Is It Wrong To Devour Monsters In The Dungeon - Chapter 16.1 (Patreon)

I will not lie.

There was quite the spring in my step the next morning as I left the small ruined church that worked as my current home behind.

It was early, albeit, not quite as early as I usually left the place behind. Granted, I had a late night last night.

Hestia had already left a half an hour ago or so. To go hit up Miach and Naaza and drag them along with her. Today was the day after all, when the first store belonging to the Hestia Familia would be opening up.

And she had to take them to go get measured for their uniforms, just like she did. Thankfully, there was a good tailors in the Tower of Babel that Hestia had learned made the uniforms for the Hephaestus Familia stores.

I'm getting Miach put in a dapper suit and both Hestia and Naaza in some maid uniforms. Sure, the Hephaestus familia already did that, but they used kind of ugly red ones.

Nah bro, I'm going the traditional black and lacey ones. Well, for Hestia at least. Naaza, I'm getting in a light blue.

Having them both have different colours of outfits, made them vary and made them both stand out more next to each other.

The pretty boy, gentle voiced god. The cute and busty, soft spoken dog girl, and of course, the gorgeous, supremely sexy twin tailed short stack goddess.

It was truly a great recipe of sex appeal. The only thing I was missing in that line up was a a shirtless guy rippling with muscle, and I can cover that myself…sometimes.

With those, and my massive variety of products, the Hestia Familia will rake in the cash just from that store alone never mind all the other plans I have.

I couldn't help but laugh gleefully.

"Muahahahahahahahahahaha!" my laughter echoed throughout the street as I walked.

At my side, the tiny form of Lili equipped with ever so cute dog ears and a fluffy little dog tail gave me a dry look, "Mr. Caelan….you really do sound like a villain when you laugh like that." she pointed out.

"I did tell you I was one after all." I shrugged and pointed out with a grin.

"Yes…but I didn't think you meant so literally," Lili sighed, "Or in such a cliche manner. Lili grew up around villainous trash, so I can say for certain that none of them laugh like that."

"You just answered your own question," I replied, "Trash. They were trash. Not me, I'm more like the final boss the hero of the story doesn't even realise is the true villain until they defeat the strongest monster in the setting and think they can live happily ever after, only for me to swoop in, steal that monsters power, add it to my own and become unstoppable, kill the hero, steal his women and rule the world."

Now that is a bed time story I'll tell to my kids one day.

"…Lili never heard of any story about villains like that…ever, and there are a lot of fairy tales and epics about heroes." she replied after a moment of just staring at me, flabbergasted.

I snorted, and shook my head, "Ah Lili, so pretty, so cute, so logical, and did I mention pretty and cute?" I teased her with a wink, making a show of giving her a look over, since right now, she wasn't wearing her cloak or carrying her massive supporter bag, she was just in her casual clothing, belly baring top, unbuttoned skirt and all, "History is written by the winners and of course they'll never tell everyone they were the villain."

"Lili thinks you are taking that a bit too literally, I have heard that quote before, I'm not a dumbass," Lili retorted, though that didn't stop her cheeks from blazing red and looking away from my gaze, "Where are we going anyway? I was too caught up in my shock at you going out and killing the Goliath like a crazy person to remember."

Yeah…shock might have been an understatement, when she heard I went and killed the Goliath as a level one and decided to level, all while she was sleeping.

Well, shock was a bit of an understatement, she kind of shut down and had to reboot to factory settings.

Killing the Goliath as a level one, was just that massive of an accomplishment apparently. I wish the fight lived up to such a hyped achievement though.

Even now I'm still disappointed at such a lame ass fight from what was supposed to be a boss monster. the only thing that improved my mood last night was giving Ais a bunch of stuff to say to her familia if they asked what took her so long, or to use as an excuse for coming to meet me.

Think you can mock Bestia, huh Loki? You're not dealing with your average Bell Cranel here, but the true blue final villain.

And I don't play fair.

Reaching over I pet Lili's head and ruffled her hair, grin widening in amusement at my own thoughts, "We're heading to Dian Cecht's main pharmacy."

"Stop that," Lili protested at my treatment of her with a pout, but didn't pull away, which was telling enough, "The one that's full of incredibly expensive stuff like elixirs?"

"That's the one," I confirmed with a nod, "I'm looking to see if I can take care of something and hopefully set up a business trade with them."

"I see." Lili hummed, and said nothing more.

_________

Unlike most of the biggest business' around, the main pharmacy of the Dian Cecht familia was not within the Tower of Babel, though they did have a couple of small stores in there.

Rather, it was along one of the main streets leading towards the dungeon and tower themselves. Which made sense, because the pharmacy? Was massive.

It was a huge intricate and lavishly designed building of gleaming white stone that seemed to almost glow under the sunlight.

From what I've heard, it was the main base of operations for the Dian Cecht familia, and beyond working as a pharmacy store, also operated as an infirmary for those needing treatment and even had specific rooms set aside where clients could talk business deals with the Dian Cecht Familia.

That, was what I was here for.

