The Protagonist System

Tsubaki was more than happy to agree to help me perform an experiment, especially since she would be testing out her knew sword while she protected me. I didn't ask her how much the silver dust was or why she just happened to have a large amount of silver laying around. It didn't really matter, since she was investing into my idea and would greatly reap the benefits if it worked.

Her explanation that she had used up millions and millions of valis in materials over the years, just to lose them to slightly incorrectly forged blades and flawed armor pieces, didn't really set my mind at ease about it. Then again, her nonchalant attitude would help me a lot, especially since the first test would be right there in the Hephaestus Familia compound.

We chose a good spot in the compound that was both central and out of the way, just in case, and I got to work with both my pick and my shovel. I cleared out a very large square, exactly twenty feet long on each side, then I used the dug up dirt and rocks to make stone squares an inch thick. I placed them back into the spot I dug them up and my real work began as I started carving with my finger.

Tsubaki watched, utterly fascinated, as I used tiny bits of magic to shape and form each surface of the stone squares to form a perfect carving of what I needed. It took me an hour, mainly because I was taking my time and it was the very first one that would establish the pattern. I also didn't want to make a mistake.

When I was done, I checked everything over and made sure the runes were written properly for the location, then I used more small amounts of magic to connect each stone together to make one solid stone carving. With it complete, I very carefully filled in all the little grooves with the silver dust and then sent a pulse of magic into it. The whole circle lit up for a second and the silver dust faded away.

“Well, that was pretty impressive.” Tsubaki said and looked at it. “What the hell is it?”

I gave her a smug smile, because it had successfully activated. “It's something the Guild is going to shoot themselves over when they find out what it is.”

Tsubaki moved quick as a flash and smacked me in the back of the head. “Stop playing word games.”

“Ow.” I said and rubbed the spot. “Right now, it's nothing much, because there's only one of it.” I said and held a hand up to stop a follow up slap. “Give me a second to explain.”

Tsubaki lowered her hand and nodded.

“When we go to the dungeon, I'm going to make another one in a similar area on the first level that's big enough to hold it.” I said and she looked confused. “With two of them, and a bit of magic injected into them, they connect together and become an instantaneous transportation gateway.”

Tsubaki still looked confused and scratched her head.

“It's a teleporter.” Hephaestus said as she stepped out of the nearby building, then she gave me a weird look. “I'm surprised you came back here after what you said.”

“I'm surprised you didn't kick me out as soon as Tsubaki brought me here.” I responded.

Hephaestus glanced at Tsubaki and her child gave her a happy smile and a wave. “That's why.”

I nodded and stepped away from the teleportation circle. “That's why.” I said back and Tsubaki gave me a happy smile and waved. I chuckled and used my shovel to cover the entire stone slab with a thin layer of dirt and smoothed it out with a touch of magic.

“Why did you do that?” Tsubaki asked and walked over to me.

“No one else will be able to replicate it; but, it doesn't hurt to hide it anyway.” I said and Hephaestus nodded in understanding. “Tsubaki and I have entered a tentative agreement about this.”

Hephaestus gave me a pointed look and then looked at Tsubaki. “Explain.”

“We didn't sign anything, Goddess. I'm not stupid.” Tsubaki said. “I just agreed to provide some silver dust and he agreed that my Familia gets free usage rights, while we split the fees we can charge for others to use it.”

Hephaestus looked surprised and then her lone eye squinted as she looked at me. “That is actually a good deal... if you put the other one on a much lower level, like on Level 18, the first safety point.”

I gave her the same smug look I gave Tsubaki when the activation worked. “Goddess Hephaestus, I'm planning to put one of them on every

level.”

Hephaestus seemed to freeze and her uncovered eye almost popped out of her head. Tsubaki on the other hand, let out a girlish squeal despite her age, and lunged at me to kiss me soundly. I wasn't one to ignore a blatant invitation like that, so I grabbed her ass and kissed her right back.

Tsubaki let out a moan and her tongue easily fought mine into submission. Her hands dropped to my butt and she gave me several squeezes and made happy sounds, probably because I wasn't complaining or trying to get her to stop. She broke the kiss and she looked quite pleased at winning the 'fight'.

