The next morning…
Contrary to the claims of... that one human representative QA couldn't remember the name of, it seemed as though three-quarters of the people approaching Queen Administrator recognized and acknowledged her title. She knew this because their church had, within an hour of then exiting the basement portion of their home, four wishful Familia applicants on a day when they normally had zero. Each of them had shown less potential than the last and were equally surprised when Queen Administrator encouraged them to leave. Using Lady Sable as a comfortable, purry seat may have helped.
"You can't just go calling people
'useless wastes of unmotivated flesh' before you say no, Administrator!" Hestia loudly complained. "It's
rude!"
Queen Administrator was beginning to worry about Hestia's group management skills. The structure and nature of the Hestia Familia — as in, a Familia that offered only superior emotional support and general parenting — prioritized quality over quantity. The fewer Familia members there were, the fewer people QA and Host would need to share Hestia with. She should be aware of this and not waste attention on the unworthy.
"Two of them did nothing more than stare at your chest the entire conversation," Queen Administrator reasonably replied at a normal volume.
"I even drew a weapon and they failed to notice. We do not need such dregs."
"...Those two were a bit creepy," Hestia admitted, then shook her head and tried again. "But it's still not nice! Just because you're saying no doesn't mean you need to be mean about it! People aren't
'dregs!' "
"They will never fix their flaws if they are not informed of them," QA tried to explain. Hestia was clearly overreacting.
"I do not know any of their friends, making indirect idea introduction impractical. The alternative is to let them continue bearing such imperfections indefinitely."
"How can someone stop being a
'useless waste of unmotivated flesh?' "
"Proper exercise, weight-lifting, and challenging hated tasks," Queen Administrator said promptly.
"Health issues may sometimes prevent such, which is forgivable, but that man did not show any of the signs of those. He simply enjoyed eating and being lazy. Unsuitable."
"That was not clear
at all!"
Hestia placed both hands over her face and incomprehensibly yelled into them. Queen Administrator pulled the goddess into a hug and tried to change the subject.
"Should you not be at work?" QA tried.
Hestia slowly lowered her hands and squirmed into a more comfortable position, but didn't otherwise try to escape from Queen Administrator's grip.
"Stand's gone," Hestia sighed. "Stolen, I think. Besides, I don't think it's a good idea for me to go out right now. I'll just have a bunch of people mocking me or selling honey-coated poison. I have some savings put aside; we can last a few days without me working."
Hestia smiled and waved toward the ajar doorway of the church.
"Besides, I used to need to beg people on the street to join my Familia. Now we actually have people coming to
us. it's nice."
The goddess's mood flipped back to displeasure in an instant.
"But don't think I didn't notice that evasion! You can tell people about problems without being mean about it; focus on the positive instead of the negative. Like this:"
The goddess puffed up her chest and tried to purify her voice of emotion. It was clear she was out of practice; an increasing amount of amusement bled though the longer she continued. Unless it was intended? A derisive note may help dissuade people while maintaining the cultural standards of politeness.
" 'You'd need to spend significant time on basic personal conditioning even after joining. As such, we are not prepared to accept you at this time. Please ensure you are prepared for the life of an adventurer before coming back.' "
Your explanation took far longer, Queen Administrator wanted to say. She knew that humans didn't seem to care much about message length, though. When possible, it was generally better to attack the arguments therein instead of the inefficiency of their delivery.
"But I do not want them to come back later," Queen Administrator complained instead.
"He was selfish enough to ask for a position despite being disturbingly unprepared. Even after a training regimen, I do not believe he would be willing to contribute much to the Familia. I do not want to share you with someone like that."
Hestia's half-open mouth slowly closed without transmitting whatever she originally intended to say. The rest of her expression still seemed to match the standard 'processing required' expression for humans, so Queen Administrator patiently waited for her to finish. Eventually, Hestia transitioned to sadness, squeezed Queen Administrator, and actually replied.
"Oh,
Administrator," Hestia began unhappily. "I wouldn't take on as many as Hephaestus. I'd take care of you and I'll never stop loving you. You might even like having other Familia members to fight beside."
