"Ais! Are you all right?"
The familiar emerald figure blended with the face of her mother from her memories. Ais tilted her little head in a daze, her cracked lips moving.
"...M-Mom?"
The whisper carried through the air. Riveria could no longer hold back. Her eyes instantly blurred with hot tears, and she wanted nothing more than to rush over and pull the battered Ais into her arms.
Noah's eyes widened slightly again as he stared at the back of the girl named Ais's head.
Yikes. Had the kid taken a blow to the head?
Why was she going around calling everyone her mom and dad?
But when Noah saw the green-haired elf's tear-filled eyes and tightly pressed lips, he began to doubt himself.
Wait, were they really mother and daughter?
You couldn't tell at all.
One was an elf, the other a human.
One had green hair, the other blonde.
Unable to make sense of it, Noah gave up thinking and casually handed Ais to the green-haired elf. He didn't want to look like some evil villain getting in the way of a mother and daughter reuniting.
"Ais!"
Caught off guard, Riveria instinctively released her staff and caught Ais with both arms.
With a clang, the staff hit the ground, its clear ring echoing through the air. Even the nine obviously expensive gems were covered in dust.
A glimmer flashed across the gems. To Noah, they seemed almost resentful.
After a quick check of Ais's body, Riveria hurriedly pulled out the Panacea she carried with her.
She gave Ais half the bottle to drink, then poured the remaining half over her.
A cloud of magic smoke, thick with the scent of medicine, rose and dispersed. Once the shimmering rainbow-colored liquid covered the girl's many ghastly wounds, they began healing at a visible speed.
The flesh and bones of her chest quickly recovered, her muscles and blood vessels reconnected, and at last her skin returned to normal.
Watching this, Noah raised an eyebrow, once again confirming that the level of magic in this world was far higher than he'd imagined.
But as he watched, Noah's attention couldn't help being drawn to the elf's pale neck.
Leaning forward to hold the girl, the elf's conservative high collar had opened slightly, revealing a glimpse of her collarbone.
Her neck was taut and graceful as a swan's, and her skin was so translucent and delicate that he could almost see the blue veins beneath it...
An elf's blood must taste sweet, right?
At the thought, Noah, weak as he was, couldn't help swallowing, his throat bobbing as he fought to restrain himself.
Strictly speaking, Noah wasn't a pure-blooded human.
That was common in a magical world where many races coexisted—not to mention half-elves; there were also plenty of half-orcs, half-dwarves, and half-dragons.
But perhaps because his abilities hadn't fully developed yet, Noah had no idea what kind of nonhuman bloodline ran through him.
Aside from his magic growing more active at night and in natural surroundings, his greatest peculiarity was that he could obtain magic through the bodily fluids of exceptionally gifted women, especially their blood.
Noah knew it sounded a lot like a vampire, but the problem was that he not only had no fear of sunlight, he actually quite liked sunbathing. Nor did he have long fangs, the ability to turn into mist, or any of the other powers associated with vampires.
So Noah didn't dwell on it. He simply assumed it was the reawakening of the bloodline of some special race that had vanished in ancient times.
After two doses of Panacea, Ais's breathing and pulse settled. Riveria finally let out a sigh of relief.
Then she realized she'd forgotten something.
Riveria instinctively looked up, and her eyes met a pair of blue ones.
Silence hung in the air for a moment. Then Riveria came back to herself with a start, picked up the staff from the ground, and tried to assume a defensive stance.
But halfway through raising her hand, she stopped.
She didn't know where the stranger before her had come from or why he had been carrying Ais. But he had willingly handed Ais over to her, and hadn't attacked while she was distracted. Clearly, he was a friend, not a foe.
If that was the case, her reaction had been rather pointless.
Realizing this, Riveria, who was known to both the public and her companions as a calm and steady leader, couldn't help feeling her cheeks grow warm.
But Riveria was a mature adult. She'd learned how to hide her embarrassment.
After all, as long as you weren't embarrassed, the other person was.
"Hello. I'm Riveria Ljos Alf, vice-captain of the Loki Familia. May I ask who you are?"
Hostess of Fertility
Looking at the green-haired elf, who had regained her composure, Noah thought for a few seconds and chose not to answer.
Until he recovered his strength and figured out what was going on in this world, he wanted to avoid contact with others as much as possible.
Even if she was a good person, it was hard to predict how she'd react upon learning he came from another world.
Putting himself in her shoes, Noah knew he'd keep an otherworlder under watch—or even lock them up and interrogate them.
The silver-haired boy didn't answer or say a word. After looking her over twice, he walked away with his sword in hand.
That was quite unexpected for Riveria.
His gaze was clearly neither polite nor friendly, but she couldn't sense any coldness or hostility in it, either.
If she had to describe it, it was like someone glancing without interest at deer fighting in the forest while passing by.
Tch, why would I think of it that way?
It must be my imagination!
Perhaps the boy had just come in from outside Orario as a member of some Familia, and didn't know the Loki Familia.
Thinking this, Riveria looked at the silver-haired boy, whose injuries were no less severe than Ais's, and took out the last Panacea she had.
