Chapter: The First Step into the Abyss
Made By: Eternal_Jokr
A/N: This fanfic is open to criticism and opinions, tell us what you think in the comments section and leave your support. Thank you
---
The ceiling, a beautiful blue painting that resembled the sky above the Tower of Babel, seemed to crush the staircases descending toward the underground.
For the thousands of adventurers who crossed those gates daily, the stone slope was the beginning of a rush for gold, glory, or survival. For Dante, it just held the familiar stench of a slaughterhouse.
He descended the steps without haste. The black canvas of his worn cloak brushed the ground, muffling his footsteps.
On his back rested the rustic iron block of the Demon Slayer, heavy and secured by leather straps that crossed his broad chest.
"Hey, look at the size of that piece of scrap metal..." the whisper of a light-armored Dwarf echoed to his left.
"Another rookie thinking size compensates for a lack of level. He'll become Kobold food before noon" a human replied, laughing softly while adjusting his shield.
Dante did not turn his head. Beneath the shadows of his hood, his deep purple eyes were fixed on the threshold where the marble ended and the blue-green rocks of the 1st Floor began.
The instant his right foot crossed the dividing line, the Inverted Falna on his back reacted.
The divine letters that Hestia had bled into his skin did not glow with the gold of the Arcanum; they pulsed a dark, icy purple.
The skill [Apeiron Chaos] awakened, the ambient mysticism floating in the air of the Dungeon, the flow of Mind that fed the living walls, was suddenly repelled to a meter around his shoulders.
The natural phosphorus veins in the ceiling flickered, dimming in intensity as if the air were being deprived of oxygen.
Dante let out a slow sigh, a cold, almost imperceptible mist escaping his lips. The labyrinth was trying to digest him, his body was rejecting the digestion.
He walked fifty meters into the narrow corridor. The sound of civilization up above vanished, replaced by the rhythmic dripping of humidity and the organic pulsing of the rock walls.
The structure reacted to the anomaly.
Ahead of Dante, the stone began to swell grotesquely. Deep cracks split open, expelling shards and thick, gray smoke. With a shrill, high-pitched screech, three Goblins emerged from the rift.
Their olive-green skin was wrinkled, their yellow eyes gleamed with the blind hunger generated by the Dungeon, and their clawed hands wielded rudimentary knives made of chipped bone.
The monster in the center did not hesitate. Using the momentum of its sudden spawning, it lunged toward Dante's chest, aiming its knife at his throat.
Dante did not back down a millimeter. His Base Physical Strength at Rank B eliminated the need for hesitation.
He did not draw his sword. Instead, he took a short diagonal step to the left, letting the bone blade cut only the empty air where his hood had been a moment before.
Moving his body with the precision of a heavy gear, Dante delivered a straight punch with his bandaged right fist.
"SMACK"
The impact of his knuckles against the Goblin's face sounded like a sledgehammer hitting a watermelon, pure kinetic force obliterated the creature's skull before it could even bleed.
The body was hurled against the rock wall, disintegrating into gray dust before touching the ground. The magic stone in its chest clattered to the floor.
The other two Goblins, driven by territorial killer instinct, advanced in a pincer movement. One slid along the ground, trying to slice the tendons in Dante's legs, while the other leaped sideways, seeking to flank him.
Dante brought his right hand to his shoulder and gripped the rough leather handle of his sword. The Demon Slayer was unsheathed with a heavy metallic ring.
He drove the tip of the immense iron sword directly into the rock floor, using the massive width of the metal as a fixed shield.
The Goblin attacking from below collided head-on against the block of iron.
The bone knife shattered into shards upon hitting the raw metal, and the impact snapped the monster's wrist with a dry crack.
Without breaking the flow of movement, Dante used the embedded sword as a pivot. He braced both hands on the pommel and propelled his body upward, delivering a spinning heel kick into the chest of the airborne Goblin.
The blow caved in the creature's ribcage, launching it dead against the opposite wall, where it dissolved into ash.
Dante landed softly, wrenching the Demon Slayer from the rock with a single, sharp tug.
The last Goblin, with a broken wrist and a destroyed weapon, retreated in desperation.
Its yellow eyes were wide with terror, the beast's instinct finally understood that the creature in front of it was not prey, but something that moved with the lethality of a hydraulic press.
The monster tried to channel the rest of the Mind provided by the floor to make a defensive leap backward.
