Babel
Freya
The Denatus emptied faster than she expected.
Once Loki spoke the verdict, the chamber lost its reason to stay packed. Gods who came for spectacle drifted toward the exits in clusters, already gossiping about the farewell ceremony that would reconvene them at the top of Babel. Freya stayed seated a moment longer, watching the Evilus scum's bound form disappear under Ganesha's escort. His hysterical laughter clung to the stone even after he was gone from sight. She found the display amusing.
What amused her more was Loki.
Loki turned to leave the bench, her posture rigid with a fury she refused to show the room. Freya rose and stepped into her path before she could get far. Ottar's report reached her before the session concluded, and she saw no reason to let the Trickster march across the city just to stand and stare at a crater.
"There is nothing left to return to, Loki," Freya began. She kept her voice even, taking no pleasure in the delivery. "Twilight Manor is gone. The upper floors collapsed during the fighting, and the shock finished the rest."
Loki went still. A strangled sound slipped free before she could catch it, and her shoulders dropped a fraction before she forced her spine straight again and locked her face into something blank. It didn't hold for long, but it held long enough for Freya to see it, and that single crack pleased her far more than the scum's tantrum had.
"Where the hell am I supposed to sleep until we rebuild?" Loki muttered, rubbing her temples.
"You may use my private suite atop Babel," Freya offered, without hesitation.
For a heartbeat, something girlish sparked in Loki's eyes. Then as if she remembered who she was talking to, she immediately buried it under a scowl.
"Fine. I can stay there. But the rest of my children can't."
Freya didn't bother suggesting Folkvangr. Loki's brood under her own roof would start a second war before dawn. She let the Trickster work through the logistics on her own.
Astraea solved half of it before Loki got there herself.
"The females can stay at Stardust Garden," the goddess of justice said, stepping up beside them. Ganesha's booming laugh rolled across the thinning crowd a second later.
"I AM GANESHA! The rest will have beds under my roof!"
Loki gave a short nod and turned to go with Astraea, already talking through arrangements for her children. Freya watched them go, still holding the memory of that brief sparkle, when a different presence stepped into her path.
Hephaestus.
"Congratulations on securing your outpost in Rivira, Freya." The smith goddess said it with her usual easy camaraderie, but her body didn't match the tone. Her shoulders sat too tight. Her hands had curled at her sides, and her single eye tracked Freya's every movement with a focus that cut straight through the pleasantry.
"Thank you, Hephaestus." Freya let the silence stretch after it, curious what the other goddess actually wanted.
Hephaestus shifted her weight, glanced once toward the exits, then snapped her gaze back.
"Did Goibniu help you build it?"
Freya's own curiosity sharpened at that. She nodded once.
Hephaestus's knuckles went white. Something hungry flickered behind her eye, and she drew a breath as if to speak — then stopped herself, forced her hands open, and smoothed the front of her shirt instead.
"I want to talk to you about something soon," she said, her voice dropping.
"You are always welcome. Contact me whenever you like."
Hephaestus gave a brisk nod and turned away fast, her boots striking the stone with an eager rhythm as she made straight for Goibniu, who stood talking with Loki nearby. Freya watched her go and set the whole exchange aside. Whatever had gotten into the smith goddess could wait.
The rest of the crowd took longer to clear than the conversation had. She spent a good while peeling herself free of her own admirers — smiles offered, a few soft words, the performance she'd given a thousand times — before the path to the doors finally opened.
By the time her carriage reached Folkvangr, the night had settled into a heavy quiet. She walked into the war room and took her seat at the head of the table. Every executive was already there, waiting.
Freya let her gaze move down the table, taking them in one at a time.
Ottar stood at her right, his armor still carrying the smell of crushed stone and calming fury. Fresh gouges scored the black plating across his shoulders, dried blood darkened one gauntlet, and none of it touched his stillness. He had already sorted the night into its failures and its victories and was simply waiting for her to ask which was which.
Beside him, Hedin's fingers tapped a slow rhythm against the table. His usual immaculate calm abandoned him for once; dust and scorch marks streaked his cloak, and one lens of his glasses held a hairline crack that caught the lamplight every time he moved his head.
