Loki's Renard

Arc 2 Chapter 3 - The Truth of Evil

Hey guys, hope you're having a good day. Striker777 here with the next chapter of Loki's Renard. This is the beginning of a four part mini-arc centred around Akihide's introduction to Evilus, as well as some other major elements in the story. Anyway, onto the story!

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Akihide looked around the entryway of the Stardust Garden apprehensively. He was so nervous, and was fiddling with gear. His tantō were in his hands, still sheathed but were being shaken between his fingers as he nervously awaited his teacher and party member. Megami no Hana was laid next to the couch, resting against one of the coffee tables that the Astraea Familia decorated their home with, and resting next to it atop the table was Utsukushī-me, resting in it's sheath. Akihide looked over his gear once more, looking at his weapons, his potion supply and his armour, before deciding all was well and waited patiently once more. But he wasn't waiting to go into the Dungeon.

Lyra, one of the key strategists of the Astraea Familia had come down with a sudden case of food poisoning and was bedridden for the next few days. That meant that someone would have to take her place on patrol during the day, but the Astraea Familia simply didn't have the numbers with their rotations and making sure everyone was as prepared as possible in case something went wrong on patrol.

So, hearing about this unfortunate set of events, Akihide volunteered his services to the Astraea Familia and said he would help patrol in Lyra's place.

After almost half a year of being an adventurer, even if there were a few times Akihide wasn't doing much adventuring, he had certainly gotten a lot stronger, the strongest child in the world, many reckoned. Akihide had not progressed further down the Dungeon than Floor 10, either with his Familia, party, or Ottar. He was beginning to slow down once more with gaining status and Excilia, but he was so close to hitting his goal of one stat in A to head down to Floor 11 and 12, he was willing to wait around and farm a bit more on Floor 10 to improve his skills. He was close to, just over 30 stats off his mark, which he was expecting to get in the next month or even sooner than that. But in the mean time, he was still stuck on Floor 10 with his party.

He had improved in party rankings too. He had finally outmatched everyone in his party with his agility stat, being 4 points more than Ryuu's own at 765, and had gained a lot of practice with his new weapons thanks to Kaguya training him once more (or beating him into the ground for doing something as stupid as going to a lower floor in the Dungeon with a complete stranger), but it had been a valuable experience that simply cemented something Ottar had theorised.

Akihide Okami was a prodigy at being an adventurer.

It was true. He was certainly no Alfia, the Incarnation of Talent, who could instantly replicate and master any move she saw a single time, it took hard work for Akihide to get his moves down, but he had a certain spark that made him better than most other adventurers. No one could really place what it was exactly that made him that good, but he was good. He quickly adapted to situations, and if he wasn't completely outmatched in every aspect, he could more often than not pull out a win. He had won in friendly spars against Ardee and Ryuu before, both of whom have bigger stats than him as well as more experience, but he was somehow able to mitigate the reach of their weapons and knock them down.

Reflecting on that is what made Alise and Kaguya decide to bring him along and let him patrol with them. But of course, Alise had to make it so that she was the sole reason that he had decided to come with them, and not the million other reasons, such as boredom, desire to grow stronger or simply wanting to help people. No, it was all Alise Lovell. "Hehehe! I managed to get one of the Loki Familia's members so excited about justice that they're going on patrol with our familia. I'm one step closer to perfection!" she sang out, much to the annoyance of Ryuu, Kaguya and Lyra herself, who threw a pillow at her head and ordered that she shut up.