The Girl and the Name of the Goddess
At that hour, Aiz was—
"I got scolded..."
Deep in the night, the golden girl sat alone by the window, gazing up at the night sky.
She'd known she would get an earful, but it had gone far worse than she expected. Normally she wouldn't have been scolded like this at all—and it was all that white-haired man's fault.
"Boo..."
She puffed out her cheeks and grumbled to herself. If she didn't grumble about something, she felt like she'd explode.
"Aigoo, Aiz-chu, what's got your cheeks all puffed up like that, huh~?"
"Loki..."
The girl began to mutter complaints as she watched her goddess poke her cheek, jab jab jab.
"Eh, ehng?" Loki was taken aback at first by the rare display of pouting from her usually so unexpressive child—but then, with a delighted "well, THIS is quite the treat...!", she started getting excited all on her own, and the girl's sighing began anew.
The goddess of mischief watched her child with gleeful eyes. Granted, the way she expressed it was utterly lecherous and shameless.
Aiz normally only ever showed Loki a worried face, so seeing her seem to have found even a little peace of mind brought a wave of relief. however mischievous she always was, her love for her children was the one thing that was real.
"Our little Aiz-chu's gone and changed, y'know~"
"...Changed? Me?"
"That's right~ changed completely~"
"Ah..."
A flicker of pain crossed the girl's face.
Change was what Aiz hated most in all the world. After all, it was change that had stolen her most precious moment from her.
"Hey now, it's not like that. This is a good kind of change."
"A good... change..."
"That's right! A good one! Another word for it is growth!"
"Growth..."
Loki hurried to soothe her sulking child, and thankfully the girl's expression softened a little.
*Phew, close one... that almost ended with Riveria serving me up as frozen tuna...*
"So? Something good happen in the Dungeon? You're in a awfully fine mood."
"In the Dungeon...?"
At those words, what came to mind was a white light.
Hair like snow-white rabbit fur, and eyes red as if rubies had been set into them.
...The fact that he only had one of them bothered her quite a bit, but those clear, deep eyes—the first pair of human eyes she'd ever looked into and thought beautiful—kept flickering through her mind.
"Oho, so there was a fella like that. And our Aiz-chu's worn out over the guy, is she~?"
Even the sly use of "our Aiz-chu"—a form of address Aiz would never tolerate under normal circumstances—only earned more pouting from the girl.
*Really now. Just what kind of guy did she run into...?*
What manner of man had it taken to turn that sharp-edged creature into a girl acting her own age?
After all the effort *they* had poured into the problem, for some nobody who'd popped out of nowhere to succeed where they'd failed—it made her blood boil a little, somehow.
And maybe that was why Loki, already a born prankster, put on her most impish grin and began needling Aiz.
"Say, say. Should I go make that punk disappear, then?"
"Huh...?"
Aiz wore the expression of someone who'd heard something she hadn't meant to hear.
Loki, sensing she'd stepped on something, decided to poke the sore spot anyway.
"Our Aiz-chu's mad at that guy, ain't she~? I'll have the kids track him down and beat him black and blue!"
"Don't."
"Yessum."
The answer came so much more resolutely than expected that Loki shut her mouth. She was sharp—she knew a landmine when she saw one.
Pursuing this little crush and souring her own mood in the bargain would be a terrible trade, so she extracted herself with all haste. Thanks to the quick retreat, Aiz's mood didn't look *too* ruined.
Just a little angry.
"You shouldn't... say things like that."
"Yes ma'am, understood, I'm terribly sorry, it'll never happen again."
A goddess bowing and scraping shamelessly before a mere human girl—it was comical, really, but even as she groveled, Loki was thinking *well, this is its own kind of interesting...* Which was very much like her.
"Anyway, I'm honestly dying of curiosity here. Who IS this guy, that Aiz of all people is so fond of him?"
"I'm not fond of him."
"Sure, sure~ Now spill it already."
"...Mm."
And so the girl began her story.
Hearing her young child talk at such length for the very first time, Loki forgot even to tease her. She simply watched the blonde girl with warm, doting eyes, letting Aiz's voice lull her like a lullaby as she listened.
Even haltingly, fumbling for words she didn't have, the girl's earnest effort to tell her story was a delicacy all its own.
Gods crave stories. Joyful tales and sorrowful ones, glorious triumphs and laughably humiliating failures alike.
But what they loved best, above all else, was one kind.