Three seats down, Allen sat with one boot hooked over the chair rung, watching the room with the alertness of a blade that had already been used exactly as intended. He ignored the scabbed cut across his cheekbone. His spear leaned against the wall behind him, the silver still streaked red.
In the shadows near the corner, Hogni stood with his fingers flexing at his sides, his scarf pulled high enough to hide most of his face. It hid nothing of the blood matting his silver hair, or the fresh notch cut into the guard of Victim Abyss.
The four Gulliver brothers filled their row in the same rigid formation they always kept, their armor carrying its own record of the battle— dented plates, a cracked vambrace on Berling's arm, a streak of dried blood across Alfrigg's pauldron. Among them, Grer sat straighter than the rest, jaw locked, eyes moving restlessly over the room.
Then there was Max.
He sat at the far end of the table, directly across from her, slouched like something had dragged him backward through several floors of the Dungeon. Dust still clung to his hair, but he looked cleaner than others. While Kairu rested on the wood in front of him, glowing a steady blue with no visible traces of battle.
The room's temperature shifted the moment her attention settled on him, and Freya understood why before she finished looking. Her executives flanked her. They did not sit across from her. Only Mia had ever claimed that seat, and the breach clearly irritated the room around her now.
Hedin's jaw locked tighter. Two of the Gullivers kept glancing at the stretch of empty wood between themselves and Max, as if trying to work out where the boundary of the table was supposed to sit now that it had moved. Allen was the only one who didn't share the irritation — he watched Max with his head tilted, ears swiveled forward, plainly more curious than bothered.
She filed the thought away to ask him about later, and broke the silence pressing on the room.
"All of you fought well today," she began, her voice sincere. "You crossed nearly forty floors, increased our Teleportation Network’s reach and returned victorious from a siege that would have broken much of Orario." A joyful smile bloomed on her face as she spoke the next words. “I am very proud of what you achieved."
She watched the room ease under it — Ottar's chin dipping, Allen's tail slowing its restless flick, the Gullivers rolling their shoulders down from their rigid set they'd been sitting with. Hedin gained a faint smirk and Hogni’s shoulders let go of their tense posture. She gave them a moment to hold onto that before she moved the meeting forward.
"I know you all must be exhausted, but there are 2 critical matters that need to be discussed tonight. A full account of what happened, and the efficacy of the contracts Max supplied." She paused, then added what they still needed before either. "I will begin first with how Denatus ended. Loki voted to send the Evilus Scum back to Tenkai and she postponed the execution until her children return to witness it — Ganesha holds him until then." She let that settle before continuing.
She turned to the elf beside Ottar. "What of the structural damage to Twilight Manor, Hedin."
"Total loss, my Lady." He adjusted the cracked glasses out of habit. "The upper floors collapsed into the foundation before we'd finished clearing the halls. Fire and thermal shock took whatever supports were left standing. It requires a complete reconstruction."
Freya considered that for a moment. "Could Folkvangr withstand the same?"
Hedin paused before answering, running the question properly.
"Our defenses are stronger, and we keep a standing garrison the manor never had, my Goddess. An assault of that scale would not collapse us the way it collapsed them." He adjusted his glasses again. "That said, I would want to review the perimeter wards against a coordinated First Class assault specifically. Twilight Manor fell to numbers and raw power more than persistence. I would rather confirm we can absorb that combination before assuming we can."
"See to it," Freya said, satisfaction plain in her voice. "Report back once you have."
Hedin inclined his head. "As you will."
Freya finally turned to Ottar. "Ottar. Begin."
He bowed and spoke. "My goddess, before your directives, we were on the 39th Floor, making way to the 40th Floor when we felt a strong tremor coming from above." He let the words settle, then continued speaking.
"We turned back to investigate on our way to the 37th floor, where the tremor must have originated. Then your instructions came, and we were redirected to the surface instead."
A round of nods followed.
Freya listened and raised an eyebrow.
"The tremor did not behave like a normal dungeon behavior," Hedin continued, leaning forward slightly. "Such an impact wasn't felt even when Udaeus was rampaging on the floor. Which meant this one was limited to a single location, as though whatever caused it had contained it. With your approval, I intend to survey the 37th floor with the Anchors. We should know what can project force through two floors before it happens again with less warning."
