Is It Wrong To Crave Love (In A Dungeon?) Chapter 30 - Creators (Patreon)

Genius, under normal circumstances, could be quantified.

“How about a wager?”

Tsubaki Collbrande, an individual considered by many as a genius in blacksmithing, held back the tremble in her breath as the sound of a hammer striking steel clanged into her ears. Her brown skin was slick with a reflective sheen of sweat, her long black hair was tied into a knot to prevent the edges from catching ablaze or burning, and her one visible eye watched the flight of sparks and departure of embers that followed the perfect clang of steel. 

Attached to her hip was a renowned first-class naginata that had accompanied her for years, and on her left eye was an eyepatch that marked her as the famous ‘Cyclops.’ A woman who was the greatest mortal smith in the City of Orario. Members of her Familia would claim that she was the greatest mortal smith in the world, but those claims would never be asserted by Tsubaki herself. 

She was someone who grasped that the world was large, and affirming global peerlessness was both stupid and egotistical.

“Do you accept?”

When the hottest rookie in Orario appeared and made a wager with her, saying he would smith something that would ‘exceed her expectations, ’ Tsubaki had accepted the wager with deadly seriousness. Although Lady Hephaestus informed her that, should he come to her, she was to help him to the best of her capabilities, as he was the Captain of a Familia run by Lady Hephaestus’ close friend, Tsubaki held her pride as a blacksmith. 

Someone whose hands clearly had never operated a forge before believed he could create something that would surprise her? 

No matter how she looked at it, he either vastly overestimated himself or vastly underestimated her.

The cost of the rare materials of his workmanship was borne entirely by her, and, if he could not meet her expectations, she would think of something as a reward. On the other hand, the nature of the wager of what she would owe him if she lost was open, and Tsubaki had agreed to the broad condition of ‘anything you want.’ 

Her pride as a Blacksmith simply did not see a loss as possible.

As the sound of clanging steel rang out deeper into her ears, Tsubaki wondered just how unwise it was not to clearly state the terms of her loss.

Standing in her Forge Room, her arms under her burdensome chest, and her sole visible red eye watched, transfixed, the hand of a young man wielding a hammer.

From the moment he began, he already exceeded her expectations.

The heat in her Forge Room exceeded temperatures most sane Adventurers could withstand. Even those whose sanity was in short supply would find themselves questioning the madness of a room that could set ablaze both mundane parchment and unenchanted cloth at the point of entry. A visible haze was constant and perpetual, and as Tsubaki wiped sweat from her brow and flicked it to the ground, it sizzled and vanished the instant it came in contact with the floor. 

Within her Forge Room were three specially constructed forges with chambers made to allow pure molten lava flow, where one would instead expect a source of fire. The lava-forges were fed in by lava channels which circled and enveloped the room, and the heat that came from the lava that circulated with the ease of rivers and streams made for an ambient room temperature that mirrored molten rock.

Adventurers at Level Four would be wiping their sweat-laden foreheads and pulling their shirts from their soaked clothes within three to five minutes in her Forge Room. Adventurers at Level Three would have stripped completely, disregarding dignity as they searched for any means whatsoever to cool their bodies after a mere minute. Level Two Adventurers would receive second-degree burns from the superheated air as they opened the door. Level One Adventurers were not permitted to enter at all for their safety. 

In defiance of this, a young man who publicly declared himself to be a Level Two Adventurer stood topless, with a hammer in his hand, striking steel. On his back was the sigil of a hearth, his Falna, exposed, but illegible and incomprehensible to any but a Deity. There was not, on his form or his body, the tiniest bead of sweat. As he told her, he was only topless to prevent his clothes from harm, rather than due to any sense of personal discomfort.

Just being able to withstand the heat eclipsed her expectations. The intensity of her Forge Room was a major contributing reason why she both accepted the wager and did not care to limit the terms for losing it. 

There was no way to anticipate a Level Two Adventurer managing to work and thrive in these conditions. If he had been a Level Four, Level Five, or Level Six Adventurer, Tsubaki would have, on some level, entertained the possibility of loss.

The sound of ringing steel continued for hours, and each time it did, Tsubaki trembled. Each sound, ringing with a jingle of near-perfection, brought her heart rate spiking, and provided a clarity of detail of the forging process that only a Mastersmith could possess.

