The Protagonist System

Hestia had to go to work, as did Hephaestus, so there was only a small amount of laziness in the morning. I had been awake since the break of dawn like usual and had basked in being the filling of a goddess sandwich. Their two very different bodies were a delight to be between and I couldn't have asked for anything better.

In fact, my previous night had been between Aiz and Lili, a tall young woman and a short young woman, and I had felt the same way then. One tall beauty and one short-stack was a great combination and I hadn't even realized I had duplicated the situation until that moment.

I really couldn't ask for anything better and I wasn't going to mention it at all, to anyone, ever. If any of them thought I had engineered things, it would all blow up in my face, so I kept quiet and made breakfast for the two goddesses.

After they ate, I kissed Hestia goodbye and told her to have a great day at work, then kissed Hephaestus and told her the same thing, then I took a step to appear in the living room back at the church. I went right to the kitchen and made a second breakfast for my Familia and the smells woke them up.

“You just came in?” Lili asked as she rubbed her eyes. She only wore a slip and sat down at the table.

“I made Hestia and Hephaestus breakfast first.” I said as an explanation and gave her a quick kiss as I served her a nice meal.

Aiz walked into the room wearing pyjamas and looked quite cute. I sat her down and gave her a kiss as well, then served her. She dug in without saying anything and I didn't expect her to, since she was normally a quiet person.

Ryuu was the most dressed as she entered the room wearing her bodysuit. Aiz, Lili, and I exchanged amused looks and didn't comment on it. If she wanted to wear it all the time under her clothes, that was up to her.

“Are you heading into town to help the prep work at the pub?” I asked before I gave her a kiss and served her.

Ryuu nodded. “I didn't quit my job, I just changed where I lived.”

“Good for you.” Lili said. “Our goddess did the same thing. Just because we're becoming successful, that doesn't mean she has to abandon the people that helped her when she needed it.”

Ryuu nodded again and smiled, clearly glad we weren't holding it against her or asked her to give up the way she lived her life, just because she was in our Familia.

I sat down and ate as well. I also shared what they already knew about Hestia accepting me again. I apologized for not coming home the night before and Lili laughed while Aiz and Ryuu looked amused.

“Hestia wouldn't let you leave after that.” Lili said and the other two nodded.

Ryuu left the main room briefly and returned wearing her actual maid outfit and no a transfigured copy. I did up a lunch for her to take with her and Ryuu tried to refuse, so I included four more for the other three maids and her boss, Mamma Mia.

“If Hestia has another great day today, we'll have a pile of potato snacks to enjoy later.” I said and gave Ryuu a nice shoulder bag to carry the lunches in.

“Gravy too?” Lili asked with a hopeful face.

“Why not? I'll sprinkle some cheese on them, too.” I said as Ryuu admired the bag.

“That is an odd thing to put on gravy.” Aiz commented.

“It's really tasty. You'll like it.” Lili said.

“I need to go.” Ryuu said, slightly disappointed.

“I'll walk you out.” I offered and she blushed a little, then nodded. I took her hand and led her up the stairs and out through the secret door and over to the teleportation circle. “After I show you how o tap into this, it will cut a lot of travel time from going to and from work.”

“What do you mean?” Ryuu asked. “There's no circle anywhere near the pub.”

“Not yet.” I said and gave her a quick lesson on the teleportation spell, then I activated it and used it to shunt us to the alleyway next to the pub instead of a set destination. “It takes a lot more magic to do it that way, so I'm adding this to the church's end of the teleportation system.”

Ryuu caught her breath when the ground under our feet transformed into a miniature teleportation circle. A wave of my hand covered it in dust and hid it from view.

“You can reach here from any of the other teleportation circles, since they are all connected.” I said and leaned in to give her cheek a kiss. “Have a good day at work.”

“I... I will.” Ryuu said and walked away.

I stood there and didn't move until she stopped and turned back to look at me. I waved to her and she nodded, then she went into the pub. I stepped back to the church and went down the stairs to the living room.

“Bell, can we talk to you?” Lili asked me as soon as she saw me. Both she and Aiz had moved over to the couches.

“Of course you can.” I said and sat beside her. “What's this about?”

“Aiz, Ryuu and I were talking last night about starting our own business.” Lili informed me. “We have some expensive and rare maps, and we need to do the rest of them above Floor 18. Once we have the full set, we can either charge a bunch for them all or sell them individually and earn a lot more.”

I thought about that and what it meant. “You're cutting out the guild?”

