Store in Danmachi: 44

Title: 11 Papers Why (1)

Contrary to what Loki might have wanted to have fun by orchestrating such a strange situation, Hephaestus did not lose her composure one bit. It’s not her first meeting with the Trickster Goddess, even if this one was the most peculiar and filled with face-smacking twists. The crimson-haired Goddess saw no reason to escalate things by ‘snitching’ to Tsubaki, proving her social awareness compared to her peers. But she also couldn’t empathize with Jackal. Now that he ‘isn’t’ one with Loki, he must work to understand her craziness since she won’t stop doing things that delight her twisted desire for mischief.

“Did something happen?” Tsubaki questions. “I thought you’d be happy getting the 20% discount for no additional work. Gotta hand it to Maria. She’s a top-tier mother to those kids. Teaching them new things won’t be easy, but she didn’t hesitate to increase her chores.”

Hephaestus merely lets out an uninterested hum. Again, it’s not the jizz that unnerves her strangely. Of Loki’s many pranks, including the accidental death of her distant cousin—Baldur—this one was somewhat tame. Hephaestus has had many run-ins with the trickster Goddess due to her rivalry with one of her friends in Olympia.

No, her mind was occupied by something else since their renegotiations in Maria’s Orphanage.

“Heeeey?! Hello, Goddess. You in there?” Tsubaki’s face suddenly filling her view snaps Hephaestus back to reality.

“Huh? Oh, Tsubaki? What is it?” Heph calmly questions while tucking a loose lock of crimson hair behind her left ear.

“What is it? I should be the one asking this! You’re not acting right. Hngh!” She snorts and crosses her arms under her well-endowed breasts. “Did Jackal do something? Damn it! Is that why he asked me to meet him later tonight? I’m gonna break his spine!”

“He asked you out?” Heph’s eyelids jump in surprise as Tsubaki half-shrugs.

“Yeah, he said he’d treat me to Mia’s best ale tonight, saying he had something important to discuss that could interest me.”

Hephaestus frowns with distaste filling her mouth and the phantom taste of someone’s heat licking her buds as she musters a quiet hum.

“Come on! Something happened, right? You know, I’m gonna get an answer out of you! We’re eyepatch buddies, remember?”

The Goddess scoffs.

“You did that stupidity on your own!”

“And I became your Captain!” Tsubaki retorts with a grin, indifferent to the gaze of the masses as they return to their office.

‘She won’t care if Jackal is innocent or not if I tell her of Loki’s so-called prank. Someone should send her back to Tenkai or No-God’s Land already. No, that won’t work. Thor is there. And Baldur still hasn’t reincarnated. Hmm, if I remember correctly, he still has 6900 years left. But Tsubaki won’t stop until I give her something. And her drunken tantrums are objectively worst than Loki’s mellow pranks. Heaven forbid Loki does the same to Athena or the rest.’

Hephaestus shudders. She can imagine Athena letting her arcanum loose with such disrespect. Or worse—Artemis.

So, as Tsubaki sits in front of her once they return to their office, Hephaestus sighs in resignation and mutters, “Well, you understand how I dislike others toying with emotions—generally! So, I rejected Jackal’s earlier proposal, and he proposed to me again.”

“Woah! Seriously?!” Tsubaki gapes before grinning. “Look at you! Seducing the up-and-comers with a single eye! Hah! And they say Freya’s a beast!”

‘Well, he proposed to me to reduce any awkwardness.’ But she couldn’t possibly admit it. Besides, the Boy was sincere in his request for the third time in a row!

“Hmm,” Tsubaki stares at Hephaestus with delight dancing in her lone right eye. “Do you want me to get him drunk just enough and send him your way~? I hear that’s how Loki and he became a thing, and they are at each other’s throats!”

‘And mouths, crotches, and apparently—Food!’ The one-eyed Goddess bites back a groan and shakes her head.

“Ah, you rejected him again? Bummer. Have you seen his back in that three-piece of his? Could have forged a damn good blacksmith outta him.”

Hephaestus flinches. She saw more than his back. But it’s not anything too astonishing. As a Goddess more popular to be known as alone and filled with the ability to create Divine Trinkets has her way of keeping things interesting in Tenkai when Zeus isn’t peeping on her.

But Hephaestus also realizes another thing.

“I forgot,” she mumbles while covering her face with her hands. “I forgot to reject him again.” She groans into her hands.

“Pfft! Hahaha!” Tsubaki throws her head back and starts laughing.

