So uh, sup. I be alive. Just…..wasn't in the mood to write anything with all that was happening, there were some deaths in the family too and I just left this about 80% written for months. Sorry.

Jacob yawned as he stood outside the Hephaestus Familia Mansion on a rather uneventful day, using his spear to support his weight, not paying much attention to his guard duty. Since the construction had been done more towards the inner region of Orario than the outer one, there hadn't been enough space for a manor and not that much need for one either since most members spent the majority of their time in their workshops working on their passion projects. He too had been wanting to work on the new armour he'd been wanting to make but he'd drawn the short straw with the other level ones and was now stuck here.

As he lamented over his fate, he saw a cloaked figure menacingly approaching the gate to the manor causing him to jerk into position and stand on alert.

"Halt! Who goes there!" He called nervously to the figure, he wasn't prepared to deal with confrontation. Most of the familia members' valuable goods were stored in their workshops and so hardly anyone tried to rob the mansion so the guards had become lax.

The figure continued moving towards him, forcing Jacob to raise his spear towards the stranger with a shaky hand. "I- This is your final warning!"

He didn't have much time to react before he was forcefully grabbed by his collar and pushed towards the gate, allowing him to get a better view underneath the cloak which caused his eyes to widen.

"Take me to her. Now." The red-headed person said, their red eyes uncharacteristically open in a piercing gaze directed towards the member.

"O-ok..." Jacob nodded as Loki dropped him to the ground and quickly went to work on unlocking the gates to take her inside lest the trickster goddess hurt him in some other way, he didn't want to bet on whether he was dispensable enough to the familia or not for Hephaestus to let Loki beat him up. Though he was confused by where she got all that strength, he didn't want to see more of it.

He got several looks for leading a cloaked figure towards Hephaestus' office from the members within the manor but he ignored them and practically ran away after leaving Loki outside the room while she entered without asking for an invitation.

Hephaestus looked up towards Loki who had removed her hood after entering and looked at the cloak in mild interest. "That's new."

"It's to hide from that damn bitch." Loki replied as she looked around the room overly suspicious as if inspecting if it were clear.

"Any reason?" Hephaestus said, looking curiously at the strangely acting goddess. She was pretty sure she'd never seen Loki wear a cloak before, probably confusing Freya as well if she spotted a cloaked figure entering the mansion since the last person she'd expect to wear one was in it.

"Any reason! You tell me! First that witch is already interested in that boy and you go and make him this!?" Loki angrily ended her sentence, chucking the knife hidden beneath her cloak onto the table.

"Wait….did he activate it already?" Hephaestus asked, surprised at the revelation.

"You knew!?" Loki yelled at the one-eyed goddess, annoyed beyond measure.

"Well, you used up your own stash of valis' to buy the kid a weapon so I thought you wanted it a bit more special than just a plain old knife."

"I asked you to make a weapon that can grow along with him so that he didn't break weapons every time he activated his skill and killed a bunch of monsters! Not one that can blast arcanum! How did you even do that with your powers locked!?"

"Well, I didn't expect that myself honestly. The knife was connected to his falna so those skills probably helped. I just made it a living weapon, it wasn't meant to connect to your falna in a direct fashion but I guess since it was supposed to help with triggering his skills, one of which increased his stats, it probably tried to draw strength from you since it used a strand of your hair and blood to connect with the falna." Hephaestus told Loki as she grabbed the knife from the table and put her finger against the tip of the blade, checking its sharpness to see if it had blunted.

"Is that even allowed!? Under the rules that state that our powers are blocked, I mean."

"Well, I guess it is, apparently. I'll admit I wanted to test a theory I had using Mithril to channel magic since it functions the same as a falna on how power is given from deities to mortals. Plus, it's not like I made the knife one of those blessed weapons we used to bestow to the children that contained portions of our weapons. The knife has a status the same as the user and it can be overloaded from skills that can possibly go through the status limit, such as his. It's not made using Durandal after all."

Loki let out a sigh. "It's made using my blood so it can only be used by my familia members, right? Also, can you make more of these? If so, things are gonna get crazy." She was still trying to wrap her head around the whole concept of how the knife worked and what the implications were.

"Yes, I don't know what exactly happens if a child of a different deity tries to use it, but I assure you it won't work in using your powers. About more weapons like that, unless you have more children with a skill that forcefully tries to elevate stats using magic I don't think they'd work. I can make living weapons, but not the arcanum shooting ones. By the way, what happened for him to have used arcanum anyways?"

"Bete. Damn wolf got drunk and started makin' fun of him and his skill is based on the desire of basically two things, Ais and being a hero and I think he made fun of both of them. They started fighting and by the time I got there, Bell was unconscious on the floor from mind-down from using the knife's magic and Bete was blasted in the wall. He was fine but he still got knocked off his feet."

"Could you not have told me all of this before? Before you made it? So I could've said no?"

"Hey, no refunds. You're the one who had such an expensive weapon made for a Level 1, you should've suspected something was up when I asked for blood and hair to make a knife."

"I should've gone to Goibniu." Loki said as she sunk onto the chair in front of Hephaestus in exasperation causing her to wink with her one good eye.

