The Protagonist System

Shopping for cheap wood and a nice table was surprisingly fun. We had to avoid the main Familia artisans, because their wood products and their tables were ridiculously ornate and expensive. Who needs filigree on a wood panel for a basic wall and gold inlays for table place settings? That thought made me think of the plain insides of the Guild Hall and I wondered who did their interior.

I didn't go to the guild and ask, mainly because I was sure that it was so long ago that whomever did it was now one of those same artisans. Only time and boredom would have woodworkers put so much effort into making such simple things. Getting paid for your work is fine. Overdoing it and still expecting to be paid for effort that wasn't required or asked for? No thanks.

After two hours of happily jaunting around to the different places, we ended up buying a bit more wood than necessary for the walls so I could start repairing the roof of the church. We also bought a basic table with a dark stain that would fit into the space where Hestia's bed used to be. It wasn't until we brought everything home and set up the table that we remembered we didn't have any chairs.

The both of us laughed because we had been so caught up in buying the table that we forgot we couldn't sit down at the thing. Not surprisingly, I used some of the spare wood to build two simple chairs and then created seat cushions for them. Hestia asked for a second one and added it to her chair, making it work like a booster seat for her. She could now sit at the same height as me and looked quite happy about it.

I made up some sandwiches from the roast slices I had and Hestia loved them, so I had to make a bunch of them for her to use for lunch during the next few days. Of course, I also made some for myself to take to the Guild for Eina, since I did promise her I would bring her any new food I made.

Hestia watched as I quickly built the walls in the new room and she was surprised at how quickly I did it. She was shocked when I used a simple transfiguration spell to change a wood panel into a door. Mind you, it was 90 points and borderline hurtful, so I had dodged a bullet with the attempt.

It did give me a good feeling for what I could do with the spell, which was great. As long as I had a similar size item and similar in composition, it was much cheaper to change it than it was to cast a spell to create it.

That line of thought led me to really think about the dirt and rocks I had upstairs and all of those broken and damaged walls. If I filled the holes with enough rocks and packed it with dirt, I could potentially transfigure them into the same stone that the wall had been constructed with. Replacing them with actual stone would be too costly and take a very long time to rebuild.

I would have to be careful about how much I did each time, though. It had been a close thing with the door and I needed to work up to how much I could do and still keep it in the basic spell range of 99 points. Gathering up the pieces of broken wall would also help and I could fill in the spaces with dirt like mortar and transfigure it all together to seal it into a single piece, like I had with the basement walls.

So, that's what I did for the next three days. I stopped long enough to reheat some food for meals and then went back to work. It was difficult, especially with some of the half-ruined walls as several hundred pounds of stone pieces had to be picked up and moved into place, braced, and then filled around and secured.

I went to bed each night both tired and satisfied at getting so much done every a day. I also prayed to Hestia and thanked her for giving me a home and a hearth to warm myself beside. It seemed to empower her each time and she always thanked me for becoming a part of her Familia.

After I finished with the outside walls of the church, I started on the roof. It was much easier, since it was mostly wood. Transfiguring smaller pieces to match the parts that still existed was downright easy after all of my practice with the stonework. I had learned the self-imposed limits of my magic and I could feel it getting more powerful as I practised control and cast magic constantly.

With the outside of the church done, it was time for me to work on my adventuring outfit. We would need more money very soon and I also needed to work on the experiment I had been putting off for for too long. I still needed some silver powder or liquid, though. When I tried to create some with a spell, all I received was a pounding headache that took two hours to fade and nothing had appeared.

That told me I couldn't cheat to make what I wanted and making precious metals was a big no-no. I had to do it the long hard way or not at all. That was fine, since I knew that I had to work within the rules of this world. The last thing I needed was to upset someone powerful and have them smite me for it.

I entered my work room and used the last of the wood I had to make shelving. Using magic made it simple to split the wood and attach to the wall. Then the real work began. Unpacking my backpack. A light chuckle kept coming out of my mouth as I carefully took out the five full backpacks from the sixth and I started to empty them onto the shelves.

It took me a long time to do it and I wasn't even sorting anything, just emptying everything. I filled the shelves, then stacked things on top of them, then I had to pile things all along another wall on the floor. It just kept going on and on and my throat was getting sore from laughing so much.

