Anzo maintained the pose for an uncomfortably long time before returning to some semblance of normality. He still seemed happier than truly necessary and appeared oblivious to Host's injury.
"This would normally the part where I'd teach you how to extract Monster Cores and Goblin Fangs," Anzo said, waving one arm to draw attention to the piles of corpses around them. "Sadly, we really should be heading upstairs to tell the Guild about this; first-floor Monster Houses shouldn't be possible. Or more accurately,
you should head upstairs. I'll extract and give you half the Monster Cores when I'm done here. They're not worth much, but it's common courtesy to clean up after your kills regardless of how weak they are. If you don't, monsters will eat the Cores of their slain fellows and turn into an even greater threat. Run back here if you spot a yellow bird or stumble across a monster. Way should be clear, but it's best to be safe."
Queen Administrator tilted her head at the angle Hestia had previously indicated.
"One: Can't we just set them on fire? Two: I am currently bleeding. Three: Bird?"
Anzo blinked and finally appeared to notice the piece of metal sticking out of Host's chest.
"Huh. Damn, I thought your armor was harder than that. Uh…"
The adventurer searched through his belts and produced a roll of cloth bandages, staining the outer layer with blood in the process. Queen Administrator more than halfway expected him to toss the roll, but he seemed to have the common decency to hand it over himself instead of tossing it across the room. Queen Administrator peeled and cut away the bloodstained outer layer before eying the shard dubiously.
Am I supposed to leave it in?
"Just yank it out and apply pressure with these," Anzo order in an accurate guess of her thoughts. "'S not worth wasting—eh, actually, we don't have time for this."
Anzo handed Host a small red vial from yet another belt pouch, turned around, and began using his hands to tear fingernail-sized Monster Cores out of the assembled goblins. Queen Administrator resolved to use a knife for that when she needed to do it.
"Take out the big shard and drink up, then get going. As for the pyromania? The dungeon is mostly tunnels. We'd choke the entire floor if we burned this many goblins. The birds are called 'Jack Birds' and they're the Dungeon's way of luring people into traps. Their drop is ludicrously valuable, but chasing them is a fool's errand if you're only level one. I'm not surprised your advisor didn't tell you about them."
Host's body mended itself within seconds of chugging the potion. Her formerly-injured stretch of skin still twinged with phantom pains, but the real problem seemed to have been fixed.
Even with his good intentions, Queen Administrator still planned on tattling. Anzo seemed to view proper preparation and ambition as being mutually exclusive, a mindset Queen Administrator couldn't agree with. However, she didn't want to make any enemies; how to handle that issue…?
Ah.
"To be clear, I am to tell the Guild exactly what transpired here?"
"Yep. Guards first, then Pantheon. Now
get going," Anzo grunted. "I'll catch up."
Host's lips twitched upward as Queen Administrator moved to comply.
Queen Administrator had thought she'd have an easy method of finding a newer, saner tutor without making an enemy of him. She hadn't anticipated the overall reaction when she first summarized the situation to one of those standing guard outside the Dungeon. After bringing over a pseudo-host to verify that she wasn't exaggerating and that there really had been nearly a hundred goblins simultaneously spawned on the first floor, the surrounding area exploded into a flurry of activity. Nearby adventurers volunteered to scour the first several floors and retrieve adventurers currently inside them. A pointy-eared Guild courier was sent to alert the safe zone on the eighteenth floor, Rivira. Former adventurers in the Guild volunteered to join the search and rescue parties
"one last time."
I'm definitely not telling them why it happened, Queen Administrator decided.
Queen Administrator was subsequently led to a comfortable fur chair within one of the Pantheon's offices.
"We just have a few questions," they said.
"You'll be home soon," they claimed.
Lies. They might have only had a few questions, but different people asked her the same ones eleven times over the next two hours. Admittedly, one of those people was an intruding pseudo-host who ended up being dragged out by a guard, but the comfortable room was still a trap.
Eventually, the parade of questioners was concluded with the person QA had wanted to see since several hours prior: Hestia. The goddess shoved the door open, ignoring how it bounced off the nearby wooden wall, and stomped into the room.
