// Note: Slow early chapters, Endure it. No harem, as far as I've read. It's interesting
Beneath a gloomy sky, the streets looked battered and run-down.
On both sides of the road, gaunt, bent figures with haggard faces sat or lay where they were, forming a stark contrast to the brightly lit, laughter-filled Pleasure Quarter in the distance.
This was Daedalus Street, also known as Labyrinth Street, located in the northeastern corner of Orario, the center of the world.
Designed and built centuries ago by the genius Daedalus, the street was every bit as intricate and confusing as a maze.
At that moment, a figure wrapped head to toe in white bandages, his features almost impossible to make out, passed through the blank-faced crowd by the roadside, turned a corner, and arrived behind a grand building.
Here, the vacant-eyed crowd was even denser, yet no one made any noise. They simply stared silently at the tightly shut doors.
Before those imposing doors stood two beastmen leaning lazily against the entrance, weapons in hand.
Noir slowly walked forward and held out the money pouch from his arms.
"I brought all the money. Fifty thousand valis in total." Noir opened his mouth and spoke in a flat, emotionless voice.
"Very good. Starting today, you're an adventurer of the Soma Familia."
One of the beastmen, who had been leaning against the doorframe, snatched the pouch at once and weighed it in his hand.
"Now that your dream's come true, get lost."
"Falna."
The beastman acted as if he hadn't heard him. Exaggeratedly, he pressed an ear close to Noir and said, "What was that? I couldn't hear you."
"To become an adventurer, you need the Falna engraved by a patron deity, cough, cough!"
Perhaps because he had forced out too many words in one breath, Noir couldn't stop himself from coughing.
Watching him cover his mouth and cough again and again, the beastman sneered.
"With that sickly body of yours, you want to be an adventurer? You want a Falna? That's the funniest joke I've heard in ages, hahahaha!!!"
"Cough, cough, cough!!!"
Faced with the mockery, Noir only coughed harder.
At last, suppressing the discomfort, he drew a deep breath.
"Please give me my money back."
"Look, the money's right here. Come take it."
Noir stared without blinking at the beastman before him, one hand resting on the weapon at his waist, the other holding the money pouch out in plain sight.
After a brief silence, he turned around and left without a word.
"Hahahahaha!!!"
There was no visible change in Noir's expression, but the laughter behind him made his clenched fists tighten further, and bright red blood slipped soundlessly through the gaps between his fingers, exposing the rage he kept buried inside.
But so what?
No one understood what kind of Familia the Soma Familia really was better than he did.
Or what kind of scum filled its ranks.
Even knowing from the start that this would most likely be the outcome, he still had to try.
Though his memories had long since become a blur, one voice in his head had never stopped whispering.
Become an adventurer!
Noir had once gone to every Familia in Orario, but with a diseased body and frail health, he usually failed before even passing the most basic screening.
When he met ordinary Familias, things were still manageable. At worst, they would tell him he wasn't suited to becoming an adventurer.
But if he happened to run into one of the more notorious Familias, then what awaited him was ridicule, fists, and kicks.
Even so, Noir never gave up. After trying again and again, he finally learned a rumor through the grapevine.
As long as he handed over fifty thousand valis, the Soma Familia would accept him as one of its members.
Its reputation was terrible, yes, but it was still his last hope.
And now, that last sliver of hope had been crushed as well.
Even before coming here, Noir had already foreseen this ending. He didn't know why, but he had been certain things would turn out exactly like this.
And yet he had still come.
What if?
Crack!
A deafening peal of thunder suddenly exploded across the sky.
Then, one by one, raindrops began to fall.
"What am I supposed to do?!"
It sounded half like a question, half like a sigh.
Soaked by the rain, Noir walked step by step into a pitch-black alley.
The rainwater seeped into his bandages and irritated the cracked wounds beneath them, sending wave after wave of stinging pain through his body.
"You're back."
Outside an ordinary wooden house stood an elderly woman with a face full of wrinkles.
When she saw Noir walking slowly through the rain, she asked nothing. She only said calmly, "Come inside. Go back to your room and take off your wet clothes first. I'll fetch the medicine."
"Mm."
After returning to his room, Noir removed his drenched clothes and began unwrapping the layers upon layers of bandages around his body.
Beneath them were wounds, red blotches, festering sores.
As the bandages were torn away, the scabs that had long since stuck to his skin, now softened by rainwater, were ripped off as well.
Red, yellow, white, fluids of every kind flowed continuously from the wounds covering his body.
Noir was already used to that bone-deep agony, but every time he removed the bandages, his trembling body still refused to calm down.
"Sigh. How many times have I told you not to rip them off like that?"
Granny May came in carrying a basin of clean water and fresh bandages. Gently setting the basin down, she stopped Noir from what was almost self-harm.
"It saves time."
"It's fine. Besides, this old woman gets lonely at night by herself anyway."
With her rough hands, Granny May carefully loosened the rest of the bandages. After gently cleaning his wounds with fresh water, she wrapped him up again with new bandages, layer by layer.
Once she was done, she picked up the basin of murky water and the bloodstained bandages, then quietly left the dim room.
Lying expressionlessly on the bed, staring at the ceiling, Noir sank into thought.
Who am I?
Become an adventurer!
Why am I still alive? Why do I have to keep living in so much pain?
Become an adventurer!
There's no way. And even if I somehow did become one, so what?
Become an adventurer!
...
Morning came. Warm sunlight spread over the land of Orario. Adventurers, clad in neat armor and carrying weapons, descended the steps leading into the Dungeon and began their own journeys once more.
Noir opened his bloodshot eyes. The whisper that kept echoing in his mind, along with the unbearable itching beneath his bandages, denied him any real peace.
Even though he had already lost all hope of becoming an adventurer, Noir had no choice. Since he couldn't bring himself to die, all he could do was continue living the same life as always.
Once he had dressed and washed up, he pushed the fried potato puff cart Granny had prepared for him and headed toward the place where he usually sold them.
As he watched the endless stream of people passing by, he made no move at all.
He was like a lifeless puppet, standing there in stillness. Only when someone occasionally came to buy fried potato puffs would he raise his head and hand over the food.
Then he would lower his head again and fall back into silence.
"Hello, kid. Interested in joining my Familia?"
"Uh, sorry, no thanks."
"Don't go, come on! Joining my Familia comes with lots of benefits!"
"Oh? What kind of benefits?"
"You get a beautiful goddess!"
"Goodbye."
"Young man, at least give me a chance! I haven't eaten in two days!"
"Ah, right, I remember now. You're that lazy glutton goddess. Let go of me, I just remembered I have something to do at home..."
"Wuuuu... I'm so hungry!!!"
Grrr~
By the roadside, a petite girl with black twin tails and blue eyes lay sprawled on the ground. Her appearance and build fully lived up to the title of "Loli Goddess," small and youthful, yet with a surprisingly generous chest. A blue ribbon ran beneath her bust and tied around her arms.
At that moment, she lifted her head toward the boy fleeing into the distance, tears streaming down her face as she reached out a hand as though trying to call him back.
Unfortunately, after being kicked out by her divine friends and left penniless for the past few days, she had survived on nothing but water. By now, even standing up was a struggle.
"Here."
A hand wrapped in bandages suddenly held out a fragrant fried potato puff.
The moment she caught that mouthwatering scent, Hestia shot upright from the ground, snatched the food in one grab, and devoured it in the blink of an eye.
"So good! I've never had anything this delicious in my life!"
"That'll be thirty valis."
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