Loki made her way casually through the lobby, pretending that she had only come there to kill time.
“Oh, Misha. Workin’ hard, I see.”
“Ah, Lady Loki.”
Loki had seen a face she recognized and immediately walked up to the counter to say hello.
The human girl greeted her with a friendly wave. The cheeks of her round, baby face pulled back into a smile.
Misha Frot worked at the Guild as one of the receptionists. The two of them had met only a few days prior at the Monsterphilia. They had shared information and cooperated to respond to the crisis in the city.
The girl was rather short, standing at 150 celch. Her peach-pink hair and innocent eyes gave her a cute aura. Considering that each receptionist was beautiful in her own right, a baby-faced employee like Misha was unusual.
“Is there something I can do for you?”
“That there is. Somethin’ I wanna ask ya.”
The goddess propped her elbows up on the counter and leaned toward the girl who sometimes didn’t speak quite clearly.
Loki grinned and asked her question.
“Ouranos around?”
Misha froze the moment she heard that name.
The lobby was business as usual. However, the space around Misha and Loki fell still, as if it had become its own little world.
After a few heartbeats, the wide-eyed receptionist panicked.
“L-L-Lord Ouranos, is it? Well, um, ehh…!”
“No, no, Misha. This is your job; everyone else is busy. Ya gotta do it yourself.”
Misha’s head was on a swivel, looking back and forth for someone to help her. Loki gently took her hand and softly gave her advice.
The other receptionists were away from the counter. In fact, Misha was the only one at their station. A few Guild employees were watching from afar, but all they saw was a womanizing goddess making a pass at a cute girl. Misha was on her own.
The receptionist looked at the goddess as if she were being strangled by a snake.
“…I-I’ll contact my boss. P-p-please wait…”
“That’ll just end up leaving us with red tape, so don’t bother. Come on, Misha. Can’t ya answer one little question?”
Loki tightened her grip on Misha’s hand as the girl looked for an excuse to get away. Pulling the girl back to the counter, Loki started tracing Misha’s fingers with her thumb.
“Wh-wh-what would that be…?” she asked meekly, shaking like a scared puppy. Loki look down at those watery eyes, her grin the same as always.
“Is Ouranos at the usual spot?”
“……”
Try as she might, a simple yes or no wouldn’t come out of the cutely childish receptionist’s mouth. Running out of options, she quickly broke off eye contact.
Loki grinned from ear to ear as she read the girl like a book.
“Thank you, Misha. I’ll treat ya to a drink sometime.”
“L-Lady Loki?!”
The goddess waved good-bye and left the counter.
That’s when she made her move.
Circling around a counter, she entered a hallway that she knew was supposed to be restricted to all but employees of the Guild. She zipped through the hall on light feet, wind in her ears as she passed by Guild workers carrying stacks of paperwork one after the other.
Caught by surprise, the clerks couldn’t recover in time to say anything to the swift goddess. She left in her wake a trail of people in black suits with their mouths open.
“If memory serves me right, this should be the right way…”
A secondary office was crammed full of desks, a library, archives; Loki glanced into every room as she rushed down the hallway.
Trying to remember the layout from the last time she was there, Loki made a few more turns before finding a long red carpet with golden trim. “Oh?” she said while raising an eyebrow. Quickening her pace, she practically ran down another long hallway.
The rug extended down the middle of the corridor, and both sides were lined with pillars. She could see the stairwell leading down at the end of it.
“—Please stop, Goddess Loki!!”
“Hm…Company?”
The echoes of many hurried footsteps stopped Loki just before she set foot on the stairwell.
A middle-aged elf led a large group of Guild employees in a desperate attempt to stop her.
His suit might have been of far better quality than the others’, but the size of his gut put enough pressure on the fabric to make the seams groan. Beads of sweat dripped down onto his loose double chin. The graying hair on his balding head swished back and forth as the elf wiped his chin with the palm of his hand. Even his pointed ears were shriveled with age.
He wasn’t all that short, but the extra weight he carried made him look more compact than he was. Even his legs looked puffy and short underneath his black slacks.
A dignified image of beauty usually came to mind whenever an average person thought of the elven race. He was about as far from that ideal as possible.
“Yo! Royman! Long time, no see! How ya been?”
“G-Goddess Loki, this is a sacred path that leads to the Temple of Ouranos. P-please, leave here!”
Loki greeted him like an old friend, waving as the he and his subordinates lined up shoulder to shoulder in front of her.
“Haaah…haaah…” The pudgy elf gasping for breath with his hands on his knees was none other than the most powerful man in the Guild, Royman Mardeel.
Elves were known for their long life spans. In fact, Royman had been working at the Guild for over a century and had been promoted to his current position a little more than ten years ago. Now over 150 years old, he oversaw everything that happened in the city and gave the final yes or no for every major decision. At the same time, he enjoyed the perks afforded to him by this position and had been living in the lap of luxury for some time.
His bulging, flabby body looked more like a rich merchant’s rather than an elf’s. “Return to the front at once!” he repeated, recovering from his fatigue with steady, deep breaths. Instead, Loki turned on her friendly charm and walked right up to him.
