Golden Artificer c10 (Patreon)

Marcus looked at the gathered crowd. He could see an array of colourful people. There was a tall, muscular guy with boar-like ears—or at least he thought they were. Then there was the fat woman who looked like a toad.

Of course, there were more normal women as well. One was carrying an elephant symbol sewn to her chest.

She had blue hair and looked like she was in her mid-twenties.

“What is she doing here?” The blue-haired girl asked the moment she saw Alfia behind Marcus.

“She is my maid. You might as well ignore her.” The alchemist said with a lazy shrug.

“Her people have killed my little sister.” The blue-haired girl exclaimed with anger.

“I see.”

“Is that all you can say?” She got snappy with Marcus.

“You want a hug?” The alchemist asked with a raised eyebrow.

Some people snickered hearing that.

“Ugh!!!”

The blue-haired girl got pissed hearing that.

“Enough, Shakti.” Finn stopped her as it was getting spicy.

“We have a common enemy to beat. The Monster Nightmare is getting close. We have not much time. It's slowly getting stalled by several adventurers, but we will soon need to handle it.”

The captain of Loki Familia explained to everyone.

“In the meantime, we have Evilus people spread out through the city as they harass adventurers and regular people. The longer it's going on, the more people will get uneasy.”

“We should split up.”

“I will stay here and fight Zald.” The big muscle guy said to Finn.

“I shall protect the Tower of Babel.” The guy clarified, and no one disagreed with him.

“Same with me.” The blue-haired girl said to Finn.

“Good, then the rest of us will split up and dive to the dungeon to deal with the Nightmare.”

Marcus didn’t say anything. Instead, he simply observed everyone. It was a rare moment to see Captains of the biggest Familias gather in one place. He even saw the red-haired ponytail girl from the Astraea family. The girl would look at him from time to time.

The alchemist wondered if his word truly had affected her that much. 

After everyone stands up and prepares to go to a battle, Marcus decides to stick around Loki Familia as he has no freaking idea about other Familias.

He could see what those Scout Girls were doing, but honestly, he had no time to discuss something like ‘Justice’. It's quite a stale thing to him.

Instead, the golden-haired girl decided to stick close to him.

“You never did tell me your name,” Marcus asked her as he noticed her getting close to him.

“It’s Ais Wallenstein, I am a level 2 Adventurer.” She slightly puffed her chest as she was proud of her level up.

“Not bad.” Marcus nodded at her.

“Umm…What about you?” She then asked him with a slightly embarrassed tone as she didn’t know if it was the right thing to do.

“Me? I don’t have Falna or a Familia.” 

The moment he said that half of the people stopped doing whatever they were doing and looked at him as if he were a monster.

“...You don’t have a Falna!?” Ais asked with a wide mouth.

“Nope. I come from a long line of Alchemists. I have practised alchemy all my life, and after learning alchemy, I have learned runes, soul magic, elements, and other things. That is why I am Grand Sorcerer.”

“...B-But you don’t look older than me…”

“I am what is called Reincarnator.”

“...Oh…”

Funny enough, her eyes sparkled as if she had just met an actual ‘Hero’.

“S-So, can you tell me something about where you come from!?”

Alfia’s lips twitched as she saw this little girl getting close to HER master!

‘She is just a little girl… ignore her…’

‘Ignore her!’

Sure enough, Marcus decided to help Ais lessen whatever burning revenge she was feeling. Marcus doubts he can help it completely get over, but he should lessen whatever despair she is feeling.

Whatever the source of revenge is, it should be powerful if Loki Familia can’t help it.

“I do apologise if Ais is getting in your way.”

Finn said to Marcus as he walked over with a bandaged-up green-haired elf and dwarf. Both of them looked in quite a bad situation.

“It’s fine.” Marcus lazily waved his hand before pulling out a couple of blue glowing pills.

“Here. Consume these. It should be helpful for the fight.” The alchemist handed over the pills to the two injured adventurers.

“Is it fine?”

“They look expensive.”

Marcus brushed their concerns. “It's nothing impressive; it's just crystallised mana with a few runes.”

He then clarified the side effects.

“Just make sure you got some food, as it makes you hungry.” 

“I see. My thanks.”

Funny enough, Ais looked jealous that the elf and the dwarf had gotten pills from Marcus, but she did not.

Finn nervously laughed at this.

