“I am Ganesha!” A voice boomed out from behind my room's door.

Me and Hephaestus had been talking to one another for about an hour. It was nothing serious just how our smithing has been and things going on around the city, she hadn’t brought up the incident in the Dungeon yet.

A weary sigh came from my Goddess and she stood to go to the door, but it was banged open by a large man in an elephant mask.

“Hello! I am Ganesha! I have heard that you…” He stopped suddenly and looked at me oddly.

This would be the third Deity I had met face to face. There were hundreds in the city, most having small Familias of only a handful of people. Everytime I had seen one I had gone the opposite way. With the current percentage being one selfish bitchy Goddess and one that is the embodiment of perfection in both personality and body, I was cautious of them to say the least.

“Ah, well no matter! I am Ganesha! And I thank you for saving my precious Familia members young man. They have told me of your great exploits,” the God said dramatically. “Hephaestus, where did you find such a boy?”

“He came to me,” she said, squaring her shoulders with a bit of pride.

“Good, good he has sense coming to someone like you first. Now boy, it's Kova right? My Familia members would like to come and thank you. Is that alright?”

“Uh sure.”

After he left the room Hephaestus turned to me.

“He's a good guy, really cares about people, not just his Familia members. So you don’t need to worry about him. I’ll also make sure to tell him not to have too loud of a mouth, though most people just ignore him anyways.”

“Alright I trust you.”

She left and a minute later the group of Ganesha Familia members came in. Their Level Two leader was also covered in bandages, but he was at least able to walk. The girl that had taken the spear to the leg was using a crutch and the others had their own wounds taken care of.

“Hello, Kova right? We just want to thank you for helping us. I’m Hashana by the way.”

I shook the man's hand with my non broken one and the rest of the group introduced themselves.

“Hi! I’m Ardi, thanks for helping us out, but I’m sorry that you got hurt. We already decided to pay for the medical bills so you don’t need to worry about that.”

“Thanks,” I said.

The girl seemed like a genuinely nice person, her smile was kind and I could tell there was no ulterior motive or false emotion.

“Also your magic was awesome! You already have two but you're so young and only Level One! I guess it must be the elven blood in you, and you’re so cute, like a little princeling.”

“Uhm thanks,” I said awkwardly.

It was hard to accept genuine praise from a stranger, Tsubaki always did it in a teasing way and I was usually the one teasing Rose or Hephaestus. Thinking of Rose, she was going to be pissed at me, I need to bring her extra potato puffs, maybe flowers too, nah she'd prefer it if I just handed her money with the potato puffs.

“Oh there’s something else,” Ardi said with a wince. “We recovered your gear, but one of your swords didn’t make it, also a lot of your potions were broken and your chest plate cracked.”

That was going to be a pain to replace, but they did what they were suppose to.

Another woman entered the room. She looked to be around the same age as Tsubaki with short blue hair and a slim body. She had a thin metal headband and earrings that seemed more culturally inclined than just jewelry. Sharp eyes and a half-frown gave her a no nonsense aura. A cool beauty waifu then.

“Big sis,” Ardi called a bit sheepishly.

“Hashana thank you for protecting my sister and the others, I’m glad to see that all of you made it out alright.”

“Its no problem captain,” the man said a bit stiffly.

Captain of the Ganesha Familia, Shakti Varma a Level Four adventurer. When looking up the strongest Familias in the public records I had read about her. Unlike the Loki and Freya Familias that had a decent number of Level Fives and the one Level Six in Freya’s case. The Ganesha Familia had almost a dozen Level Fours and also their huge number of lower Leveled members.

“Lord Ganehsa told me that I could find you all here,” She turned to me and gave a slight bow. “Kova I was told that you saved them at risk to your own life. Thank you for that, is there anything we can do for you?”

I thought about it for a moment. Obviously I wasn’t just going to let that debt go with a friendly smile.

“Yes! So I’ve been struggling to find people to join up with in a party recently. If you have some I could join here and there I’d be happy to. Also perhaps you could find someone that wants a direct contract with a smith. They’ll have to be willing to work with someone my age of course. Maybe her,” I said pointing to Ardi.

It wasn’t that I was attracted to her, she wasn’t even a teenager, it was that she was the younger sister of the Ganesha Familia’s captain. She was basically a princess, that meant she was loaded.

The money demon in my mind that had formed from when I “convinced” Bast to give me money chuckled evilly. Shakti squinted her eyes at me, maybe she had the ability to see my inner money grubber.

“Sure!” Ardi said. “But I’ll need to test out your stuff first. I don’t want some low quality gear to get me killed.”

Damn, that was borderline rude.

We agreed that she’d meet at my forge in a few days after I was healed up so she could test out a few of my weapons and I could take her measurements and requests. Soon they left, still needed to rest on their own to heal up.

“Hehehehehehehe,” I cackled in my bed.

“So, finally picked up a girl in the Dungeon huh?” Hephaestus said.

I jumped a little, I hadn’t noticed that she’d come back in.

“No! Well actually I did in a way, I got my first direct contract.”

She smiled and sat back down next to me.

“That’s great Kova.”

“And she’s the little sister of the captain, she must be rolling in cash, hehehehehe.”

“I don’t think Shakti is the kind of person to just give her little sister money for no reason.”

“High quality gear is a very good reason.”

“Don’t you dare scam that little girl, she’s way too nice to be treated like that. Not to mention it will give you a bad name,” Hephaestus said seriously.

“I wasn’t going to scam her, just-”

Hephaestus’s one eye glared.

“Fine.”

-A/N-

3*3=9