“No, we'll give them the maps, too. We just won't charge the same outrageous price for them.” Lili answered. “Oh, and we want you to convert all those extra armor pieces you have into cheaper ones and maybe some smaller weapons. We can sell them as well and make a ton of money, because customers will live long enough to want better stuff later and can afford it without going deep into debt.”

I smiled at her coming up with it. “I was thinking the same thing, actually. It's a waste for me to carry all that stuff around anyway.”

Lili let out a happy sound and hugged me.

“We can't undercut the guild too much, since we don't want to anger them. We can give much better prices than the other weapon makers and armorers in the city, though.” I told her.

“You already have the materials, so anything we charge is pure profit!” Lili almost shouted. “I can even appraise the things you make and we can mark them with the real price and then we only charge them a percentage of it because we already have much better stuff!”

“Once word gets around that we're clearing out our stock for cheap, everyone's going to come looking for a great deal.” I said and she nodded several times. “Then I'll start working on that while you and Aiz go into the dungeon and gather up the monster crystals that should have built up overnight.”

“I can handle it.” Lili said, a bit defensively, since she had done it alone the day before.

I smiled and put an arm over her shoulders. “Aiz was hired to be our guard when we enter the dungeon, remember? I'm sure there's going to be a monster or two on the lower floors that's just waiting for someone to step outside the protective barrier.”

Aiz perked up at hearing that and gave Lili a questioning look.

Lili understood what I meant and nodded at her. “I suppose I did rush the last time because I didn't want to chance being caught.”

“Just make sure you don't have too much fun without Tsubaki and I there to back you up.” I cautioned her and Aiz. “I'll help armor you up if you need it.”

Both of them nodded and left the living room to get changed into their bodysuits. They came back almost right away and I spent the next twenty minutes helping them dress in their armor sets. There was a lot of innuendo, gentle caresses, and a few kisses shared by the time they were fully armored up.

“It's just not fair how strong and sexy you look all done up like that.” I said with admiration and they both blushed. “If you have any trouble you can't handle...”

“We'll come right back here to get you.” Lili promised and Aiz nodded.

I kissed them both goodbye and they left with smiles on their faces. I waited until I felt the teleporation circle activate and took out my crafting trunk. I would do up a few basic sets of armor and would add minor enchantments on them, just because it would keep people protected more than the basic armor would.

I also added in a tag function and it would let me know who the owner was. If anyone sold it to someone else, or stole it from the customer, it would no longer work. We would have to warn them about that, too. It should stop people from reselling them and ripping other people off.

I worked for a while, perhaps an hour, before the teleportation circle activated again. I felt Lili and Aiz appear and come down the stairs. Aiz had a small smile on her face and Lili looked like she was trying to not roll her eyes at the battle-hungry blonde.

“I assume one of you had a bit more fun than the other thought she would?” I asked.

Lili made a huff sound and Aiz nodded several times.

“Do you need me to help you undress?” I asked and Lili dropped her backpack and started pulling on the straps holding her armor on. I chuckled and helped her strip off, getting her worked up at the same time, and then it was Aiz's turn. She didn't vocally give any indication she was also horny, she just gave extra touches and stayed much closer to me than necessary.

Needless to say, we ended up having a threesome on the large couch and had a lot of fun. Lili getting a lot of free money and Aiz having some good fights, had them both excited and they needed to work it off in the best way they knew how. With me.

I cleaned us up with a few spells and went back to work converting all of the extra armor pieces into different ones and made a good portion of them into daggers, short blades, batons, metal staffs, and short axes. It would give us the best mix of items for sale and we just had to work out if we were allowed to sell them or had to pay a fee to whomever ran those kinds of things.

Could we just set up a stall near the others or would we have to set up somewhere out of the way? I wouldn't like having to do that and would prefer to put it right in front of the dungeon's entrance. On second thought, maybe not in front of the entrance. Inside? Could that work? Would anyone try to stop us? Then again, people would have to brave the first level of the dungeon just to shop at our stall.

I chuckled and shook my head. If we were selling better things, doing it inside the dungeon would make sense, because then we would only have serious customers that needed better things and not everyone just browsing to see what we had for sale and wasting our time.

“What time is it?” Lili asked and didn't lift her head from cuddling with Aiz.

“I'll make us lunch in a little while and then we can head over to visit Tsubaki. We can finish the maps of the other floors to complete the set we want to sell.” I answered.

Lili hummed agreement and went back to sleep. I lifted my eyes from adding leather to the handle of a nice short sword and saw Aiz with a smile on her face and her arms wrapped around Lili's shoulders. I smiled as well and leaned in to briefly kiss her, then returned to work. The weapons would need sharpening and the armor needed to be polished before they would be ready for sale.