After talking for a bit, everyone proceeded to walk towards Babel Tower.

~~~

Marcus looked around as he finally walked into the dungeon. He could see the light coming from crystals in the walls. It appeared the crystals allowed everyone to see in the caverns.

“Since we have no time, we will have to rush it,” Finn said to everyone.

“That is fine with me.” The alchemist said with a casual shrug as a dog-headed monster tried to get close to them, but the beast grabbed its head, and it started to tremble before it rotted away.

All Marcus did was point his hand, and the monster simply died.

The only thing that remains of this creature is a small crystal.

The alchemist collected it and inspected it closely. He slightly grinned as he realised that this was what he needed. He might have touched these before, but he wanted to double-check if they were the same as they had been before.

With these crystals, he will be able to improve his stuff and house.

“Say Alfia. Monsters in deeper floors drop bigger crystals, right?” He asked his maid as he swirled the small crystal between his fingers.

“Indeed. On floors below sixty, they are quite big.”

“S-Sixty?” The Loki Familia members looked at her with disbelief.

“Yes. Zeus and Hera’s Familia hold the record of reaching the deepest floor.” The silver-haired girl said with a small smirk.

“I see. In that case, we shall visit it soon.” Marcus said with a pondering look.

“Master… I don’t want to sound rude, but it can take days to visit floors that deep.” Alfia's forehead was sweaty when she said that. She was not challenging him; it's just that it sounds crazy to go to such deep floors with only two of them.

“I know. But I was living in the void for over 150 years. This dungeon looks like an entertaining thing to test my equipment and collect things.”

GULP

Several people behind him gulped down. But only a single one looked at him with more awe… and that is the golden blonde girl with golden eyes.

“You lived in void?” Ais asked him with sparkling eyes.

“Yep. For a long time. I saw a world of pure water. There was no land at all, and it was full of gigantic sea monsters. The bottom of the ocean was full of metal so thick that rays of light simply bounced off it, making them purely black and extremely heavy.”

“So there are wolds in the void?” The girl looked confused.

“Yep. Basically, each world is round and constantly spins around a ball of fire we can sun. So, if you want to leave your world, you need to fly extremely high.” Marcus explained to Ais how the cosmos worked.

Funny enough, Riveria looked annoyed as Marcus knew how to keep Ais interested enough. Alfia looked similarly annoyed as the blonde was far too close to her new Master.

Regardless, the group dived to deeper floors and everyone needed to fight more.

On floor 10, there were orcs which tried to surround them. This is where Ais pulled out her rapier and lunged at them. The girl tried to show Marcus how she fights.

Not that it was difficult, as these Orcs were easy pickings.

But then a roar followed.

“An Infant Dragon,” Alfia said from behind Marcus.

When Ais saw the lizard, she had a frenzied look. High winds surged from her as he dashed at the lizard with a furious look.

“Oh…” 

“A dragon…huh…” The alchemist used his hand to hold his chin as he pondered what this meant.

“So she is related to the Air spirit? How curious,” Alfia said as she opened her eyes and looked at Ais for the first time.

“Air is very flexible magic to wield.” Marcus wondered if he could create a weapon she could actually use to full capacity.

After all, he wants to see whatever he created unleash its full capacity. As someone who spends years making his perfect suit just for it to collect dust, it is… sad.

It's one of the reasons why he went to space, where he could use it to its full capacity and even improve it further.

As Marcus thinks about it, he sees how Ais dissected a poor dragon in Marcus's eyes into small bits.

“AIS! Relax!” Riveria shouted at Ais, who snapped from her frenzy and immediately looked ashamed.

The golden-eyed girl looked at Marcus, and when she saw that he saw the entire thing, it only made her more ashamed.

“It's fine.” The alchemist walked over to the golden blonde girl.

“So it's a dragon. You want to kill a dragon. Is that why you want to be strong?” 

The girl slowly nodded her head to his question.

“Revenge is fine. However, what will you do when you kill that dragon?” He asked her with a raised eyebrow.

His question made her brain stop functioning for a second as she was out of words.

“...I…I…”

“For now, think it over. We have to move.”

She nodded at him as they continued to move. Loki Familia looked somewhat perplexed about how easily he could deal with Ais… from the very beginning, he could easily deal with her.

They have been struggling with something since she joined them over two years ago.

“Don’t look so sad,” Alfia said to the trio from Loki Familia.

“Not just everyone can force me to be his maid.” The black-clad girl said in a slightly arrogant tone.

“...”

“...”

“...”

~~~

“So this is floor 18…” Marcus looked at the wide cavern, which is an ecosystem on its own. He could see forests—monsters flying above the forest and even a lake in the middle of the floor.

“There is even a small village which rips adventurers off,” Finn said to Marcus as they continued to walk towards the exit to floor 19.

As they approached, he saw barricades with adventurers guarding the stairs, which led to deeper floors.

“We shall wait here. We should make more space.”

Marcus nodded at the proposal as he walked some distance away to prepare his weapon.

“Tell everyone to make quite a bit of space as my weapon doesn’t know the difference between monster or adventurer.” The alchemist said to the leader of Loki Familia.

“Right.”

As everyone was getting into position. The whole place started to tremble as someone big or more like a massive group of something was approaching.

**ROAR**

With monsters roaring, Marcus pulled out his weapon and targeted the entrance to the lower floors.

Light started to gather in at the tip of the weapon, and Marcus began to channel his mana as well. However, he doesn’t want to feed it too much as he could damage the dungeon in progress.

Sure enough, Monster started to spill out. All of them were black, and there was something behind them. It was big…

But the Alchemist didn’t bother to figure it out as he released the trigger, and a basketball-sized ball blasted from his weapon.

The next second, it slammed into the monster, which caused an enormous explosion.

The explosion sends all the monsters flying in all directions. The white mist spread out through the area of explosion before the implosion effect kicked in, and all of the monsters were pulled into a single point…

Screams of pain and the sounds of breaking bones spread through the area before an even bigger explosion followed.

The adventurers looked at this with wide eyes. They never expected such a gory outcome: most of the monsters were dead, and sections of the dungeon had been destroyed.