Chapter 03

Chapter 03 - Dungeon

Goddess Hestia's POV

Abandoned Church

"Bell-kun..." I said defeatedly, Bell was in a corner of the church, crying for hours. He had lost a magic book that wasn't even his, and we had retraced our steps to see if we could find the book, but it was all in vain. The small object had disappeared and was nowhere to be found. Little Bell even mentioned bumping into someone on his way to the church and getting momentarily distracted, but he couldn't recall anything about the person other than being a young man with a star on his forehead, which shouldn't be hard to find even in Orario. However, we could only do that tomorrow; the day was already coming to an end.

*KNOCK* *KNOCK*

A knock on the door snapped me out of my thoughts. I found it strange as I walked toward the door because hardly anyone ever visited me here, despite having a few acquaintances.

When I opened it, I was even more surprised to find a young man with short, disheveled blond hair and a star drawn on his left forehead. His appearance wasn't very common in Orario; it was the man Bell had described! His clothes were a bit dirty, making him look like a homeless person.

"Did he find Bell's grimoire and come to return it, or..." I imagined the reason for his visit in my mind.

"May I help you?" I asked anyway to hear his reason directly from his mouth. There was a possibility that he might be a new member of the familia. He seemed strong, aside from the fact that he looked like a beggar.

"Oh, yes! Hehehe... I bumped into the kid who came to this church a while ago and noticed he had a book that I accidentally took with me. Here," he said, but I sensed half-truths in his words. However, as soon as he finished saying those words, Bell, who had overheard the man, stopped crying and immediately rushed to the book in his hands.

He practically leaped at the newcomer and took the book, showering him with sincere thanks.

"THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!" Bell shouted, bowing numerous times. Without giving the man a chance to say anything, my son ran to the couch and began reading the book as if it would vanish again at any moment.

"It was nothing, adventurer... I guess..." He mumbled awkwardly, watching Bell run to the couch and open the book. He then smiled while looking at Bell, and his eyes emitted a gleam as if he had expected this kind of behavior from my son. This made me find it very strange...

"I am Goddess Hestia, and on behalf of my familia, I would like to thank you for returning the book! May I know your name..." I didn't finish my question because I heard a sound as if someone had collided with the floor. I quickly turned to look at Bell-kun behind me.

When I saw him, he had fallen unconscious on the floor. I was alarmed at this moment and rushed over to him.

"BELL-KUN!! BELL-KUN!!" I said as I shook him and noticed that he had no injuries, only the fallen book. So, I picked up the book to see what he was reading, and I was shocked when I saw a blank book.

[- GRIMOIRE!!] I quickly looked back at the door, but the man who had delivered this grimoire to Bell had already left...

Lucius' POV

Somewhere in Orario

Walking through the streets, I yawned while looking at the early evening sky.

"I'll try not to mess with this world's canon, at least not with this. Bell needs the Firebolt spell, and how else can I acquire it without purchasing it from the system? After all, I stole it from this world's MC, so it's only fair to give something back, right?" I thought to myself.

I headed toward the Dungeon after Bell fainted from the grimoire. Time had passed quickly since I left the abandoned church, and Orario had already begun its nightlife. Most adventurers were either in bars or in the pleasure district at this time. Some adventurers had their own biological families and spent their time taking care of their spouses and children when they were not in the Dungeon. However, this lifestyle didn't apply to the majority of adventurers. As adventurers had the opportunity to amass wealth much more easily than any average profession, they preferred a promiscuous life with drinks, prostitutes, or other female adventurers who preferred this lifestyle.

I passed by some bars as I approached the Dungeon's entrance. The abandoned church was in the western part of the city. I saw the famous Pub where Syr or Freya had given the grimoire to Bell, but I walked past it without much interest. I didn't want to interact with those people just yet, not tonight. I was without equipment since it had been taken from me when I left my former familia. I was wearing nothing more than dirty civilian clothes. Many people looked at me with disdain, wondering why a beggar was here instead of staying in the slums. I knew I was an attractive man to the opposite sex, and by any standards, but I had dirt on my face, so I was clearly being looked down upon as a beggar as I walked by, ignoring all the stares and comments people made when they saw me.

