Danmachi-Hell's forge

And I don't mean in the way he originally thought where I simply got more drops. While that was certainly a factor but my cursed technique was a veritable treasure trove because of the sheer versatility of what I had discovered it capable of through trial and error. Healing, drops, item creation, ingredient improvement, combat application and who knew how many other things it was capable of make it damn near an omnitool for any need one might have. Something like this simply didn't exist, it was unique to me alone and that was dangerous to share with others.-

If you are wondering about the whole hostess of fertility thing I made sure that they only knew a single facet of my technique which was my ability to enhance ingredients. Skills and spells that could do that did exist already and weren't all that uncommon either for crafters that didn't delve more than absolutely necessary. But for a new and small familia like mine that didn't have anyone over level one exposing my technique would only cause the gods to declare a war game to snatch me to their roster.-

Anyways after that trip I only got a bit over a thousand valis and headed home after turning the food container back over to Syr and giving her some more advice like how to make boiled soy eggs which happened to be a favorite of mine. It was literally just boiling eggs and then soaking the deshelled eggs in soy marinade overnight. They were a quick and easy food that tasted amazing in my opinion. After that I hit up the Blue pharmacy to restock and trade out potion vials before finally making to the church. Rather than work on another figurine though I instead grabbed the variants skull and began the refine it.-

The thing resisted me every step of the way because of it's stupidly high durability but by the time Hestia came home the grey hard skull had turned black and had a sinister gleam to it. Three fucking potions were the price I paid to refine the damn thing to this degree and I could tell instinctually that this was the best I can do at the moment. All that was left was the separate the teeth from the skull before transforming the skull into bracers.-

I was confused when Hestia came home as she was not alone but had a scrawny white haired boy with her.

"A new member already? Thought I'd need to get to level two or higher before we started getting any." I said casually as she brought the by down to the room.

"Umu! I bumped into him on the way back from work and it turned out he was looking for a familia!" She said puffing out her chest proudly.

"Well if the goddess says you're in then you're in, welcome to the family kid." I said with a smile.

"T-thank you for having me!" the boy said loudly and nervously.

"Whats your name kid? Mines Alexander Drake but I go by Alex." I asked while introducing myself.

"Bell Cranel Sir!" the boy said stiffly which made it clear that he wasn't sure how he should act.

"You can relax Bell and drop the stiff attitude, we don't do that here." I said with a smile.

Bell slouched with a sigh of relief at that and I motioned him to take a seat on the couch.

"Now if you would take off your shirt so Hestia can grant you her blessing we can make this official." I said and he paused for a moment before taking off his shirt.

Hestia did her thing and soon we had Bells status sheet to look over.

Name: Bell Cranel

Race: Human

Level:1

Strength:10(I)

Endurance:10(I)

Agility:10(I)

Dexterity:10(I)

Magic:10(I)

Spells: none

Skills: none

"Nothing special it seems but that's just fine since it means you are a blank slate and can go any direction you want." I said patting the boy on the back reassuringly as he looked dejected not seeing anything special on his status.

Bell brightened up at that "You really think so?" he asked with hopeful eyes.

I smiled "Yeah not a doubt in my mind that if you put in the work you'll turn out alright in the end." I said honestly.

I meant every word too as the falna responds to emotions and effort so no matter how talentless you are if you are willing to push yourself to constantly improve, you will. After that we all headed to the hostess to blow through fifteen thousand valis to celebrate Bell joining the family. Syr was acting odd when we were there though as she was looking between Bell and me with a strange expression.

Hestia as it turned out was an absolute light weight when alcohol was involved and needed to be carried home after our small celebration. Once back at the church I told Bell to take the couch as I simply removed my boots and flopped on the bed with Hestia in my arms to save Bell from getting sneak attacked and used as a body pillow by her sometime during the night. It was funny how quickly I gave up on the idea of sleeping alone after moving into the church originally.-

There was nothing romantic about this whole scenario either but merely just a thing I had gotten used to after Hestia turned out to be a clingy ninja. No, seriously the woman somehow got out of the bed, walked over to the couch and THEN somehow managed to slip under my blanket to lay against my chest all without waking me up. I am NOT a heavy sleeper so unless she was a ninja I had no fucking idea how she pulled it off every single night. Knowing that she was unstoppable in this regard I chose to spare Bell that experience as the boy was naïve and innocent.-

My sacrifice paid off as the goddess was right where I left her when I woke up in the morning. Thanks to her being a light weight she didn't even have a hangover beyond a slight headache that went away shortly after she woke up. 

"Why can't I come to the dungeon with you though?" Bell whined when I stopped him from following me.

"Because as you are right now going to the dungeon is a death sentence. Look just do what I did and raise your physical stats to G rank and then I might take you with me. Trust me on this and you'll thank me later when you do go to the dungeon. In the church theres a sword that should work well to get you familiar with holding a weapon, use that today and tomorrow I'll spend the day creating a routine to follow in order to raise your stats. The only reason I am not doing that today is that I am pretty sure that I have a friend waiting for me at the dungeon that I need to let know whats going on." I told him seriously.