Danmachi: The Focalors Familia — Chapter 75

Chapter 75: The Goddess’s Gold

“You lot… you really don’t make it easy for anyone to stop worrying.”

Eina stood behind the counter, her emerald eyes narrowing in a stern but ultimately affectionate glare. She looked over their battered state, her rigid posture softening as her shoulders dropped in a heavy sigh. “Forget it. As long as you all made it back in one piece, that’s what matters. Wait here for a moment; I’ll go fetch the request forms.”

With a sharp turn of her heel, the half-elf hurried toward the secure archives nestled deep behind the Guild’s front desk.

It didn’t take long for Eina to return. She carried a thick, heavy stack of parchment request forms, dropping them onto the wooden counter with a dull thud. Each sheet was pressed with the distinct wax seal of a different Familia.

“These are the Familias that have formally registered their interest with the Guild,” Eina explained, tapping the top of the stack. “They are willing to pay a premium price for any concrete information regarding the entrance to this new Secret Realm Dungeon.”

She spread the forms out across the table. “You can take your pick. Once you’ve made a decision, I’ll handle the official paperwork for you. After the request is verified and completed, the reward will be deposited directly into the Focalors Familia’s account.”

Noah stepped forward, taking the stack of parchment and flipping through the heavy pages one by one.

Most of the Familias offered a bounty hovering around 200,000 valis. For simply pointing out a Dungeon entrance, it was a highly lucrative sum. He paused on the roaring elephant crest of the Ganesha Familia; they were offering a solid 250,000 valis. A few pages later, the seductive emblem of the Ishtar Familia caught his eye, boasting a bounty of 300,000 valis.

His fingers moved rhythmically, his gaze sweeping over the names of Orario’s established powers.

Suddenly, his hands stopped.

His eyes locked onto a single, pristine sheet of parchment. The ink written across it made his breath hitch in his throat.

[Freya Familia]

[Reward: 1,000,000 valis.]

One million.

Noah slowly leaned back in his chair, exhaling a quiet breath. This was the undisputed style of Orario’s reigning monarchs. The Freya Familia never deigned to haggle over minor details or play petty political games; they simply used a sheer, crushing financial dominance that no sane Adventurer could refuse, sweeping all competitors off the board.

Noah didn’t hesitate for a single second.

He pulled the Freya Familia’s request form from the stack and slapped it cleanly onto the center of the desk.

“This is the one.”

A million valis for a simple escort mission—he would have to be a fool to pass it up.

“I knew it…” Eina muttered, looking down at the crest of the Goddess of Beauty. She helplessly rubbed her temples, massaging away an incoming headache, but she quickly pulled out her quill and began processing the official paperwork.

Not long after the ink dried, a sudden, heavy commotion rippled from the entrance of the Guild hall.

The ambient chatter of Adventurers died instantly. The dense crowd automatically parted to both sides, clearing a wide path as if repelled by an invisible force. A squad of Adventurers clad in pristine, uniform armor marched into the hall with measured, synchronized steps. Their collective aura was suffocating—a grim, blood-steeped pressure that demanded absolute submission.

Yet, at the vanguard of this terrifying formation stood a young woman who looked entirely out of place.

“Sigh… why do I have to be the one running these errands?” she complained, stretching her arms through a wide, lazy yawn.

She wore her long pink hair tied into twin tails, but her crimson eyes were completely devoid of light, resembling two pools of stagnant water. Her posture was slack, her demeanor so deeply listless and apathetic that it was difficult to reconcile her presence with the hardened elite veterans flanking her.

She glanced around the silent hall, her lifeless gaze eventually drifting over to the counter and landing on Noah’s group.

Dragging her feet, she walked over slowly. She took her time looking Noah up and down, her expression entirely unreadable. “So, you’re the ones who discovered the Dungeon? Lead the way. I hope you don’t make me waste a trip.”

“The Goddess’s Gold…”

Noah recognized the pink-haired healer immediately and offered a polite, measured smile.

“Oh? You know who I am? You don’t look like a rookie.” Heith tilted her head, a faint glimmer of curiosity finally piercing through her dull eyes. “Which Familia are you from?”

“Focalors Familia. I’m Noah. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Heith.”

