Is It Wrong To Devour Monsters In The Dungeon - Chapter 17.2

Luckily for Naaza, she didn't need to really stay out front for the moment. She and Miach had brought along the equipment they would need, to craft potions out of the materials Caelan had brought to the store.

As it was though, this did present a good opportunity for Hestia before she opened the doors to the store officially.

"Hey Miach, can I ask you something?" the twin tailed goddess dressed as an uber sexy maid turned around to look at her friend who was dusting off the main sales desk.

"Yes, if you want," Miach looked up and replied, "What do you want to know?"

"It's about the falna," Hestia said, making her way over to the desk a serious expression forming on her face, "I'm still new to using it, but I wanted to ask, when going through the day to day events recorded in it, is it possible to see into dreams the holder of the falna has?"

…Last night, something odd had occurred. Not during her time going through Caelan's falna, but rather after, once she'd fallen asleep.

She'd dreamed.

But it wasn't a dream about herself, rather, it was of Caelan. As a young boy. Little more than a toddler. His hair was different, lacking the black highlights it had now, but she'd recognise Caelan anywhere.

She could recognise Caelan even if he didn't have a body, if he was just a mere soul. So she could tell without a shadow of a doubt, it was him.

Miach raised an eyebrow, "No I can't say that's something I've experienced," he replied, "Remember, when we first decided on the falna system, the majority voted that we could only see it like a story playing out in front of us, we wouldn't be able to read the minds of our children or see into their memories. The only way that should happen, is if they dream while awake, like an illusion or something along those lines."

He looked her in the eyes as he finished, "Any reason as to why?" her friend asked.

"I wanted to see if I could see what kind of naughty dreams Caelan has about me." Hestia giggled and gave a shrug in reply.

Miach shook his head, "Poor Caelan, maybe I should warn him that the obsession of a goddess isn't for the faint of heart."

"Blegh!" Hestia stuck her tongue out, "You make it sound like I'm one of those weirdo annoying goddesses like Ishtar or Freya, I'll have you know my love for Caelan is as pure as my divine flame!" she huffed, even as she was thankful he didn't show any suspicion.

After all, even a deity couldn't lie to another deity. She just omitted why she asked in particularly, because she actually was curious what kind of naughty dreams he'd have of her.

She may not have been a flat chested loser of a trickster goddess, but even she knew how to play the basics of the game, even if she'd rather not.

"Right, well I'm gonna open up then!" she then clapped her hands and turned away from Miach, heading over towards the front doors of the shop.

A frown appearing on her face.

'So it's unique to Caelan and me then?' she thought. Well, more Caelan than her. What caused it then? Was it his new Commander skill? Or was it…Vesta?

That skill of his wasn't normal. It was no mere enchantment. It was the divine flame. Not it in its entirety, but a manifestation of it. Her flame, the flame she guarded and watched over.

It was a connection to her beyond just the falna itself, beyond just her ichor on his back.

Usually she would have been very happy about such a thing. But that dream, of him as a small child, she didn't like it. Not one bit. Not only was it an invasion of his privacy, it was also a front row seat to him at his most vulnerable.

It would hurt her dear Caelan's pride to know anyone could see him like that. Even now she could see it, him as a small child, alone in a house that was filled to the brim with people. Drugs, decadence, alcohol, violence, sex and more.

It was horrible.

She could see it in her minds eye as he awoke because of the noise, it was dark and he was scared and hungry. A fight had occurred in the home, he got up, terrified, shaking and made his way to the noise, childlike curiosity getting the better of him.

To find one grown man over another beating his face in with bloody knuckles over and over again, while people cheered. He called for his mother, nobody cared to answer. Scared of the violence he went to her bedroom, only to find a friend of his mothers and a woman he didn't know in her bed, having violent drunken, drugged sex. It was nothing at all like the intimacy between her and her child, it was raw and it was disgusting to look at.

Clouds of smoke from people smoking lining the ceilings, people outright out cold slumped in the corners of rooms.

Nobody paid him any attention as he left, checking the third bedroom, only to find an orgy going on in it, disgusting and horrible, yet not understanding it at all as a child.

From there, he tip toed towards the living room that was connected to the kitchen in search of food and his mother. He found neither, only the unconscious bleeding form of the man getting beaten before, and his attacker and more people partying in the living room. She could see his eyes filling with tears as they landed on a small broken grey box, with some kind of wire leading to an odd hand grip thing beside a large black screen akin to a window.

She watched as his eyes lit up when he turned around and his eyes landed on an indent in the wall, a carved out square space with shelves filled with all manners of items at the entrance to the living room, watched as he specifically picked up a large glass bottle filled with orange liquid, the words 'Irn Bru' on the front.

He opened it, only to gag in horror and disgust when he drank it, his excitement disappearing, because, it did not taste like how he knew it should. Instead, it burned his throat.

It was alcohol, a strong one.

Yet he was so thirsty, and he drank it anyway, stealing away with his pilfered bottle of orange liquid to his bedroom, alone, scared, lonely and hungry. He drank it all, his throat burned, his vision swam, and everything went black.

That was a dream of Caelan when he was three years old.

'I don't want to see that again.' Hestia sighed, clicking her tongue in genuine anger as she opened the doors to the store.

If that was how bad things were that early, she shuddered to think about what else he went through growing up. What other horrible things had he been exposed to?

