Danmachi: The Multiverse Portal

New week, let's push the story forward!

2300 Words chapter!

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"DAMMIT!"

Even with Hestia's illicit use of Divine Power dragged into the open, no one threw a punch. The Gods knew better. Aside from the heavy secret shielding her, nobody in the tavern had the stomach to start a full-blown war over a translation skill. Any divine trial would go down at the next Denatus. A pub brawl wasn't the place.

"And you—kid." Loki shifted her glare. "Are you just going to stuff your face? Do you ever actually speak, or are you just a brick wall?"

She realized that while two literal Goddesses screamed at each other, August hadn't stopped eating. He completely ignored their divine turf war.

"A man who ignores a hot meal is a moron..." August swallowed his bite and met her gaze.

He was practical. Food always came first, and drama came second. Unless someone was actually trying to kill him, he would rather finish his meal than get caught up in pointless talk.

"You mocking me, kid?" Loki narrowed her eyes.

"No. I'm stating a fact," August replied flatly. "Good meat and fresh vegetables don't just appear out of nowhere. People break their backs growing and hunting this stuff."

He picked up his fork. "As a human, the least I can do is respect that labor and finish the meal."

He had a deep respect for farming and hard work. To him, wasting a good meal was almost a sin.

"PREACH! THAT'S MY BOY!" Hestia beamed, overflowing with pride.

She loved this about him. August had a strong sense of right and wrong and kept himself disciplined. In a wild and dangerous place like Orario, someone with such steady values was rare. Even if he wasn't a classic hero, the kind Gods still liked him.

"This kid isn't illiterate."

Loki watched how he sat and listened to how he spoke. He sounded just like the well-educated Guild advisors from the Education District. There was no denying he seemed smart and refined.

"Hey... what does 'illiterate' mean?" Tiona Hiryute asked from her seat beside Loki.

"..." The entire table went dead silent. Finn, Riveria, and Gareth all turned to look at the Amazon. 'What does it mean? It means you...'

Aside from reading The Argonaut picture books, Tiona had never picked up a real book. She was the perfect example of the word.

Loki buried her face in her hands and let out a heavy sigh.

Honestly, half of her top Familia couldn't even read a damn map. But that was just how things were in Orario. Kids learned to fight to survive, not to read.

'Forget it. Dwelling on this is just embarrassing.' Loki swiftly pivoted, dodging the glaring flaw in her faction's education.

"Hey, shrimp. What do your kid's stats look like?"

She wanted straight answers. Asking about an Adventurer's status board was usually rude, but since Hestia had just used Divine Power to protect him, Loki thought they deserved to know more.

Hestia froze, a juicy chicken leg halfway to her mouth.

"Oh, crap! August, I completely forgot to update your Status!"

After his two big Dungeon runs, his Falna should have shown a huge jump in experience. But since August's first Status board didn't have the usual strength and agility stats, Hestia forgot to check. He had wiped out two monster groups, so his hidden potential had to be huge by now.

"Good catch, Loki! I completely blanked!" Hestia cheered, bouncing in her seat. "I'll update him the second we get home!"

Could he already reach [Level 2]?

"Given the sheer scale of the massacres he pulled off..." Hephaestus muttered, a twinge of envy in her voice. "He has almost certainly stockpiled enough Excelia to rank up."

[Level 2].

The moment Hestia heard that, her eyes practically turned into stars. "I need to brainstorm a badass alias for him!"

Getting to Level 2 meant he'd have to go before the Denatus, the council where the Gods gave out official aliases. The next meeting was approaching. If she left it to those drunk, clueless Gods, they'd give August a ridiculous name. She needed to come up with a great title before they messed up his reputation.

"Yeah, you better start brainstorming now," Loki chimed in, surprisingly helpful. "Those idiots have zero taste."

An alias was like an Adventurer's brand in Orario. It needed to sound tough and carried a person's entire reputation. Loki knew this well, she had seen her own children stuck with some terrible aliases before.