Every spark that flew from the impact would curve around and return towards the steel, clinging on to it as the next strike came, and the impurities were further hammered out. The steel would go back in to be reheated, then returned, and hammered again, the process continuing without distraction, without interruption, and without complaint. Tirelessly and devotedly, the man poured his all into the forging process, and each clang of the hammer communicated a passion seldom professed in words.

To others, the sound would be just the sound of steel striking, but to a blacksmith of her caliber, to one of her skill level, every single strike was music. Every strike was a confession. Every strike was a love letter. Every strike carried, with absolute assurance, the madness and assurance of a man obsessed with a craft. Obsessed with a creation. 

Few blacksmiths could create such sounds and such a confession. There were those whose crafting process was hindered by unnecessary thoughts, by desperation, by fear, by doubt, by the myriad of complexities that occupied the ‘human condition.’

His hammering had none of that. None. There was only the man, there was only the forge, there was only the creation. It was an earnestness that Tsubaki had only ever heard from one being and one entity, and one whom she believed was impossible to hear from a flesh-and-blood human being.

Until this day. 

The hiss of a superheated object being quenched in water pierced the room, and Tsubaki returned to the world. As to how long had passed, she could not be entirely certain. Her inner clock told her nine hours had passed. Nine hours , during which the man had repeatedly forged and repeatedly hammered, and she had watched him from start to finish. 

The final touches were added one after the other. The styling, polishing, buffing, and finishing were performed with the same level of neurotic attention to detail. At the end of it, there was a pleased expression worn upon his face. His flaming blue eyes were alight, dancing with the satisfaction Tsubaki understood, because it was the satisfaction of a creator taking pride in their creation. 

The satisfaction of looking upon something, anything, and saying, I made that.

Once it was done, a blue-haired, blue-eyed man turned around and held out, with a smile, a long, ornate staff. Exactly six feet and six inches in length, the staff was obsidian black, with hints of ornate white fire, intertwined around and through it. The flame patterns hummed, and the darkness of the staff sang.

Emblazoned upon the staff was the name he had bestowed it:

Pygmalion.

“Please give your evaluation.”

Tsubaki reached out, grabbing the staff, Pygmalion, with her right hand.

Her body collapsed forward, as the heaviness of the weapon sent her reeling. She, a Level Five Adventurer, forcefully drew upon the best of her strength, and her left arm snapped up instinctively as support. Her muscles bulged with a force that exploded her sleeves. A deafening snap echoed out of the room as her muscles contracted. The back of her top exploded from the sudden application of force. 

Heavy.

Her veins on her arms visibly popped. Both arms trembled. The weight defied her understanding. It was unfathomable. Every muscle in her body worked in unison until it couldn’t. Her biceps, triceps, deltoids, and glutes screamed to let go, but Tsubaki refused. Her dwarven blood, blood of her forefathers, roared in her ears and demanded that the staff be inspected and that the staff be tested. 

Her eyes were alight, shining, and saliva pooled in her mouth and slightly started to leak between her lips. Her heart pumped blood through her entire body as her pupils dilated. 

She had never met a weapon too heavy for her to hold, and today would not be the day that changed. More so, the creator had been able to hold the staff effortlessly with one hand, which meant there was a trick to it. A trick behind its unspeakable weight.

Yet, what the trick was, the man in front of her, smiling with twinkling blue eyes, clearly was not inclined to say. Rather, he stepped behind her, and, as his hands gently fell under hers, he guided them. With his aid, his hands supporting hers, Tsubaki was able to lift the staff upwards, eliminating the intense burden of its weight to the joyful weeping of her near-dislocated shoulders.

Tsubaki did not care about the physical contact. She did not care how close the man was to her, behind her, or how his breath tickled her neck. Instead, she focused on the staff. On the weapon. She was inclined to test it. Her instincts told her to take her sword and swing against it with full might to see what sort of punishment it could withstand. Yet, she did not need to. With the weapon in her grasp, holding it, only with the support of another, she could simply… tell.

“Wow. You’re actually a pervert?”

Behind her, the Captain of the Hestia Familia, Moses Vanderzee, spoke, his breath tickling the back of her neck. “This is the only way for someone other than me to hold her.”

“Not that. I’m talking about the staff. You can tell what sort of person a person is by the things they create,” Tsubaki replied, with complete seriousness. “How you forge something matters just as much as what you forge.”