"Taylor, we're going," she declared.
Queen Administrator tilted Host's head questioningly.
"I assume I will need to summarize the day to you as well. Can we not do that here? The furniture here is more comfortable than that in the church."
Hestia shook her head and waved toward herself with one hand.
"No, we're going home. Staying here will just encourage them to make you summarize things
again. Please?"
Queen Administrator reluctantly pushed herself off the seat and trudged after Hestia. Every step set her armor scraping against her skin — or, in the case of the parts saturated by dried blood,
scratching against her skin. Anzo hadn't been lying when he said the loaner clothing wouldn't provide much padding.
Hestia remained suspiciously silent until they were safely on the path back home. After that, she slowed down and seemed to make an attempt to walk beside Host instead of leading her forward.
"Are you holding up okay? Hephaestus told me what happened."
Queen Administrator was familiar with that question. It referred to emotional and mental health, not lifted weights. She didn't mind the minor disconnect as much as she often did; structural integrity did have a logical connection to human health. One degree of separation was excellent by human communication standards.
"The only injury was relatively minor and due to inadvertent friendly fire from flying metal; no monster achieved melee range. Anzo had me ingest a red-colored 'potion' to heal the cut and sent me back upstairs. My mental states are also fine."
Judging by her increasingly relaxed posture, Hestia seemed to catch the reference to Host. Her mood reverted to unhappiness within the span of two seconds.
"Well, at least he did
something right," Hestia grumbled. "Although, it wouldn't have killed him to carry you back to the entrance himself, would it?"
"It is hard for me to judge the extent of his injuries, if any. Much of his body was splattered by goblin blood during and after the battle. However, he did not appear concerned."
Hestia began to exhale loudly before her action was interrupted by a giggle, her expressed mood inverting in an instant.
"Okay, um, if you ignore the giggle at the end, that was a sigh. It's usually used to express disappointment, annoyance, or exasperation. A quicker exhalation is called a huff; that's also for exasperation or annoyance, but unlike a normal sigh, it could be anger as well."
Are all human expressions this irritatingly inexact?
Queen Administrator hoped Host's flicker of amusement wasn't confirmation. If that was the case, she might never master social interactions.
"Why would you include breathing to communicate when you have the ability to speak?"
"It's partly involuntary," Hestia defended. "Anyway, Hephaestus apologized for Anzo's behavior and introduced me to the boy he was complaining about. Crozzo? He's a little older than you, I believe. Anzo was just being mean when he complained to us; Crozzo seemed perfectly sweet. Um, Hephaestus was going to divide up the work a little, too. Crozzo is going to teach you some basic combat skills, but only above-ground. One of her level threes actually volunteered to redo your delving lessons after him to
'restore the honor of the Hephaestus Familia.'"
That seemed somewhat excessive to Queen Administrator. Having that same individual hunt skill-appropriate foes for the same amount of time would likely be of far greater use to them. Still, she knew better than to propose that; humans were weird when it came to gifts of value versus direct monetary gifts.
"Were his teachings really that problematic? I was under the impression that recklessness was standard for many adventurers."
Hestia glanced around and lowered her voice beneath the normal roar of the surrounding crowd. Thankfully, Host's auto-translation seemed to have no problem converting fragments into legible conversation.
Archival note: The current translation function has potentially useful applications for directed eavesdropping.
"It's more that he broke his word to me and his goddess. He promised us some fighting and weapon practice beforehand and discarded that as soon as it was a little inconvenient. Verbal agreements among Familia can be hard to prove, but they're still supposed to be binding."
Conversation momentarily halted as Hestia unlocked the door of their home and ushered Host inside. As soon as the door was closed and locked behind them, any trace of neutrality vanished from Hestia's face. Unlike the previous times, it shifted toward excited happiness instead of sadness.
"And that means
reparations. So many people heard about his behavior that—"
Hestia's expression abruptly seemed to begin warring with itself. Distress and exuberance both fought for supremacy in a rather disturbing manner.