It wasn't long before we arrived at our destination and I pushed the door open, both myself and Lili stepping in from the streets and our feet landing upon dark gleaming blue tiles.

Rows upon rows of shelves filled with all manner of potions met my eyes on one side of the room, while at the other, opposite of them was a sales desk where more filled shelves resides, and a door leading into a backroom of some sort in between the shelves.

The room itself was shaped like a large backwards 'L', and at the far end of the room there was a set of waiting couches.

Most likely for those waiting for those in the infirmary or waiting for staff to talk business when they were busy.

"It smells…clean?" Lili sniffed the air a few times as we entered and remarked confusedly.

She was putting those transformed chienthrope senses to good use I see. And she wasn't wrong. I noticed a clear difference in the air as we entered it. Compared to outside, it was cool, and much clearer.

I couldn't smell any chemicals in the air either.

It reminded me almost, of a hospital back in my old world, only, without that sterile add on to the scent lingering in the air.

'Probably a magical item made by Dia Saint with her Mystery ability.' I thought. That made sense to me at least.

Mystery was great for things beyond just combat after all. Something I need to keep in mind for sure. Quality of life is important after all.

There is more fun to be had in life, than kicking the shit out of monsters and beautiful women after all.

Speaking of beautiful women though…

My eyes drifted over to the counter where a short, long silver haired beauty stood behind the sales desk dressed in blue and white, and a little medic hat to top it off.

Amid Teasanare, the Dia Saint, the greatest healer in Orario, possibly the world, and the captain and pride of the Dian Cecht Familia.

She was gorgeous I noted instantly. She had an ethereal beaty about her, with shimmering silver hair, and deep purple eyes. She was small and slender, but voluptuous still in the chest.

What the fuck is with this world and all the gorgeous short stacks around?

But damn…that hair, gotta admit, it's really pretty. I would love to just stroke my fingers through it.

Shaking my head, I approached the sales desk that Amid stood behind, Lili following alongside me.

"Hello," Amid greeted me with a small, placid smile, "Can I help you?"

"Heya," I greeted her, "I'm Caelan Odhar, this is Lili. We're part of the Hestia Familia."

"Ah…Mr. Caelan, I'm no-" Lili opened her mouth to protest and refute that she wasn't part of the Hestia Familia.

"I'm the captain and we're a pretty new familia, so you've probably not heard of us yet," I continued over Lili, ignoring her protest entirely, "But, we're hear to talk business with you today."

Amid gave a slow blink and nodded, "I'm not quite sure what a new familia would be capable of bringing to the table what we cannot," she replied, her voice light, yet mature and melodious sounding, very pleasing to the ears, "But the Dian Cecht is always open to business proposals as long as they're serious."

Well, wasn't that a polite way of saying that a low level familia had nothing to offer them. Granted, she wasn't actually wrong, and their familia did business with the likes of Loki familia on the regular and the only reason I'm capable of bringing this up at all, is because of my own special overpowered skill.

"Don't worry, trust me, you won't be disappointed," I laughed and reached into the pouch on my hip, grabbing one of five specific phials contained in that part of it and lifted it out, "Take a look at this will you and tell me what you think?" I placed the phial, filled to the brim with the crimson red blood that run through my veins.

"Hmm?" Amid's eyebrows rose ever so slightly and she reached down at my urging to pick it up and lift it up to eye level, "This is…?" she trailed off.

"Mermaid blood." I offered.

In response, she reached into the pocket apron pocket of her dress and pulled out a small eye glass which she then brought up to slot over one of her eyes and view the phial of blood through it.

As soon as she did though, I was quite surprised when both of her eyes flew wide open with shock, "This…it's mermaid blood alright, but, I'm shocked," she said, turning her attention to me, "I've never seen mermaid blood with this kind of quality before, it's like you bled it straight from the source, but that's not possible, as soon as a mermaid is killed its blood except for some as a possible drop item disappears. And how did you get so much of it?"

Which was why I'm pretty confident the Dian Cecht familia will jump at the chance to make a business deal with me.

See, a mermaid is a very rare monster, like the Jack Bird more or less in that regard, on the floors they do spawn on, it would be lucky for them to appear in one in a thousand monsters that spawned.

On top of that, drop items were quite rare, so even if one did spawn, it wasn't guaranteed it would drop the blood.

But say one did spawn and then say after killing it, it actually dropped its blood as a drop item. The blood would drop straight onto the ground.

Contaminating it.

On top of that, only a fraction of the blood would be able to be scooped up, because blood is a liquid, albeit thicker than water, and if it splashes against the ground, of course it's gonna absorb into it.

"Trade secret," I winked and leaned over the counter counter, giving the beautiful silver haired healer a grin, "But let's just say, there's a lot more where that came from, and I can get more quite often." I added, and to punctuate my statement, reached into my pouch and withdrew the other four phials I'd prepared.

Unfortunately, I can only make a few of these a day if I want to actually get anything done. Blood, is one of the few things my healing power doesn't effect and I have to eat and rest to restore my blood.

Which kind of makes sense considering my enhanced healing abilities, comes from the blood in my veins.