“Focalors… Never heard of it.” Heith stared blankly for a moment, coming up completely empty in her mental registry of Orario’s factions. She instantly gave up trying to remember and waved her hand dismissively. “Forget it, let’s just go. Don’t waste time. I don’t want to arrive late only to find the Dungeon entrance snatched up by some other stray Adventurers. You don’t want to lose out on your million valis either, right?”

Her warning wasn’t just empty alarmism.

Although the Guild established strict rules regarding dungeon discovery claims, the sheer scale of the labyrinth made their actual monitoring capabilities practically nonexistent. It was entirely possible for a party to report a new Dungeon entrance to the Guild, only for a passing team to stumble upon it and claim the territory before the original discoverers returned. Unless the claimant acted with absolute speed, or left vanguards to camp the entrance, the risk of theft was high.

“Robin, you three head back first,” Noah instructed, turning to his companions.

Robin nodded in understanding. Without a word of protest, she gathered Tifa and Hyacine, and the trio quietly exited the Guild through the side doors.

Stepping forward alone, Noah gestured toward the main entrance. “I’ll take you there.”

The journey into the depths was swift and silent. Noah led the way down the winding subterranean corridors, while the members of the Freya Familia naturally enclosed him in a flawless, standard guard formation.

Their breathing was perfectly controlled; their eyes were sharp and unblinking. Whenever the Dungeon walls pulsed and birthed a monster, Heith didn’t even need to issue a command. The surrounding elites struck like coiled vipers, executing the creatures in the most concise, brutal, and efficient manner possible.

Whether it was a standard Goblin, a screeching Small Imp, or a masked Hilichurl, none of the beasts could survive a single exchange against the Freya vanguards.

However, as they ventured deeper into the labyrinth’s descent, Heith’s brows began to furrow.

“Strange…” she murmured softly.

When the bizarre new monster variants had first appeared in Orario, the Freya Familia had immediately dispatched scouting parties to investigate, and Heith had been among them. Because of that prior experience, she could clearly perceive that the spawn frequency of these foreign monsters along their current route was entirely abnormal.

Walking beside her, Noah heard her puzzled whisper. He kept his face perfectly neutral, staring straight ahead, even as he inwardly cursed his own oversight.

What else could be the reason? he thought bitterly. It’s because I’m standing right here.

As a walking, mobile monster generator for these crossover entities, his mere presence was spiking the spawn rates. He realized he had severely miscalculated; if he had known his passive aggro would be this obvious to a veteran, he wouldn’t have been so greedy for the bounty. A million valis was a fortune, but the risk of exposing his unique anomaly to the Freya Familia was a far heavier price.

Before they even breached the middle floors, the Dungeon’s aggression spiked. They were ambushed in the upper levels by several Kairagi: Fiery Might—towering, armored samurai wielding dual swords wreathed in roaring flames.

By the time they descended to the twelfth floor, the corridor ahead was entirely blocked. A massive Pyro Hilichurl Berserker, standing over three meters tall and dragging a burning giant axe that scorched the stone floor, roared into the darkness.

The sheer physical strength and heat radiating from this Berserker wasn’t quite on par with a true Level 3 Dungeon boss, but it was easily equal to the terrifying variant Noah had barely survived during his first encounter.

“Truly… this is getting more and more interesting.”

Heith watched her Level 2 subordinates draw their weapons and smoothly encircle the blazing behemoth. For the first time since she entered the Guild, a genuine, clear smile broke through the apathy in her eyes. She turned her head, locking her gaze directly onto Noah.

“Your name is Noah, right? I think I’ll remember you.”

“Uh… that is truly my honor.” Noah forced a tight, polite smile, keeping his posture relaxed despite the alarm bells ringing in his head.

“You look like you have some skill,” Heith said, casually brushing a stray lock of pink hair behind her ear. Her tone remained completely flat, devoid of any grand salesmanship. “Do you want to join our Familia? I can put in a good word with the Goddess for you.”

“That won’t be necessary. I’m very satisfied with my current Familia,” Noah replied, shrugging off the offer without a second of hesitation.

“Is that so? What a pity.” Heith blinked slowly, seemingly having only brought it up on a whim, and turned her attention back to the burning corridor, no longer bothering to press the issue.