She'd seen worse in her time as a deity, seen mortals suffer much worse injustices. She'd saw children of the same age torn apart by monsters and shredded brutally into bloody pieces and pulp a thousand years ago. And she had felt for them each and every time she saw. But, she felt much more strongly in regards to this.

Because it was her precious Caelan who went through it.

But right now wasn't the time to focus on that. Today, right now actually, was the grand opening of-

Bestia Wares.

The first store belonging to her and the Hestia Familia. Caelan chose the name. And Hestia really wasn't going to deny the chance for it, even if it was a bit on the nose.

She liked when Caelan called her Bestia after all.

A lot.

The closest flatty flat flatties like Loki would get in comparison, would be a nickname like 'Broki', not because she was broke, but rather because she was so flat and boyish she could pass for one of the 'bro's'.

Heh, dumb Loki no boobs.

As she opened the doors of Bestia Wares for the first time, Hestia blinked when she found a familiar eye patch wearing, red haired goddess waiting outside.

"Hephaestus!" Hestia cheered upon seeing her bestest friend in the whole wide world, "What are you doing here?"

"What else?" the smith goddess raised an eyebrow and smirked at her, arms crossed, "With all the big fuss you made, my curiosity is peaked, I wanted to see the kind of things this child you brag so much about has made and meet him."

"Hmmm!" Hestia cupped her chin and stared at her best friend, but not her face, rather she stared specifically at her torso, and the white shirt she wore, that was left unbuttoned at the top to show off a hint of cleavage from her quite large breasts, "I dunno, that cleavage is looking extra seductive. What if once you see how amazing Caelan is you try to seduce him away from me?"

Hephaestus snorted, "Did my hair grow and turn silver without me noticing? Or has my chest grown a few cup sizes since I tossed my bra on this morning?" she asked sarcastically, before her own singular uncovered eye looked straight down into the canyon of cleavage Hestia herself was showing from the plunging neckline of her maid outfit, "Besides, are you in any position to accuse anyone of seduction? Or is that outfit just because it makes you feel pretty?"

"I mean it does?" Hestia shrugged unrepentantly, smirking smugly at her friend and crossing her own arms to push up her cleavage to swelling hills of jiggly flesh that Loki no boobs could only dream of and never in a million billion trillion bazillion gillion Caelandilwiltrillion years attain, "Besides, only Caelan's allowed to touch me and my babies!"

"Uh-huh," Hephaestus replied with a nod, deadpan, "Well anyway let's see what we have in here huh, maybe I'll buy a few things while I'm at it." she said and strolled right on in.

As if she owned the place!

…Well actually she did and they were just renting it out from her, but semantics!

"Caelan's not actually here at the moment," Hestia pouted and followed her friend inside the store who tossed a wave to Miach and greeted him, before her single critical eye roved over the gathering of weapons and armour, "He's off meeting with some people at the Dian Cecht Familia for something or other."

Her words went completely ignored as her friend almost robotically made her way over to a standing set of armour with a large glimmering crystal broadsword held in its grip, "This is…" she trailed off, lifting a finger to trail it along the edge, "Wrong." her brows furrowed.

"What?" Hestia blinked, "What do you mean wrong? Caelan uses these weapons in the dungeon all the time, actually they're even better now than the ones he used before."

"That's not what I mean," Hephaestus shook her head, "Just looking at this I can tell its wrong, everything here is. Don't get me wrong, they're perfectly forged, more or less, a bit off in proportion and a bit heavy, but perfectly balanced and perfectly forged. Just with a casual glance, I can say none of these are low level weapons, even the worst weapon or piece of armour in here, is more suited to a high tier level one at least, any normal level one would rely heavily on stuff like this and never truly improve."

Huh?

Hestia didn't really get it. But then, she wasn't a goddess of the forge like Hephaestus was. Sure normal level one's would rely on them, but being perfectly made weapons more or less was good right?

"It's like…he's completely skipped the manufacturing process, completely skipped learning what it means to be a smith and how to be one and learned how to make high class weapons and armour as a complete novice, no not even a novice," Hephy shook her head again, staring once more at the sword, before nodding once. Then she turned to look at Hestia, her gaze serious, "He's levelled up hasn't he?"

"…He what?!" Miach who was in the process of chewing on another bread crust coughed and spluttered, almost choking on it, eyes shooting wide open.

Oh poo. Damn Hephy and being all intuitive and stuff!

"How did you know?" Hestia asked.

"So he has, huh? I thought I had noticed the usage of the Metalworking skill," Hephaestus palmed her forehead, "I know you were bragging about how amazing he was, but this is absurd. Two weeks, that's all you've had him for as a child. Forget breaking the current record, he took it, smashed it over his knee and did a little jig over its grave. The idiots are going to go crazy over this. They're gonna hound after him."

"My Caelan is pretty awesome huh? Sucks to be them though, cuz they can't have him!" Hestia puffed her chest out proudly, "You wanna know how he levelled up? How he got to level two? He beat the Goliath, alone!" now that it was out of the bag, there was only one thing to do.

Boast about the grand awesomeness of her Caelan!

Suck it Loki.

Actually don't! There will be no Loki sucking of Caelan! The only goddess giving Caelan a sucking would be her!

"…That's just going to make it even worse," Miach weighed in, "A level one beating the Goliath? Levelling up after only two weeks? This is going to be rough on you Hestia."

"And I was beginning to enjoy the quiet around here lately." Hephaestus' shoulders slumped.