"I should not be smiling about this," Hestia mumbled. "She's a friend and I was freeloading enough already."
Queen Administrator utilized the newly-learned act of sighing to express exasperation. She hadn't intended to cause Hestia's resulting giggle, but QA would take the victory.
"Hephaestus's Familia appears to be well-established and the prices of her weapons were exceptionally high," Queen Administrator pointed out.
"The cost to her will be minimal. The benefit to us will be exorbitant. As you seem to be allied with her, what benefits us will benefit her later on; I will be perfectly happy to defend her children once I am capable of fighting beside them."
Hestia's features froze for a few seconds before happiness seemed to win her tug-of-war.
"You're right. Okay! Um, so enough gods heard about it that Hephaestus said she needs to be especially generous. I didn't understand why, but I think it might be related to what you just said? I think everyone knows she can afford a little setback to settle things between us. Jealousy might be there, too? The thefts missed her Familia completely. Anyway, that level three tutor I mentioned?
I forgot her name, sorry. She's going to make you new armor
and we can keep the loaners!"
You tilt your head questioningly. You're certainly not going to complain about the bribery, but you're not sure why they believe it necessary at all.
"That seems disproportionate. They made a mistake during a service they were providing us for free. Replacement tutoring makes sense; free equipment does not."
Hestia shrugged.
Dismissal?
"It's silly reputation stuff. Everyone was being dumb about how a level two smith made something so easily pierced by a goblin."
"It was one shard of flying metal from Anzo's attacks," you correct.
"I emphasized that during every interrogation. Several other shards were successfully deflected."
"Still happened during a fight with goblins. Some deities will complain about anything when they're annoyed. Or bored. Or drunk. Or awake at all. Anyway, um, Hephaestus told me to tell you to save the better armor for later? She said you couldn't afford a replacement for
years and you'd learn bad habits if you went from great armor to worse armor. Worse to better teaches you not to accept hits."
Hestia pouted.
"She argued her way out of a good weapon, too. Said you needed to learn about weak points. Uuu… right!"
Hestia's expression shifts to the fearful concern-for-another you so often saw on Danny Hebert.
"And, um, I wanted to make sure you were okay first, but did you do something? It's really important if you did; everyone is worried that the Dungeon is going to destabilize again or that the thefts and hiccup are linked. It hasn't had that violent of a reaction since a god last went inside. I don't know how we'll tell everyone without getting you in trouble, but I'm sure we'll think of something."
<DISAGREEMENT,> Host sent. The rationale was just as disorganized as Host's memories, but at least Host had gotten the format
mostly right. That was impressive all on its own. She'd get the rest with time.
As far as Queen Administrator could tell, Host was indicating that telling Hestia would be problematic and that a flaming underground monster had gone back to sleep. As long as they didn't try to speak with it and used tight-beam transmissions while inside the Dungeon, it shouldn't happen again.
I'm so proud of you! You only subverted that module a few days ago, didn't you? You're learning quicker than most Newborn! Remember not to hurt yourself more, okay?
A muted ball of happiness indicated that Host
did appreciate the praise. Queen Administrator resolved to give her more of it instead of complaining about her experiments. In the meantime, she had an excuse to deliver.
"I don't know why the Dungeon attacked us like that," Queen Administrator said truthfully.
"We were starting to argue over what I perceived as reckless behavior when the walls all started cracking at once."
It really was true. She'd seldom gotten so violent a response from a shard she didn't know. Admittedly, Queen Administrator was starting to think
:MOTHER: put a shard emulator down there instead of an actual sibling. Emulators couldn't be bribed half as easily. With that in mind, the homicidal reaction was probably it working as intended.
"Mmm. You didn't use any of your skills?"
"No."
Hestia smiled faintly and looked up at the ceiling. Queen Administrator followed her gaze and found nothing of significance. The absence curved around to being significant again; despite her short stature, it was clear Hestia had put time and effort into clearing away dust and cobwebs. QA wondered if the pseudo-host was hiding a ladder somewhere.