Queen Administrator did what little she could to access conscious records of Earth species. Unfortunately, she doubted Hestia would appreciate an example of how the survivorship rates of birds decreased as their number and size of offspring increased. QA would need to continue without specific supporting examples.
"But your availability to individual members would be severely curtailed. I can acquire additional Hunter-type Friends if quantity is required. I would prefer the blessed Familia itself to focus exclusively on quality."
Queen Administrator was quite interested in seeing whether her argument would be accepted. Unfortunately, they were interrupted before Hestia could respond.
"Boy," Tiona Hiryute said loudly from the doorway. "That's the most eloquent
'I don't want more siblings, Mom!' I've ever heard."
Sir Kara shifted to his feet as the unusually underdressed female wandered into the church. Tiona jogged toward the oversized cat-Friend, wrapped both arms around his neck, and began to scratch under his chin. The Friend began loudly purring and lightly pushed into the contact.
"And hello to you too, big guy! I don't even
want to know how long it takes to keep you this soft, no I don't!" Tiona cooed. "Good morning, Lady Hestia and Queen Administrator. Before you ask, Anakitty and Aiz are sleeping in right now; they spent most of the night chasing down scumbags n stuff. I was off camping in the Dungeon and slept through the whole mess."
The pseudo-pseudo-host craned her head to actually look at her conversational partners instead of the Friend. Provided, Tiona was still looking at Lady Sable, but only because Hestia and Host were sitting on that Friend's back.
"I can't believe they even let you use them as chairs," Tiona complained(?). "
Soooo jealous. Anyway, quick question: should I even bother asking about the whole Shard-Spirit and royalty stuff, or is it all hush-hush?"
Hestia was shaking her head before the veteran adventurer even finished speaking.
"Please don't ask," the goddess sighed. "It's a great big mess."
"Mmm. Got it," Tiona agreed. "Anyway, Ta—Administrator, I figure we can save everyone some time and effort if we go get all your clothes shopping out of the way before the others wake up."
Queen Administrator frowned and examined the unusually-dressed female. Tiona's lower body coverage was fine, but her upper body coverage was still skirting the edge of what Host's culture considered indecent. Even if Host had easily weathered QA's forays into brighter colors and less concealing clothing than Host used to wear, Queen Administrator doubted Host would appreciate wearing
that little.
"Are you even qualified for that?" Queen Administrator questioned.
"You do not appear to have much practice."
Hestia quickly exhaled through her nose. Queen Administrator quickly turned to her and pointed at the offending sensory organ.
"What was that?"
The goddess took barely a second to understand what QA was referring to. Meanwhile, Tiona seemed to realize why Queen Administrator had been questioning her qualifications; the pseudo-pseudo-host rapidly transitioned from confusion to laughter, leaning against Sir Kara for support.
"A snort," Hestia loudly recited over the exceedingly loud expressed amusement. "Derision, disbelief, or amusement, mostly. Amusement in this case. Administrator, asking that kind of thing is a little rude."
"No, no," Tiona disagreed, gasping for air. "She's not wrong."
It took the adventurer several seconds to finish her recovery and continue. Even then, she was still baring her teeth in apparent happiness.
"I totally get it. And yeah, she's right; I'm good at saying if something looks good or not when it's on someone, but not so great at actually picking things from scratch. And, ah, most Amazonesses do prefer it when people aren't afraid of what they've got. We can still shop for essentials like potions and weapons, though. And now that you've reminded me..."
The adventurer withdrew her arms from around Sir Kara's neck and crossed them over her chest, still grinning.
"Have you been subjected to your backstory yet, Queen?"
Queen Administrator felt the oddest sense of impending doom. Whichever of Host's memories was responsible for the sensation remained as elusive as ever.
~ ~ ~
In Alexander's opinion, there was little more satisfying than sleeping on a problem and finding someone else had mostly solved it by the time you awoke. Cooperation had honestly been one of the things that drew him to the Guild; it was nice to be able to rely on other people once in a while. No selfishly siphoning Familia funds for personal gain, no arguments with his own financially irresponsible god, none of that. Just a bunch of people working toward a common goal.