Freya watched the table as he spoke.
Ottar did not move. The Gullivers leaned forward over the wood in unison. Hogni shifted in the shadows, his fingers dropping to rest lightly on the hilt of his blade. While Allen gripped the edge of the table, his knuckles pale and his tail lashing in sharp snaps against his chair.
Max was the one who caught her eye and held it.
He didn't lean in with the rest of them. If anything, he went the opposite way, shoulders drawing inward, one hand finding the edge of the table and gripping it like the wood might do something about the conversation happening around him. Beside him, Kairu's glow dimmed a shade, matching whatever was souring in his master.
She raised an eyebrow at him, more curious than concerned. Interesting.
"Few known phenomena produce that kind of localized displacement," Hedin continued. He stared straight ahead, missing the way Max folded in on himself by the second. "None of them are common past—"
"That was my doing."
Every head at the table turned.
Max sat with one hand half-raised, rubbing the back of his neck. "I was on the 37th Floor. Testing the Colosseum. The spawn loop refills faster than you can clear it one kill at a time, so I tried something with more power." He dropped his hand. "I… I might have gone overboard with my spell..."
That proclamation silenced the room in an instant. Nobody spoke.
Ottar's eyebrow climbed a fraction. Allen leaned forward, his tail flicking once as his eyes locked onto Max. Hogni exhaled a long breath and shook his head, as if he gave up understanding. Behind his cracked lens, Hedin's eyes took on a bright intensity. Freya recognized the look immediately. While the Gulliver brothers ground their teeth in near-perfect unison.
“Ki! Ki!”
Kairu bounced on the table as if agreeing, the sound breaking the tension.
Freya watched the spread of reactions, taking quiet amusement in their silence. The details of Max's revelation warranted a thorough interrogation, but she filed it away for a private setting. She needed the council focused on the immediate war.
"We will return to that," she said, reeling them back. "Ottar. Continue."
His hands remained flat on the wood. He took a slow breath.
"Once we breached the manor, I engaged the Dis sisters," Ottar began. "They utilized a curse to drain one another's parameters, boosting their combat output to match a pseudo-Level 6."
Freya understood the unspoken handicap. Engaging two Level 6s required a scale of violence he couldn't unleash without crushing the hostage in the crossfire.
"I beastified partway through the exchange," Ottar continued, a muscle in his jaw ticking. "I severed the older sister's arm. But just as I moved to finish them, two unknown combatants breached the ceiling to intercept."
His eyes narrowed at the memory. "They forced me away from the sanctum. By the time I caught up, only a Second-class adventurer remained. I executed the decoy and returned to the basement, but the manor had collapsed. Both sisters were gone."
The room went cold.
Looking at his rigid posture, Freya finally processed the emotion radiating from his soul. Shame. Failing to secure the kill gnawed at his pride.
"They had an accomplice, my Lady," Ottar concluded. "Someone monitored the battle and deployed those two the instant the fight turned. They existed solely to buy extraction time."
She watched her executives. Given the failure to secure the kill, she expected an argument or a probing insult from Allen. Instead, every head at the table nodded in consensus, as if they had all experienced the exact same coordinated interference.
She noted how Ottar's shoulders eased a fraction at the unspoken agreement, and offered a single nod of her own.
"We experienced the same, my Lady," Alfrigg began.
"We cleared the corridor—" Berling added.
"—finished the living ones—" Dvalinn continued.
"—and then dead things dropped on us and broke the formation," Grer finished, his jaw tight. "By the time we cut them down, there was nothing left of the building to fight."
Freya shifted her attention to Allen after the brothers.
His tail went still. "I ran into the same tactic, my Goddess," Allen began. "I secured the hall and bound the Deity. Then one of them dropped on me from above. It moved fast enough to tear its own muscles, and it completely ignored the damage. It kept me occupied and by the time I was finished, nothing's left."
"T-he Abyss also faced such a challenge," Hogni whispered from the shadows. "Thee did not bleed ir-irrespective of what the Abyss did."
Hedin took his glasses off and wiped the cracked lens against his sleeve.