I finally finished just past noon and half of the floor was covered in junk. I laughed pretty hard at the sheer amount of things I had managed to stuff into the backpacks. Just by looking alone, I knew I had at least four full sets of mismatched armor pieces and they looked nothing alike. There were head, upper arms, forearms, chest, back, thighs, and shin pieces.

“Bell? Why are you laughing so mu-OH MY GOODNESS!” Hestia yelled when she opened the door to my workshop. “WHERE DID YOU GET ALL OF THIS?!?”

I wasn't going to lie to her, so I explained what I did. I knew it was going to upset her, so I didn't lie about anything. The anger on her face let me know that she was a bit more than upset about it.

“You... you... you are going to take all of this back and you are going to apologize!” Hestia ordered.

I knelt on one knee to look into her eyes. “No.”

Hestia blinked her eyes at me several times. “E-e-excuse me?”

“I admit that I took the guy's words to the literal and logical extreme. I did feel bad about it at first, then I realized something. He called all of this junk. His entire Familia classed it all as junk. He was on punishment detail, from what I could tell. No one cares about any of this. All of it was just sitting there piled onto shelves and the floor, none of it was marked by the maker or had a price.”

“Bell...”

“He told me to fill the backpack and take whatever I wanted, as long as I could carry it out.” I reminded her. “I also paid 300 valis for it. Do you want me to ask for that back, too?”

Hestia still looked angry. “You were dishonest about the deal!”

I had to chuckle at that. “Hestia, My Goddess, he registered the 50 valis for the backpack, the actual sale, and pocketed the rest.”

Hestia blinked her eyes several times again.

“We both got a lot more out of the deal than we thought we would. I hadn't realized...” I paused and chuckled again. “I was just grabbing things and I wasn't even paying attention. I just wanted to fill as much as I could as quickly as I could, then left.”

“Bell...”

“I was going to go back, you know.” I said and she gasped. “I told him I would be back in a week.”

“You are not going back there!” Hestia exclaimed.

I laughed. “You ordered me to take this back and now you're ordering me to stay away?”

Hestia almost growled at me. “You know what I meant!”

I reached out and cupped both sides of her face. “You're really cute when you're angry.”

Hestia babbled something and then blushed.

“I'm not riling you up on purpose, my Goddess. I'm merely showing you that we are a family and sometimes family members argue.” I said and slid my hands down her neck to caress her skin and her blush intensified. “I expected it a few days ago when you noticed that I didn't repair your stone statue.”

Hestia opened her mouth, closed it, and opened it again. Nothing came out except a sigh.

“You're not going to ask why I didn't?” I asked and she shook her head. “You should.”

“I know you have a reason, Bell. I haven't questioned any of your decisions and I hadn't wanted to. Until now.” Hestia told me.

I had to nod at her admission and slid my hands to her shoulders. “I really hadn't known I got away with this much, Hestia. I need to pick up more wood for shelving to help me sort out all of it and a table to work on.”

“You don't need more shelves, Bell. You need to take it all back.” Hestia said. “If Hephaestus ever found out that you robbed her Familia...”

“Do you have her address?” I asked and Hestia jerked slightly.

“Bell...”

“You can tell me or I can go to the guild and ask.” I said and she sighed. She reluctantly told me where to go and she also told me that I had almost no chance of seeing her. I gave her a grin in response to that and walked over to the large pile of things on the shelves.

It took me about ten minutes to gather up enough pieces that were all different shapes and colors, because they were test pieces that student blacksmiths made as practice. I carried them out into the main room and put them onto the kitchen table.

Hestia watched as I cast diagnostic spells on them to discover what the individual armor pieces did. None of it was enchanted, so I didn't have to worry about altering or losing the enchantment. Without having to be careful about it, I transfigured the yellowish flat chest piece into a shaped chest with sharp pectoral definition on the sides and changed the color to look like an orange-yellowish flame.

A bit more magic let me emblazon the front with the Hestia Familia Emblem in a solid black. It was a freestanding brazier with a stylized flame coming out of it and it had the Hestia Familia name in Hieroglyphs written along the bottom.

Hestia caught her breath and her hand reached out to rub her fingertips along the writing. “How... how do you know how to write this?”