"What are you even worried about? It's not like anyone can steal it anyways, and no one would dare to try to attack a Loki Familia member because they're jealous. Now, onto more important matters." Hephaestus said, gesturing towards Loki's attire. "Why were you hiding from Freya? I mean, even if she's interested in the boy, she wouldn't dare attack your familia over it."

"That's the problem! I'm pretty sure this is more than the fleeting fancies she usually has, the look in her eyes…" Loki said, grimacing at the expression that the goddess of beauty had at the little 'tea party' they had attended together.

"Oh? Does she know about his skill?"

"No, I don't think so. I think her eyes saw something before he even had the skill, so I'm being discreet with this, and you just gave her another reason to have her interested in him."

"Relax. She wouldn't be that desperate to go after a Level One."

"Yeah, but I think she's planning something and I don't know what that is. Though, if she thinks I'm a pushover then she has another thing coming."

"Alright then, so, how are you going to explain this to the kid?"

"I don't know, I'll think of something." Loki sighed as she grabbed the knife off the table where Hephaestus had left it after she finished examining it and put on her hood to start making her way out.

"Be careful, I guess."

"Gee, thanks."

Bell woke up confused and starving. He looked around to see that he was in Loki's room, again. This was becoming a regular occurrence, what if she thought this was his way of attempting to get close to her and flirt?

'Wait, what?' He shook his head of his random thoughts and got up to assess the damage he had caused this time. Well, his body seemed to be fine but he didn't know how long he'd been out so his wounds could have healed over a longer period of time or maybe Riveria had returned from the expedition and healed them, so having an estimate of time was hard.

He thankfully didn't have to deal with his chaotic state of mind for long as the door opened to reveal Loki wearing a dark cloak looking very annoyed.

"Uh, hi, nice cloak."

Loki sent a glare towards Bell with her eyes being wide open, something he had thought was not possible.

"Tell me Bell, do you why you're in my room instead of yours?" Loki said menacingly as she removed the uncharacteristic outerwear.

"You really like me and want to spend more time with me?" He replied sheepishly, not sure where this was going.

"Close, but no. It's so I could easily strangle you after you woke up! She said as she suddenly made a jump for him.

"S-sorry!" He squealed and tried to dodge but it was too late as he was pinned to the bed assaulted by a red-haired mass really pissed off for making her life so much harder.

As the two struggled on the bed, a cough came from the door interrupting Loki's barrage of punches, kicks and hair-pulls.

Gareth stood awkwardly at the door, not sure whether he should do something. "I thought you went after girls."

"If you want to join him, keep talking."

Gareth sighed and entered the room, looking at the grateful looking Bell with pity. He leaned in towards Loki and whispered, "Are you sure you don't want to tell him about his skills?"

An instant head shake was his reply, "Absolutely not. He could spill his guts under the effects of that damn charm."

"Fair enough." Gareth replied in his normal, gruff voice.

Bell tilted his head in confusion causing Loki to sigh and explain to him. "You were out for a day, Riveria isn't our only healer ya know." She said with a smirk, causing him to shudder at having his mind read.

She suddenly grabbed his shoulders and stared directly into his eyes. "Never let Freya approach you when you're alone. She wouldn't dare directly try to take you but she will definitely try her charm. Unless I'm there or an executive of our familia is with you, you stay away. Do I make myself clear?" She ended menacingly.

"Yes Ma'am!" Bell yelped, standing up straight.

"Good. Take your damn knife from the table over there…...and you're paying me back for it." She said after a thoughtful pause.

"Ah, thank yo-huh?"

"Two hundred and fifty million valis, I want the whole sum."

As Bell was left with his mouth agape in shock, Gareth looked over towards Loki.

"Wasn't it two hundred million?"

"Fifty as interest for using my powers!"

"I'd think you'd value yourself higher."

"I would but I bought him a 200 million valis knife in the first place using my personal savings so I'm not very smart."

"You have personal savings?"

"...forget I said anything."

Loki then turned towards Bell again.

"Your gear is in your room, thankfully it wasn't damaged that badly. You can go now." She said, waving her hand in dismissal.

"A-alright!" Bell said as he left the room with a sigh, lamenting his fate and trying to think of how he'd pay the debt.

The outside of the Tower of Babel showed large signs of social activity but it was considerably fewer adventurers as most had already left to enter the dungeon. Bell looked around trying to spot a little werewolf.

"Master Bell! Over here!"

"Ah, sorry about being late."

"Have you decided on if you want to form a contract or not?" The werewolf looked at him with a tilted head.

"Sure. It was really easy adventuring with a supporter and we got so much further too!"

"Ah, excellent! Let's go then! By the way...Master Bell, that knife looks really good, where did you get it from?"

"Ah, it's a gift from Loki. Well, was a gift." Bell grumbled the last part to himself as he continued walking, not realizing Lili had stopped walking at the mention of his familia.

"Oh…...I see..." She muttered to herself, the smile dropping from her face as she stood in place, looking downwards.

"Lili? Are you coming?" Bell said, looking back at the girl who seemed to be acting weird.

"Sure..." She said, shaking her head and putting on a smile again before following him down into the dungeon.

Yeah, sorry again. This was meant to be a bit of an explanatory chapter and it took so long so you guys would be disappointed. I have a special chapter and the next chapter in the works too so I promise I'll try to make my updates more regular now. Every Sunday hopefully is my new plan.