Dante advanced like a shadow. His sudden burst of speed shattered the air in the corridor, opening a vacuum in the gray dust.
He closed the distance in a fraction of a second.
His bare left hand shot out, grabbing the Goblin by the face and pinning it against the rock wall.
The exact moment his calloused fingers touched the monster's flesh, [Apeiron Chaos] activated.
The Goblin's veins, which had previously glowed subtly with the mystic flow of the Dungeon, turned black and withered.
The vital and magical energy sustaining the creature was severely severed and drained by the void of Dante's anti-magic.
The monster let out a suffocated whimper as its body visibly shriveled, losing muscular rigidity in seconds.
With a final squeeze, Dante crushed the creature's skull and core simultaneously.
The corpse turned into dark smoke, leaving only a handful of completely dull gray dust to trickle through the bandages of his left hand. No crystal remained; every drop of magic stone had been digested to stabilize Dante's muscles.
Dante released the remains and spun the Demon Slayer in the air, wiping the invisible dust from the blade before resting it once more over his right shoulder.
The marks on his back pulsed one last time, absorbing the stress of combat and converting it into experience.
His deep purple eyes stared into the darkness that led deeper into the labyrinth.
The choreography of first blood had ended.
Dante adjusted his hood and continued to walk, leaving behind only the silence of a floor that was beginning to fear him.
Dante continued his downward march. The first floor had tried to test him with its simplest patrols, but for his body, that had been just a warm-up.
As he advanced, the blue-green rock corridors began to slope more steeply, narrowing into stone gorges where the air became increasingly dense and suffocating.
He crossed the threshold to the 2nd Floor without stopping to rest. The transition was marked by a subtle change in the pulse of the Dungeon; the phosphorus veins in the walls now flickered at a more frantic pace, like the nervous system of an alert animal.
Dante did not need to see the monsters to know they were coming, his lack of traditional magical perception was compensated for by the vacuum that the creatures caused in the environment.
For him, the flow of Mana sustaining the Dungeon was like an invisible smokescreen; when a monster moved, it tore through that screen, leaving an "absence" that Dante's instinct mapped instantly.
Ahead of him, the corridor widened into a small, low-ceilinged chamber. From the rifts in the rock, four Goblins of the second floor emerged all at once.
They were larger than those from the previous level, their skin possessed a darker, more calloused olive-green tone, and two of them wielded knotted wooden clubs with sharp stones tied by tendons.
The two armed Goblins advanced in front, banging their clubs on the ground to intimidate him, while the other two flanked through the shadows of the walls, moving on all fours like beasts.
Dante maintained his rhythmic pace. When the first Goblin delivered a horizontal swing with its club, aiming for his knees, Dante simply shifted his body weight backward in a calculated movement.
The stone club cut the air, scraping the canvas of his black cloak.
Taking advantage of the opening, Dante shot his left foot out in a direct front stomp to the creature's chest.
"CRACK!"
The impact of his Rank B Strength shattered the Goblin's sternum.
The monster was projected backward as if it had been hit by a cannonball, colliding against its companion right behind it.
Both bodies crashed against the wall and disintegrated instantly into a cloud of gray dust. Their magic stones fell to the floor.
The two remaining Goblins, attempting a stealth attack from the sides, lunged simultaneously toward Dante's shoulders with claws extended.
Without looking, Dante brought his right hand to his back and drew the Demon Slayer in a single fluid movement.
The immense sword of black iron sliced the air in a short, ascending vertical arc. The massive edge intercepted the Goblin on the right in mid-air, crushing it against the side wall with devastating force.
At the same moment, Dante's left arm shot backward, grabbing the last Goblin by the neck before its claws could tear the fabric of his cloak.
The skill [Apeiron Chaos] acted within the frequency of a heartbeat.
The Goblin's veins beneath Dante's bandaged fingers darkened. The creature let out a mute screech, its legs kicking the air frantically as its body dehydrated and lost biological rigidity, entirely drained by the void of the Inverted Falna.
Dante clenched his fist tightly, crushing the monster's withered trachea, which dissolved into dark smoke between his fingers.
He sheathed the sword on his back and continued forward, his purple eyes fixed on the descent leading to the 3rd Floor.
At the entrance to the third level, the Dungeon changed tactics.
The corridors opened into larger galleries, interconnected by natural stone arches. It was there that Dante encountered the first Kobolds of his journey.