Overnight, nearly all of Ishtar's victims were asked about their initial preferences for new Familia and had been accepted with alacrity. They all still had a few days to think things over, of course, but Alexander expected that most would stick with their first picks. That left only the comparatively small group that would prefer to just go home or obtain civilian jobs. Surprisingly, the walking diplomatic incident — which was to say, the foreign noble's daughter
(potential dukedom actually unresolved, unlike QA) — was not included among those who wanted to go home. She'd insisted her father would view her as
"spoiled goods," a cultural deficiency which honestly made Alexander want to head over and hurt people until such idiocy went away. He wondered if this was how Queen Administrator felt about Orario's gods. If so, he could see why she'd been pushed all the way into a murderous rage and her Spirit had opted for hammering the perceived largest offender with magic until Ishtar went away. Alexander prided himself on being able to keep his distance and he was
still pissed.
At any rate, the noble girl had apparently ended up joining childhood friends in the Takemikazuchi Familia. The largest numbers of the other victims had opted for the Exploration and Taming Familia of Ganesha, God of the Masses, and the Agricultural and Business Familia of Demeter, Goddess of the Harvest. Both excellent choices, Alexander felt; they'd find plenty of support in both.
Most people viewed Ganesha with disdain, but Alexander rather liked the flamboyant god. Oh, he was definitely a bit of an idiot, yet he was one of the few gods who actually cared about mortals as more than mere toys. Alexander knew that similarly sympathetic attitudes were why the Guild didn't look as hard at Ganesha's taming activities as simple safety and sanity would recommend.
Alexander technically knew more about Demeter, but it was from a distance; the goddess tended to focus more on her own estates than Orario's politics as a whole. The effective neutrality this granted her had let the goddess expand from a single-lot farm all the way to the largest single supplier of food Orario possessed. The city still needed to supplement its supplies with trade, but if Demeter ever decided to boycott the city — ludicrously implausible, everyone agreed — then Orario would
starve. Even without many combat-focused adventurers, that unspoken capability would do wonders to protect the new children under her care.
As two of the largest Familia in Orario, it was believed the Ishtar's former Familia members would be able to blend into their ranks and receive plenty of support without issue. Yet more trickled into Orario's other families in ones and in twos, but surprisingly enough, Hestia's Familia didn't appear to be one of the ones they'd tried to ask to join. Alexander suspected shenanigans. Oh, there were reasons listed — poor economic status, living conditions disturbingly similar to what they were escaping from, no real Familia to provide support — but there should've been at least
some.
The Guild employee had to rifle through the intake papers until he found an even remotely plausible explanation: apparently, most were convinced Queen Administrator and Hestia would be crushed by Orario's gods or foreign assassins sooner or later. Some maintained an almost religious faith in the foreign monarch, but peer pressure and quiet dissuasion from similarly cynical Guild members had kept the rest away. The closest that three
(1 male, 2 females) of them managed was the Medicinal Familia of Miach, who was known to be friends with Hestia. Alexander did have to wonder why nobody had asked about immigration to Queen Administrator's homeland, though. Sure, they might harbor doubts about their own literacy, knowledge of the language, general knowledge, uh...
Okay, maybe not so surprising after all.
There really were a shocking number of people going into proper Dungeon-diving, though — over two-thirds, by his count. The most common justifications included wanting to learn how to protect themselves, obtain strength, be heroes to others, crush Orario's remaining underground elements, pursue an independent financial status, pay back a perceived debt to Queen Administrator, and even chase glory, yet Alexander was amazed they had the strength of spirit to even think about walking into danger so soon. Sure, the mildly encouraging rhyme persisted on their Falna even after the curse dissipated, but those were just words. They didn't grant any special powers.
...Admittedly,
he kinda wanted to go into the Dungeon again, too. If a bunch of people subjected to horrors could push forward, what was his excuse?
~ ~ ~ ~
Queen Administrator and Hestia were learning all manner of new and horrifying things from the pseudo-pseudo-host Tiona Hiryute. Specifically, they were learning Queen Administrator's farcical
"backstory," which Tiona seemed to find, in her own words,
"utterly hilarious." As the tale continued, Queen Administrator gradually passed from horror at Orario's willful ignorance to mortified fascination at their apparent creativity. Hestia seemed to enjoy it far more than her and kept dissolving into fits of uncontrollable giggling.