"First good target, then…? Ugh. Okay, how good are your Friends at fighting? And can you make one for running? For all we know, it could happen again. Hephaestus gave me the bag of Monster Cores from your fight, so maybe you could use those?"
Queen Administrator perked up and cupped her hands, palms upward, to silently request their delivery. Hestia laughed lightly and went to haul out a leather pouch from between a nearby bookcase and the wall. She stopped short of actually handing it over, though.
"You didn't actually answer my question," Hestia noted. "Taylor, this many Monster Cores is worth a
lot of money. If you think it'd be better spent on a new weapon, if it'd take time for it to grow up, if you'd be happier with different food…"
The pseudo-host trailed off suggestively. Queen Administrator had opened her mouth to launch an extensive defense of her adorable Friends when Host interrupted.
"Please give us a minute," Queen Administrator said aloud.
Host had helpfully provided the design for a panther-shaped Friend built around a cluster of fist-sized Monster Cores. Additional Cores seemed to have been distributed throughout its body to act as supplementary power sources and signal boosters. Apparently, they were capable of providing far more sustainable energy, physical reinforcement, and dexterity than was normal for a Friend of that size, especially after the initial cost of producing usable biomass.
You took over an analytical array as well? I haven't even gotten to touch a Core yet. Good job, Host! It's not relevant yet, though. I won't have even a single Core that size for a while.
The design faded and was replaced with one closer to a standard Friend configuration. It still followed the general trend of placing Monster Cores throughout the body, but using the goblin Cores they actually had available. A variant design with slightly different external features was presented beside it. If Anzo had actually given them half of the Monster Cores, then they could only create one of the two. If he'd been forced to provide the entire bag, Queen Administrator estimated they'd just have enough for both.
Innovators are usually supposed to do more of the work than this, Queen Administrator hinted.
Otherwise, you'll do all the thinking and won't learn anything. Giving hosts some of the knowledge and filling in holes yourself teaches you more than just giving them the completed products.
The designs remained present. Presumably, Host was still at the phase where she enjoyed designing everything herself.
She'll learn eventually.
Queen Administrator kept Host's hands in place and tilted Host's head to one side.
"We're done. Are you familiar with the concept of an armored combat elephant?"
Hestia nodded.
"I thought it was one of the better ideas mortals had before we descended to help them. You weren't that big or strong, so you tamed and used something that was. I don't think an elephant would fit in the Dungeon, though."
"My first two Friends would be comparably strong, but panther-shaped and with armored skin and fur. They will also grow stronger as they consume additional Cores."
'Panther-shaped,' Hestia silently mouthed, then shook her head. "Does that mean you're taking a panther and adjusting it?"
"No," QA said patiently.
"We mean panther-shaped. Taylor used approximately their external appearance, size, and rough movement to avoid attention, yet she ignored everything else while designing the Friends. Any similarities between the two species would be due to inherently useful structural shapes, not imitation."
Hestia slowly dropped the pouch into Host's hands and backed into a nearby chair. Queen Administrator didn't know what to make of her expression. It wasn't happy, fearful,
or upset.
"How did you even know how to do that? Creatures are
complicated. Making them from scratch is just…" The pseudo-host shook her head.
"We can think of changes and know what the end product will be like," Queen Administrator said truthfully.
"We just kept changing things until we learned which changes led to which results. It helped that we could take normal creatures and see how those operated without tweaks."
Of course, the timeline hadn't actually gone in that order. Queen Administrator's simulation designs had needed significant refining via trial and error before they had any amount of accuracy. And in this case, the
"we" was Queen Administrator and her relatives, not her and Host.
"Right," Hestia sighed. "How long will they take to grow up? We should sell a few Cores to feed them, if nothing else."
"Approximately six hours."
Hestia blinked and tilted her head, apparently uncomprehending.
"Come again?"
"Approximately six hours," Queen Administrator repeated.
"Each. I'll need the bathtub for them and we'll need to keep the bathroom shut," Because otherwise you might vomit in the solution and that'd be difficult to fix, "But it will only take that much time for them to finish. After they're completed, they should sleep on the ground floor instead of in the basement with us; sunbathing will greatly alleviate their need for supplementary nutrition. Eating monsters will account for most or all of the rest."
