s stance as a goddess was justice; she wouldn’t tolerate a dark-faction-tier adventurer in her Familia.

Meeting her gaze, he answered frankly. “It’s a derivative I got while developing Heal. And… yeah, the effect is a bit beyond what I expected.”

He’d pictured using Looting to skim stats as “wool.” He hadn’t imagined something so close to the white-haired red-eyed rabbit’s ‘bug’—a cap-breaker.

As for what Hestia feared, his tone turned solemn:

“Lady Hestia, I can promise you this: I will not use this skill on our Familia members—or on unrelated, random adventurers.”

Process of elimination.

Hestia followed the logic. Set aside Familia and strangers—who’s left? The answer was obvious.

Enemies.

“Ganesha’s Familia keeps order in Orario,” he said, shaking his head at the memory of today, “but the Dungeon still runs on survival of the fittest.”

His stance was the same as any sane fighter: if the other side doesn’t launch nukes, you don’t send in your war god. He put it to Hestia more gently:

“As long as someone doesn’t harbor malice and act on it, I won’t use Looting—barring some special cases.”

“Mm…” Hestia nodded slowly. Gods can’t enter the Dungeon; back in Heaven, she was a homebody—not a fool. She knew the messiness of human nature. A solo delver’s worst threat at the end of the day might be another adventurer.

“Where I’m from,” Keyaru added, “we have a saying that fits: ‘Hostility merits justice; benevolence merits reciprocity.’ When an adventurer stands against me, he turns into an enemy. And the best way to deal with an enemy is to root them out.”

He shrugged lightly. “If we’re rooting them out anyway, Lady Hestia, taking their stats as spoils of victory is… fairly reasonable, isn’t it?”

“You’re right.”

His open, straightforward tone reassured her. Feeling that he hadn’t changed because of the Dungeon—and that he was telling the truth—Hestia realized there was no need to fixate on the point.

Thinking of today’s gains, she arched a brow. “So… you ran into threats from other adventurers today?”

“That’s right.”

Once the Soma mess was settled, Keyaru planned to bring Lili into the Familia—and this episode could be his advance notice to Hestia. He didn’t hide it: using his foreknowledge of the story, he sketched Lili’s treatment in the Soma Familia and left out the transactional bits, smoothing the edges.

The result didn’t surprise him. Hestia saw her children as family. Her eyes went wide, outrage burning for what Lili had gone through.

“How can there be a Familia like that!”

“Letting adventurers squeeze bottom-rung supporters—openly bullying them!”

“And then…” She caught herself; others mattered less than her own. She turned back, probing, “Keyaru, did you draw your blade for the innocent?”

“Not exactly…” He smiled wryly. “They weren’t going to let me walk, either. ‘Protection money’ is one thing—but they also demanded I hand over the weapon Lady Hestia gave me.”

Here his voice struck like a hammer. “I absolutely wasn’t backing down from that.”

“Th-then… just keep yourself safe!” Her cheeks flushed; it was easy to take him the wrong way. Looking into his clear brown eyes—eyes that could’ve taken in the whole world and at the moment held only her—Hestia hurried to change the subject.

“As for Looting—if it’s used on enemies, that should be fine. And one more thing: no one else can find out. I’m not worried about the Familia’s reputation—I’m worried about you. Orario would become incredibly hard for you.”

“Of course.”

On that point, Keyaru fully agreed. Unless his strength grew so overwhelming that it silenced every objection—and he wasn’t there yet—he had to keep it hidden.

Even so, the speed of Looting’s stat growth shocked him. Even without the windfall from Soma pursuers, a few days of hard work should let him push his averages up to C-rank before he joined a party.

He might not touch the Level 2 threshold yet, but with Transformation he could still fight strong monsters.

Time was still on his side. He’d make full use of it. As lovely as it was to bask in Hestia’s warmth, the priority for now was power.

He looked at the girl beside him, brows curving like new moons, that gentle light always flowing in her eyes.

“Lady Hestia—there’s still time tonight. I’m going to find Lord Takemikazuchi to drill my technique.”

“I’ll be home late!”