“Well, I’ll be! Put on more weight, have ya? Lookit how squishy you are!”
“What is the meaning of grabbing me like this…?!”
Loki had her right arm wrapped around his shoulders and a roll of his belly fat clenched in her left hand.
She looked thoroughly entertained as she pushed and pulled it back and forth, causing waves to lap across his gut. All the while, Royman’s eyes were twitching with restraint. He tried to push her away many times, but the grinning goddess wouldn’t budge.
Royman Mardeel was hated by every elf in Orario.
Forgetting the pride and prestige of his race, he had become shameless. His kin considered him to have been poisoned by money and his lavish lifestyle, fattening up in the process. It wasn’t uncommon for him to be referred to as the “Guild’s Pig.” Even Riveria considered him to be the “shame of her race.”
Loki watched Royman’s face turned red, veins popping in frustration, and thought to herself, Kids really are cute.
Her opinion of the man under her arm was the complete opposite of elves like Riveria.
Even the wise elves could fall from grace. The children were foolish, and that made them lovable—every time Loki saw Royman, she was reminded just how much she loved the buffoons in particular.
And that was exactly why the mortal world of Gekai was so entertaining.
“Goddess Loki, I shall repeat myself. This is a restricted area; no one is allowed to come through here. Even your position as a goddess does not override that…!”
“No need to be such a stick-in-the-mud. I just got a question for Ouranos, ain’t that okay?”
“No, absolutely not!”
Even as Loki toyed with the elf on the fancy red carpet, she looked around the hallway. None of Royman’s subordinates had the courage to interfere in an argument between their boss and t
he goddess, so they just stood there with looks of uncertainty on their faces.
If Loki was serious about investigating the Guild, Royman would be on her list of suspects by default, but… Eh, he ain’t behind it, Loki thought. He’d been living the good life and thoroughly enjoying it; it was highly unlikely that he would do anything to jeopardize his position. Now the subordinates who advised him, on the other hand—they would be worth looking into.
However, her current goal was to get to the core of the Guild—to the one who was waiting at the bottom of that stairwell.
Now, what to do, what to do…
She had needed to reach the bottom of that staircase before being found.
Being a deity meant nothing the moment she tried to descend the stairwell. Now that her intentions had been discovered, Guild employees would physically force her back and probably throw her out altogether if necessary. That’s how important the Guild was to the people of Gekai. Not to mention that Royman himself was afraid of anyone else having direct contact with the god below.
Wobble, wobble. Loki played with the aging elf’s belly fat as she considered her next move.
“—It is no matter. Royman, let her through.”
That’s when it happened.
A majestic voice echoed up from below, reverberating between the many pillars and around the red carpet.
“But, Ouranos…!”
“I said it is no matter. All of you, leave us.”
Royman tried to protest but quickly fell silent with the second response.
He nervously glanced back and forth between the stairwell and Loki. Head drooping, Royman led the others away, his feet dragging in the slow march all the way to the exit.
Loki watched him until his round and hunching silhouette completely disappeared. Now alone, she turned on her heel and walked toward the stairs.
The owner of the majestic voice stayed silent, proof enough that he was allowing Loki to approach. The red carpet dampened her footsteps as she made her way into the dim area at the end of the hallway.
“…”
Click, click. Loki’s shoes echoed against the stone floor as soon as the carpet ended.
When she finally reached the bottom of the stairwell, sputtering magic-stone lamps were the only things that lit the way forward. Loki kept her hand on the wall for balance as she descended.
—The origin of the Guild dated back almost a thousand years.
This was the place where the civilized peoples had fought against continuous waves of monsters that emerged from a giant hole in the ground during the Ancient Times.
They had needed a lid—something to keep the monsters from coming out of the hole. An alliance of many races was formed for the main purpose of containing the monsters. Unfortunately, all their plans kept failing.
The more progress they made on the “lid,” the more monsters would emerge, utterly destroying it when it was mere days from completion. Countless lives were lost every time. Even the mightiest heroes fell, one after the other.
Finally, when the allied races managed to construct the tower over the hole and thought their mission was a success, it collapsed before their eyes just like all the other “lids.” Everyone had been on the brink of despair—when streaks of white lights descended from the heavens.
The deities had arrived.
They appeared all over Gekai, a world overrun with monsters. When the confused people asked them why they had come, most of the divine beings said, “To be entertained.” There was one among them, however, who was different.
He enthusiastically joined forces with the people of Gekai in their effort to complete the “lid” over the hole.
Indeed, he was the first one to bestow Falna onto the “children.”
With the cooperation of other gods and goddesses, he was the one who made it possible to complete the central tower that would become Orario’s “lid” and the city’s centerpiece, and who saved the world from the ravenous monsters that issued forth from the hole.
He came to be worshiped as Orario’s founding deity. The remains of the alliance were reassembled under him as one large organization. Thus, the Guild had been born.
Even in the modern age, he was worshiped by many—Ouranos.