As I entered the building, I was lucky that there were no guards at this moment. With my appearance, I would have had to answer their questions for quite some time before they let me through. However, seeing the entrance vacant was a big surprise for me, something that shouldn't happen all the time.

"Hey, look at this. A suicidal guy!" a voice said as I passed through the hall.

"Why should we care? It's this guy's problem, not ours," said another.

"Tsk, this guy clearly looks like a slum dweller who wants to end his own life."

"Aren't there any guards here? Someone stop this man."

"Why don't you do it?"

"I don't want to get involved in problems that have nothing to do with me."

I didn't pay attention to all these gossips about me and entered through the large doors, receiving some strange looks from people who wondered why a beggar was heading for certain death in the Dungeon.

Once I passed through the doors, there was a large staircase leading to the first floors. I began descending, and there were still two or three adventurers returning who had seen me for the first time due to the small explosion they witnessed as they jumped in surprise upon seeing me. I pointed to my target 10 meters away and conjured my small spell.

[- FIREBOLT!] I exclaimed, and with a flash in the dimly lit tunnel, a fire shot from my hand directly at the spot I aimed.

*BOOM!*

*CRACK*

The sight of fire shooting from my hand and hitting a nearby wall, causing a pile of rocks to crack and fly in all directions, left them stunned. They stopped walking toward me as they froze in response to what I had just done.

"It's not every day they see a beggar shooting fire from their hands..." I thought ironically. After a brief silence, which I deliberately maintained to give them time to digest what had just happened,

I decided to break the silence.

"Get out of my way before you don't even have a chance to receive a reprimand from your supervisor tomorrow. Because the next step you take toward me, I will fire at you," I growled in a cold voice.

The guard looked at me with wide eyes and started sweating, but he didn't like how I had acted and decided to say something.

"You can't talk to me like that or threaten me. I'm a guild employee, and you'll be incriminated if you do anything to me!" he protested.

"A smug guard, indeed," I thought to myself. "Whether I can be incriminated or not will be my problem, but I guarantee that you won't live to tell this story," I said angrily while pointing my hand at him. This made them even more frightened, and the adventurer pulled the guard back to the surface, saying it was no longer his problem.

They might be adventurers of Uranus or another god to be guards here, but my Firebolt was a threat to their lives, and the adventurer wasn't feeling any different. I was actually thinking about throwing it at them, not to the point of killing them; I was bluffing about that. But I would hurt them a bit if they insisted.

The guard yielded to his companion's demands, and seeing that, for all my dirty clothes, I was still a level 1 adventurer with magic, he made his decision based on my eyes, which didn't appear to be joking when I threatened to attack them.

Suddenly, I heard growling noises behind me, and I turned to see what was happening.

I shifted my attention to the goblins that were running toward me, as the small explosion had made them jump in surprise and notice us for the first time. I pointed to my target 10 meters away and conjured my small spell.

[- FIREBOLT!]

The three goblins were vaporized instantly, and the chance of crystal drops was 100%, so three crystals were on the ground. I walked without looking at the duo behind me and picked up the crystals.

At that moment, I received a notification from the system and decided to open the screen to see the points I had earned.

[10,000 FireBolt Mission: Cast 10,000 Firebolts! | {Progress 3/10,000} | {Reward: The User will be able to use spells without incantation.}]

[Notification: You Have Killed 3 First-Floor Goblins: 3 Points Added!]

"What?! Only 1 point per monster? How am I supposed to acquire a spell above Rank 2 like this?" I wondered in frustration. The best spells ranged from 10 million points and many even more, not to mention the ones with ranks locked behind hundreds of thousands of points for each spell!

[Notification: You Have 3 Goblin Crystals, Do You Wish to Convert the Crystals into Points? 5 Points Each.]

[Yes/No]

"Interesting, this helps me a bit more!" I exclaimed, seeing my other option to earn points...