Heroic tales. The single greatest reason the gods descended to the lower world in the first place.
The children of the lower world were wondrous. Without any special power like the Arcanum, without immortality, they changed and changed and marched ever forward.
They sang songs so rousing that shoulders swayed on their own, wove tragedies that reddened the eyes without permission, and repeated their own myths of hard-won triumph and their own ridiculous, howling-laughter failures, over and over.
And through it all, they forged heroic tales that could earn the admiration of gods themselves.
The stories piled up, layer upon layer, and took eternal residence in the memories of the gods, staying with them forever.
Loki loved that. Each and every story of her children was her treasure, the very meaning of her existence.
Which was why this first-ever telling of "the girl's story" had such an extraordinary flavor to it. A first memory is always precious—that's simply how it should be.
"And then... when I was in danger, that person suddenly appeared and kicked the Infant Dragon and killed it..."
"Mm-hm, mm-hm, and then... huh?"
Then came a detail she could not let slide.
"And then—"
"Whoa whoa whoa, Aiz-chu. Hold it right there."
"Loki?"
"What did you just say? You caught WHAT?"
"The Infant Dragon..."
Apparently she hadn't misheard after all.
*She's not lying... I don't think...*
What was the Infant Dragon?
A monster so powerful it was said to serve as the de facto floor boss of the Upper Floors, which otherwise had none.
A monster of the Upper Floors that threatened not just Level 1s but even Level 2s.
Aiz, with her unique skills, enjoyed a favorable matchup and could take one in single combat even at Level 1—but the standard practice was to hunt them in a group, over a long, grueling fight.
And this man had *killed* one?
*'Impossible.'*
Killing an Infant Dragon? Fine. That much was not impossible.
The problem was the *method*.
"You're telling me he killed it with a single kick?"
"Yeah."
The Infant Dragon was a monster where even a Level 2's victory was uncertain.
At the very least, you'd want to be Level 3 to guarantee a win.
And that assessment was about *winning at all*—killing one with a single kick was an entirely different story.
*'Level 4? 5?'*
Short of that, one-kicking an Infant Dragon into the dirt simply wasn't happening.
Not that there was anything wrong with being that strong. Even Loki's own Familia had a fair few members capable of it.
The problem was that a single human being had done it.
*'White hair, red eyes, one arm, one eye.'*
An appearance so striking she practically wanted to complain, *that's WAY too many traits at once~*
There was no way a person like that would go unnoticed.
And yet, as far as she knew, no such person existed in Orario.
Sure, there could be people she didn't know about. But someone *that* powerful never once having made a name for himself? That was flatly bizarre.
*'Is that Hermes' doing? He was hiding something, I could smell it...'*
Her prime suspect was that hat-wearing male god.
Sneaky and conniving in exactly the way she was herself—Loki found him uniquely distasteful. The old "dislike of one's own kind," as they say.
*'And here I thought he was just hiding his kids' levels to lower their Faction ranking, but he pulled off THIS adorable little stunt, did he?'*
She couldn't speak for other Familias, but his had close ties with the Zeus Familia. The possibility was entirely plausible.
It sat a little wrong with her, but if that were the answer, it made enough sense.
*'Or else it's the Evils.'*
That was also quite possible—but she didn't want to harbor such suspicions toward the benefactor who had saved her child. She hoped, more than anything, that it wasn't true.
Because if it was, she would have no choice but to kill the only place of rest Aiz had ever found.
"Anything else? A name, maybe?"
"I heard... his name."
"Oh, now we're talking!"
*'So it wasn't the Evils after all?'*
The Evils would never give up a name that easily. Her worry had been for nothing.
"But... something was strange about it."
"Strange? Strange how?"
"It felt... like it wasn't his real name..."
"OhoHO."
*'A fake name... well, that's only natural, I suppose.'*
There was no proof he'd given his own name. She couldn't be certain he was Evils, but he was definitely a suspicious character.
"It wasn't fake, exactly..."
"Hm?"
"Something like... not fake, but not real either. That kind of feeling."
"What in the world does that mean?"
"I don't know."
With that, Aiz turned her head away in a huff.
*'Uh oh. THIS is a problem~'*
No wonder she'd seemed strangely sulky. Apparently she was upset that the man she liked wouldn't tell her his name.
Not that she herself had any awareness of that.
