The Labyrinth City, Orario.
The Hephaestus Weapon Branch Shop on Adventurer Street.
A woman in a white shirt and black trousers, her wine-red hair tied back into a low ponytail, her face sharp and handsome.
Hephaestus.
She frowned down at the unconscious boy, then turned a helpless look toward the friend sitting across from her, the one who gave her so many headaches.
“Hestia.”
“I thought I made myself clear.
Letting you live here is already my limit.
So who exactly is this guy?”
“…”
The girl called Hestia, her smooth black hair tied into twin tails, blinked the way she always did when she was being questioned.
Her figure didn’t match her childlike face at all.
It swayed slightly when she stood up too fast, though the blue chest bindings kept her generous front from being quite as on display as it could have been.
She lifted her head.
Then she remembered she was living off someone else’s money, and her voice came out noticeably lacking in confidence.
“It’s a long story.”
“You were the one who said it, that I should find something to do in Orario.
So I thought, maybe I could pick up some Familia members!”
“And then…”
“I found him passed out in an alley…”
At least she wasn’t lying around the house all day waiting for free meals.
Hephaestus was privately a little relieved, but her expression didn’t soften.
“So you brought him back with you?”
“That’s right!”
“And did it occur to you that he might belong to some Familia in Orario?”
Clearly not.
Hestia hadn’t considered that possibility at all.
She looked at the boy’s handsome face and answered seriously, “Well, how should I put it…”
“Meeting him at all is a kind of fate.
If he’s some other god’s child, then I’ll just count today as a good deed!”
“And if he doesn’t belong anywhere…”
“If he wants to be an adventurer, I’ll invite him once he wakes up!”
…
The sound of chattering voices kept drilling into Renn’s ears, pulling his drifting consciousness back into his body.
Everything felt hazy.
Renn slowly opened his eyes.
The dim yellow light overhead was painfully bright, and the air carried a scent he couldn’t describe.
Most importantly, the room was completely unfamiliar.
“Am I…”
“Did my roommates haul me to the hospital after I passed out last night?”
The thought hit him.
Renn immediately felt a chill run down his spine.
His browser history, the very specific dating games in his Steam library.
If anyone saw those he’d die of embarrassment!
But then.
When he jolted upright from what he’d assumed was his deathbed, he saw furnishings that belonged to no hospital ward, along with two women of completely different styles standing right there.
Renn stared blankly, his head buzzing.
“What the hell…”
“Where did you even bring me?
Is this still the country I live in?!”
“…”
Noticing the confusion on the black-haired boy’s face, Hestia straightened up in her seat and made her voice as gentle as she could.
“Um…”
“Are you feeling all right?
This is the Hephaestus Weapon Branch Shop.
I saw you collapsed in an alley, so I brought you back.”
“…”
Renn turned toward the voice and looked at the girl with black twin tails.
Her face seemed extremely familiar.
She was also very pretty.
Her childlike appearance hovered somewhere between girl and loli, and her features were like a miracle of creation, impossible to put into words.
That smooth black hair tied into twin tails, a face that still looked half a child’s, paired with a figure that made absolutely no sense.
Short version:
Baby face, huge chest.
“Why does this feel…
like a dream?”
Dead memories were coming back to attack him.
Renn reached out without hesitating and, under Hestia’s startled gaze, pinched himself hard several times until the pain registered.
In the end.
He confirmed it.
The transmigration trope he’d seen done to death in web novels in his past life had finally come for him.
“Is this for real?”
About Danmachi.
Renn knew the series.
He’d figured that watching it week by week would be unsatisfying, so he’d decided to wait until it finished and binge the whole thing.
So.
Before he transmigrated he’d watched exactly one episode, confirmed the style was his kind of thing, and then dumped it in his watchlist to collect dust.
Judging by his current situation…
He probably wasn’t getting the chance to catch up now.
Good news:
Because he’d watched that first episode to check the style, Renn knew the opening plot of Danmachi and understood the core adventurer setup.
Put simply.
The gods came to Orario looking for entertainment, gave their Falna to humans, and those humans became adventurers who challenged the bottomless Dungeon.
As for the actual story.
He was completely in the dark.
But that didn’t matter much.
All he really needed to know was that this was an otherworld with supernatural power in it.
As a modern wage slave from a peaceful era.
Renn had fantasized before about gaining supernatural strength and beating the hell out of his balding boss, the one who targeted him and made him work overtime on his days off.
Now.
Transmigrated into another world, with the thought that he could actually have that kind of power, he had to admit his excitement outweighed his panic about the unfamiliar.
“…”
Renn gathered up his tangled thoughts.
Now that he understood his situation, he looked at the girl sitting across from him, the goddess with concern on her face.
He didn’t forget to thank the one who’d carried him back here.
“Thank you…
I think my body’s fine.”
“That’s good.”
But when it came to the critical moment.
The speech Hestia had prepared in advance wouldn’t come out of her mouth.
All she could do was make desperate faces at her friend beside her.
Helping her recruit a Familia member.
This might well be the turning point that changed Hestia’s freeloader status.
Hephaestus frowned slightly.
“Should we notify your Familia so your companions can come pick you up?”
“No need…”
Renn couldn’t place this woman with the short wine-red hair and the eyepatch over her right eye, but going by Hestia.
There was a good chance she was a goddess too?
And to become an adventurer, the first thing you had to do was join a Familia created by a god.
He answered honestly.
“To be accurate…
I really do want to become an adventurer, but I just arrived in Orario, and I haven’t found a Familia that suits me yet.”
“…Eh?!”
As a goddess.
Hestia could tell truth from lies in what people said.
With a clear answer in hand, her mind started working fast.
She still didn’t know the boy’s name.
But.
On the very day she’d finally decided to build up her Familia and go post a notice at the Adventurer’s Guild, she just happened to pick him up.
This has to be fate!
Her blue eyes, clear as lake water, reflected Renn’s face.
She cleared her throat and asked curiously.
“Um…”
“What’s your name?”
“Renn.”
She committed the name to memory.
Hestia stood up and put her hands on her hips, but the expectation in her eyes toward Renn was mixed with nerves about being turned down.
“Nice to meet you.”
“My name is Hestia.
For now I suppose you could say I’m a goddess.
Would you consider…
joining my Familia?”