As her skill as a blacksmith grew, she was asked to repair thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of damaged weapons. From them, she could see and had seen the nature of the individual using and wielding them. For certain individuals, she would outright refuse to create or repair their weapons. 

She could tell, through how they used those weapons, whether they were the sort worthy of having their weapons repaired, or the sort worthy of using a weapon emblazoned with the sigil of her goddess.

With his support, Tsubaki held the staff gently, and her fingers trailed across the ornate flaming patterns engraved upon the staff. The further she traced across it, the more she found the flame patterns coalesced together to form the likeness of a person. The likeness was not visible or immediately apparent. It could never be found unless one was both holding the staff and inspecting it very carefully. 

To the average eye, it would appear as just white flames. However, in her grasp, the flame-patterns formed into the engraving of a woman. A woman who was known with explicit, nigh-omniscient clarity. Every contour of the face and every outline of her body was rendered with such detail that Tsubaki felt, with her fingers, a tactile softness. 

At that moment, the staff, both in her vision and her touch, stopped appearing as a staff and began to appear to her as though she were exploring, intimately, another woman’s body. A woman whose height was lacking, but possessed breasts to rival, if not surpass, hers. A woman with a warm smile and even warmer presence.

Tsubaki knew who the woman was, because it had been a goddess who had spent months mooching off her Lady Hephaestus.

The staff was a tribute to his goddess, Lady Hestia.

Holding it was like holding her.

It was like holding her very naked, very real body.

The further Tsubaki traced the flame patterns, the faster her heart started beating. The design was licentious and indecent in a manner that would have been offensive to those who took offense to such a thing, but in it, Tsubaki found there was a genuine earnestness. His depiction of a naked goddess in her totality, though erotic in conception, was not fully so. There was true passion to be found. There was true dedication to be found in the depiction.

The further she trailed the patterns of the flames, the further she sensed that there was more to it. The flames in of themselves were an incomprehensible number of engravings in a text and script she could not understand, but that carried a strange sense of divinity.

The embers…? The embers which flew off and returned… he used them… to engrave the staff?

The staff trembled in her grasp. As though the weapon itself could sense it did not belong to her, as though it could somehow sense she was not the one it was made for, the weight magnified a dozenfold. 

This heaviness… it’s a… Mastery Property.

For as long as Tsubaki could remember, the consensus of what constituted a ‘genius’ in the field of metallurgy and blacksmithing was an individual below the age of fifty who could create first-class weapons and apply at least one Mastery Property. The most famous Mastery Property was Durandal, a property applicable to orichalcum, that once applied, granted guaranteed indestructibility. 

Applying a Mastery Property meant going beyond the creation of a first-class weapon and into the rare category of a Superior-Class weapon.

On the staff in her hand—

Tsubaki could sense Three Mastery Properties.

Slowly, Tsubaki let go of it. Instead of landing with an ear-splitting thud that any heavy staff would, it began vibrating in place. Without a sound, it lifted off the floor and flew straight into Moses Vanderzee’s outstretched right hand.

At a glance, Tsubaki could tell that the effect of one Mastery Property was for the staff to ‘always return home’. It would not leave his hand. He would always have it in his grasp. Even while unconscious, and perhaps, even when dead—

He would always have his goddess within his grasp.

“Hahaha!”

Tsubaki Collbrande wore the largest smile she had ever worn in years. A smile so large her cheeks started to ache. Turning around, she locked her gaze directly with the blue eyes of the man in front of her.

“You wanted me to take you seriously, didn’t you?”

“People in Orario have a subconscious habit of determining a person’s value by their Level,” Moses nodded, gently stroking the staff. “Even children in orphanages do it. They play games where one says, ‘I’m Level Two, so you can’t beat me,’ and another says ‘I’m Level Three, so you have to obey me.’”

He let out a soft sigh.

“It’s not malicious, or even cruel, but it is the way you all see the world. Everyone not of a high level is subconsciously less valuable, less qualified, less capable, and less dignified, until proven otherwise.”

Slowly, his blue eyes landed on her.

“I proved otherwise.”

His eyes were telling her, without telling her:

Do Not Underestimate Me.

“Lady Hephaestus told me to help you however I could, but you’re right,” Tsubaki nodded. “Even without meaning any harm, I did look down on you.”