"Exactly! If we slip up, he gets branded with a cringe-inducing title for the rest of his life!" Hestia shrieked.

Listening to them bicker, August felt a spark of interest.

An alias was basically a professional nickname. August wouldn't mind having something cool tied to his name. Worrying about bad names even helped the two rival Goddesses get along for a moment.

Suddenly—

The tavern doors burst open.

"Welcome in, nya?" Anya called out, but her cheerful greeting died in her throat.

The men who came in weren't there to buy drinks. One was a dirty, bloodied Adventurer. On his back was another man in torn clothes, missing both legs.

"PLEASE! PLEASE SAVE MY PARTNER!"

The Adventurer's frantic eyes swept the room and instantly locked onto August. He bolted forward, collapsing to his knees right beside the booth. He slammed his forehead against the floorboards, sobbing uncontrollably.

August flinched, leaning back slightly.

What the hell? A random guy just crashes into the pub and begs him for a miracle?

"Your partner?" August narrowed his eyes, analyzing the weeping man.

The guy was wearing standard, heavily worn combat gear. The deep scratches on his armor and the dull edge of his blade marked him as a seasoned veteran. Yet here he was, carrying a crippled comrade on his back, begging a rookie for help.

"I heard the rumors! They say you can regrow severed limbs!" the Adventurer choked out, his voice trembling. "I know I have no right to ask this of you! But in all of Orario, you're the only one who can do it!"

"Even the Gods are calling your healing magic a literal miracle! I had to find you!"

He didn't care that August was technically a rookie. Rumors about the new Hestia Familia member having magic that could regrow flesh were spreading fast. August was his last hope.

"Who are you? And exactly who told you about me?" August demanded coldly. He wasn't about to hand out charity blindly.

"My name is Aris!" the man cried. "Our former Familia was exiled from the city for suspected ties to the Evils. My partner, Ous, lost his legs in the Dungeon protecting me. Because he couldn't fight anymore, our God tossed him onto the street like garbage."

"I couldn't leave him behind, so I also quit the Familia. We've been living in the slums of Daedalus Street ever since. That's where I heard the talk—they said that you have the power to restore limbs. Please! I'm begging you!"

Aris bared his entire tragic story right there on the tavern floor.

August glanced at Hestia. The Goddess gave a firm nod.

"He's telling the truth." Her divine lie-detection confirmed his sincerity. The man genuinely just wanted to save his brother-in-arms.

"And what about you?" August shifted his gaze to the crippled young man strapped to Aris's back. He looked barely out of his teens.

"I want to live."

"Please... let me live." Ous gritted his teeth and unbuckled the leather straps binding him to his friend. His mutilated body hit the floor with a heavy thud.

He dragged himself forward, locking eyes with August. The slums of Daedalus Street were a meat grinder. He had seen too much death. If this man held even a sliver of hope, he was going to claw his way toward it.

"Solid willpower." August respected that fire.

He knew that look. It was the same desperate, determined stare he had seen in elite soldiers fighting to survive on modern battlefields.

"Sacred flames, hear the sorrow of the wounded—[Healing Fire]!"

August raised his hand. A torrent of warm, brilliant flames erupted from his palm, instantly engulfing Ous's body in a cocoon of light.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"

Ous instantly convulsed. It felt as if his nerves were being shredded and violently stitched back together a thousand times over. He opened his mouth to scream.

"I just praised your grit. Are you really going to break now?" August's voice was as cold as ice.

Hearing the challenge, Ous bit his lip until it bled. The pain was overwhelming. His head felt like it might burst, but he held back his scream.

"Come on, Ous! Hold on!" Aris gripped his friend's shoulder, desperate.

"Holy shit! His legs!"

The Adventurers crowding the tavern gasped. From the jagged stumps of Ous's severed thighs, a frantic mass of muscle fibers, bone, and flesh was rapidly weaving itself together.

True physical regeneration.

Hearing the shouts, Aris stared at the writhing mass of new tissue. "They're growing! Ous, it's actually working! Endure it!"