*

Most of the Loki Familia hadn't taken Aiz Wallenstein defecting to another Familia well. Some felt betrayed, some felt abandoned, some were sad, and a lot were angry. How dare that upstart goddess Hestia steal their precious Aiz! She had no right forcing her to convert to her faith!

Loki tried to keep the happy smile off of her face as nearly all of her members spread the rumors around the city about how underhanded and evil the Hestia Famila was. They had corrupted the Loki Familia's poor innocent Aiz into giving up the goddess that saved her from the dungeon and nurtured her into the battle maiden she had become.

Out of all of the members that were outraged about it, there was only one that didn't believe any of it. Tiona Hiryute. She had been the first to meet Bell and she knew that he wasn't like what Loki had said. Even when Aiz had been right there while she and Bell were having fun, he had treated Aiz with respect and even taught her a few lessons while saying she should only do those things with someone she cared about.

It had been both sweet and a huge turn on, which was why Tiona had wanted to have so much sex with him at the time. That and Bell adored playing with her small breasts. He had given them a lot more attention than even she thought they deserved and her opinion of him was cemented as a nice guy.

Bell would never poach Aiz like Loki said, as if he was trying to get revenge on her for something he never could have known about. How would he? The Familias his parents were members of, had been wiped out before he was born... and wasn't that a shocking thing to learn. Bell was technically a member of both the Zeuz and Hera Familias and every Familia had rejected him.

“I don't agree with what's going on.” Tiona said to her twin sister, Tione, as they sat in the living room of the large mansion they lived in.

“You're a little late with that stance, sis.” Tione said as she brushed her long hair.

“I tried to speak up at first and Loki said I was corrupted by Bell.” Tiona said with a sigh.

“You were corrupted a lot by him.” Tione joked.

“If that's what corrupting means, then yes. He did me so well I can't get off with anyone else.” Tiona admitted.

“What? Really?” Tione asked, surpised.

“The sex was okay the last time I tried; but, they couldn't get me off, even when I helped.” Tiona said, sadly.

“Sis, I'm so sorry.” Tione said and dropped her brush to hug her sister. It was a horrible day in the life of an amazonness when they didn't enjoy having sex anymore.

Tiona hugged her only briefly and let her go. “I don't know why Loki is trying to ruin Bell's and Aiz's reputations.”

“Aiz abandoned us, sis. You know how vicious Loki can be when she's wronged.” Tione reminded her.

“No, Aiz was being stifled and hasn't progressed her level in years. Loki kept trying to molest her and Aiz left because she was tired of Loki's behavior.” Tiona said, feeling the rightness of her words as she spoke them. “None of us tried to stop Loki because she's our goddess.”

“That sounds like you feel the same way.” Tione said, her voice flat.

Tiona gave her sister a squinted look. “I'm only staying here because we've always been together and I didn't want to leave you alone with a pervy goddess.” She said and then remembered something. “So, tell me the truth. If Finn wasn't Loki's captain and you couldn't see him every day, would you have stayed a member of the Loki Familia for as long as you have?”

Tione blushed and looked away without saying anything.

“Have I ever once called you an idiot for falling in love with that self-righteous prick that never once returned your affection or even acknowledged you as a woman?” Tiona asked and her sister shook her head. “Then don't be angry I think Aiz had a right to leave and it was long past time she should have.”

“Then perhaps you should leave as well.” Riviera said, the stern older elf looked murderous.

Tiona looked over at her and knew she was very upset over Aiz leaving her behind. Instead of ignoring the anger aimed at her, Tiona instead stood up to face her. “I'm sorry that expressing my opinion offended you so much that you want me to leave the Familia I've been with since I was 12.”

Riviera looked surprised before she frowned at her. “Five years is nothing to an elf.”

Tiona turned her back on the elf and looked at her sister. “Can you meet with Finn and arrange for all my shares in the Familia's businesses and money to be delivered to my room while I pack?”

“Tiona!” Tione gasped and jumped to her feet. “You're an executive of the Loki Familia! You can't leave!”

“I didn't think I could either.” Tiona said and didn't look back at the elf. “I've made my decision and I suggest you decide if you want to spend the rest of your life waiting for a stupid prum that will never return your love or follow me to a place we know will always welcome us, no matter what.”

Tione didn't know what to say as her sister, someone she had spent her entire life with, stalked out of the living room and ignored the angry look on the elf that caused her to leave.