"Two intercepted me," the elf reported, his tone flat and precise. "One fought with First-Class speed, the other Second-Class. They flanked my position the moment the battle shifted. I incinerated them both, but the brief delay served its purpose."
He slid his glasses back onto his face.
"The back up must be Arachnia, my Lady," he declared. "When we materialized in the sanctum, a status curse attempted to seat itself. It was area-wide and active before we arrived. It failed to grip our parameters and dispersed within a second. The Guild's file on Valletta Grede describes that exact effect. She was there. She watched her own curse fail against parameters it was never built to hold, and she spent her people rather than commit further to a lost fight."
"What is the total tally of these undead things?" Freya curiously asked.
"Between all our accounts, six at Level 4. Three at Level 5." Hedin paused, looking down the length of the table. "All displaying the same anomalous characteristics."
"That matches something that happened to me," Max piped up. "Before the Colosseum. I hung a sign in the Dungeon reserving a Monster Rex kill. Someone tore it down." He leaned forward. "It turned out to be an old rat running an ambush meant for the Loki vanguard. Four of them came at me. Two Level 4s, two Level 5s. Zombies, all of them."
The executives stared at him.
Berling tilted his head, testing the unfamiliar syllables. "Zombies?"
Max looked between the blank faces. "You know. Zombies."
Freya watched the lack of comprehension hold the room hostage.
Max let out a short breath and tried again. "Zombies? Dead bodies. Walking corpses held together by a spell or a curse. They keep fighting even after you break their bones or open their ribs because they are already dead."
Hogni shifted in the shadows. He cleared his throat, a bead of sweat tracing down his jaw, though a sudden gleam caught in his eyes.
"The reanimation of the flesh," Hogni whispered. "A vessel restored to motion by an outside will. It retains no life, only the function of a weapon."
The confusion evaporated. Shoulders dropped across the room. A few grim nods passed down the line of executives as the dark elf's translation neatly matched the things they had just finished cutting to pieces.
"Right," Max said, pointing a finger at Hogni. "That. Both Level 4s are dead and Kairu handled one Level 5."
Kairu puffed up and bounced proudly. This time, the executives stared at the slime for only a single heartbeat before returning their focus to the discussion. Freya noted the speed of the adjustment; as they adapted to him faster than they did a week ago.
"Eight at Level 4, then," Hedin calculated aloud. "Four at Level 5. Twelve, across two operations in one night, abandoned the instant either operation failed."
Freya let the number sit.
"12 First and Second Class combatants, spent without hesitation," she said quietly. "Whatever Evilus built, they built enough of it that losing 12 in a single night does not stop them from trying again." She took in the sheer scale and resources needed to throw away such useful tools and decided to strengthen her familia no matter the cost.
"One more thing," Max added.
Hedin leveled a flat glare across the table, clearly out of patience for lingering mysteries.
"Evilus holds a second entrance on the 24th Floor," Max said, ignoring the look. "They use it to bypass their own front door on floor 18."
The quiet in the room shattered. Ottar’s chair scraped loudly against the stone floor as the boaz shifted his weight. Two of the Gullivers started speaking over each other, demanding details, until Hedin’s voice cut cleanly through the noise.
"Explain."
Max leaned forward, resting his forearms on the polished wood. The casual shift in his posture drew the table's attention.
"I chased the old rat down to the 25th floor," Max began, keeping his tone practical. "He tried to wash his tracks but I managed to track his signature back up to the 24th."
A few executives shifted slightly.
"I cornered him in a dense cluster of treasure trees, right in the middle of Green Dragon territory," Max continued. "He was backed against a blank stone wall. I threw a spell to finish it, but the rat hurled a cursed dagger straight into the blast. The collision caused a blinding flash and a shockwave. He started screaming, which caught the attention of the Dragons."
Max shook his head, a lingering trace of annoyance bleeding into his voice. "By the time my vision cleared, he was gone. He slipped through a hidden exit in the wall, and it was sealed behind him without any seams or handles. Must be an artefact." He concluded.
Hedin's eyes narrowed at that. The implication of an undetectable door built directly into the Dungeon walls immediately caught the white elf's interest.
"I wasn't going to waste energy fighting off a dozen dragons just to stare at a wall," Max finished, offering a careless shrug. "So I teleported back to Kairu."
