[DanMachi/Percy Jackson] Prytaneum

Chapter 19: Sparkling Water part 1

As the sun began to edge towards dusk, Welf and I collected our reward from the Guild—a pair of vails, one a High Potion and the other a High Magic Potion. I wasn't entirely clear on the details, but Welf assured me that each of them was worth at least thirty thousand valis, so it seemed like a pretty good reward.

"You take one and I take one, then?" I asked as we walked away from the counter.

"What?" Welf asked, lifting his wide eyes from the potions before shaking his head. "You did most of the work—I only managed to get a few Orc Hides in the end. The rest was thanks to you and Mrs. O'Leary."

I shrugged a shoulder at him.

"It's fine for stuff like this, isn't it?" I said. "We're a team, after all—isn't it better if we're both well-supplied. For me..."

I reached out to take the dark purple High Mind Potion, holding it up to the light so I could get a better look at it.

"I haven't used a Magic Potion yet," I admitted. "You mind if I take this one?"

"Sure," Welf said, frowning down at the High Potion before taking a deep breath and reaching for it carefully. "Since you use more magic than I do, it'd be better if you had something like that."

I nodded, thinking the same thing. I could usually regain my strength by standing in water, but if I did something big it still required some time to recover completely. In an emergency, I might not be able to afford the wait—and since I could heal myself fine just by standing in water, having a Magic Potion was more useful to me than the alternative.

Honestly, I felt a bit silly for not having considered the possibility of a Magic Potion until now—I guess I just hadn't thought something that convenient would be possible to get. Now I was starting to wonder if Miach could make stuff like this, too. He hadn't mentioned it to me, but then, I'd never mentioned that I could use magic to him. I'd have to ask him the next time we met; if it could be made using drop items I could get, that'd be ideal.

"Do you have magic then?" I asked, tucking the potion into one of the holsters at my side.

Welf paused for a moment at the question and then scratched his head sheepishly.

"Just one spell," He said. "It's not as impressive as yours, though, and it's not really useful on monsters, I don't think. Plus, my Magic Ability is really low, so..."

"Okay," I said, accepting that with a nod and smiling at him. "We got a lot done today. You okay?"

"Just tired," He said, rolling his shoulders as if trying to work the kinks out of them. "Even leaving aside how many Orcs there were, I've never spent that long on the tenth floor before. It usually takes a lot of time to go all the way down to the tenth and just as long to come back, especially if I have to take multiple trips to the Exchanges. Being able to bypass all of that is a lot more efficient, but it's a lot more work, too. But I'm glad, too. Pushing myself like this—it feels like reaching Level 2 is really possible again."

"Mrs. O'Leary's a big help," I agreed, smiling at his wistful tone. "You want to meet up tomorrow or do you need a break?"

"Mm," He hummed, frowning slightly. "A part of my is eager to head back to the tenth floor again...but make you some more armor just became a necessity."

"Heh," I said, looking down at myself and the various nicks and dents in my armor. A few places were cracked pretty badly, too—the result of stepping between a pissed off Orc and Welf. "Maybe. It's a little bent out of shape—but it survived the tenth floor, didn't it?"

He smiled at that, taking that for the compliment it was.

"I'll make the next one better," He said. "After the last few days, I think I've saved up enough to buy some better materials, and this one will be custom made just for you. Making something that can stand up to a bunch of Orcs is a tall order, but I'll manage somehow. Yeah, I'll take tomorrow off to make some stuff, then. You mind stopping by my forge so I can take measurements? We never did get around to doing that."

"That's fine," I said, pausing as we left the Pantheon. "You mind leading the way? I'm still not used to the Industrial District."

"Sure," He replied. "That place takes some getting used to, especially since all the forges look the damn same. Remind me to tell you about the time I accidently walked into someone else's workplace. That was something."

"Heh," I said.

Welf led the way down North-West Main and then turned up North-East Main, taking me on a different route than Wayland had.

"I was thinking of making you some greaves," He said as we walked. "You like that type of armor, right?"

"I'm just used to it," I replied. "It's what I always used to train in."

"Any requests, then?" He asked. "If there's anything you'd like me to make, just say so; I'll make whatever you want. You wanted a shield and helmet, but if there's anything else, just say the word."

I thought about it for a moment before shaking my head.

"That's good enough for me," I said. "Well, I'm used to fighting with them and without them, so it's not a huge deal—but every bit helps, right?"

"Mhm," Welf hummed in reply, before falling silent again. It didn't take us too long to reach the forge, because the streets we fairly empty—something that wouldn't last once the dinner rush picked up, I was sure. For the time being, however, the streets were easy to navigate, especially in the Industrial District. I tried to memorize the path to Welf's place this time, now that there weren't a bunch of other stops in-between.