Unlike Goblins, Kobolds were bipedal canine monsters—more agile, with grayish fur and claws capable of shredding a rookie's leather armor. And they hunted in packs.
When Dante entered a circular gallery thirty meters in diameter, the sound of claws scratching rock echoed from all directions. From the shadows of the arches, five Kobolds emerged, growling and baring sharp teeth that salivated an acidic secretion.
The leader of the pack, a slightly larger specimen with a scar on its snout, let out a short howl. Under its command, the five monsters advanced in a coordinated charge from different angles.
Dante stopped in the center of the gallery. He flexed his knees, lowering his center of gravity, and gripped the handle of the Demon Slayer with both hands, leaving the heavy blade pointed at the ground.
The black energy of Antimagicbegan to crackle around the raw metal, emitting a muffled static sound that seemed to swallow the growls.
Two Kobolds leaped from the front, while a third tried to slide from behind to bite his heels.
Dante moved. He took a wide step forward and delivered a maximum-power horizontal slash with the Demon Slayer.
The raw weight of the forged iron, combined with the speed of his Rank C Agility, created a violent displacement of air.
The side of the black blade hit the two frontal Kobolds full-on.
The kinetic impact was devastating: the monsters' carapaces shattered like glass and their bodies were launched horizontally against the stone columns of the gallery, exploding into gray dust before touching the ground.
Without losing momentum, Dante spun on his right heel. The Kobold attempting the attack from behind already had its jaws open inches from his leg. Instead of using the sword, Dante brought his left heel down in a brutal vertical stomp directly onto the monster's snout.
"BOOM!"
The Kobold's head was crushed against the uneven rock floor, cracking a small fissure into the structure of the Dungeon. The monster turned into black smoke instantly.
The last two Kobolds of the pack halted their charge, their claws skidding as they braked on the rock.
Their animal instinct pushed them back, the presence of that hooded human did not emanate the aura of prey, but the absolute void of a predator that did not belong to that world.
They tried to retreat into the shadows, but Dante was faster.
His sudden burst shattered the silence of the cavern.
He covered the distance of ten meters in the blink of an eye, leaving only a trail of gray dust behind.
Before the first Kobold could leap into a crack in the wall, Dante drove his left hand into its thick tail, yanking it back with violent force and hurling it against its last surviving companion.
The two monsters collided in mid-air. Dante advanced in the same fluid motion, bringing the Demon Slayer down in a crushing top-to-bottom strike that buried both bodies into the rock. A dense cloud of ash rose, and silence returned to the gallery.
Dante took a deep breath, the dark-purple smoke of [Apeiron Chaos] evaporating from his shoulders as his muscle tissues assimilated the effort, becoming even more adapted. He looked at the remains, but the magic stones had shattered.
However, in the center of the impact, something shined. Two front Kobold claws, long and perfectly sharp, had resisted the blows.
"Drop materials" Dante murmured, his hoarse voice echoing off the uneven rock walls. He crouched, gathered the bone claws, and stored them in the worn canvas pouch at his waist. "Hestia needs Valis."
He continued to descend, and the air changed drastically upon crossing the boundary of the 4th Floor.
There, the Dungeon began to show its true labyrinthine face.
The walls were made of a dark, damp rock that seemed to bleed brackish, cold water.
The ceiling was high and covered with sharp stalactites that swayed subtly. The smell of old iron and dried blood was much more pronounced, indicating that this was the floor where many unprepared rookies met their end.
On the 4th floor, Goblins and Kobolds no longer walked in isolated groups; the Dungeon spawned them in mixed hordes, utilizing the rudimentary intelligence of the Goblins to coordinate the ferocity of the Kobolds.
Dante walked to the center of a large crossroads where three tunnels met. The walls around him began to vibrate intensely.
It wasn't just a single rift opening, dozens of cracks spread through the dark rock like spider webs.
Howls and screeches echoed in unison, creating a deafening cacophony that would make an ordinary adventurer's heart race with panic.
From the walls emerged six Goblins armed with rusty iron daggers and four dark-furred Kobolds, their eyes glowing an aggressive crimson red.
The horde closed off the three exits of the crossroads, surrounding Dante on all sides.
Dante stopped. He brought his hands to the leather straps on his chest, loosening them slightly to grant total freedom of movement to his broad shoulders.
Beneath his hood, his purple eyes narrowed, mapping the monsters converging on his position.