A disgraced princess queen from a land of knowledge-obsessed scholars, Queen Administrator and her secret Spirit nursemaid were sent to Orario to regain her honor by growing enough in the Dungeon to use her homeland's fantastical location-bridging magic. Along the way, she was attacked by bandits/assassins and suffered a grievous injury to her head/mind. She was nursed back to health by her Spirit bodyguard, but even powerful magic could only restore some of who she'd once been; her social skills and personality had almost completely vanished.
Upon arriving in Orario, the Spirit insisted her liege join a Familia where she would only be subordinate to the leading god themselves. Hestia fit the necessary qualifications and was promptly sworn to secrecy. Queen Administrator's Spirit-guardian went to get a day-job and blend into the local populace, unseen and unheard by all.
Alas, the assassins from QA's homeland had followed her to Orario and arranged a trap using Magic Stones they'd stolen on the day of Queen Administrator's arrival. Queen Administrator survived with the aid of the noble knight of Hephaestus, Anzo of Agris. Sadly, Anzo was gravely wounded during the battle and decided to spend his last days with his family. The claims of his good health were apparently only to lure assassins away from the city for as long as possible.
Some story-tellers insisted QA and Anzo were in a doomed romance, forever separated by their respective social classes. Queen Administrator wondered why that seemed to be a recurring theme in human stories; were two people not allowed to just be friends? For example, Queen Administrator thought Host may have been physically attracted to Emma Barnes, but the two humans kept things at friendship until their relationship ultimately self-destructed with the aid of Phantasm's then-host. It was also possible QA was misinterpreting those memories; the format was awkward at the best of times and utterly incomprehensible at worst. Queen Administrator may even have been engaging in the apparent human failing herself by thinking such things. Still, Host may have displayed attraction to several male humans as well, and neither friendships nor romantic relationships emerged from
any of those. Humans were more than capable of ignoring their gross inclinations. Queen Administrator vastly preferred the shard method of reproduction.
Fortunately, supporters of Queen Administrator had sent her some of the Spirit-blessed companions from her homeland to protect and guard the queen in her daily life and expeditions into the Dungeon. Aiz, somehow innately sensing Queen Administrator's royalty, sought out QA and offered to teach her as the more experienced of the two royals.
Depending on the storyteller, Aiz and QA may also have fallen into true love at first sight. Tiona admitted she may have fed the rumors for
"shits and giggles." Queen Administrator tried to mold her expression to reflect her displeasure at this decision, yet that only seemed to make Tiona laugh even more. QA conceded defeat when Hestia joined the veteran adventurer in laughing.
Over the course of their relationship, Aiz discovered that the space-bridging magic of QA's homeland had recently been used as part of a sabotage campaign aimed at Orario itself. The Sword Princess explained, escorted Queen Administrator to the Pantheon, and loyally stood guard over her beloved while the Guild drilled the no-longer-secret Queen for details.
However, it was not to be. The goddess Ishtar, jealous of the legitimacy of Queen Administrator's title compared to Ishtar's self-assigned "Queen of the Entertainment District," decided to trick other gods into demoting Queen Administrator to princessdom in the name of allegedly accurate translations. The Spirit-maid, enraged by the slight to her liege, decided to sacrifice her own life/sanity/power/arm/hand/eye/etc. to ensure no other would dare make the mistake of insulting Queen Administrator in such a way. Ishtar's own sins collected in the curse and strengthened it, freeing her apparently mind-controlled Familia and turning the world against what few loyalists remained. Ishtar fled the city in shame as her tainted holdings burned to empty shells that were still being demolished.
Host seemed inclined to send some small support Friends to the now-freed Familia members. Queen Administrator wanted to agree — it was an excellent chance to scatter supplementary sympathetic defenders around the city in a socially acceptable manner — but she couldn't see any way of justifying their sudden existence without admitting to their creation.
I'll distribute them if you find us a good excuse, okay?
The gods held an urgent midnight meeting to discuss what to do about the apparent attack on their own. Fortunately, the wise and beautiful Freya convinced the other gods that the retribution was justified, justice was served, and Queen Administrator deserved her name back. Ishtar's victims were pulled back into various Familia, Queen Administrator was a Queen once more, and everyone lived happily ever after.