He leaned back in his chair, letting the tension bleed out of his shoulders.
"I will mark it on a map tomorrow so you can keep an eye out if you are around," he offered with a shrug.
Hedin nodded while adjusting his glasses.
Freya sat back in her chair, letting silence settle over the table. She placed the reality of a hidden entrance right beside the dead Evilus elites in her mind. Ouranos needed this intelligence, but she required the physical map before bringing the discovery to the Guild.
After that, she let her gaze sweep across her executives, watching them for a few moments to see if anyone had anything left to share. Seeing that the room had nothing to add, she decided to close the subject.
"The battle reports are finished," Freya declared.
She rose from her chair. The motion pulled the rest of the room to their feet.
"We will discuss the entrance tomorrow, once the map exists. Now, we measure the efficacy of Max’s contracts. Form a line outside my sanctum. I want your Status updated while the excelia remains fresh. Ottar, with me."
Ottar stepped away from the table and followed her out without a word. Behind them, the rest of the executives filed into the corridor, arranging themselves into a quiet queue against the wall. Freya withdrew into the privacy of her chamber, ready to let the familiar ritual of blood and ink settle her after the heavy chaos of the day.
-◈ -
Max
He stayed in his chair as everyone left. Standing demanded a physical toll he is too lazy to pay.
Kairu flattened against the wood in front of him, a blue puddle pulsing in a dormant rhythm. Max rested his chin on his palm and let his eyes drift out of focus. He listened to the scrape of boots and the shift of armor out in the corridor.
Time stretched. Eventually, the latch on the private chamber clicked. The heavy wood swung outward. Ottar stepped into the war room, ducking his head to clear the frame. He stepped aside, leaving space for Allen to brush past him and take the next slot.
Max pushed his weight off the table and stood.
"Did anyone strip the metal off the bodies?"
Ottar stopped mid-step and looked at Max, his brow pulling together. "What metal."
"The jaw brackets," Max said. He dropped his hand back to the table. "The wiring fused to the base of the skull. Tell me someone grabbed those before the ceiling came down."
Ottar held his gaze as if remembering all the details of the fight and a muscle in his jaw flexed.
"We did not," Ottar said. His voice remained a steady rumble. "I can send a team to the crater to retrieve them now."
"It's fine," Max mumbled. He let gravity pull him back down into his chair.
There was no point. Twilight Manor stood as a monument to the city's elite. The second those walls collapsed, the perimeter belonged to the streets. Every scavenger and thief in Orario would already be sifting through the dust for dropped weapons or unbroken armor. Whatever they left buried in the rubble belonged to someone else's pocket by now.
Ottar gave a single nod, accepting the answer, and moved to take up a post against the far wall.
Max rubbed the grit from his eyes, his focus dropping to the grain of the table. Near the corridor archway, a shadow detached from the stone. Footsteps that made no sound carried him away from the gathering. Max stared at the wood, missing the departure entirely.
The updates consumed the next half hour. Max slouched in his seat and watched the cycle of the door. Allen walked out. Hedin walked in. The elf emerged, and the Gullivers filed through, one by one.
And once everyone was done, Freya stepped back into the war room. She carried a thick stack of cut paper resting against her arm. Moving down the length of the table, she stopped behind each chair to set a sheet in front of her executives. Max watched the pale squares land on the dark wood one by one. The path ended just short of him, leaving him and Kairu staring at bare wood as the two people who didn’t get updated.
-◈ -
Freya
She reached the end of the table and returned to her chair, setting the unused parchment aside.
"Read yours," Freya instructed. "When you finish, pass them down the table. You will review each other's updates tonight."
The room froze.
Adventurers guarded their falna like open wounds. Within her familia, that secrecy formed the foundation of their hierarchy. Allen's hand stopped inches from his status. Hedin looked up from the wood, his posture going rigid. The four Gullivers traded guarded glances, none of them willing to touch the sheets in front of them.
Freya watched the heavy hesitation anchor them to their seats. She understood the severity of the command as she never demanded they expose their progress to their rivals.
To mitigate the trespass, she drew only an abbreviated version of their status. She omitted their developmental skills and personal magic, leaving only their base levels and the raw parameter growth from the night's battles.