"That's—" Hestia choked. "Are they
green? Do they have
leaves?"
Danny Hebert was much quicker to accept our designs. It was slightly reassuring to find something Hestia was worse at; in every other major category, the pseudo-host was doing significantly better. It helped that she felt closer to a real host than Danny did; Queen Administrator had needed to repeatedly remind herself to treat him as a person. His previous neglect of Host didn't help. Hestia was close enough that Queen Administrator didn't need any such reminders.
"No. They're primarily black. Standard creatures need transitional stages and slow improvements across generations. If even one stage fails to be useful, those creatures will have wasted energy on unnecessary traits while their relatives will not have the same problem. As a result, those relatives will have a far higher chance to survive. We are not constrained by traits that would have been useful in every iteration; even if only the completed product is usable, we can still include it."
Queen Administrator paused momentarily.
"This means we can make sunlight-fueled animals," she added helpfully.
"Their bites will also be toxic, their senses will be both superior and greater in number, they will completely regenerate from most injuries, the hairs on their tail can be stiffened and launched, their claws—"
Hestia threw up both hands and shook her head, seeming oddly agitated by the explanation.
"Okay, impossibly weird animals! Fine! I don't want to know all the way your cute pets can kill things, okay? And you're
sure the Cores won't make them go feral?"
"Absolutely. The only behavioral changes with additional Cores are the roles they'll play in combat. They'll know how to exploit their new strength, be more—"
"I don't need to know," Hestia interrupted quickly. "
Please. If they act anything like other cats, I don't
want to know what potential weapons are right next to me. Does that make sense?"
Queen Administrator reviewed her recent words and utterly failed to find the proposed link. She suspected Hestia may have complained prematurely.
"I'm not sure," Queen Administrator admits.
"I was outlining behavior, not additional weaponry. A greater willingness to shield others from blows if necessary is included among the Core-changed behaviors. That is the exact opposite of a scary weapon."
Host's face shifted to reflect the warm affection saturating Queen Administrator's mind.
"And they'll always love their mommy. I'll add you to the list of people to guard, too."
Hestia's not-quite-fear slowly transitioned to a small smile.
"Okay. I can—" Hestia blinked. "Wait. When do their souls come into it? Where are you even
getting them from?"
Now
there was a familiar argument, if in a different form. Hopefully, variants on her old (futile) self-replication arguments would find more success in this new world.
"Souls are made when any other animal has children, aren't they?"
Queen Administrator really hoped they were. Her chosen argument would fail if the gods thought otherwise.
"Why is it strange that when I make children, they still develop a soul?"
Hestia's eyes seemed to focus on a point far beyond where Host was actually seated. Queen Administrator patiently waited for the better part of thirty seconds before deciding she'd waited long enough.
"Yes?"
Hestia started and refocused on Host's face.
"You're fine," the pseudo-host replied quickly. "And you can make them, don't worry. I'm simply wondering what's going through the head of whoever is in charge of
that paperwork."
Hestia flinched and bolted to her feet.
"Wait, don't make them yet. Let me update your Status. You won't get very many points from today, not without fighting, but the tiny difference might affect your new pets."
Queen Administrator doubted they'd be influenced, but she wouldn't complain.
Queen Administrator
Taylor Hebert
Lv. 1
Strength: I 22
Endurance: I 27
Dexterity: I 41
Agility: I 43
Magic: I 89
Magic:
None.
Skills:
Soul Duality: Receives twice the benefit from the Falna in most situations. Whichever soul is not in control can still influence the other, including lending or withholding aid according to her whims.
Friendship is Biology: Can make new Friends from the raw materials provided by foes.
Melpomene: Views the world differently than they should. Protects against most thought-influencing effects.
Terpsichore: Receives at least equal Falna-related combat benefits as long as they, or one of their Friends, have significantly contributed to a given battle.
"Honestly! Forget normal, how is your growth even
possible? It's been
one day!"
