True Vorpal Bunny (Danmachi SI) Ch.17 (Patreon)

Chapter 17:

After the pink-haired Pallum stopped crying, thanks to Iru clarifying that he knew Lili, that her parents only died a few years ago and that she was sure Finn wasn’t her dad; The Hume Bunny and the trio from Astraea Familia went back to the surface, each with their own haul.

“You took the Goliath on your own? I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t know how scary you are.” Lyra said after looking at his loot of magic stones.

“It was slow, and we both know I have ways to hit above my weight class.”

They didn’t know all his Skills, but from the fight with Alfia, they could infer that he had a Magic Drain type of Skill so it wasn’t far-fetched that he was able to take out the Goliath. They didn’t need to know how all of his Skills synergized to make him strike harder even without the Magic Drain.

“I still find it weird how you have no one from your Familia with you.” Iska pointed out of the blue.

Iru had a ready made explanation for that one.

“90% of my Familia is made of fanatics with no sense of teamwork. When forced to work together for a quest, they’re as likely to kill each other as they are the monsters.”

“It isn’t that bad, surely.”

Iru looked at her flatly, his ruby eyes growing dull as his mind dwelled more and more on his Familia of degenerates.

“Most of our healers have reached Level 3 from fighting people in the Familia instead of monsters. I think that tells you all you need to know. Personally, out of more than a hundred active members, I trust less than ten with my back in the Dungeon. Anya is an outlier that doesn’t care about Freya. Ottar and Allen are more likely to charge forward and leave nothing for you to kill, so in that sense they’re pretty safe to be with. Hedin and Hogni have weird personalities, but aren’t that bad if Freya isn’t involved. The others are a complete write-off.”

“What about the Gulliver Brothers?” Lyra said since Iru talked about all the executives except for the Pallum siblings.

“They’re among the worst of the fanatics. If they think something is bad for Freya, they’ll crush it before Freya knows it so that she can’t order them not to.”

“Yikes. But hey, I haven’t spoken with her, but to keep all of those personalities under control, Lady Freya must be pretty great.”

And just like that, Lyra reminded Iru of why he had come down to blow some steam.

“Uuuuuurgh.” He groaned. “It’s complicated.”

“Women always are.” Kaguya threw shade on her own gender without an ounce of hesitation.

Iru raised an eyebrow.

“Are you talking about your relationship with Gale Wind?”

Poised and elegant Gojono Kaguya stumbled and her face erupted into a blush.

“Me and the Trash Pixie aren’t involved like that!”

“Like what? Hm?” The Hume Bunny’s crimson eyes narrowed in mirth as Kaguya trapped herself.

“Yeah, Kaguya. Like what? Something steamy happening between you and Lyon?” Lyra joined the teasing immediately.

“As the follower of a goddess of love, I should tell you that you should hurry before Ardee steals her from you.” Iru ‘advised.’

“Gasp! a Love triangle?!” Lyra declared dramatically.

Shiiiiing.

The sound of a drawn blade echoed through the Upper Floors as Kaguya unsheathed the first few inches of her sword with a flick of her thumb.

“You should stop here.” The Level 4 warned the two diminutive Level 3.

“You know” Iru was too amused to stop, “The best way would be to seduce both. A flower on each hand as it were.”

“Scandalous! Kaguya, you beast!” Lyra followed the joke perfectly.

Poor Iska in the background was trying desperately to not laugh and attract Kaguya’s ire.

“That’s it!” Kaguya drew her sword fully.

“Run!” The Pallum and the Hume Bunny took off.

[hr]

Lyra and Iru managed to run back to the surface where Kaguya had to calm and sheathe her weapon. She still gave a noogie to the two of them when she caught up.

Iru told the Astraea Familia goodbye after having his magic stones appraised and exchanged for cash.

The Goliath was the weakest Monster Rex, but it was still a Level 4 boss monster and with their long spawn times, both the magic stone and drop item of any Monster Rex were pretty rare.

Iru was sad to not have the Goliath Skin, but the magic stone itself was already worth a million Valis. With the rest of the regular monster stones and some item drops like the moths’ scales used for antidote or minotaurs’ horns for smithing, that got Iru a few hundred thousands more.

It seemed like a lot like that, but the price of  Level 3-worthy weapons and armors,  with more potent potions and the cut for the Familia’s coffers, meant that Iru’s money was going to evaporate pretty quickly.

But such was the price to have a weapon that wouldn’t shatter after the first swing of his new Level 3 strength.