She would have created weapons, tools, and equipment she believed would be of a suitable skill level for him. That is, weapons and items of quality for the pinnacle of a Level Two Adventurer. Even if Moses Vanderzee told her that they would be inadequate for him, Tsubaki would have doubted him. If he pushed it, at best, she would have stuck to creating weapons around the quality of a low-Level Three, and no higher.

She simply would refuse to believe he could handle anything stronger and would come to hold him in contempt for being greedy and not knowing his limits. 

“Giving weapons that are too strong to developing Adventurers often harms them. The gods call it being ‘Overgeared.’” 

All who would rely on weapons and armor above their skill level would become too reliant on those weapons and armor, to the detriment of their skills and capabilities. 

Someone wearing armor that absorbed all damage from a hit would not gain the same amount of Excelia to their Endurance attribute as someone folded in half from the same attack. Someone who spent a great amount of effort slicing through a monster's jaw would not gain the same amount of Excelia in Strength as someone with a high-level weapon that sliced through it like butter.

The difference in Excelia gain meant those who were Overgeared would grow slower than their peers.

Worse, when deprived of their high-level equipment, they would find not only had they not grown as fast, but in ways, they had become worse off than before, due to reliance on their equipment.

The final nail in the coffin was that the Dungeon was lawless. If a higher-level adventurer noticed the newbie with gear beyond his skills, they would see a large, fat paycheck.

Overgeared Adventurers always die in the Dungeon.

Thus, no matter what Moses Vanderzee would have told her, Tsubaki would never have created weapons or equipment for him beyond what she believed he was capable of handling.

“You have the Blacksmith Development Ability,” Tsubaki chirped. “And it’s pretty high, isn’t it?”

“Not as high as yours.”

Tsubaki lifted a brow. “How do you know it’s not?”

“You’re currently topless, Miss Collbrande.”

Tsubaki looked down. True to the man’s word, her top was gone, as were the thick bindings she used to prevent her chest from obstructing her work. Her breasts bounced freely in the heat of the Forge Room, covered with a thin sheen of sweat that caused them to glisten. Her nipples, slightly perked, pointed towards him, as a bead of sweat rolled down one and hung at its edge. Faintly, Tsubaki recalled the heavy snap she had heard when she lifted the staff. 

It had been the sound of her chest bindings snapping.

“Oh,” she nodded. “These often get in the way anyway.” She shrugged. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“If I ever complain about beautiful topless women, smite me.”

“No flirting, we’re discussing something serious,” Tsubaki chuckled. Then, her gaze went sharp. “You said my Blacksmith Ability is higher. That means you can read my Falna, even though Lady Hephaestus encrypted it to prevent that. When you went behind me, you saw it.”

Moses, with his eyes following her swaying chest, nodded, “I did.”

Tsubaki guffawed. “You’re not going to deny it?”

“Should I?”

“Inspecting someone else’s Falna without their permission is a serious invasion of privacy, you know?” Tsubaki wagged her finger. “People get really upset about that sort of thing.”

His eyes went up to hers for a moment. “But not you.”

“Nope,” Tsubaki admitted frankly, crossing her arms under her chest. Then, she frowned. “How could you tell?”

His eyes went back down to her breasts. “Benishigure told me.”

“Ben—”

Tsubaki’s right hand instinctively went to her naginata, Benishigure. The first-class weapon she had created always accompanied her. Benishigure still was within its sheath, and Tsubaki’s breath hitched for a moment.

All Master Blacksmiths could, through the cracks, the chips, the damage, commune with a weapon and understand the life it had, as well as grasp the nature of the weapon’s master. That did not mean, in the literal sense, that a weapon could tell a blacksmith the whole story, or the full picture, or the secrets of its wielder. It was impossible to do that.

Unless you were Lady Hephaestus.

Lady Hephaestus could hold a weapon and speak with it, and it could speak with her. She could have a full conversation, learning about what it had gone through, about who had wielded it, about where it had been, and what it had seen. It was simply an extension of her Divine Authority. 

Is he being serious?

Benishigure told him…?

Tsubaki was curious. Intrigued. She had never cared much about people, particularly, or been the sort to be nosy, but Moses Vanderzee was a constant contradiction that kept her asking questions, and kept her curious in a way she typically reserved for rare alloys and foreign steels. 

“You said your Blacksmith Ability isn’t higher than mine.”

“It is not,” Moses said. “However, when I create things dedicated to Hestia, the quality is at least three times higher than normal. If you ask me to forge a regular staff, or regular blade, nothing I make would be better than yours.” 

