A rigid breastplate protecting his vitals, a pair of stiff leather gauntlets, and a standard-issue straight sword that looked reasonably sharp.
This was the absolute cheapest beginner’s kit Kai could scrounge up from the Guild.
Over eighty percent of the rookies in Orario wouldn’t be caught dead in this junk, but to Kai, it was a godsend—mostly because it was completely free!
The Guild naturally offered significantly better starter gear.
A full set of decent armor ran about a hundred thousand Valis, and the Guild even offered installment plans.
That was the mainstream choice for smart rookies, because life was ultimately more valuable than debt.
But qualifying for that hundred-thousand-Valis loan required the backing of a reputable Familia.
The Guild wasn’t running a charity.
Currently, the Hestia Familia lacked the collateral to even apply for the loan.
Kai wore this pitiful gear straight into the imposing structure of Babel.
There were quite a few seasoned adventurers flowing out of the Dungeon around him, but none of them spared him a second glance.
Perhaps they were just exhausted from their recent battles, or perhaps they, like Kai, were just ants.
Besides, what was the point of the pot calling the kettle black?
The Dungeon was structured like a massive, inverted pyramid—the deeper you descended, the wider the floors became, and the stronger the monsters grew.
However, statistically speaking, the highest mortality rates were always found between the first and tenth floors.
The reason was brutally simple: Lv.
1 adventurers made up over sixty percent of Orario’s total adventurer population.
Most would spend their entire lives scraping by in the ‘safe zones’ of the upper floors.
With such a massive population base, the raw death toll was naturally the highest.
Heart pounding with dreams of the future, Kai stepped into the Dungeon.
Despite being deep underground, it wasn’t pitch black.
An eerie, pale blue luminescence saturated the caverns.
There were no visible light sources on the rock walls; the light simply existed, filling the void.
Kai had barely walked ten meters from the entrance when the stone wall next to him suddenly rippled, coming alive like bubbling mud.
A second later, the Dungeon forcefully “birthed” three Goblins.
Looking at the viscous, foul-smelling slime coating their bodies, Kai felt a wave of sheer disgust.
But he wasn’t afraid.
In fact, a faint thrill of excitement raced down his spine.
He didn’t know if reacting like this was normal, but he knew for a fact that terror was a useless emotion in a fight.
Drawing the straight sword from his hip, Kai lunged forward.
Before the three Goblins could even finish screeching and brandishing their claws, he smoothly drove his blade straight into the skull of the closest monster.
The sword bit deep, meeting heavy resistance.
When Kai tried to yank it free, the Goblin’s corpse came with it.
Then, starting from its feet, the monster began dissolving into ash, burning away as if consumed by invisible fire.
Just as Kai was marveling at the bizarre biology of Dungeon monsters, a searing pain tore through his thigh.
The other two Goblins hadn’t wasted the opening.
One had managed to rake its claws across Kai’s leg.
If first-floor monsters actually spawned with weapons, his thigh would have been sliced to the bone.
The third Goblin had scurried to the side, scooped up several jagged rocks, and began hurling them at his head.
Shaking off his shock, Kai swung his sword in a frantic, desperate arc.
Whether it was pure luck or innate talent, the wild swing not only deflected the incoming rocks but also cleanly cleaved through the Goblin standing next to him.
Gritting his teeth against the volley of stones, Kai charged the final Goblin and cut it down.
The moment the battle ended, the adrenaline faded, and the raw, stinging pain of his wounds flooded his senses.
His thigh and his chest throbbed violently.
But that unfamiliar pain filled Kai with a bizarre sense of deep satisfaction.
The pain was real.
It proved that he had truly taken his first steps.
He was finally the adventurer he had always dreamed of being!
Before he could even catch his breath, the walls violently trembled again.
This time, five Goblins pulled themselves from the stone— “Hahaha!
Bring it on!” ….
[Well?
Give me your professional assessment.
How’s our little Kai doing?] He hasn’t had a single day of formal training, but his focus and reaction speeds are excellent.
Most importantly, he doesn’t flinch away from violence.
That’s very good.
[Well, he was raised by Hera.
Even if his bloodline is completely ordinary, that’s irrelevant with our backing.
As long as he possesses the drive to become strong, his ascension is inevitable.] The System’s voice was still a flat, mechanical synthetic tone, but Himeko could swear she heard a hint of smug pride in it.
He still has a very long way to go.
Anyway, put that aside.
I have a question.
How exactly do I raise his affection?
I bought him a skill, but he has no idea it was from me, and I can’t talk to him directly.
How are we supposed to build a bond?
Now that she had personally experienced the System’s miraculous rewards, Himeko was fully invested.
But she couldn’t figure out the affection mechanic.
In a standard mobile game, you just spammed gifts and deployed them in battle.
But she had bought him a premium item and watched his stream for ten minutes, and his affection meter was still hard-stuck at absolute zero.
[Ah…
about that.
Just give it a little time.
The Main System actually ran into a slight glitch.
Remember when I mentioned Zeus’s grandson?
The original protagonist of this timeline?
The Main System forcibly swapped their destinies, rewriting Kai’s fate from ‘background extra’ to ‘Core Protagonist.’ That consumed an absolutely astronomical amount of energy, severing almost all contact between the Main System and us sub-systems, leaving only the premium shop functional.
Once the world fully accepts Kai’s new fate, the affection system will unlock.] You Systems are terrifyingly capable…
you can just casually swap out a protagonist?
What happens to the original kid?
[The Main System just negotiated a trade for the ‘Protagonist’ concept.
The original boy won’t vanish.
His life trajectory will drastically change because of Kai’s existence, but he’ll still end up becoming a shining star in this world.] Himeko was out of questions.
Right now, her only concern was figuring out how to get more money.
The fact that she could stably and infinitely increase her own strength simply by throwing cash at a screen was a luxury she had never dared to dream of.
She had never been a saver; her generous A-rank Valkyrie stipend was usually entirely liquidated on high-end liquor by the end of the month.
She was currently dead broke.
What if I just embezzle the teaching budget that Theresa secretly skimmed to buy Homu comics and merch?
That’s technically my salary anyway!
The more she thought about it, the more brilliant the plan seemed.
She was just taking back her rightfully earned wages!
Mind made up, Himeko launched her operation.
After a series of highly questionable, borderline-illegal cyber maneuvers, she successfully breached Principal Theresa’s private bank account.
However, staring at the massive, glaring ‘ZERO’ on the balance screen, Himeko felt a vein throb violently in her forehead.
“Theresa!
Schicksal literally just deposited our budget yesterday!
How is your balance already zero?!” Kicking open the door to the Principal’s office, Himeko furiously confronted the forty-year-old loli, demanding to know how her boss could be this incompetent.
She had never cared about the St.
Freya teaching salary before, since her combat pay was more than enough to fund her drinking habits.
But now that she desperately needed the cash, she finally understood the true, agonizing evil of capitalism!
Image: Theresa ….