“…Yo, haven’t really kept in touch.”
The base of the stairs opened up into a stone chamber that looked to be as old as the Guild itself—a temple.
The ground was covered by large slabs of stone, giving it the feel of a hidden room beneath a place of worship. Magic lamps were nowhere to be seen; rather, the dim chamber was illuminated by four torches on poles, their flames making shadows dance on the plain stone walls.
Directly in the middle of the square created by the torches was the altar.
It took the form of a large, stone throne—and on it sat an imposing, elderly deity. His blue eyes reflected the flame light from beneath his hood as he stared down at Loki.
“What is it, Loki?”
The air seemed to shake with every syllable.
A hooded robe concealed most of the deity’s two-meder-tall frame. Wrinkles covered his well-defined facial features while white whiskers grew from his chin. A few locks of his hair, the same color as his thin beard, were visible underneath the hood. He wore a calm expression, sitting like a statue without the slightest waver.
Robust arms draped on the armrests of his throne, he loomed over Loki like an imposing mountain. He was the spitting image of the heavenly ruler that many people of the Ancient Times had envisioned before they met any deities face-to-face.
Even among the gods, his height was imposing. It granted the elderly deity such a strong presence that the people of Gekai bowed to him without even thinking why. His aura was just that powerful.
“What, I can’t just pop in and say hi…? Well, there is somethin’.”
Loki walked between two of the torches and all the way up to the altar.
“That last festival was a real mess. Problems poppin’ up left and right, everyone pointin’ fingers. How ya holdin’ up?”
“I have left daily management of the city to Royman. It is not under my jurisdiction.”
After laying the foundation of Orario, Ouranos had taken a stance of “reigning without governing,” and hadn’t budged since.
Leaving the day-to-day problems in the hands of the Guild, he spent his days in this chamber. He had chosen not to bestow its employees with a Blessing in order to avoid the power struggle that would inevitably ensue. Therefore, the Guild itself became more of a governing body.
He had renounced any claim to power. Ouranos Familia simply didn’t exist.
As long as he didn’t have any personal soldiers, the Guild lacked the ability to use force.
“Poor Royman. Forced to do every painstakin’ little thing by an old man.”
Another reason that Royman was afraid of outsiders talking to Ouranos was because of the Guild’s current configuration.
He might wield more power than any other mortal in Orario, but even he couldn’t go against his god’s wishes. Should Ouranos have a change of heart, restructuring the Guild was more than a mere possibility. Those currently in power wanted to make sure that no meddlesome words ever made it to the ears of their god, so they cut off his temple from the outside world, declaring it sacred. This spot became physically and spiritually distant from the average citizen.
“What are you implying?”
At the same time, it was also true that this was a holy place that shouldn’t be disturbed.
The reason that Ouranos didn’t try to leave, and that the Guild kept their god cooped up in the temple, was that he continuously sent prayers to the Dungeon.
Ouranos’s prayers were powerful—powerful enough that his divine aura prevented the Dungeon from spawning unfathomable amounts of monsters all at once. This unseen force kept the monsters belowground. In this way, he was preventing the tragedies of the Ancient Times from occurring again.
At the very least, that’s
what the Guild believed.
Royman and other high-ranking officials feared a change in the Dungeon most of all.
As for Loki, she thought it was insane for them to force a god to pray.
“So much happened at this year’s festival, but some really gross, never-before-seen monsters were the worst. Who brought ’em up here, and who ordered ’em to do it…? Wish I knew.”
“…”
Loki’s interrogation had begun. However, Ouranos only sat in silence.
Firmly seated on his throne, the deity didn’t so much as lift a finger.
Loki cut to the heart of the incident, determined to find the mastermind lurking in the shadows by directly asking the one who held the Guild in the palm of his hand.
“Who’s pullin’ the plant monsters’ strings? The Guild?”
Crackle. A burst of sparks exploded from the torch nearby.
A flash of light fell upon the hooded robe as the sparks fell to the floor. Ouranos opened his mouth to speak.
“It is not as you say.”
Blue eyes met Loki’s vermilion ones.
“But it is somethin’ huh?”
Loki whispered to herself, standing just far enough away not to be heard.
The majestic face beneath the hood maintained its serene expression throughout their conversation. Loki stared into his deep blue eyes for a moment before finally saying, “That so?
“Sorry to bother ya. Keep doin’ what you’re doin’.”
Loki spun on her heel, showing her back to Ouranos.
Her footsteps echoing among the muffled roar of the torches, Loki started walking toward the exit.
While there were still some unanswered questions, she was fairly certain that Ouranos wasn’t the one behind the monster attacks.
Loki made up her mind while still reserving her final verdict. She wasn’t sure of the whole scope, but she knew that the deity had been implying something on purpose during their brief conversation. Also, there was something about his steady gaze that made her want to believe him.
Someone’s been watchin’ me the whole time, but…eh, don’t care.
Either Dionysus’s hunch was off, or perhaps someone within the Guild was moving independently of Ouranos’s will.
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 2 Page 10