She did this because what she found on their backs required a shared reality. The sheer volume of excelia they pulled while operating under Max's contracts shattered normal progression rates. Telling them the contracts worked would not suffice; they needed to see the undeniable proof measured out across the entire executive line.
Still, she offered no explanation to soften the order and simply rested her hands on the table and let the silence stretch. She watched their ingrained pride war against their competitive curiosity, waiting for the inevitable moment their desire to measure themselves against the rest of the room won.
After moments of silence, Ottar took his status and passed it on to Hedin and that created a ripple across the room with everyone picking their statuses and once done, passing them over to others. Finally, all the parchments landed in front of Max.
-◈ -
Status:
Ottar
Freya Familia
Boaz
Level 6
Strength: S999 - SS 1097
Endurance: A867 - S914
Dexterity: B791 - A823
Agility: B789 - A836
Magic: E416 - D500
Status:
Allen Fromel
Freya Familia
Cat People
Level 5
Strength: B748 - A812
Endurance: C690 - B745
Dexterity: A835 - S904
Agility: S999 - SS 1088
Magic: G205 - G224
Status:
Hogni Ragnar
Freya Familia
Dark Elf
Level 5
Strength: S903 - S936
Endurance: A854 - S902
Dexterity: S999 - SS 1071
Agility: A838 - A889
Magic: B734 - A801
Status:
Hedin Selland
Freya Familia
Elf
Level 5
Strength: B712 - B760
Endurance: C654 - C698
Dexterity: B778 - A845
Agility: A823 - A871
Magic: S999 - SS1079
Status:
Alfrigg Gulliver
Freya Familia
Pallum
Level 4
Strength: B778 - A823
Endurance: B745 - B792
Dexterity: S999 - SS 1054
Agility: A802 - A849
Magic: I0 - E402
Status:
Berling Gulliver
Freya Familia
Pallum
Level 4
Strength: A845 - A897
Endurance: S999 - SS 1063
Dexterity: B712 - B759
Agility: C698 - B744
Magic: I0 - E416
Status:
Dvalinn Gulliver
Freya Familia
Pallum
Level 4
Strength: S999 - SS1067
Endurance: A823 - A875
Dexterity: B705 - B751
Agility: C689 - B736
Magic: I0 - E411
Status:
Grer Gulliver
Freya Familia
Pallum
Level 4
Strength: A812 - A863
Endurance: B778 - A825
Dexterity: B745 - B792
Agility: B723 - B767
Magic: I0 - SS 1058
-◈ -
General Pov
Once Ottar took his, Allen followed as he reached out and flipped his parchment over.
The catman scanned the ink, his eyes dropping straight to his stats. He stopped breathing. His Agility—a stat he had ground against its limit for years—had shattered the ceiling. It no longer read S. It read SS. His tail gave a violent snap against his chair.
Hedin turned his own sheet over a second later. He stared at his Magic, sitting at SS. The elf blinked, a rare fracture in his usual stoicism, before he immediately leaned over. He dragged Ottar's sheet toward his own, then reached across the table to slide Allen's closer.
The rest of the table followed. Ottar stared at his Strength, sitting in the impossible SS tier. Hogni’s Dexterity mirrored it. The four Gullivers each found one specific parameter—perfectly matched to their weapon style—pushed entirely past the S-rank boundary aside from Grer.
"The contracts did more than what you expected them to do," Freya said. Her voice cut cleanly through the heavy silence. "The excelia from tonight's battles passed through the contracts, and it pushed your parameters further than what the Falna normally allows. It broke your caps."
Hedin aligned the papers, his finger tracing the columns to confirm the math.
"Every numerical break sits in the parameter each of us relies on most," Hedin stated. "That is very specific."
Max leaned forward, his laziness breaking into sudden energy seeing the efficacy of his magic contracts. "Huh, that’s interesting. Seeing the effects of my—"
-◈ -
Gulliver Brothers
The rest of the pervert’s explanation faded into a dull hum on the other side of the table.
Alfrigg stared at his parchment. For a sheet that's supposed to show how much he grew, he would say it was showing an explosive growth that he only saw when he just joined his goddess with his brothers during those initial Levels.