“That’s not an excuse,” Tsubaki shook her head. “There’s nothing wrong with making use of whatever you can and every advantage you have to reach the pinnacle. Even if your rank in the Development Ability is lower, if you can create works of a quality better than someone who has a higher rank, you’re the better smith.”

“Not many people would see it that way.”

“Pft! Of course they won’t!” Tsubaki grumbled. “Too many people have their pride wrapped up in being good, or being better than others, or being the best.”

He hummed. “Not you.”

“There’s only one person I want to surpass, so I don’t care if there are smiths better than me.”

Tsubaki balled her fists, grinning.

“I want to surpass her.”

Tsubaki declared.

“I want to create weapons better than anything Lady Hephaestus has created.”

“Is that wise?”

The words were not the usual words she received when she professed her dream. What she often heard were either scoffs from people who said it was foolish to strive or nodding, flatterers who told her that one day she would do it because she was special.

“What do you mean?”

Moses Vanderzee leaned on his staff, his gaze still on her chest.

“Hephaestus is the forge. She is the craft. She is blacksmithing. What you’ve set out to do is to surpass the forge at forging, to surpass the craft at being the craft, to surpass blacksmithing at blacksmithing.”

Moses’ eyes went up once more.

“Surpassing her involves outperforming an aspect of a fundamental cosmic force at the task of being itself. It is to ‘out-gravity’ gravity, and to ‘out-magnetize’ magnetism. Ignoring the question of whether you can or cannot, you have to address the question of whether you should. If a thing emerges that genuinely outperforms gravity at being gravity… gravity stops being gravity. It becomes a constituent of the force that outperformed it.”

Tsubaki had question marks surrounding her head. Her lips opened, and closed, and opened and closed again, and she could only let out a monosyllabic, “Wha?”

“Please forget I said anything,” Moses said, softly laughing. Without another word, he grabbed his clothes, dressed himself, and made his way towards the door. 

“The day you become close enough to succeed at your dream, you’ll understand.”

It was the casual manner, the casual assurance with which he spoke that made Tsubaki grow even more intrigued. Nothing about him had the air of a Level Two Adventurer. Even as he blatantly stared at her chest, Tsubaki couldn’t find it in her to be offended, or upset, or even repulsed. The brazenness of his gaze was almost endearing. It gave her the feeling she'd be more offended if he did not stare.

Most Level Two Adventurers, standing before a Level Five, would carry themselves like mice in front of dragons. He, on the other hand, carried himself in a way that made her feel not even, as though she was his equal, but as though she were the one who was supposed to defer to him.

“I have to be going now, Miss Collbrande. Please be sure to treat Arges, Brontes, and Steropes well. I’ll be coming back often to forge things with them.”

Tsubaki froze.

“I never told you my three lava-forges were named.”

“You didn’t,” Moses chuckled as he opened the door. “But Benishigure did.”

The door was closed shut with an ear-ringing clang. 

Lady Hephaestus named them, and only I should know…. I was the only one… no, I had Benishigure with me… but… if that’s the case… then…? Tsubaki held out her naginata, Benishigure, as though it were a stranger. 

The air of mystery cloaking Moses Vanderzee grew, and as it did, Tsubaki's nipples grew painfully, throbbingly, hard.

She was fascinated for the first time by something other than a sword, a blade, or a rare mineral.

Wait! He—

It was only after he left that Tsubaki realized—

Moses Vanderzee never told her what he wanted from winning their wager.

=====)+(=====

“What is it, Hestia?”

“Just now, I felt like… Zee’s hands were roaming on my body. Then someone else too…?”

“Hmph! All it took was getting laid, and now you can’t stop thinking about him, can you?”

There were four naked women within a luxurious bath in a quarter belonging to the Demeter Familia, each a woman of unparalleled divine beauty. The four women, the four goddesses, had gathered together in a steaming hot bath to celebrate and, in the case of one of them, condemn one of their own.

“Oh, hush, Aphrodite. I think it’s great that Hestia finally has someone! Even if she’s starting to get a bit horny-brained and imagining things regarding him…”

“Eh? Demeter, you too?!”