The leader of the Goblins, positioned in the rear, clanged the blade of its dagger against the rock, and the horde advanced all at once, a wave of claws, teeth, and old iron.
The hunt on the fourth level had begun, and Dante knew that, this time, he would have to hit even harder.
The charge of the mixed horde on the 4th floor was immediate.
The four Kobolds used their canine agility to lead the wave, sliding across the damp rock with claws extended, while the six Goblins came right behind, brandishing their rusty daggers and leaping off the wall ledges to surround Dante from above.
Dante did not wait for the encirclement to close.
He exploded forward. The impact of his feet against the floor broke the uneven rock, spraying a trail of water into the air.
The nearest Kobold, leading the left flank, barely had time to raise its claws before Dante reached it.
Instead of using the sword, Dante advanced with his right shoulder rigid like the bumper of a train.
"CRASH!"
The body tackle, charged with his Rank B Strength, hit the Kobold's chest full-on. The sound of the monster's bones snapping echoed like a dry branch cracking in a fire.
The impact was so violent that the creature's body was hurled backward, running over two Goblins coming in the second line and turning all three, instantly, into a shapeless mass of black smoke and ashes.
Taking advantage of the opening and his momentum, Dante spun his body 180 degrees on his left heel. The Demon Slayer was already in his right hand.
Three Goblins leaped from the ceiling simultaneously, daggers aimed at the top of his head.
Dante raised the heavy sword of black iron with both hands in an ascending horizontal arc. The massive blade met the bodies of the monsters in mid-air.
There was no cutting. There was only obliteration by crushing weight.
The raw power of the rustic forged iron collided against flesh, crushing the bodies of the three creatures all at once.
The rusty daggers shattered into dozens of shards that clinked against the damp floor, while the Goblins evaporated into dark dust. The void of amtimagic crackled around the blade.
Sparks of dark-purple static danced across the bandages of Dante's arms.
His passive [Apeiron Chaos] was operating in overdrive, engulfing the Mana dealing with the stress of multiple combatants and pumping new density directly into his muscle fibers, nullifying any remnant of fatigue.
The two remaining Kobolds and the last two Goblins took two steps back, chests heaving, yellow and red eyes fixed on the young man in the black cloak.
The ground around Dante was clear of bodies, marked only by circles of gray, sterile dust.
The Goblin that seemed to lead the group let out a sharp screech, ordering a desperate retreat.
The two Kobolds advanced in a zig-zag, trying to confuse him with the speed of their feints.
Dante released his right hand from the sword, leaving the Demon Slayer embedded vertically in the rock, and advanced bare-handed against the surviving monsters.
The first Kobold leaped, aiming its acidic jaws at Dante's neck. With cold reflexes, Dante extended his left hand and caught the monster's snout in mid-air, clenching his bandaged fingers with enough strength to lock the beast's jaws.
At the same instant, the second Kobold tried to tear into his ribs from the right. Dante simply raised his right knee with full force, meeting the monster's stomach with a brutal ascending strike.
"CRUNCH!"
The Kobold on the right doubled over and turned to ashes in the air. Meanwhile, the skill [Apeiron Chaos] was already running through Dante's left fingers holding the first Kobold.
The canine monster's veins glowed a dark, sickly tone. The flow of Mind that the Dungeon injected into its legs to keep it agile was completely cut off and drained.
The grayish fur dried, becoming brittle like straw, and its red eyes lost their luster, turning opaque. Dante swung his arm and hurled the shriveled body of the creature against the last two Goblins trying to flee back down the tunnel.
The impact reduced all survivors to a final, dense cloud of dark smoke that was quickly sucked into the cracks of the 4th-floor ground.
An icy silence returned to the crossroads. Brackish water continued to drip from the ceiling, but the air around Dante was purified of any hostile Mana.
Dante walked to the remains of the last clash. Amidst the gray dust, three physical items shined beneath the dim light, two goblin fangs that had not broken and a long, perfectly preserved nail from the leader of the Kobolds.
He crouched, gathered the spoils, and tossed them inside the worn canvas pouch at his waist. The weight of the pouch was already considerable.
'This should be enough to cover today's costs and guarantee Hestia's bread for a week' he thought, adjusting the black hood over his head.
He recovered the Demon Slayer from the ground, wiping the invisible gray dust from the blade with the back of his bandaged hand before securing it back to his shoulders. His deep purple eyes aimed down the central tunnel, where the descent continued, leading toward the 5th Floor.