Strength and Endurance are normal... but Dexterity... SS1054...
He blinked, unsure if he was mistaken. Did something get caught in my eyes?
Just as he was about to turn to his brothers to point out the oddity, his gaze landed on the last stat:
Magic: I0 - E402...
He knew they didn't have magic and felt mocked every ti— he froze. He looked at the number again.
That's not zero.
His mind was still stuck on Dexterity, on what his Mistress had told him herself, back when they were still new and hungry and asking her every question they could think of. S was the cap. Not just for Pallums, for everyone, every race walking the world, pallum, elf, beastfolk or otherwise. An immovable ceiling built into the structure of the Falna.
And now there was a whole new letter sitting past it like the wall had never been there.
This wasn't just growth. This was a violation of the highest order.
He turned to Berling first, the words already halfway out of his mouth, and found his brother distracted. Berling was staring down at his sheet the same way Alfrigg had just been staring at his: mouth slightly open, not moving.
"...Berling?"
Nothing.
Alfrigg leaned over to check what had him locked up like that, and there it was again. Endurance, S999 punched clean through into SS1063.
And under it, the same as his: Magic. I0 - E416.
He felt slightly cheated, honestly, that his brother had gotten a bigger number, before the absurdity of even thinking like that caught up to him and he almost laughed.
Dvalinn was next, and Alfrigg didn't even need to ask this time, just walked over and looked. Strength, SS1067. Magic, E411.
All three of them. Sitting there with the same blank look, staring at sheets that weren't supposed to break conventions like this.
Alfrigg was the first to shake himself out of it. He reached over, firmly nudging Berling, then Dvalinn, physically pulling them back into their senses. "Come on," he said, his voice low and tight with adrenaline. "Let's check on Grer."
The three of them made their way down the table together. Grer was sitting there alone, staring at nothing, so still that for a second Alfrigg genuinely wondered if his youngest brother had fallen asleep, eyes open. Dvalinn and Berling went on ahead, already reaching for him, calling his name.
Alfrigg lingered half a step back as he gathered Berling's and Dvalinn's parchments off the table, meaning to show their youngest, their strategist, the one who always made sense of things none of the rest of them could, when—
Alfrigg heard a choked gasp.
On the other side, Grer heard none of the discussion as he gripped his parchment with both hands, his eyes locked onto the single line of ink resting just below his stats.
Magic: Gungnir
Words caught up in his throat. He tried to swallow the sound, but his shoulders shook as the weight of years spent hitting a wall finally caught up to him. Tears welled in his eyes, blurring the letters.
Then his gaze drifted above, to the number he had already written off as empty.
I0 - SS 1058
He expected zero. The slot had always been dead. Magic was the one thing the four of them never touched, the blank they stopped looking at after every update. Now the ink ran from nothing straight to SS.
His mind scrambled for a reason. Cumulated growth? Every fight they had ever won without a spell, banked and paid out the moment the falna opened the gate? He had never heard of such a thing. He wanted to ask his Goddess. He wanted her word on whether the status could settle a debt like that.
First, though, his brothers.
As if his body finally caught up, a choked gasp escaped his throat. Everything hit him in one blow as he tried to swallow his emotions, but his shoulders shook anyway. Tears welling up and blurring the letters.
The sound summoned his brothers at once. Alfrigg, Berling, and Dvalinn crowded his chair, eyes tracking down the page to the spot he could not look away from. The air around the four of them went thin.
"You did it?" Dvalinn asked, his voice dropping into a stunned whisper.
Berling grabbed the back of the chair. "You did it?" he asked, a fraction louder.
Alfrigg slammed his hand on the table. "YOU DID IT, BROTHER! YOU FINALLY DID IT, GRER!"
The fierce shout cracked across the stone of the war room, killing the ambient chatter of the other executives.
Before anyone could object to the outburst, a slender hand settled gently onto Grer's trembling shoulder.
All four brothers went instantly still.
Their Goddess stood directly behind them. Her silver eyes moved across the parchments still spread on the wood—four Magic lines in plain ink, no longer blank.
"You have all broken your ceiling today," their Mistress spoke, her voice carrying a quiet pride that resonated in their very bones. "Every one of you."