“How about I ask Maria to teach the material we send to Jackal, too? I’m sure she won’t mind it. Hmm, I’m kind of jealous of the snotty brats.” Maria did mark an excellent impression on Tsubaki as the Captain mewls, “Maria is too damn sweet! You know, she taught me a trick to handle these babies more gently than just wrapping them in sarashi as tightly as possible?”

Tsubaki supports her breasts from the underside and gasps, “She has these crazy new training bras! The elastic apparently doesn’t lose out, keeping these bad boys in check!”

It’s Hephaestus’ turn to stare at her Half-Dwarven Captain in awe.

“How could you not know about Training Bras?”

“Well, I didn’t?”

‘Amazing,’ The Goddess huffs and unleashes one of the most racially destructive sentences in her mind knowingly, ‘I sometimes forget she takes more after her Dwarven mother than her human father.’

“Congratulations on your discovery.”

“Didn’t need to be smart to hear the sarcasm on that one!”

“Yeah,” Hephaestus shrugs. “Are you really planning to meet Jackal?”

“Yep. I won’t miss a good drink.”

The Goddess’ shoulder sinks slightly as Tsubaki questions, “Again. What’s up?”

“Nothing.”

“And I didn’t need to be a pent-up Deity to hear the falsity in that one.”

Hephaestus shoots her companion an annoyed glare before waving her hand.

“It’s nothing, alright! I just know his proposal would turn out to be ‘false’ once he looks at my eye.”

Tsubaki scoffs a chuckle, “It didn’t stop me, remember? Besides, you’re focusing too much on the eye. Jackal isn’t a God with his head up his ass. When you expose yourself, chances are he wouldn’t even be staring at your eye.”

Hephaestus deadpans before dismissing Tsubaki, “Off with you if you’re going to keep making fun of me.”

“Wasn’t making fun,” Tsubaki shrugs. “I’d happily stick it in you if I had a device of my own.”

“How is that supposed to be appropriate at all!”

“Who said anything about being appropriate? I don’t bathe with you on the weekends because it’s appropriate but because you’d go into depression without me!”

“I most certainly will not!”

“You will!”

---

“And that’s why Hephaestus kicked me out! Because I dare to speak the truth!” Tsubaki grinned toothily, drowning herself in Mia’s best ale, but not inside the Hostess of Fertility, as the duo bought a few dozen bottles and decided to roam Orario until settling on a distant roof in Daedalus.

“I don’t remember asking any of it,” Jackal drinks from the bottle, too, recalling the judgmental gazes from Lunoire, Ryuu, Syr, Anya, and Chloe, as he filled his Frollet with booze. Thankfully, May was in the kitchen. He wouldn’t know how to handle May’s judgmental stare. She’s too sweet, after all!

“Well, this is what happens when I go to drinks with the guy who’s proposed to my Goddess three times!” Tsubaki snickers.

He shrugs while taking another sip. Unlike Tsubaki, he takes things slowly. While the Captain must have some ability to like [Abnormal Resistance], allowing her to drink more boldly.

“So? What’s your angle with my Goddess?” She questions as she sets her third bottle down.

“Are you kidding me?” Jackal looks at the woman strangely. “What other angle would I have by asking her to marry me? To marry her and see what’s under her shirt!”

“Che! You could do that without marrying her,” Tsubaki scorns.

“Meh, I remember hearing some stuff about Hephaestus since early on. You wouldn’t believe how many Goddesses bitch about Hephaestus and whatever’s under her eyepatch. Heh! The funniest thing I heard was someone saying the right portion of her face has another mouth. Boy, my first thought wasn’t how she would eat from that mouth.”

Tsubaki gapes before laughing even louder this time, her legs swinging off the ledge now kicking in the air.

“I know, right?” Jackal smirks before clinking her extended bottle with his.

“Yeah, now I can’t get that image out of my head,” Tsubaki heaves.

“So? What’s under her eyepatch?” Jackal queries as she shrugs. “It’s really not all that bad. But what can I say? You’d have to look it for yourself.”

“Oh, that’s fine. So, do I just enter her office and rip her eyepatch out?”

“Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you? Did I say you should do that?”

“You implied it, no?”

“Fuck no!”

“Yeah, yeah. Everyone’s got an issue with the easiest idea! I’ll have you know, I once broke into someone’s door, consoled them, and left without paying for any damages!”

“Liar!”

“Well, I paid for the damages,” he shrugs again.

Tsubaki’s grin broadens as she admits, “You’re a cool guy to hand out with.”

“Maybe you should cover the bill next time, then.”