“You really are going to do all that work on each floor of the dungeon?” Hephaestus asked me.

“Technically.” I said and both she and Tsubaki gave me questioning looks. “I memorized the patterns needed for each block and can recreate them easily. That's why it took so long to work it out the first time. Once I had the size right and the puzzle solved...” I used my shovel to scoop up a pile of dirt and then made the dirt into a copy of the center square, engravings and all.

Hephaestus gave me a very pointed look. “I need to talk to Loki about going on an expedition...”

“I think they already left on one and I don't know how long they'll be.” I said and Hephaestus sighed.

“I can do the first six floors solo, Goddess.” Tsubaki said. “With Bell guarding my back, I can go to the tenth, easily.”

Hephaestus gave her a piercing look, too. “He's only Level 1.”

“With a borrowed magic sword.” I said and drew it to point up into the air. I thought about the three aspects of magic I had and chose Holy Lightning, since it was the most showy. I dropped 20 points into the mythril blade and both Hephaestus and Tsubaki jumped back when the blade sparked to life and a bright bolt of lightning shot up into the air and disappeared with a loud crack sound.

“What in the known realms was that?!?” Hephaestus asked and rubbed her arms. Her short red hair was more poofy than normal as well.

“Holy Lightning.” I said and waited for the sparks to stop before I sheathed the blade.

“Holy... oh, dear goddess in Heaven.” Hephaestus whispered as she reached up and rubbed her good eye. “Bell, don't... and I really mean this... do not ever use that on or around a god or a goddess. Do you understand?” She asked me. “Just. Don't.”

I did not tell her that was only 20 points of magic. I was glad that I hadn't gone with a flashier display using 50 points or even 99 points. If that small of a bolt had unnerved her so much, I could only imagine what her reaction would be if I had used five times the magic points.

I changed the created stone square back into dirt, used the shovel to spread it out, then used a bit of magic to erase that I had done anything. I put the shovel and pick back into my backpack and hung it over my shoulders.

“I'm ready, Tsubaki. Let's go have fun dungeon diving.” I said.

“WOOHOOO!” Tsubaki yelled, slung me over her shoulder as she bowed to Hephaestus, and ran like the wind as she carried me like a sack of potatoes.

*

Hephaestus slowly walked back to her office as she thought about what she had just seen. Not the teleportation circle, even if that was going to change the entire way that people were going to travel in the dungeon. No, it was Bell Cranel's very easy and casual use of Holy Lightning.

She could tell by the look on his face that he didn't know what he had done or what it meant. She did, however. She wasn't even tempted to tell the ignorant boy that he could use Zeus' signature attack. Her body shook slightly from just being near the absolutely devastating attack that Bell had luckily shot into the air and not at the ground near where they stood. That would have been very, very bad.

Hephaestus called for a lowly Familia member and had then carry a note over to the Loki compound. There would always be someone there and she wanted to get word to the goddess as soon as possible. If Bell can do what he says he can do, it was going to change a lot of things for everyone, especially her.

*

The long leisurely walk down into the deep pit of the entrance to the first floor was kind of relaxing, even as we passed adventurers going the other way and leaving the dungeon. Tsubaki talked most of the way and told me that she had been in the first level of the dungeon more times than she could remember.

She also couldn't remember how many blades she had broken, lost, or thrown away over the years. Most of them would be on the middle floors, assuming the monsters didn't eat them or other adventurers picked them up. We both laughed at the thought of a monster getting one of her discarded blades stuck in their throat and dying.

We arrived at the first floor and it was fairly cleared out from what I could see. I nodded off towards the right side of the entrance and we moved off to a spot that was out of direct sight. Until there was a good amount of them available, we couldn't reveal that there was another way to leave the dungeon. Teleportation would have to remain a secret for now.

I got to work and cleared out a good area, the same as back in the Hephaestus Familia compound, and quickly changed the dirt into the proper stone squares and set them into place. I changed the increment of the location from zero to one, rather than rely on coordinates, and joined the stone squares together to make it a single stone slab.