Dvalinn and Berling both stiffened at how close she stood. She was near enough that Berling could have reached out and touched the hem of her dress without stretching. Neither of them remembered her crossing the room. This kind of physical nearness, this intimacy, was usually reserved for the ceremony of a status update, needle in hand, focus narrowed down to a single body kneeling before her. Not for a moment like this, standing over their shoulders in the middle of a war room.
But her gaze had already moved past the three elders, settling entirely on Grer and the tear-stained parchment shaking in his grip.
"You have finally overcome the one limitation you loathed," Freya murmured softly.
The brothers stood taller, their spines snapping straight under the weight of her gaze. Grer wiped his eyes with his sleeve and pulled the parchment tight against his chest. He stepped back from his chair, turned, and dropped heavily onto one knee on the floor.
"My Goddess," Grer vowed, his voice thick but ringing with certainty. "I promise you, on the magic you blessed us with today—we will not hold back the executives anymore."
Without a second's hesitation, Dvalinn, Alfrigg, and Berling stepped back from the table and dropped to their knees right beside him, bowing their heads.
"We swear it," they echoed in resonant unison, their voices trembling with an unwavering, ironclad devotion. "We will become the true shield you deserve."
Their benevolent patron looked down at them. A soft, radiant smile touched her lips as she gave them a firm, validating nod.
"I will be waiting to update your Statuses and officially welcome you to the ranks of the first-class."
She turned and walked toward the exit, the heavy double doors closing softly behind her, leaving them alone to process the reality of the update.
By the time the brothers finally came down from the overwhelming rush of the reveal, allowing them to breathe normally again, Alfrigg looked up. He realized the war room was empty.
Ottar, Allen, Hedin, Hogni, and even Maximus had silently slipped out during the exchange. Despite their frequent bickering and rivalries, the other elites had wordlessly granted the four Pallums the space and dignity to hold the weight of their triumph to themselves.
Dvalinn let out a shaky breath and clapped a heavy hand onto Grer's back, pulling a victorious cheer from the group. Rising to their feet, they pressed their foreheads together in the center of the quiet room, swearing right then and there to push past every limit left in their path.
And as the adrenaline finally cooled, an unified realization passed between the four brothers.
They needed to show their proper gratitude to Maximus. Though it was still unclear exactly how much his strange magical contracts and relentless presence had bridged the gap for them, he was the catalyst. They were the Bringar. They would never allow themselves to be known as ungrateful curs.
--> Devil in a Dungeon <--
AN:
Finally one hell of a chapter completely focused around Freya familia. How many of you expected the Executives stats will be boosted this much? I mean for 2 days worth of grinding, that stat growth is worth it right?
Coming to Ottar's failure comments in last chapter, hope this chapter answers why he couldn't kill the sisters. In essence he didn't want to accidentally kill a God. And yes, I agree on the comments about the Evil Gods essentially torturing the familia members of the Gods they hate, though I feel rest of the Gods who are in Tenkai wouldn't allow that as the whole reason of death in Danmachi is recycling/reincarnation and I feel without a strong reason (LIKE being killed by the said mortal), the Gods in Tenkai wouldn't casually allow any God to take a soul for their amusement.
And the 2 oddballs in the group, Hogni and Grer. Finally Grer unlocked a magic, yay! And let me tell you that is one hell of a magic I am waiting to write about.
Coming to Hogni, who else noticed his stats? Bro is the silent killer...
Also if anyone is confusd about the Gullivers status sheets, they didn't share their status sheets as they were gawking at them and that assured others that they also had similar breakthroughs, so they were left undisturbed.
The next chapter will be Max's and Kairu's status updates and more discussion between the Goddess and her favorite Devil ;)
Overall a tough chapter to write as it has many people and I didn't want to rush through everyone's thoughts with a General pov, so I limited to it specific scenes and there might be few instances where the pov might have slipped and I hope you can understand.
Finally, do share how you felt the chapter was. Any theories on what Grer's magic does and estimations on Max's & Kairu's stats? Please share your feedback/suggestions on how to improve the story in a comment/review.
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Next update will be on Friday.
Ben, Out.
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