Driven by the impossible hope in front of him, Ous clenched his jaw. He would endure hell itself if it meant walking again.

Standing behind the bar, Mia Grand watched the severed limbs reconstruct themselves. Her breath hitched.

Not even the most elite High Elven mages in Orario possessed magic capable of regenerating a lost limb. Yet here was a rookie effortlessly rewriting biology.

'So this is the monster.' Mia felt a rare chill of awe.

A healer capable of pulling someone back from permanent mutilation was untouchable. Anyone stupid enough to antagonize a medic of this caliber was begging for an early grave. The entire city would owe him their lives.

The Adventurers in the tavern were completely captivated.

They were witnessing a crippled, broken man reclaim his life. The Adventurer lifestyle was brutal. It ground people into dust. But they were still human. Every single person in that room understood the horror of a career-ending injury.

"It's working!"

"Just a bit more!"

"Don't pass out now, kid!"

The entire tavern started cheering for Ous. The collective empathy of seasoned warriors flooded the room as they watched the young man fight for his future.

And then—the toes finally formed.

"HE DID IT!"

"IT ACTUALLY WORKED!"

The pub erupted. Adventurers slammed their mugs together, roaring in absolute triumph. Witnessing a doomed comrade get a second chance at life ignited a fire in every soul present.

August cut off the mana flow, lowering his hand.

He wasn't surprised by the result. Back in his world, he had used this exact magic to patch up elite operatives who had stepped on IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices). Rebuilding a standard pair of legs was just another day at the office.

"You're whole again, Ous! You're whole!" Aris gripped his partner's hand, weeping tears of joy.

"Help me up." Ous grabbed Aris's shoulder, desperate to test his new legs.

Aris hoisted him up. But the moment Ous's bare feet touched the floor, his knees immediately buckled. He collapsed, completely unable to take a single step.

"Wait, didn't you fix him?" Aris panicked. "Why can't he walk?!"

"Are you an idiot?" August scoffed.

"His brain has been wired to a crippled body for months. The muscle memory is gone. His nervous system needs time to recalibrate to having limbs again."

"If you had dragged him to me the second they got chopped off, he'd be sprinting right now. Give it a few weeks of physical therapy."

August didn't expect someone from the streets to know about modern medicine, but he was still surprised by the lack of common sense.

"Oh... right." Aris flushed, realizing the logic.

Ous had been confined to a bed for so long he had literally forgotten how to balance on two feet.

"Bedridden atrophy is standard," August explained dismissively, waving a hand. "Put him through basic mobility drills. He'll be back to swinging a sword in the Dungeon within a month."

But for Aris and Ous, this was nothing short of a divine miracle.

"Lord August... our lives belong to you now. Command us, and we will answer." Both men bowed their heads deeply. They were entirely prepared to act as his loyal attack dogs for the rest of their lives.

"Pass. I don't need dead weight," August rejected instantly.

"But let's circle back to something you mentioned." August's tone sharpened. "You said you heard the rumor about my healing magic deep inside Daedalus Street?"

"Yes, sir," Aris answered honestly. "People were whispering about it in the alleys."

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Daedalus Street. Known throughout Orario by a much uglier name: The Slums.

It was a sprawling labyrinth of poverty, housing the absolute dregs of the city—along with exiled, destitute Gods.

Somehow, secret information about his new [Healing Fire] had been leaked straight into that place.

'Interesting.'

August realized he had just been targeted by one of Orario's underground dark factions.

"Tsk. What a pain in the ass."

He didn't know which specific Evil God had painted a target on his back, but he was fully prepared to crush them for trying to test him. These two desperate Adventurers had clearly been manipulated and pointed in his direction just to probe his capabilities.

But whoever pulled the strings in the shadows had miscalculated.

If they wanted to test him, they had given him the perfect chance. Showing off his power to heal in front of a crowd wouldn't make him look weak—it would turn him into a legend.

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