“I still believe you’re no longer a virgin,” The Goddess of Beauty was, contrary to the expectations of many, far less endowed than many would expect. The golden-haired, green-eyed woman in the bath constantly shot irate looks at Hestia’s chest, floating in the water, and the chest of the woman behind Hestia, which almost enveloped Hestia’s head. “I still can’t believe it…”

“Do remember you weren’t invited, Aphrodite dear,” Demeter said dryly. “We’re still trying to figure out how you found out.” 

“Of course I found out!” The golden-haired goddess declared, putting her hands on her hips. “I could sense it! A disturbance in the erotic force! I rushed all the way back to Orario just for that! Virgin goddesses are like super duper rare! With one less, the balance has shifted! You can’t re-virgin a goddess, ever!”

The golden-haired woman laughed loudly.

“But I still can’t believe it was a human who did it. A lot of gods held out hope they’d be the ones to take your chastity, you damn balloon tits. Apollo never stopped asking me for help, and I kept turning him down. He was so desperate… not that I was jealous, or anything… but it was just pathetic.”

“He was very persistent as a suitor while we were still in Tenkai…” Demeter added. Hestia lay between her chest, which was amongst the four goddesses present, the largest of all.  “Are you sure your little human lover will be safe if he finds out, Hestia? The Apollo Familia isn’t one to be trifled with.”

“Of course he will be! Zee will be fine. He’s my Zee, after all,” Hestia said, puffing her chest out. The action sent splashes of hot water travelling across the bath.  “And that creep, Apollo, if he tries anything, then we’ll just declare a War Game and stick it to him!”

“Declare a War Game?” Aphrodite asked. “With just one member?”

“My Familia has two members! Liliruca is a lovely girl! Don’t discount her.”

“And that’ll be enough to take on the Apollo Familia?” Aphrodite shook her head, her features contorting with disgust. “And I thought your breasts were the only thing inflated about you.”

“Oi! You!”

Demeter turned to the fourth member present, her orange eyes warmly landing on the red-haired woman with a single eyepatch. “You’ve been awfully quiet, Hephaestus.”

“That’s because there’s a nuisance here,” Hephaestus said. “If I’d known she was going to be here… I wouldn’t have come.”

Aphrodite turned to her. “What? You can’t still be holding that grudge. It’s been thousands of years.”

Hephaestus rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Some of us have longer memories.”

“There’s no way you’re still upset about that,” Aphrodite paused. “Now that I think about it… Your friend told us she lost her virginity after so long, but you haven’t said anything. You’ve been really quiet. It can’t just be because I’m here.”

“I…” Hephaestus faltered. “I just didn’t think she had it in her.”

Aphrodite’s gaze narrowed. “No, that’s not it. You… you’ve met Hestia’s Captain.”

“Oh, you’ve met him?” Demeter asked. “A third-hand account is just what we need. We can’t rely entirely on Hestia’s words. What was he like?”

“Well, he—”

Hephaestus began, then she froze.

“He… he was… decent. Decent enough… I suppose.”

Aphrodite’s gaze latched onto her, and Hephaestus visibly began to sweat.

“Oh, oh, oh, you—” Aphrodite’s eyes gleamed. “You like him! You… actually… Hephaestus… you like Hestia’s Captain! You have the hots for him!”

“No.” 

Hephaestus' reply was forceful. Too forceful. There was no way, in a gathering of goddesses, that not a single one of them failed to pick up on it. Hestia, the least of them. Worse, there was no way, when it was Aphrodite making the statement, any of them had cause to doubt it.

The Goddess of the Hearth turned to her, with surprise in her eyes. “Wait, Heph? You like… Zee?”

Hephaestus closed her one visible eye and slowly pinched the bridge of her nose. She wasn’t foolish enough to deny it in front of a Goddess of Love, and at the same time, she wasn’t shameless enough to admit it. 

She had always known it would come out one day; she just never expected it to be so soon.

“Damn you, Dite…!”

“Oh, this is perfect,” Aphrodite slapped her hands together, and swooned. “A love triangle between a human male and two goddesses! This is perfect! If the male gods find out, they’ll want to tear him to shreds!”

“There is no love triangle—” Hephaestus began, just as Hestia said, “It’s three goddesses.” 

“What?” Demeter asked.

“What?” Aphrodite repeated.

“What?” Hephaestus snapped her gaze to Hestia.

“Freya wants Zee,” Hestia admitted. “She marked him. I removed her mark with my purifying fire, while he was sleeping… but it came back the next morning. It… It’s like a manifestation of her desire for him. I can’t get rid of it, until the damned man-stealing hussy removes it herself…”

The four goddesses were silent.