“As long as I ask you out to drinks, sure,” Tsubaki agrees readily before setting her fourth bottle. “Let’s get to business now. Why’d you ask me out? And to not even drink at Mia’s before circling around for so damn long, only until one tail follows us. What do you want?”

“Oh, you noticed both things, huh?” Jackal frowns. “I could never figure out where my stalker is. But I know I have one.”

“Really?” Tsubaki looks past many blocks in the east before shrugging. “They’re trouble.”

“I’d be in one if they meant any harm,” Jackal shrugs.

“Want me to snitch who they are?”

“Nope. Did you forget my track record? I’m gonna be as strong as you in a year or two before jumping them myself,” he snickers. “As for the rest, I believe only you are the adventurer with enough intelligence and authority to accept this little plan of my mine.”

Tsubaki blinks, straightening her spine with drunken interest. A few of her working brain cells unaffiliated with smithing and social interactions work their damn best finding reason in the plan concocted by the three-brain cell Jackal.

“Hmm, it can actually work,” She nods before frowning dangerously. “And letters addressed to Maria, you say?”

“Mm-hmm,” Jackal nods as he puts his lips on his bottle to snatch another drink of Mia’s courage-giving ale.

“Anyway, the payment should suffice, right? And as long as we prepare your costume right, the consequences won’t get to your Familia if things go south.”

The mention of payment makes Tsubaki lick her plump bottom lip before she shakes her head. “Nah, I want something else aside from this!”

“What?” Jackal frowns. Her further request makes him feel a bit odd, but she shrugs naturally.

“Sure, I’ll give blacksmithing a try. It could be fun. But I won’t be cutting my time in the Dungeon for it. Olal’s already costing me a lot of Dungeon Prowling.”

“And how do I know you won’t go back on your promise?” Tsubaki stares at him seriously.

“You just gotta believe,” he smiles back, his words assailing the captain with a wave of memories as she grins. “Then you better not fall short.”

Jackal nods and raises his bottle, something Tsubaki taps with her bottle.

“If this doesn’t kick Olal’s ass metaphorically, I don’t know what will,” Tsubaki snickers as Jackal smiles back.

“To a healthy butchering!”

“Ooh! You’re Svadilfari now, right? Can I take your previous title?”

“With the things you’re about to do, it would be a shame if you didn’t.”

The Cyclops’ red eye match Jackal’s gold-red as their grins widen at the same time.

---

Belit Babili, Ishtar Familia.

The entertainment district of Orario is the face of many bordellos and casinos, but in the heart of the southern attraction of the city lies a moderately tall tower that oversees the entire district, surrounded by several buildings under the Ishtar Familia’s management. Most bordellos around Ishtar Familia’s home—The Belit Babili—present many top prostitutes! Belit Babili is a bordello in some sense, hosting the richest and few of the most powerful adventurers. But in this bordello, the women get the pick of their men.

The nightlife of the district is as rowdy as ever. But not everything is as tempting in the Ishtar Familia’s property as it seems. The streets leading to the tower of Belit Babili—Godly Brothel of the Mistress—find itself strangely abuzz as one of the few rare pubs under the Familia’s management has become a source of gossip among the Amazoness members of the Familia.

Like the scent of blood drawing out beasts of the night, news of Jackal’s appearance in the Pole Pub attracts plenty of attention!

As the name suggests, the Pole Pub’s attraction is—Pole. And strippers.

It would seem many men can get bored of getting down to Amazonian action every day and would love some tease in their life.

Jackal cannot judge them. Boy, is he enjoying himself!

Dark blue lamps dimly illuminate the scented interior as Jackal grins at the hearty Amazoness waitress as he picks another mug of ale as she sits on his lap, “Ooh~!” Her coo distracts him from the three strippers on the pole. “Butcher, you’re costing us business. Be sure to tip me well for my losses~!”

Her plump butt gyrates on him before she winks again and walks away, her swaying hips flipping her scanty dress as he chuckles, “Oh, I’ll remember that!”

As the waitress remarks, his arrival cost the pub some business. Aside from the few obvious members of the Ishtar Familia, who seem unbothered by his appearance and even moderately attracted to him, Jackal observes a large cloaked individual watching the girls dance.

“It’s time you leave!” A harsh voice interrupts Jackal’s enjoyment as he looks back to find a rare specimen.

Since Ishtar Familia members comprise 90% of women, it is reasonable that men of the Familia are rarer, like the Level 2 Jonahs standing in front of him.

“Let me enjoy,” Jackal smirks. “After all, this pub won’t be standing come morning.”

