Danmachi: The Multiverse Portal

New week, guys. We've gone down the rankings way too much, let's push!!!

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Hestia was just as surprised as anyone when Marie Alter calmly said she wanted to have August's children.

"Wait, are all Heroic Spirits this bold?" Up until now, Hestia hadn't really seen any of them as serious competition. But maybe she needed to rethink that.

"Captain, is this what they call a harem showdown?" one of the younger Artemis Familia members asked.

She looked at the women around August, then glanced at Rethusa, clearly curious. Moments like this didn't happen often, so she wasn't sure what else to call it.

"Not even close," Rethusa whispered back.

"If we're talking about who's already won, Lady Hestia is way ahead. It was over before it began. I heard Lady Artemis say that whenever Hestia visits August's world, they share a bed. The other five don't even have real identities here, and none of them has a recognized place with him in his own world. Lady Hestia is the only official one."

Lante looked over the five Heroic Spirits before sharing her thoughts. "I think Miss Ereshkigal is the only one who might catch up."

Artemis had been enjoying the gossip until Lante's answer made her turn toward her adopted daughter. Out of all six women, she really thought Ereshkigal, the one who was always buried in work, had the best chance?

"Why her?"

"Miss Ereshkigal might be a bit tsundere. She talks to herself a lot too, kind of like Miss Jeanne Alter,"

Lante said. "But everything she does is to help Mr. August. More importantly, the soldiers from his world already accept her. If she ever got the chance, they might even help her get a marriage certificate. That's almost like getting his family's blessing."

"That's why I think she has the best chance out of all six."

Even Artemis had to admit that Lante's reasoning made sense.

"I see!" She clapped her hands. "Looks like I underestimated her."

Ereshkigal hadn't tried to win by sticking close to August or fighting for his attention. Instead, she took a different approach and won over the people around him first. No matter what happened between them, she had already found a place for herself in his homeland.

By then, Tiamat, Olga Marie, and Hestia had stopped arguing. All three had heard every word of the Artemis Familia's whispered conversation.

Hestia didn't seem worried, but the others definitely were.

Ereshkigal had done something impressive. While everyone else rushed straight toward August, she quietly found her own way and got ahead without anyone noticing.

August listened to the women talk about his love life and decided he'd heard enough. If this kept up, he'd never make it back to base.

"Let's go," he said, already starting to walk away. "We need to get out of here. There's still work to do."

If he stuck around any longer, they might finish judging him and decide he was just some heartless guy who led women on and left them behind...

The Artemis Familia watched as the man they'd been talking about made his escape. With the show over, the huntresses shared disappointed looks and followed him out of the canyon, ending the battle there.

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August returned to the military camp where Commander James was stationed. They hadn't been gone for long, yet he had somehow come back with a new Servant following him.

"August, my boy—you're back." Commander James walked over to meet him. "How did the battle go? Any trouble?"

"It went well. We tested quite a few weapons," August said. He gestured toward the veiled woman beside him. "This is the new Servant I contracted. Assassin-class."

August saw no reason to keep the Zealot hidden from the soldiers. She watched the men nearby. They did not share her faith, but their eyes showed the same steady conviction. She stayed silent and close to her new Master.

Soon, several soldiers brought out a reinforced containment unit. Jester Karture was locked inside, held by restraints that fit his body so tightly he could not move a finger.

"Stay here for now," August told the Zealot. "I'm taking them back to my world."

Jester looked through the transparent section of the container and saw his former Servant standing obediently behind August. His eyes widened.

What was this? They had captured him, made him a research subject, and even taken his Servant.

"Understood, Master," the Zealot replied.

She had already guessed August planned to return to his world. A doorway appeared, and thirty soldiers surrounded Jester's containment unit and pushed it through.

Hestia, Lili, Artemis, and the Artemis Familia stayed behind. Since August would return to Snowfield soon, they went back to their base to wait.

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August's World.

The moment Jester crossed the threshold, a scream tore out of the sealed unit.

"LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT!"

They had just arrived at the military base on August's side. Medical staff and researchers gathered around the container and saw that the captive inside was dying—or rather, fading away.

"Doctors! Get the doctors over here!"

Several older medical specialists hurried over when the soldiers called out. One look at Jester's collapsing body made them gather around the controls.

"Open the unit," August ordered.

He had not expected this... They had worked hard to capture Jester and bring him back alive, but the Dead Apostle was vanishing before the researchers could study him.

The escort unlocked the unit. As soon as it opened, Jester's weak body broke apart into particles of energy. The particles scattered and disappeared.

"How is that possible?"

The doctors never touched him. Their instruments recorded almost nothing. They could only watch as the vampire they wanted to study vanished before their eyes, and even August could not sense what had happened.

"That was a vampire," one of the researchers said. "How was it that easy to kill?"

Several older men in white coats gathered around the empty unit. They were not doctors, but research specialists. Each had hoped to study a Dead Apostle, an ageless being that survived by draining energy and life from others.

Now their only specimen was gone.

"Could the laws of our world reject the very existence of a Dead Apostle? No, that can't be the whole answer."

"The laws may be different, or perhaps our world exists on a higher dimensional tier," another researcher suggested. "His body may not have been able to withstand direct exposure to it."

Jester was still a high-ranking Dead Apostle, the kind of vampire the researchers thought could one day rival an Ancestor—yet once the unit opened and he was exposed to this world, his body lasted less than a second.

Even indoors, this world had erased him...

"..." August looked at the empty restraints, not sure what to think.

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Soon after, he went back through the portal and came back with Hestia and Commander James. They had lost their only specimen before they could collect any useful data, and no one there understood what had happened.

Hestia folded her arms, crouched beside the containment unit, and studied the air around it.

"Just as I thought," she said at last. "Without power on the level of a God supporting them, beings from that world can't survive here."

She could still sense faint traces of what had once made up Jester Karture's existence. The world had already erased those traces so completely that nothing was left to recover.

"The humans in my world have lived alongside the Gods for generations. Almost all of them carry at least a faint trace of divine influence," Hestia explained. "Even so, ordinary people from our world wouldn't last long here."

She looked up at August. "The people in your world exist at a much higher level, August. If one of our children wanted to survive here, they would at least need to be an adventurer connected to a God through a Falna."

That would only be enough to keep them alive. To move freely in August's world without a divine contract, a visitor would need to be a true God-level being.

Anything less would be worn away and erased by the world itself.

"A higher level of existence?" August repeated.

This was the first time anyone had described him, or the other humans from his world, in those terms.

"Yes, though I can't explain exactly why." Hestia scratched her head.

She had never looked into the matter closely. Hestia preferred to enjoy herself rather than analyze the laws behind every world August visited. Besides, few beings here were under her protection, and she did not plan to use her divine power to change the natural order of his world.

The researchers could not do anything about the specimen they had lost. They collected the readings their instruments had managed to capture and quietly wrote down everything Hestia told them.

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I'm lowering the goal for the bulk upload quite a bit this week!

Bulk upload of 5 chapters if we hit 600 Power Stones this week!!

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~ Every 200 Power Stones = Bonus chapter!

~ 30 Advanced Chapters Available on Patreon

https://p-atreon.com/dragonnx

(Just remove the hyphen to access Patreon normally.)