"Oh, actually," I said right before I entered, remembering something important. "If it's possible, do you think you could make some stuff for Mrs. O'Leary?"

Welf blinked at that, looking my way with a raised eyebrow.

"Like what?" He asked. "Armor?"

"Mm," I considered, pondering that. "Making some armor for her at some point might not be a bad idea, but I was thinking something more like saddlebags? You know, like on a horse?"

"Oh, that's not a bad idea," Welf said, raising a hand to his chin at the thought. "It'd certainly let us carry more stuff out of the Dungeon."

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking," I replied, glad he didn't think the idea was silly. "I mean, Mrs. O'Leary likes to eat magic stones, so I've taken to feeding her some of whatever's left, but even then we still leave a lot of stuff behind, because there's just so much. But I was thinking, magic stones don't take up that much room compared to drops, right? I mean, I usually dedicate my entire backpack just to drop items, simply because of the amount of space they take up, but Mrs. O'Leary doesn't really care about them that much. So I was thinking we could make some pouches for her to carry the drop items, you and me use the extra space to carry more magic stones, and then Mrs. O'Leary can eat her fill of whatever's leftover."

"Could work," He mused before pursing his lips. "It might take a while to make something in her size, though. I have to admit, leatherworking's not my specialty, either, so I'd need awhile to do it right, too. But we have enough Orc Hide now to make something, I think. Give me awhile to sketch things out and I'll get back to you about the details."

"Cool," I said, smiling. "Just tell me how much it is and I'll—"

Welf was already shaking his head.

"Don't worry about it," He said. "I told you I'd provide whatever you needed while you were helping me, right? Besides, you and her got most of the Orc Hides in the first place and having her around to help carry stuff helps both of us. I'm the one who benefits most from those drops after all."

"You sure?" I asked, looking at him with concern. "I mean, it can't be easy to make something that fits her."

"I said don't worry about it," He repeated. "And who was the one who said it was better if we were both well-supplied."

I raised my hands in concession, smiling at that.

"It still might be a good idea to get a supporter," Welf mused and he went to get several tools. "Perhaps especially so, in this case."

"How so?" I asked.

He shrugged a shoulder, frowning slightly as he looked down at several sets of tools.

"The way we are now, a single floor on the upper levels fills up all our bags—and if it's like this here, then we'll still end up losing a lot as we go deeper into the Dungeon," He said. "The deeper down you go, the larger and more populated the floors get, after all. Even leaving aside the larger magic stones and drop items, most expeditions need to rent entire caravans to carry items and supplies to and from the lower levels. That much, we might be able to work around; saddlebags are a good place to start and maybe we can bring a cart at some point, if she's willing."

"Or a chariot," I thought, thinking back.

"Or a chariot," He agreed, though not without shooting me an odd look. "And frankly, we're really lucky, because thanks to Mrs. O'Leary, getting back and forth between the surface isn't a problem for us. But we still waste a lot of time down there."

"Collecting the magic stones, you mean," I guessed.

"Mm," Welf confirmed. "I think we spent two hours cutting out stones at the end there, once all the fighting was done? Just trying to go through all the bodies and we ended up stopping once we ran out of room, so we could have easily spent a few more that way. I guess I shouldn't really complain considering how well we already have it, but if we had a supporter we could trust enough to introduce to Mrs. O'Leary, then they could focus on removing magic stones while we fought."

Welf paused for a moment as he looked over the tools on the wall, slowly taking several of them off and laying them on a nearby bench before turning to the metals and drop items he kept stacked nearby.

"Plus, the standard formation for smaller parties is a three man group," Welf said. "Attack, defense, and support. In our case, we already have three members, but we're all over the place. Because you're supporting me, you end up shifting between attack, defense, and support, while I'm usually on attack, and I guess Mrs. O'Leary's defense?"

"The best defense is a good offense, I guess," I replied after considering it for a moment, shrugging. "But yeah, she'll guard me if I ask."

Welf nodded absently as he looked over the tools.

"That much is fine, since this is more about training me up to Level 2 and you're so strong," He said. "But I'm a little worried about what might happen if we find ourselves cornered, as we go deeper into the Dungeon. I mean, ideally, we can just escape using Mrs. O'Leary, but..."

I thought back to my first trip down to the seventh floor and the horde of Killer Ants I knew I couldn't leave be.

"Yeah, I get it," I said, frowning. "If something went wrong, though...Mrs. O'Leary and I can both attack and defend. Either she'll attack and I'll keep monsters off of her or I'll go on the attack and she'll cover me."