Jonahs visibly grows aggressive at the threat, his bald head featuring a few revealing veins and his bearded face scrunching in anger.

“I am one of Phryne’s lovers,” Jonahs warns. “Even if I cannot defeat you, she damn well will skewer you!”

Jackal stares at him before whistling at the waitress, who just gave him an impromptu lap dance.

“Come here, sweety!”

The woman shrugs at Jonahs and skips toward Jackal with a sweet smirk on her face. “Ready for my tip? I promise I’ll let you rest after every round!”

“Hah! Ever the heated slut!” One of the Amazons laughs before smoking her pipe as Jackal smirks due to the lively atmosphere. It is clear that Jonahs is the Familia’s bitch given his stifled expression.

“Well, how about you do me a favor, and I’ll give you a pretty tip?” Jackal takes out a parchment from under his tunic, naturally no longer wearing his three-piece uniform.

“Read this,” Jackal smiles warmly as the corner of Jonahs’ eyes twitch at the familiarity of the handwriting on the paper.

The brunette waitress tilts her head before taking the paper and reading it loud enough for others to hear.

—Maria Martel, I have seen your Orphanage. I’m surprised by the talents you’ve been nurturing. The half-elf blonde girl will grow to be a real buster, and if the boys grow handsome enough, I will employ them as the consorts of my Familia! Why, you ask. It is simple. There will come a day when I knock on your doors, pull you out of your house by your hair, and strip you in front of others before gutting you in public. Your red will mark the new journey for your children—a pleasurable one. Of course, I will kindly keep your memories by skinning your corpse and keeping your hide above my counter. But none of this has to happen if you stop fucking around with one you call Jackal. Don’t make me be the one to knock on your doors, Martel.

Jonahs, Pole Pub.—

The pub descends into silence by the time she reads the letter as Jonahs eyes Jackal coldly. There is a hint of anxious tension in the pub as other prostitutes of Ishtar Familia watch Jackal with a mix of excitement and anticipation.

These women aren’t the fighters of the Familia, but almost all Amazons are well-versed in combat due to their natural instincts.

“Did you write this?” Jackal calmly questions as he takes the parchment from the waitress before depositing a leather pouch filled to the brim with 1000-Valis coins in her hands.

“I did,” Jonahs scowls. “And I suppose I’ll visit that bitch and fulfill my promise!”

Jackal waves his hand at the man before shaking his head. “Is it right to assume you don’t fear me because of being Phryne Jamil’s, the Captian of the Ishtar Familia, bitch?”

“A lover!” Jonahs snarls, pulling Jackal up by his collars as his vicious blue eyes fall on Jackal’s gentle gold-red ones until he stands properly, towering over the 170 centimeters Jonahs.

“So, if I fulfill the promises of your letter, she will come to this pub?” Jackal inquires in a chillingly calm tone.

“What?” Jonahs’ eyes widen as the other girls watch in shock as the phantom of an Infant Dragon and a beating Silverback appears above his head. Jackal’s hand suddenly grips Jonahs by the neck, bringing his face to the same level as his own.

“Skinning, gutting, and stripping it is,” Jackal smiles at the man. “I will vomit, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. Your ale tastes worse than Loki, after all.”

***

Alternate Title: Loki is Never Free of Getting Roasted!; Hephaestus is the Kratos Approved Calm and Reasonable Goddess; Being a Baddy Under Shirt, And Nerdy Above One; Tsubaki X Hephaestus When?; Loki Planning Destruction of Tenkai For Shits and Giggles; Creating Ragnarok… Accidentally; Poor Baldur Suffers in Every Verse; Baldur: Why Are We Hear, Just to Suffer. Loki: Haha, Mistletoe Goes Brrrr… Now You Gotta Kiss— Wait… You Died?; A Proposed Goddess; Annoyed Hephaestus; 20% Discount For Rich Mayo Taste; Chilling With Tsubaki; Tsubaki Has That Dawg In Her; Hephaestus Wet Dream—Blacksmithing Jackal? *Lili-Freya-Syr-Rose-Eina-Maria Wet Noises*; A VERY SMART Plan; The Butcher Resurfaces… in Twos!; The Pub Event; Man, Jonahs a Bitch!; Fuck Jonahs!; Tsubaki Finds Out Training Bra—One of the Best Trips With Goddess Ever!; Tipping Left and Right!; Returning Favor; Everyone Can Write Shit and Post It To Other Until They Get Punched in the Face—Mike Fireson of the Hercules Familia, Probably.