The Dungeon was beginning to understand that its rules did not apply to the shadow that had just descended.
Dante turned around toward the exit.
The late afternoon light in Orario was beginning to tint the streets orange when Dante crossed the oak doors of the Adventurers' Guild.
His massive silhouette, wrapped in the dark canvas of his black cloak, cut through the flow of bloodied rookies and noisy veterans lining up at the service counters.
He walked straight to the east wing, stopping in front of counter number five.
Behind it, organizing an immense pile of casualty reports and exchange forms, was Rose Fannett. The werewolf receptionist let out a tired sigh that moved her furry ears. When she raised her eyes and came face-to-face with Dante's dark hood and deep purple eyes, her eyebrows knitted together immediately.
"Well, if it isn't Goddess Hestia's mysterious rookie" Rose crossed her arms over the counter, her tail thumping against her chair in an impatient rhythm. "Back early. Let me guess: the first floor was too scary and you decided to come back before breaking that block of iron you call a sword?"
Dante did not change his expression. With a slow movement, he untied the worn canvas pouch from his waist and rested it on the wooden counter. The impact produced a dull, heavy thud, mixing the clinking of crystals with the snapping of bony items.
"I came to do the exchange" Dante said, his voice hoarse and low.
Rose arched an eyebrow and pulled the pouch closer, undoing the rope knot. The moment she took a glance inside, her wolf ears shot straight up.
She plunged her hand into the canvas, pulling the items out one by one and lining them up meticulously across the counter. First, she took out the fangs of the Goblins.
Next, she organized the anatomical fragments: two sharp Kobold nails, a visibly larger and thicker nail belonging to a Kobold Leader, and two sharp Goblin fangs.
Finally, Rose poured out the remaining contentes.
A gleaming handful of 19 magic stones. They were the crystals Dante had managed to preserve before his own skill devoured them completely in the heat of battle.
"What in the..." Rose looked at the spoils and then at Dante, her voice rising a tone and drawing looks from other employees. "Dante... these spoils. Kobold nails? A Kobold Leader nail?! These monsters don't spawn on the first flor, and these items are from fourth-floor hordes"
Dante remained motionless.
"They appeared. I killed them" he replied in a mild voice.
"They appeared!?" Rose slammed her hands on the counter, standing up from her chair, her tail bristling with pure irritation. "You are a Level 1 who just received a Falna yesterday! You are supposed to stay in the safety zone collecting small fragments and learning how not to die! Going down to the fourth floor alone on your first day isn't bravery, it's stupidity. The Guild has safety rules precisely to keep arrogant rookies from becoming Dungeon fertilizer."
"I needed the drops" Dante replied pragmatically, ignoring the lecture. "Where are my Valis?"
Rose took a deep breath, trying to contain the growl rising up her throat. She looked again at the nineteen magic stones and the monster remains, shaking her head.
"You got lucky. Very lucky. Bringing nineteen intact crystals and these specific anatomical drops from leaders on your first day is absurd."
She began to make the calculations with the tip of her pencil, tapping her fingers on the counter as she added up the market values of each material piece.
The Kobold Leader's nail and the leader Goblin fangs considerably elevated the count. After a few minutes, she pulled open a small fortified drawer under the table and began counting the gold and silver coins.
"Well, considering the value of the nineteen stones, the bonus for the Kobold Leader's nail, the two common nails and the two Goblin fangs... the total of your reward is exactly 10,700 Valis" Rose pushed a heavy leather pouch stuffed with coins toward him.
Dante extended his bandaged hand and took the money.
The weight of the coins was music to his ears, that was enough to pull Hestia out of immediate misery, buy real supplies, and guarantee that the table at the abandoned church would have a proper dinner.
"Thank you, Rose" Dante stored the pouch under his cloak.
"Don't thank me!" Rose pointed her index finger toward his face, her eyes narrowed in a serious threat. "I am warning you, Dante. If you go below the fourth floor tomorrow without a team or without authorization, I will personally drag you out of that Dungeon by your ears myself, do you hear me? Tell Goddess Hestia to put a leash on her adventurer."
Dante gave a slight nod of his head beneath his hood, a shadow of satisfaction crossing his purple eyes.
"See you tomorrow, Rose."
He turned and walked toward the Guild's exit, leaving the wolf receptionist huffing with anger behind the counter.