Well, he would get something commissioned later when he got more money. For the time being, he had browsed through Hephaestus’s shop and got what fit in his budget.

He got another labrys, this one made with some adamantite, not the good stuff of the Deep Floors, but some mined from the Middle Floors. Same thing for his armor that he prefered to keep light.

He could have asked his Familia for some money to gear up, but Iru hated the concept of loans and debts on principle.

It was when he was heading back for Folkvangr that he noticed a bird fly above his head, which then landed on his shoulder. He noticed the message tied to its leg and took it before the avian beast flew off.

“He got my message then.” Iru muttered as he opened the letter.

When he had his loot appraised, he had also slipped a message to the desk jockey with a bribe to get it to his highest superior in the Guild.

I want to talk to Fels about our smart friends below.

Iru had hoped that the message would eventually reach the man himself. He hadn't expected such a quick answer.

He followed the bird-carried letter’s instructions and ended up in a street that had been abandoned after an Evilus’s explosion strike. A lot of people feared that the foundations of the houses around here would be shaky and had moved for their safety.

Iru entered one of those abandoned homes, ready to cast Star Crown if the ceiling decided to fall on his head.

It didn’t take long for the black-robed form of Uranos’s subordinate to appear from thin air, removing the effect of his cloak that had been keeping him invisible, like Asfi’s helm.

“Yo, Skeletor.” Iru greeted. “How are the Xenos?”

The robed and masked man froze for a single second.

“Well, it seems you know a lot of things you shouldn’t.”

He just stole Iru’s catchphrase! The nerve! He needed to find something else to say.

“If you took a monkey and made it write random letters for an infinite amount of time. Eventually, the monkey will write a whole novel. Now In that same infinite amount of time, it will also write the past, present and the future, maybe not in that order. And then, I just happened to get a glimpse of that book.”

“you claim to know the future.” Fels’s voice stayed flat.

“A future.” Iru pointed out. “One that is already deviating, so I’m going to act on what I know before my info becomes useless.”

“And so? In what way does this include me and the Xenos?”

“Ikelos and Thanatos Familia are both Evilus. They’re using a manmade Dungeon called Knossos that Daedalus’s descendants have been building over the last thousand years. The Ikelos Familia are monster poachers who sell them to dumb nobles who want exotic and dangerous pets. The moment they learn of Xenos, they’ll start hunting them down.”

“That’s…”

“There should be Orichalcum doors on Daedalus Street and on the 18th Floor.”

“It’s connected to the Dungeon?!” And there was the fear.

“Sure is, Mister Sage.”

Fels was silent for a few moments. Iru was starting to understand how freaky it was to talk to an undead. Even with a cloak and a mask, there should have still been movement, some kind of body language. But Fels was only a skeleton under the robes. There wasn’t a twitch he didn’t willingly make.

“There were theories about how Evilus could hide so well after all this time. “Fels started talking and his body started moving again as human habits caught up to his skeletal body.  “Even if they hide in the Dungeon and disguise themselves, there would have been traces of back and forth. But this would make sense if they have a base that is so unconventional that we wouldn’t have thought about it.  But now that you have given us narrowed locations for this man-made Dungeon’s entry points, we should be able to find them now.”

“I think the 18th Floor’s door is located in an underwater cave. The one in Daedalus Street is just a pain to locate.” Iru precised. He didn’t have the exact location, but if he could narrow it down further, all the better.

“Additionally, Freya should be mentioning the existence of Knossos, that’s the name of Daedalus’s family project, to other gods soon. I just wanted to make sure the Xenos were warned in advance and wouldn’t be caught off guard if adventurers started swarming the Middle Floors to find the entrance.”

“... That is very kind of you. Why would you do that for monsters, though?” Fels asked.

He was clearly testing Iru. The mortals and gods should only consider monsters like bloodthirsty beasts, intelligent or not. The feared reaction from adventurers who have made a living of hunting monsters, and who have lost friends and families, was why Ouranos and Fels had not divulged their existence. Too much tension during a dark and confusing period with Evilus running around freely.

The bunny shrugged.

“I just don’t like slavery. People should be free to live their lives.”

People, not monsters.

Iru then gained a rather malicious smile.

“Also, fuck Evilus in general. The more I can do to screw their operations over, the better.”

“Fair. Fuck those guys.” was the response of Fels, the 800 year old immortal, the sage who created the Philosopher Stone, the dignified agent and advisor of the Sky God.

This was the beginning of a beautiful friendship based on screwing assholes over.