Panacea was a precious medicine that cost at least five hundred thousand Valis to start with. Now that Dungeon exploration had been hampered and ingredients were in short supply, its price kept climbing.
Even so, Panacea would sell out the moment it went on the market. It was practically impossible to buy.
This was a turbulent era when you could be attacked just walking down the street. Apart from the lowest dregs who drank and caroused their lives away, any adventurer with a shred of sense wanted a potion that could save their life in a pinch.
If the Loki Familia couldn't obtain it directly from production Familias they worked with and also needed to protect, then even they—one of the two strongest Familias in the city—would have struggled to buy much.
But even so, their supply of Panacea was still a drop in the bucket for a Familia like the Loki Familia, which was always on the front lines of Dungeon exploration and fighting the Dark Faction.
Riveria had brought these three bottles with her when she set out to look for Ais, because she'd had a feeling something dangerous might happen.
"Um, if you don't mind, please take this."
Noah glanced over and saw her holding out a bottle of the same medicine that had just healed the little girl.
After thinking it over, Noah accepted it.
He hadn't forgotten that he had a terrible sense of direction, and he was still in the seemingly bottomless Dungeon. He didn't want to run out of magic before finding his way out.
Having a potion that could restore his magic would give him more leeway when making plans.
Riveria felt relieved when he accepted the precious Panacea.
"The Loki Familia's home is Twilight Manor, in the northern part of the city. If you get the chance, please come visit us. We'd like to show our gratitude."
With the potion in hand, Noah glanced at Riveria once more, then left without looking back.
Riveria watched the silver-haired boy vanish into the dust and took a long while to come back to herself.
"A mysterious boy..."
As Riveria stood there, conflicted, Ais gave a soft moan in her arms and slowly awoke.
"Ais! How are you feeling? Does your body still hurt? Is anything bothering you?"
Seeing Riveria, usually so calm, frantically fussing over her, Ais's eyes filled with warmth, affection, and guilt.
The girl opened her arms and hugged the Elf Royal, pressing her face against her chest.
"I'm all right now, Riveria."
Seeing Ais show such soft affection, like any ordinary little girl, Riveria finally relaxed. She gently stroked the girl's smooth blonde hair.
"Honestly..."
When Ais had finished enjoying the embrace and shyly raised her head—
"Since you're all right now, I think we can talk about you running off on your own—"
At the sight of Riveria's expressionless face and the ghostly aura emanating from her, Ais's little face went pale.
"R-Riveria..."
Ais let out a soft whimper, but it couldn't summon the maternal affection in the Elf Royal's heart.
Deep in a dark, shadowy corridor, lamplight revealed a huge, twisted, ominous silhouette. Roars echoed in every direction.
"Go find Valetta. Tell her to cut that lowly human to pieces and take back the key—and avenge my hair!"
"I finally made it out!"
Among groups of adventurers who were just as bloodied and exhausted, Noah emerged from the first floor of Babel.
Gazing up at the dark night sky, still oppressive beneath the rain clouds but far more spacious than the underground caverns, Noah wanted to roar at the top of his lungs.
As expected, after leaving the twelfth floor, Noah quickly got lost in the winding tunnels and caves that went up and down, left and right.
It took him half a day to find another group of adventurers who seemed to be heading back to the surface. He followed them from a distance and finally made it out.
"I should've known better than to try to look cool. I should've followed them out in the first place... Next time, I'm definitely finding someone who knows the way before going down!"
After washing the dust and blood from himself in the freezing rain, Noah weighed the bag in his hand and listened to the coins jingle against one another.
While lost in the Dungeon, Noah had inevitably run into countless monsters and killed one group after another.
Even though this was another world, picking up materials after killing monsters was an instinct that ran deep in his bones.
Well, monsters in this world automatically dropped materials when they died. There was no need to cut them open by hand. Clean and hygienic—couldn't ask for more!
On the third floor of this Chalk Tower called Babel, Noah had exchanged all those things for money.
Now he just needed to find somewhere to have a good meal and get some rest.
With that in mind, Noah looked around the spacious circular plaza, then chose a street that seemed to have more people walking along it.
Perhaps because the cold rain kept falling and it was already late at night, the streets were nearly empty. The few people he occasionally saw all looked gloomy.
Armed guards in uniform were also patrolling the area, watching Noah warily from time to time as he walked by covered in wounds and carrying a weapon.
Noah had experience with this sort of thing.
He just stood in the middle of the street, staring at them like they were monkeys. After sizing him up and calling out, "Newbie, hurry home!" the people who'd been about to question him turned and left.
The air was thick with tension and wariness. Noah couldn't tell whether the city was always like this or if something major had happened recently.
He didn't particularly care, except that after looking around, he found most of the taverns and restaurants were closed!
It was already well past dinnertime, but shouldn't taverns and restaurants in a city full of adventurers stay open and lively until dawn?
Was law and order really this bad?
He followed the street all the way to the towering city wall, then took another road back. By the time he came to his senses, he was almost back at the plaza beneath that giant tower.
Just as Noah was about to give up, a warm light finally caught his eye, brightening the darkness.
Hostess of Fertility?
Well, this place would do. If he didn't eat soon, he'd starve to death.
Gray-Haired Girl
Before you continue