Welf nodded in agreement at that.

"On that front, I think we're fine," He said. "The two of you seem pretty unstoppable, frankly—but I'm the weak link."

Ah. Now I began to see what Welf thought the issue was.

"You're not a liability, Welf," I said.

"I appreciate you saying that," He said, giving me a half-smile. "Really. But this is for the sake of the group, I think. If, say, you're on offense and Mrs. O'Leary's covering you on defense, then that leaves me as your support. My job would be to cover you at long range, assist with healing items, or use spells. Or, if something attacked us from behind, I'd turn and hold it off long enough for you or Mrs. O'Leary to react. If it was just the latter, maybe it'd be fine, but...I'm not much good at long range. I can admit that. Like I said, I only have one spell and it's a bit...circumstantial. As such, if something happened, you and Mrs. O'Leary would end up having to cover for me, in addition to everything else. So at the very least, for the sake of our party, I think it'd be a good idea to have at least one more person to help act as support, to help cover your back in an emergency. In that case, I could serve as a secondary defense to either guard them or try and help you."

Welf had an odd tone as he said those words and I was certain that it couldn't have been easy to say. I wanted to disagree with him, but it looked like he'd put a great deal of thought into this, so I didn't want to brush off his words, either. But...

"That's all well and good, but where are we going to find someone like that?" I said. "I mean, someone I can trust to show Mrs. O'Leary. I managed to luck out with you, but you know how big a deal Mrs. O'Leary would be if word got out. I don't want to reveal her to anyone I don't think I can rely on."

"Yeah," Welf said with a sigh, shaking his head. "That's the problem. I don't really know anyone like that in my Familia and you're the only member of yours, so we'd need to look for someone from another Familia or a free supporter, and both options have their problems. And anyone we tried to bring along, we'd have to at least warn about the dangers."

I nodded and was about to consider that option closed when Welf pursed his lips again.

"Maybe if we went through the Guild," He mused.

"Huh?" I asked.

"It's not unheard of for adventurers to look for others that way," He said. "Remember that quest on the bulletin board that was trying to recruit people to fight a Floor Boos? We could make it kind of like a quest and see what happens. Include some warnings and if we had luck on a trial basis..."

I frowned, feeling a little uncomfortable with the idea.

"Isn't that sort of like trying to buy friends?" I asked. "I'm not sure if that would work out so well. For finding people we can really trust, I mean."

Welf inclined his head at that and sighed, nodding slightly.

"How do you even make quests?" I asked.

"It's actually not that hard," He said. "You just speak to the Guild about it. There's a small fee to make the notice, but otherwise, all we have to do is guarantee the reward and put our names—"

Abruptly, Welf's expression soured.

"Ah," He said. "Right. Never mind."

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Nothing," He said, making a face. "It's just that the Crozzo name has a tendency to draw the wrong people. It'd just cause more problems."

"Why?" I asked.

"It's," Welf began before stopping himself, closing his mouth with a click. "No. I guess after everything, you probably deserve to know about my family."

I looked at Welf for a long moment, seeing the discomfort on his face and noticing how his eyes were avoiding mine. His shoulders were tense, nervous, and maybe even...expectant?

After a moment, I closed my eyes.

"Nah," I said.

"Huh?" Welf asked, sounding surprised.

"Sorry," I replied with a slight shrug. "It's just that all of a sudden, I don't feel like listening to any stories. I mean, I'm sorry Welf, but even keeping up with my family history is too much of a hassle, I can't go dealing with yours, too."

My friend, and that's what he was before anything else, was silent at that, looking at me with uncertain eyes.

"But..." I sighed tiredly. "If my friend ever has something he really wants to say, I suppose I'll listen to it. Just don't bother otherwise, okay?"

Welf looked away after a moment, looking down at his tools.

"Hey," He said, voice gruff. "At some point, let's go celebrate at a bar or something and I'll get really drunk and tell you then. It's just...it's a stupid story about a lot of idiots and assholes."

"Please, Welf;" I said, holding up a hand. "Stop trying to remind me of my family tree—it's not something I like to think about."

He chuckled a bit at that, picking up a hammer with a half-smile and looking at it.

"Well, I'll try," He said, seeming more at ease now. "Somehow, I feel like forging something now, though. You need anything else?"

I was about to shake my head before I stopped to consider it.

"You know a lot about Developmental Abilities, right Welf?" I asked.

"I don't know if I'd say a lot," He replied, tilting his head. "I mainly know about Blacksmith. But you pick up a few things when you're waiting to level up. Why?"

"Have you ever heard of an Ability called 'Mystery'?" I asked.