Once I laced the runes and engravings with silver powder, I activated it and I felt the permanent spell snap into place. I was dangerously close to using more than a single tier of magic for it, so I would need to be careful with the next one. Thankfully, distance between teleportation circles didn't matter. I covered it up and with a touch of magic, you couldn't tell anything was there.

“Can we leave it unguarded and unprotected?” Tsubaki asked me as we walked towards where she said the next spiral staircase was to go down to Level 2.

“It doesn't have an active magical signature until it's activated, and that's only a small blip on any magical sensing spell, and only for a few seconds. The only way to find the thing is to know where it is, which is why I'm marking it down.” I said and created a piece of paper to mark Level 1 and a small sketch of a map to where it was. I had even counted the steps to get there.

Tsubaki nodded as I put the paper into my backpack. “We're nearing the end of the day, so we should have an easy time for the first few floors.”

I chuckled at the disappointed look on her face. “You know, we could jog to the stairwell and get there a lot faster.”

Tsubaki smirked at me. “You don't want me to carry your delicate self?”

“I suppose I could keep staring at your ass.” I answered and she laughed. “I can run fairly fast.”

“Yeah? Then let's test that.” Tsubaki said and stopped walking to take a running pose.

I copied her and prepared to run. “On three?” I asked and she nodded. I reached over, slapped her ass, and took off running at my best speed. “THREE!”

“AHH!” Tsubaki yelped and jumped into the air and clutched at her cheek. “Oh, you cheating bastard!”

“I'm testing your resolve!” I shouted back with a laugh.

Tsubaki laughed and easily caught up with me. Just before we reached the end of the first level and the stairwell, she slapped my butt and scooped me up into her arms, then did a neat pirouette to cancel most of her forward momentum and leapt into the stairwell. We dropped down the 45 feet to the next level and she landed without hurting herself or me.

“Okay, that was impressive.” I said as she put me down. The shocked looks on the adventurers climbing the stairs was pretty funny, too.

“That can only be done on a few floors.” Tsubaki said and motioned for us to start walking. “Some of the transitions are steep ramps, gently sloped, more stairs, and I think one down further was climbing down vines?” She shrugged. “With your goal, you will see them all eventually.”

“Good point.” I said and we found a nice area out of the way of the level entrance.

Tsubaki had to kill a few kobolds and I could tell that she was fighting to not be disappointed at the lack of challenge. I tried to not hold it against her, especially because my progress in making the transportation circles was going a lot faster than I thought it would. I expected to work my ass off clearing part of the floor's monsters before going back to the entrance to create them.

With us showing up nearing the end of the normal day for an adventurer, most of the work had already been done. On the downside, we also weren't getting any monster crystals to counter the cost of the silver dust I was liberally using to make the circles. I really didn't want to know how much I was spending as I completed each circle.

We moved on through the floor and killed a few kobolds and goblins. They were pretty much newborns and had no chance against either myself or Tsubaki. We gathered a few small monster crystals and I didn't let my own disappointment show, because I knew that once we passed the upper floors, the money would start rolling in.

*

“I agree with your decision, Eina.” Rehmer said as he read her report on their newest client's scheme to make money. It was a little concerning that he knew he had been scammed and had done it on purpose to make them more agreeable to any future plans he had. “It's a completely untested spell that he said might not work. It's too expensive to use an entire ton of silver to make one and have it fail.”

“That's what I tried to tell him, sir.” Eina said with a sigh. “It was too dangerous and too costly to be a viable method of travel, even if it worked. It takes an experienced adventurer and support team several months to gather that much silver. Having to provide that much for every circle...”

Rehmer reached across the desk and patted her hand. “There, there. Making the hard decisions can be difficult. Buck up, Eina. You've only been a high executive for about a week. Don't put too much onto your own shoulders. That's what delegation is for.”

Eina smiled and nodded. “Thank you, sir. I knew you would understand.”

Rehmer nodded back and put the report aside. It would be filed under discarded deals and would be pretty much forgotten for several weeks.