Night had already swallowed Orario when Dante turned the corner of the abandoned residential street.
The silence there was an absolute contrast to the noise of the commercial district.
His footsteps made almost no sound against the cold stones until he stopped before the creaking double wooden doors of the ruined church he now called home.
As soon as he pushed the doors open, a figure with blue ribbons and black hair tied in twin-tails flew in his direction.
"DANTEEEE" Hestia practically threw herself against his chest, but colliding with Dante's rigid musculature was like hitting a concrete wall. She took a step back, dizzy, but soon recovered her balance and began pulling the fabric of his black cloak with trembling hands. "You took so long! Night fell and you weren't back! I was already almost storming the Guild"
Dante remained standing in the center of the abandoned church hall, letting the goddess pull him into the area illuminated by the moonlight passing through the broken ceiling.
"I said I would return" he replied, his hoarse voice echoing through the empty space.
"Saying it is easy! But you're a rookie" Hestia ignored his pragmatism and began groping Dante's bandaged arms.
Her plump hands went up his shoulders, squeezing the fabric in search of tears or signs of blood. "Take off this cloak! Take it off now! Where are the scratches? Did a Goblin scratch you? Did a Kobold bite you? Let me see, take off your shirt!"
Dante untied the knot of the black cloak and let it slide to the floor, revealing the immense Demon Slayer secured to his back and his torso covered by bandages.
Hestia began running circles around him like a small, possessive beast.
She crouched, checking his legs, then stood on her tiptoes, trying to look under the bandages of his chest.
Her worry bordered on comic exaggeration, but Dante's face remained a mask of ice.
"I have no injuries, Hestia. They couldn't touch me" Dante said simply.
"Don't lie to your goddess" she accused, huffing and puffing out her cheeks. She stopped right in front of him, pointing her index finger at his bandaged chest. "I know adventurers! You pretend you're tough, but you come home with hidden bruises just so you don't worry your adorable goddesses! If you are hurt and don't tell me, I'll... I'll..."
Before she could finish the threat, Dante slipped his hand under his waist bandages and pulled out the heavy leather pouch Rose had handed him. With a dense metallic clinking, he extended it toward Hestia.
"What is..." She took the pouch, almost dropping it from the unexpected weight. Upon opening the drawstring and looking at the gold and silver glow inside, Hestia's eyes turned into two full moons. "V-Valis?! All of this?!"
"Ten thousand seven hundred" Dante informed her, crossing his arms. "It's enough to buy real food. No more deep-fried potato snacks."
Hestia looked from the pouch of coins to Dante, and back to the pouch.
In the blink of an eye, the worried goddess disappeared, replaced by a Hestia with eyes gleaming in the shape of Valis signs.
She hugged the pouch of money against her chest, hopping with joy around the altar.
"Ten thousand?! On the first day?!" She let out a triumphant laugh, pointing at the ceiling in the direction of Babel. "Suck on that, Loki boobs. Suck on that, Freya. My first dependent is a financial genius! We are rich! Rich!"
Dante walked to the corner of the hall where the old, rustic sofa stood and sat down, the weight of his body making the springs groan. The physical exhaustion from [Apeiron Chaos] digesting the stress of combat was beginning to hit.
Hestia, noticing the movement, dropped the money on top of a box and ran to him.
With the same intimacy and lack of shame from before, she hopped onto the sofa and kneeled right beside him, pressing her body against his.
"Well... since you brought so much money and you're not hurt..." she changed her tone of voice to something pretentiously seductive, tossing her hair back and puffing out her chest, causing the famous blue ribbon around her breasts to stretch to its limit. "Don't you think your goddess deserves a reward for waiting all day with her heart in her hands? Hmm, Dante?"
Dante looked askance at her. Beneath the shadows that still remained on his face, his deep purple eyes met Hestia's gaze.
Her proximity did not activate his skill anymore, but the invasion of personal space left him slightly confused.
"What kind of reward?" he asked directly.
Hestia leaned in even closer, her face inches from his, a mischievous smile playing on her lips.
"Oh, you know... A compliment? A very tight hug? Or maybe... you can let me sleep by your side today to protect you from the Dungeon's nightmares?" She gave an exaggerated wink, nudging his massive arm with her elbow. "I'm a very warm goddess, you know? I bet that cold iron on your back doesn't warm you half as much as I would."
