Loki Familia (2)
Goddess Loki.
Patron deity of the Loki Familia, and the trickster of the heavens.
Unlike most other gods, she was a peculiar case — a goddess of evil who descended to the lower world and became a goddess of good. Personally, she was the type of deity I found difficult to deal with. All the more so because shebarreled relentlessly into my thoughts, prying them apart without a shred of hesitation.
She seemed carefree and airheaded on the surface, but in truth she was an extraordinarily shrewd and razor-sharp god.
I had hoped to avoid meeting her at all costs, but having walked into her home of my own accord, wishing for that was probably asking too much.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Goddess Loki. My name is Vesta."
"Ehehe. Pleasure's all mine, ya hear."
Grinning broadly and brushing me off with easygoing responses, at a glance she seemed nothing more than a harmless, mischievous brat.
But considering what this goddess had done to me before, one careless slip and she might pluck my soul clean out of me. I would have to keep my guard up.
"Did you... need something from me?"
Still, I couldn't just clam up and say nothing.
Silence was the only weapon capable of standing against a god. But she would take even silence as evidence for her judgment. I would need caution upon caution.
"Well, when someone walks into my home, I've gotta come out and greet 'em, don't I? Ain't like I can just hole up inside forever."
"I see."
Her expression was bright and cheerful, but those sharp eyes remained fixed on me.
She suspects me.
It wasn't outright hostility, but the suspicion was unmistakable.
Of course she did. A complete mystery of a person, carrying not a single scrap of information, had suddenly appeared out of nowhere — suspicion was only natural.
Frankly, even by my own assessment, I was extremely suspicious.
"Aww, don't be so tense. Anyone looking at us would think I'm about to eat ya alive."
"Haha..."
If you're going to say that, at least relax your eyes first.
"...Y'know what, going around in circles is a pain, so I'll just come out and say it."
Had she gleaned something else from my brief reaction? Loki dropped her cheerful act entirely and stared at me with a serious expression.
She must have realized that I'd caught on to the fact she'd figured out roughly what I was thinking. Hiding it was pointless now, so she'd simply throw it out into the open.
This was exactly why this god was so difficult. She crossed the line again and again as if she had no sense for it whatsoever.
And yet she never, ever crossed the truly important ones, which left me with nothing to say in complaint.
She was awkward company, if not outright uncomfortable to be around.
"I suspect you right now. Plain and simple."
"I understand. You have every reason to."
"Well now, how polite of ya~ Might I thank you for that much~"
Loki said it with a cackling laugh.
But her eyes were still not smiling.
"So, what I'd like is for you to be a teensy bit more cooperative."
"Ask away."
"Right then, I'll cut straight to the point, shall I?"
The two people standing nearby tensed. Were they planning to subdue me by force if it came to that?
I didn't think the me of now could be subdued by this era's versions of them, but I wanted to avoid a fight if at all possible. If we could settle this with words, that would be the best outcome...
Aiz-san, meanwhile, was still looking around the room in complete bafflement, apparently unable to grasp what was being discussed.
"Are you our enemy?"
"No."
"Are you with the Evils?"
"That is also no."
"Then surely you'll tell me where you're from, and who you belong to?"
"I'm sorry, but I can't do that."
Regrettably, telling this god that I had come from the future was a risk I couldn't afford. Whatever she'd do to me, I didn't want to find out. Better to keep it hidden.
Our gazes crossed. The stare the clown before me sent my way had been honed sharp enough to dissect me on the spot.
How many seconds passed as I met that divine stare head-on?
"...Well, this much should be safe enough."
At those words, the tension drained from the two flanking figures. It seemed she had at least accepted that I wasn't an enemy.
"...Thank you."
"Thank me? You're a strange one, y'know that?"
Thanking someone who had just been interrogating you — what chain of logic led to a conclusion like that?
Apparently the man before me wasn't wired for conventional thinking either.
Which is exactly what makes him so tempting.
Based on Aiz's account, Loki had pegged the man calling himself Vesta as roughly a Level 5.
But somehow, the man before her was operating far beyond that level.
Level 6? 7?
She couldn't pin down his exact strength. Even gods had their limits.
But one thing was certain: he was absolutely not a Level 5. On that, at least, there was no room for doubt.
Tempting...
His skill was excellent. By all appearances, his character was good too.
And then there was his looks. Even missing one eye, he was cute enough to turn that very flaw into a selling point.
With that face, if I dressed him up alongside Finn for an otokonoko party—!
The perverted goddess's instincts had begun to run wild. At the worst possible future flashing through her mind in that instant, Finn — who wasn't even present — shuddered slightly.
Of course, so did Vesta. He quietly edged his body away from Loki.
"Hey. What's with that movement, huh?"
"What do you think? Your expression just now, that's what."
"Even I have limits, y'know! That face back there crossed a line even for me!"
"Whose side are you two on?!"
The living room erupted into chaos in an instant. Apparently, the verdict was in: he was not an enemy.
If nothing else, their trust in each other is rock solid.
