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Commissioned by ChaosInfiniteRai


Dungeon Menagerie

Chapter 7


-VB-


Vanessa woke up with a gasp when something smashed into her stomach. And she couldn’t breathe! She glared up at the pair sitting on top of her the first thing in the morning, and wanted to strangle them.


Unfortunately, her arms were also pinned underneath their weight.


“Mori… Athena…!” she hissed with all of the vitriol she could muster up the first thing in the morning. 


“Wake up, Nessa!” Athena gleefully shouted before getting her face under control. “That is what ‘Mori’ wants to convey.”


Mori cawed in thanks to their goddess, which only made Vanessa feel even more ticked off than before. 


It’s been three days since they joined Athena as her first children - Athena insisted that Mori was also her child, even if he didn’t get a Falna from her - and it’s been three days of Mori abusing the goddess’s ability to communicate with him to tell her to wake up.


“Get off me!” she shrieked, but Mori didn’t, swaying side to side for a bit, mashing up her insides from side to side. He cawed at her before finally stepping off. Slowly. And didn’t move his fat ass off of her until both of his clawed feet were on the floor. 


She got up, glaring at the duo who grew way too close in way too short of a time. 


She wasn’t sure what their deal was, but they loved to mess with her. Wasn’t Athena supposed to be a wise goddess of war? Why was she a morning person and a prankster?!


“Ugh…” she muttered as she got up and smoothed out her “night clothes,” which was really just a sleeveless t-shirt and a pair of smooth linen pants. They were new clothes she got after getting a lot more money. And how did she get it? After getting her Falna, she went to the Dungeon with Mori and absolutely cleaned house.


“Oh my God!” she shrieked when a goblin jumped on her. In her flailing, she struck the goblin right on the chin, and the thing spun in the air - still falling toward her - and then barely missed her. She jolted when it smashed into the ground next to her and then twitched as it bled… Because her accidental hit managed to crack open its jaw. 


“Eh?”


It was still alive, if the wide open eye glaring and trembling, but a goblin, which she never managed to hurt before, was laying before her with its jaws shattered and on the verge of death. 


She stared at it…


And stabbed down.


That was two days ago, and it had been the first time that she experienced the difference between a fresh Level 1 falna adventurer and a falnaless risk taker. It truly was different. Yes, that hit had been with all of her strength but it was a hit made in panic and not any practiced strikes. She would have never been able to hit that hard.


There were legitimate advantages to having a falna.


… No. It wasn’t an “advantage.” It was a necessity if she wanted to survive in the Dungeon, because safety was not something she could depend on Mori forever and at all instances. It was why they had only ventured down to the First Floor, the “safest” of all Upper Floors of the Dungeon. But even then, the difference of having a falna and not having a falna was reflecting heavily on not just how many Mori and she could kill down in the Dungeon but also in their income; now that she was part of a familia and possessed a falna, she didn’t have to deal with the Guild’s extra deterrence tax. More than that, she could now dive deeper and better off. She could take more hits. She could hit harder. She could react faster. She had no reason not to dive deeper. 


Mori turned around and cawed at her, breaking her out of her thoughts. 


She sighed and stood up. “I’m up, I’m up,” she grumbled as she made her way toward the wash basin. It was a ceramic bowl on top of a cabinet. She quickly splashed her face with its cold water, and shivered as the cold seeped into and under her skin. She felt a little bit more awake after that, and then went on to wash her face with the little bar of soap that she bought yesterday. 


And when she turned around, she found her goddess (wasn’t that a statement she didn’t think she would say or think) standing and looking at her. “Child, I have a request.”


She looked down at the shorter woman before narrowing her eyes. “Go on.”


“You have earned enough in the past few days to take a day or two off, yes?”


“Yes…?” she dragged out as suspicion began to rise. ‘Amogus,’ her still waking up and thus addled 21st century brain screeched out. 


“Well, I want to visit my aunt and get her a gift. I hear that she hasn’t been doing so well for herself.”


Aunt? 



“Who?” she asked.


“Her name is Hestia.”


Oh. Bell Cranel’s love interest. The anime girl that everyone thinks of when they hear “shortstack twintail anime girl.” 


She sighed. She supposed that an isekai girl like herself would eventually meet the main character. She did not, however, intend on becoming that white rabbit’s harem girl! No, she was a strong independent woman who didn’t need weaker boy


(She wouldn’t mind a stronger, bigger, and muscular man in her life, though.)


“Hmm. What do you want to get her?”


“Well, I was hoping I can take her out on a shopping -”


“No,” she shut her goddess down. “You said a gift, not a shopping run.”


Her goddess half-heartedly glared at me. “... Well, if you would listen to me, then I was going to say that I wanted to take her out to shopping to get her a proper dress. She’s been having a bad time, financially.”


Vanessa stared at her goddess, trying her best to peer into her soul like her goddess did but ultimately failed. 


Well, who was she to deny her goddess if she wanted to spend time with her family? 


“Alright, fine. How much do you need?” she sighed as she reached into the drawer to pull out the funds necessary for her goddess.


“30,000 valis, please.”


She nearly threw her goddess out of the inn’s second story window.


And she ignored how the Celestial Menagerie swelled up again inside of her before settling down without doing anything as her goddess tried her hardest to not get defenestrated out of the window.


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