Dante blinked slowly. He extended his bandaged left hand and, with a single finger positioned on Hestia's forehead, gently pushed her back, creating some distance.
"You are too small to warm anything, Hestia. Go store the money before the rats think it's food" he said, before suddenly pulling Hestia into a brief, protective hold, leaving the goddess confused and melting in his arms before she snapped back to reality.
"Hey! What do you mean small?!" Hestia grabbed his finger, pretending to bite it, her face red with comic frustration. "I am perfectly proportional, and I am your goddess, you should be begging for my affection, you insensitive brute"
Dante withdrew his hand and lay on his back on the old sofa, closing his eyes as the purple static of his marks stabilized completely.
"Go cook, Hestia. I'm hungry."
Hestia looked at him, pretending to be mad with crossed arms, but seeing his chest rise and fall in a calm rhythm, a tender and genuine smile appeared on her lips.
She walked over to the pouch of Valis, holding it with pride.
"Alright, alright... Today Mommy Hestia is going to make a feast! But tomorrow you'll have to put up with me asking for a good morning hug, do you hear me well, Dante?"
Dante did not reply, but the corner of his mouth rose a millimeter in the darkness of the church. He was finally home.
Sometime later, right after they ate, Hestia remembered to update Dante's status.
The silence that followed the reading of the parchment was broken only by the rustle of the bandage fabric being adjusted on Dante's arms.
Hestia still held the paper with the tips of her trembling fingers, her eyes alternating between the absurd numbers and the young man's impassive face.
Suddenly, the goddess's mind processed the mathematics of that status. A snap echoed through her divine thoughts.
She leaped forward, forgetting her initial shock, and practically glued the paper to Dante's nose.
"Dante! Look at this right here! Do you have any idea what these numbers mean?!" Hestia gestured frantically, her twin-tails swaying from side to side.
"Strength at B! Endurance at A! And your Magic... I didn't even know the Falna system could compute an SSS Rank, even if it's negative! I don't even know what that means! This is historic! It's a miracle that only my Familia could produce!"
Dante just looked askance at the parchment, without altering a single facial muscle.
"They are just numbers. They help cut faster."
"Just numbers? Are you completely insensitive or what!?" Hestia puffed out her cheeks, climbing onto the stone altar to look into his eyes on equal terms.
"With these accumulated attributes, only one feat is missing, and the requirements will be more than satisfied. Dante... you have the right. If you want, I can perform the Ascension ritual right now. You can become a Level 2 in a few days! No adventurer in the history of Orario, not even the Sword Princess of the Loki Familia, came close to something like this! Do you want me to do it? Do you want to level up?!"
She looked at him, her eyes gleaming with expectation, anxious for the process that would consolidate his power and reset the counters for a new scale of strength.
Dante turned his back, picking up the heavy leather strap of the Demon Slayer and crossing it over his chest.
"I refuse" the answer was short, dry, and definitive.
Hestia almost fell off the altar in surprise.
"W-What?! What do you mean 'I refuse'?! Dante, leveling up drastically increases your strength, you would get three times stronger instantly! Why refuse that?"
"Because a level is an illusion of limitation" Dante said, his hoarse voice echoing through the columns of the abandoned church. He looked at his own bandaged hands, feeling the void of anti-magic pulsing beneath his skin. "If I go up now, the vessel expands, but the foundation stabilizes. I want the foundation to be indestructible."
He turned slightly, his purple eyes gleaming coldly beneath the dimness.
"The other adventurers rush to level up because they are afraid of dying on the next floor. They need the system's bonus to survive. Not me. If Rank SSS exists, it means the physical limit of this level has not yet been reached. I am going to extract every drop of Strength and Endurance I can digest before allowing the level to change."
Hestia looked at him, her mouth open in a perfect "O".
The logic of common adventurers was to reach the top as fast as possible, but Dante thought like a predator that wanted to crush the very system that molded him.
He didn't just want to be strong; he wanted to be absolute.
A proud and slightly startled smile crossed the lips of the goddess, who stepped down from the bed and slapped her hands on her waist.
"You really are a stubborn monster, you know? But... I am your goddess, so I follow your pace. If you want to turn Level 1 into a nightmare for the Dungeon, who am I to stop you?"
"Just don't go breaking my status parchment when the numbers start busting past the limit of the page".
Dante gave a slight nod of his head, his lips rising a bit.
---END---
To be continued....