“Freya has always been… proactive, in that regard,” Demeter said slowly. “She’s stolen a lot of promising ones… but people forgive her anyway…”

“Because she’s a cheater…” Aphrodite cursed.

“Because she’s beautiful,” Hephaestus muttered.

“Hephaestus, dear, we’re all beautiful,” Demeter said.

“That’s not the consensus of the gods who dance to her tune at Denatus,” Hephaestus shook her head. “If she asked them, they would collectively wage a Joint War Game on someone she hates without hesitation.”

Hephaestus’ words brought the silence back. No one could deny it. The strongest of deities on Gekai needed to accrue a sufficient force to destroy another Familia.

Freya could destroy another Familia with a pointed finger and tear-stained cheeks.

“But,” Aphrodite began. “If Freya wants him, why hasn’t she already just taken him?”

“Zee… can’t be charmed by her.”

“He can’t?” Hephaestus blinked. “Really?”

“Really.”

“That must drive her crazy.”

“Oh, dear. I’m afraid it’ll only make her want him even more,” Demeter said. “Someone who's used to having everything they want will be obsessed with the one thing they can’t have...”

Hestia moved from her location towards her friend, on the other end of the bath. She looked into her one visible eye with complete seriousness. “Heph, do you want a chance with Zee?”

“W-what?”

“Heph,” Hestia held her hands and stared at her seriously. “You’re my friend. If you like Zee, it’s great. I’m not going to get upset. If he can make you happy, I don’t have a problem with you going after him.”

Hephaestus’ lips opened dryly, “You don’t?”

“I don’t.”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“It’s just sharing a human lover, why are you acting like it’s a big deal?” Aphrodite rolled her eyes. “Ugh, you’re so immature.”

“What Aphrodite means is,” Demeter shot a small glare at Aphrodite. “We’re goddesses, Hephaestus, dear. Even if Hestia’s Captain becomes a level Seven or Eight, the time that can be spent with him is still finite. Humans are like the seasons, after a hundred years… two hundred… they’ll wilt, fade, and be gone. Though he won’t be here, Hestia will, and you will. I think Hestia values a friendship that will last for never-ending seasons over a lover that she'll be with for a single autumn rain.”

“What?” Hestia turned around and said, with all seriousness. “I didn't say that! That's not why I'm okay with sharing him! And Zee isn’t going anywhere!”

“Do you plan on marking his soul and finding his every reincarnation…?” Demeter held her cheek. “Oh my. There aren’t any rules against it, but, Hestia dear, don’t you think that makes you a little too much of a stalker?”

“I never said I’d do that!” Hestia denied. Then she shook her head. “But he’s not… going anywhere. I can’t explain it, but I know. Zee… will be with me forever.”

Demeter and Aphrodite turned to each other before they both turned back to Hestia.

“Mortals are beautiful and vibrant, and they find ways to surprise us and amuse us, and show us parts of ourselves we never knew, but…” Demeter began. “In the end, they’re still mortal, Hestia. They all die. You’ll get your heart broken if you forget that. Right, Aphrodite?”

The golden-haired woman’s countenance changed. “Love between a mortal and an immortal always ends in tragedy. There are no exceptions,” Aphrodite ran her hand through her wet hair, exhaling. “Bringing this up just made me remember something I didn’t want to. Look, Hestia, Heph, have some fun, mess around, enjoy sharing your human, but don’t seriously fall in love with him. Either he dies, and something is gouged from you forever, reshaping reality because of it, or you refuse to let him die, and he’ll suffer forever for it.”

“Or,” Demeter added, softly. “He becomes immortal in an incomplete way, with a soul stuck in a cycle of death and reincarnation. An everlasting spring, forever chasing after summer...”

“Maybe,” Aphrodite huffed. “All I know is, when it comes to love between a mortal and deity, eternal suffering is always going to be inflicted on one side or the other.”

No one said anything further. Neither Hestia, nor Hephaestus, nor Aphrodite, nor Demeter. The earlier upbeat mood had completely vanished.

“You’re a terrible Goddess of Love, Dite,” Hephaestus muttered.

“Really terrible,” Hestia agreed.

“No wonder the male gods don’t pursue her.”

“It’s also because her breasts are small—”

“Hey! HEY!”