“I used a mirror to look at my back and reversed it.” I said without lying and she gave me an odd look. I didn't tell her that I still had the language bonus from being a Devil, thanks to my outrageous Karma spending to master all of the skills I had, which included reading and writing any language. Just like I thought at the time, 10 points per skill was a steal to make them all mastered.

Hestia watched as I changed each armor piece to match the chest piece and matched the orange-yellowish flame color. I also gave it sharp flame details based on where it was. The upper arm pieces had bicep definition in flame, the back armor piece looked like flame wings, the thighs had those muscle definitions in flames, and the calves had flames on them as well.

I took the time to cast several spells on them, too. A minor lightness charm and slight toughness to increase the armor value. I couldn't do too much to them, like add deflect attack or damage absorption, because those spells would cost way too much and would hurt me severely.

I stripped off my clothing down to my boxer shorts and Hestia both blushed and stared at me, even though she had seen me in the same state every night since we started living together. I picked up the full body covering we bought from the tailor's shop that I had added more cloth to where the armor pieces would sit, and put it on.

Surprisingly, Hestia drooled a little as the formfitting black cloth fit me snugly. I ignored her and strapped the chest and back armor pieces together at the shoulders and slipped them on over my head, then secured the bottom together to keep it tight to my body. I did the same with the other armor pieces and they all sat perfectly, thanks to my transforming them to fit me.

Now Hestia was really drooling as she stared at me like I was a tasty piece of meat. I ignored her again and transfigured my boots to be thicker and changed the color to match. The last piece of armor to alter was the helmet and I chose to change the full plate to make it an open face design instead and used the extra metal to alter the top into a copy of the fire from Hestia's Emblem. It simulated hair made of flame and I put it on to complete my outfit.

“Ohhh.” Hestia moaned and rubbed her thighs together.

That reaction I couldn't ignore and turned to look at her face. She was bright red and had a look of adoration on her face. I hadn't put my gloves on yet, so I caressed her face and gave her a warm smile.

“I hope this is proof enough of my devotion to you, My Goddess.” I said and bent down to lightly kiss her. “Should I take a weapon with me?”

Hestia shook her head. “If it's something inferior to her normal standards, she will hate you instantly for daring to bring it into her presence.”

“Good point. I'll have to look for something appropriate when I enter the dungeon.” I said and she shook her head again. “I guess there's no chance of that?”

“None. You would have more luck raiding the lower floors and looking for adamantite ore to have something made.” Hestia said and gasped as she slapped a hand over her mouth.

I almost snorted at how cute that was. “My advisor Lady Eina from the guild already told me what to expect when I go into the dungeon.”

Hestia sighed and moved her hand. “Did she advise you to not go down too far for your first time?”

I actually chuckled at the unintentional innuendo and wagged my eyebrows at her. Hestia looked slightly confused for a few seconds before she blushed hard and turned away from me. I stepped close and gave her another hug from behind and kissed the top of her head.

“I give you my word that all I'm going to do is explore the first few floors to see if the guild maps of the floors is accurate.” I said.

“Of course they are. They have adventurers exploring the easy floors all the time and they report back any changes.” Hestia said and turned around in my arms as she looked up at my face. “Why? Are you going to do something to change it?”

I had to smirk at her. “Would I do that?”

“In a second.” Hestia said without hesitation.

I laughed and bent down to kiss her forehead. “I'll stop at the Guild Hall first and talk to Eina about what I plan to do.”

Hestia looked deep into my eyes and she saw that she wasn't going to convince me not to go. “You better keep yourself safe down there.”

I nodded and let her out of the hug as I stepped back. I saluted her with a hand over the symbol on my chest and bowed. “As my Goddess commands.”

“If you weren't wearing that armor, I'd slap you silly for that.” Hestia huffed.

“You mean for only listening to the commands I want to?” I asked and she nodded. “Then try to only order me to do things you know I won't refuse.”

Hestia opened her mouth, probably to argue, and she sighed and nodded.

“I should be back tonight just before bed.” I said and put on my cloth gloves and picked up one of the empty backpacks. I slung it over my shoulder after adding in my pile of sandwiches to eat for supper and went up the stairs. I had a goddess of blacksmithing to meet and then a dungeon to start plundering.