Nine days later.

Cirrus Zephyr

Lv. 1

Strength: C622--> B700 Endurance: H173--> G236

Dexterity: D555--> C609 Agility: C640--> B725

Magic: H198--> E460

“Seems my stats are pretty well,” Cirrus says as he burns the paper.

“You have been steadily making progress, you have made it to the 4th floor, correct,” Ouranos said.

“Yes, I’m going back today as well.”

“Do be careful,” Fels said. “The group Evilus has been even more active as of late.”

“Hm, I’ll be extra careful.”

Cirrus leaves the Room of Prayer, taking one of its secret entrances. As he does, he checks his short sword.

“Hmm… seems you are on your last legs.”

He checks his money to see if he can buy a new one.

“24,648 Valis… I can get a good sword with this… I hope.”

After coming out of a secret entrance in the Eastern-North section of the city, Cirrus dropped off his gear at home with only his sword and money in his bag. Lenoa said that a majority of smithing Familia’s sell their stuff from the 4th to 8th floor of Babel.

Going up, Cirrus finds the 4th floor filled with extremely high-quality stuff with expensive weapons and armor.

‘This shit hurts my heart looking at them.’

Cirrus went around looking for shops with cheaper options until he found one.

“Hmm… this is rather interesting?”

He looks down to find a rather gaudy-looking weapon with a red tassel. He picks it up, draws it from its scabbard, and swings it.

‘Balanced. Surprisingly despite it's odd mix of a 14-year old idea of cool and a 16-year old girl's emo phase appearance it's already a cut above many other works.'

Swish!

‘Sharp.’

He looks at the other swords and found most of them have dust on them.

‘Seems I found a diamond in the rough.'

He looks at the hilt of the sword and finds a name on it.

‘… Eupheme Leukos…. no Hephaestus symbol.’

He takes the blade and walks up to the shopkeeper.

“Hey, how much for the short sword?”

“That? 4,000 Valis.” The guy said with a confused look on him.

Cirrus puts down the money, the man quickly takes it.

“Can I ask where they might work?”

“Sure, whatever you want, kid, the smith is pretty odd.”

He told Cirrus where their workshop was and went to go see the blacksmith.

As he leaves the tower and was walking through the area around Babel, he hears a familiar voice.

"Cirrus!"

He turns to see Ai coming up to him with a large bag.

“That's my name, Ai, are you going into the dungeon?”

“Yup!” she turns to wave at her Familia.

'The Far Eastern Familia from the other day...'

Their resemblance to his world's Japanese attire gave Cirrus some comfort and some discomfort at how close they were.

“So you are the friend she made?” said Kushida.

“I helped her get back home is all I did.” He gave a slight smile.

“Well, we are thankful.” She looks around before looking at Cirrus. “Are you not also with your Familia?”

“I am the only member. Right now, I’m going to see a blacksmith.”

“Is that so? Well, we shouldn’t take up more of your time.”

“Hm, we'll see you again. Ai, let's go.”

“Okay… bye Cirrus!” she said with a bright smile, waving goodbye.

Walking to the Western outskirts of Orario a bit away from the Free Market in a rather slightly run-down area where it borders on poverty and middle class, there he found several other shops run by various other people.

“Hmm… this is the place?”

He looks up to the 2-story shop name in a rusty metal sign saying, ‘Brilliant Works’.

‘Gotta shine up the fucking sign… but given the conditions of the area, it’ll be smarter not to.’

He enters the shop and the bell rings; the shop is decorated in a very… odd style.

“Hello!? Is there anyone in??” he shouted.

Clang!!

Clang!!

Cirrus could hear the sounds of hammering; he slowly made his way to the sound, seeing several other weapons with various designs.

He kept approaching the sound and found a woman with platinum hair kept in a ponytail with several black smudges on it, as well as her clothes and skin are littered with her handprints and the like. She wore a tank top with baggy pants.

“Hey!! Hey!!” Cirrus shouted out.

“?” the smith stopped and turned to see a 7-year-old. “Who are you?” she said in a monotone voice with her grey dull eyes as if she were a machine.

“My name is Cirrus um. Are you Eupheme Leukos the smith who made this short sword?”

Cirrus holds out the short sword and her eyes slightly widen, but not enough for Cirrus to realize at first.

“You… you came to meet me for that work?”

“Umm… yeah? I wanted to meet the smith who made such a fine sword for a steal.”

“…” she looks at him carefully with squinted eyes. “You like my work even if it's different? Or… embarrassing?”

“Well… it’s a bit embarrassing, but it will still save me down in the dungeon, but all in all, it's not bad.”

“… Then… you really like my work?”

She said with her eyes sharpened on Cirrus.

“Oh yeah, it’s good stuff. I was hoping you even had armor and the like?”

“!?” she quickly turned her head before turning back with a neutral expression on her was with a slight hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. “My name is Eupheme Leukos, a level 2 in the Hephaestus Familia!!” she said in her monotone voice, but now with more excitement. “So what can I do you for Cirrus?”

NotOriginal

Eupheme is named after one of Hephaestus' children in myth. Leukos means white in Greek.