...Queen Administrator had no idea where the people of Orario got their information from, but they clearly needed to find new sources. Their current ones were beyond faulty. At least they seemed to have decided to give Queen Administrator's title back after all? She hadn't been looking forward to weathering that and Host felt too guilty to properly enforce the bargain. It was important for Host to learn how to discard such hesitation in the future; if personal preferences were prioritized over experimental and species requirements, then the Cycle would never have started to begin with.
Still, Orario really did need better methods of obtaining and/or disseminating information. No wonder their leaders acted like fools if this was what they were subjected to.
"It's like they took what few facts they possessed and decided to make a barely-coherent narrative out of them," Queen Administrator marveled.
Hestia nodded in agreement, both hands clamped firmly over her mouth while her shoulders silently shook. Queen Administrator believed her to be amused.
"I know, right?" Tiona laughed. "You should hear some of the ones about Aiz.
'Chopped off a snake's head while in the cradle' is one of my favorites; they never explain where she got the dagger. I mean, what kind of irresponsible parent gives their kid real weaponry?"
Queen Administrator tilted her head to one side.
"How else are they supposed to defend themselves from predators, and more importantly, each other? Newborns can be very vicious until they're complex enough to learn the ideal of collaboration. Even then, it can take time for bored Newborns to learn to test weaponry on empty land or foes instead of one another."
Tiona burst into laughter. The tinkling sound slowly lapsed into silence as Queen Administrator maintained her questioning pose and Hestia slowly hid her face behind both hands.
"Holy shit, you're serious," Tiona realized. "I thought your people were supposed to be scholars?"
"We are," QA verified.
"Which is why we know to give all our children weaponry. Equal distribution greatly improved survival rates."
Tiona continued staring at Queen Administrator and slowly raised one hand to rub the bridge of her nose. Hestia began whimpering quietly.
"Have you ever considered
not fucking arming them?" Tiona asked eventually. "Maybe they wouldn't be such a danger to each other if they only worried about fingernails n shit instead of knives. Goddamn, you're reminding me of
my childhood and that's not a good thing."
Host had engaged in the same behavior of excessive overanalysis of past events, Queen Administrator noticed. It appeared to be a recurring human failing.
"That would leave them at the mercy of predators," QA patiently explained.
"When not provided with physical weaponry, Newborns will utilize magic instead. That is more energy intensive and the resulting damage is harder to undo."
And by extension, they are more likely to starve from energy exhaustion before their first Cycle actually ends. Those too foolish to moderate their energy consumption would harm the Cycle in the long run. Really, if they'd implemented the allowance policy earlier, it might've saved them from Broadcast. Laser-based communications were viable. Overcharged multi-medium communications that consumed much of the energy output of an exploding star for each transmission most definitely weren't. Queen Administrator still didn't understand how he'd managed to convince most of their siblings to agree with him despite the sheer waste.
Tiona remained staring at Queen Administrator for even longer before apparently deciding she'd lost the argument.
"Geeze, no wonder you're so good with weapons. You've been playing with them since before you could fucking walk."
Queen Administrator thought about her real body and the severe lack of limbs it possessed. There had also been a few Cycles in her early life when she'd fired unstable clusters into massive crystals just to analyze the irregularly splitting structures as they exploded. That behavior had been arguably irrational and likely qualified as
"playing."
"That is an accurate observation," QA said with perfect honesty.
The goddess of the three let out a corrupted bark of unhappy laughter.
"How is it I have never been called to bless one of your households?" Hestia marveled. "Your homeland needs professional help.
All of it. I've even blessed parts of Ares's country and they aren't this bad."
"...Some of us specialize in making and transferring weapons to Newborn," Queen Administrator pointed out.
"That is professional help."
"And aren't Rakia the ones who leave '
weak' babies out for the wolves to eat?" Tiona asked rhetorically(?). "That sounds pretty bad, too."
"We do not let our weakest get eaten by wolves," Queen Administrator agreed.
"That is part of what their weaponry is meant to defend against. Newborn starve or succeed entirely based on their own general merit and resource management skills, not any perceived errors in development."
"Please," Hestia said from behind her hands. "Both of you,
please stop talking."
)