Some things never changed, I supposed. A truly familial Familia.
Familias this close to their patron god were surprisingly rare, come to think of it. Because I'd always taken my own Familia's closeness for granted, learning that fact for the first time had come as quite a shock.
Though I suppose I'm hardly one to talk — I always believed a god deserved unconditional respect too.
"...?"
Only Aiz-san remained utterly lost amid the commotion.
"Gone, is he?"
"Yes."
A short while later, the goddess and her children sat gathered in the living room of the home, deep in conversation.
The topic, naturally, was the man who had been sitting among them until moments ago.
"And Aizy?"
"She's gone to her room. She still seemed tired."
"Good to hear. I've been worried sick — the poor thing's been barely sleeping."
Aiz suffered from a peculiar affliction: the moment she fell asleep, nightmares came, so she could never get proper rest.
Things had improved somewhat lately, but sleeping that long was the first it had happened since she joined the Loki Familia. As the baby of the Familia, Aiz was the one everyone fussed over, and having one of those worries finally resolved was reason enough to celebrate.
That is, if you set aside the fact that an outsider had been the one to accomplish it.
"No other traces?"
"None. She's simply sleeping soundly."
Thankfully, the conclusion wasn't that she'd been drugged or put under with magic.
"Ain't that something. What kind of sorcery did he pull to make that tightly-wound girl that docile?"
"Honestly, I have no idea."
Aiz, who had never opened her heart to anyone — not even to Riveria — had opened up to a man she'd met for the very first time.
It was a happy thing, and yet something about it felt off. She had tried so hard all this time, and then someone comes along and wins her over the moment they meet...
"Oi, elf. Quit making the face of a mother whose daughter's been stolen away by her boyfriend."
"I am making no such face."
"Oh, you are. I can tell just by looking."
"Quiet."
At the sharp voice of the fairy queen, the dwarven elder shut his mouth.
Arguing here would be a waste of emotion. The girl was grown now; she would manage well enough on her own.
"More to the point, I'm curious about him."
"What he said earlier, you mean?"
"That's right — his composure, standing before Riveria and me. He must have had the confidence to handle the two of us at the very least."
"Yeah, that's how it seemed. Maybe we nearly got wiped out back there."
"He's that strong?"
"Probably? Can't say for sure, but he's beyond Level 6, that much is certain."
They hadn't expected him to be that strong. Awe and disbelief mingled across both their faces.
No matter how she looked at him, he seemed not yet twenty. That assessment was partly generous, granted because of his missing eye — at a glance, he had the face of a boy.
And that boy was stronger than they were?
"Don't judge people by their appearance. It's your worst habit."
"Still, even so, it's strange, isn't it? Any way you slice it, he looks maybe five or six years older than Aiz."
"Hm? If you ask me, he might be older than he looks."
A god's intuition wasn't omnipotent, but it came remarkably close to certainty.
Loki's instincts were telling her: the boy before them was someone who could not be measured by appearances. His age, too, was likely greater than it seemed.
"Come on, even so—"
"Alright, alright, that's enough of that. Time to get down to business."
Loki cut off the exchange before it could continue. Left alone, the two of them would be bickering until dawn.
"That man is a suspicious one, I'll tell ya."
"Hm? Didn't we just establish he isn't an enemy?"
"That may be, but... how do I put it..."
Familiar, and yet not.
As if he knew her, while she knew nothing of him... a strange, nagging dissonance.
He's that little runt's child... I'm fairly sure of it.
Details aside, she could read the man's character well enough.
Pure white. A soul so clean it could be called that outright — it ruled out, completely, any possibility that he was an enemy.
Besides, a god's children tend to resemble their patron above all. And the children of that stubborn, thick-headed woman would likely be just as painfully earnest as she is.
And so she discarded the enemy hypothesis.
Even so, suspicious he certainly was. The most suspicious thing of all was his very existence.
It's absurd, frankly. A child of a god who hasn't even descended yet.
She couldn't make heads or tails of the situation. Descending ahead of schedule — was that even possible?
Two possibilities came to mind. One: that little runt had broken the established order. Two: there was something out there that she herself knew nothing about.
Either way, the outcome was trouble.
If it was the former, it meant that runt had undergone an inner change, just as she herself once had.
If it was the latter, then at this critical juncture she was about to come face to face with an unknown quantity.
Even if the man showed no hostility now, no one could say whether hostility might surface one day.
And the greatest potential reason for it would be...
"Aizy... is it."
The daughter of a spirit. The child of the Dungeon.
An anomaly they'd had the good fortune to discover.
If some unknown enemy had set its sights on them, the most likely target, by far, was Aiz.
After all, she had been the very first to make contact with him.
"You think they're after Aiz?"
"Maybe?"
She couldn't be certain. But it was also true that shadows of suspicion had been gathering around Aiz lately.
"We keep our guard up. And if it turns out he's no enemy..."
Perhaps she could use that man to sweep the enemy from the board entirely.
As the goddess gazed up at the moon, the corners of her eyes curved into a crescent smile.