*'Hopeless. Utterly hopeless~'*
Just what had this man done to turn the little squirt into *this*? By now even Loki was, in all sincerity, starting to want to meet him.
"Fine, fine—then at least tell me the name. I'll go find him for you first thing tomorrow!"
"...Really?"
"Really truly."
"I don't believe you..."
"So cruel, Aiz-chu! One look into these pure, innocent eyes of mine and that doubt'll vanish like smoke!"
Aiz stared straight into Loki's eyes.
And remarkably, she saw absolutely nothing there.
As Aiz fixed her with a suspicious glare, Loki stretched her own eyes wide with her fingers.
"See it now?!"
"Loki. That's gross."
"KAGH?!"
A devastating counterstrike! Loki's world went black!
Her promising child's blow left the goddess reeling, unable to collect herself—
—and by the time Loki came to, somehow, she was sprawled across Aiz's lap, being treated to a lap pillow.
Huh? How had it come to this? A question rose in her mind, but Loki gave up on thinking about it.
"Eheheh, Aiz-chu's bare thighs...! *Sniff sniff!* It smells like flowers! And this skin, so soft and springy—honestly, the finest in all the world!"
"..."
Even under her beloved child's contemptuous glare, Loki faithfully served her own desires.
"Ah, right, so? What name did he give ya?"
"Vesta."
At those words, Loki's hand, which had been stroking Aiz's thigh, went still.
"Vesta..."
"What's wrong?"
"...Nothing. It's just... a name I happen to know a little."
What flashed through her mind was a certain annoying little goddess.
A maiden goddess who, despite being far younger than her, had been outrageously, obscenely well-endowed—a nemesis whose image surfaced in her head and vanished again.
*'That girl shouldn't be due to descend yet... though, should she?'*
Coincidence? Maybe. But it was a coincidence that sat strangely wrong.
"The name Vesta is the name of a goddess, y'know."
"A goddess's name..."
"Not that it'd be the girl's real name either, and I can't exactly say nobody'd ever borrow a name like that—it's not a bad name, per se..."
And yet, even as she said it, Loki found herself trailing off.
There was no particular reason. Only that a god's intuition had flashed.
Don't you dare dismiss intuition. A god's intuition was a tremendous thing—weighty enough to stand as evidence all on its own.
It was no accident that Finn trusted Loki's judgment second only to his own thumb. Partly because she was his goddess, sure, but mostly because he especially trusted this intuition of hers.
*'Honestly, that cheeky little brat of a goddess.'*
It was one of her good points, granted—but Loki thought of her very first child, so brilliant at times it made her want to knock some sense into her skull, and pressed on with her reasoning.
*'My gut says it: that man is connected to that little brat somehow.'*
She had no idea how, or what the connection could be—and yet, strangely, she was certain of it.
*'But how would she have interfered? That stiff-necked little girl breaking the rules? Impossible.'*
Annoying as she was, the goddess of the hearth was without question a good god. Even if she descended to the lower world, that fact would never change.
Not that she'd be due to descend for ages yet.
*'And "Vesta" probably isn't his real name either.'*
It was the intuition of Aiz, who was half spirit by blood. Not on par with the gods', but it landed right often enough.
In this case, it probably wasn't his true name—just an alias he'd offered.
*'Which is strange in itself, having an alias at all.'*
Aliases were conferred only in Orario. But how many people actually observed that rule?
Look at the Kingdom of Rakia, where that fool Ares held dominion, or the other regions where gods other than Uranus reigned over their lands as they pleased.
Orario was uniquely dominant only because it sat atop the Dungeon—other regions certainly had their own customs.
Termiscul, for one, had reportedly produced not one but *two* Level 5s before. The unknown existed outside Orario too, without question.
*'But still... something doesn't add up.'*
Even granting all that—why would a man like that be wandering the Dungeon?
Exploring it? Was it novel to him, coming from somewhere else?
"Aaagh, I give up~"
"Loki?"
"Ah—no, it's nothing. Nothing at all."
Loki changed the subject at once, suddenly remembering exactly whose lap she was sprawled across.
But the foolish, dopey expression that had been drooping over the girl's knees had long since vanished.
*'One thing's for certain—I HAVE to look into this.'*
Whether or not she knew the goddess's true thoughts, the girl was once again staring listlessly out the window.
For once, her head was filled to the brim with a single white rabbit.
Not revenge, not hatred—just a white, soft, adorable little rabbit.