The Ganesha Familia was still getting ready when I arrived at the entrance to the 17 floor. About 60 adventurers were working hard putting monster cages on top of wagons.

 

            Giving a brief nod to Guile and Mord who were busy pushing the Mad Beetle’s I approached Scott who was resting by a wagon filled with Lizardman and Hobgoblins, at least I think they are hogboglins.

 

            “Good to see you up, we were beginning to think you we’d have to pay for someone to carry you to Orario” Said Scott sounding incredibly tired, his remaining arm holding on to his stump with a tight grip “you sure you don’t want to rest another day?”           

 

            “I thought I’d need help to get to Orario alive?”

 

            “Well yes but there’s no need to rush it anymore” He said and laid a hand on my shoulder “You’ve got the money from the Vouivre now and it’s not like we’re gonna leave you down here after what you did for Mord, it’s fine if you need another day or two of rest”

 

            I thought about it, truth was I’d have been very tempted to take him up on the offer when I woke up but, after updating my falna, I was feeling much better and I wanted to see finally see Orario.

 

            “I’m fine” I said and immediately felt an irrational amount of guilt, looking at my trembling hand I sighed “Well, not completely fine but my body is good enough”

 

            “First time killing someone?” He guessed while motioning for me to sit beside him on the wagon

 

              “First time in a real fight actually” I confessed and squeezed my hand in a fist to stop the shaking “I grew up in a fairly safe place”

 

            “Well, I know it won’t make this easier but you did the right thing killing that man” looking up Scott seemed to get lost in thought “I remember when I first became an adventurer, assholes like them were everywhere. It used to be you couldn’t trust anybody even up there in Orario much less down here”

 

            “I take it that’s not the case anymore?”

 

            “Things are kept in order pretty well nowadays but you never know, a single mistake is all it takes for something like Evilus to come back” he sighed and scratched at his stump again “That’s why you have to kill those bastards as soon as you can, those kind of people never stop unless you make them”

 

            Fuck, I’d much rather people get judged and sent to jail or something but I could understand his point of view, in such might makes right society killing bandits before they could cause damage or grow too strong was probably the best I could hope for.

 

            Still didn’t make me feel better about killing someone though.

 

            “Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for helping Mord, we all owe you one”

 

            “I wasn’t really thinking about him at the time” I confessed embarrassed, I still didn’t know why I had attacked the Vouivre like that but saving Mord had only been a minor consideration, It was more that I couldn’t help myself.

 

Everything had been happening so fast. All the blood fear and excitement of the fight had gotten to my head and I couldn’t bring myself to do the logical thing.

 

Scott gave me a strange look but eventually shook his head “No matter the reason you saved my friend and that’s all I care about”

 

I suppose I too wouldn’t care about why someone saved me as long as I got to live.

 

After that we just watched as the adventurers worked around us as fast as they could, I thought about helping out but, with only one good arm and no idea what I was supposed to do I’d probably just get in the way.

 

Soon all seven wagons were filled with cages and the caravan started going up, I watched as Guile was made to help pull one of the wagons and Mord was put to work fighting monsters ahead of us.

 

Without an arm both Scott and I were left closer to the wagons so we could deal with any wounded monster that got away from the fighters without having to stop the wagons or raise the alarm in case of something we couldn’t deal with.

 

A tall man in full plate constantly walked around out caravan making sure everything was in order or yelling at everyone involved when a wagon had to stop but we were still advancing fast for people completely on foot going up two floors in four hours.

 

“Why did they hire more people” I asked Scott as I retrieved one of his daggers from a dead lamia mormos, all around me I could see idle adventurers talking and joking with each other.

 

It looked like the Ganesha familia could do this with half those people.

 

“From what I understand Ganesha called most of his adventurers back for something” He said wiping the dagger with a cloth before putting it back in place “Hashana was the only powerhouse left to deal with the monsters so they had to hire a few people just to make sure, don’t want to risk monsters spawning all around and ruining everything”

 

We soon reached another open space and Hashana Dorlia, the huge man in full plate, called for a full stop while casually stomping on the head of a minotaur.

 

We sat down in a circle, and waited until Mord came back from monster extermination to start eating, the man was covered in sweat and panting hard, still not completely recovered from the bloodloss.

 

“Are we really gonna reach Orario today?” I asked, it was already midday and we were still in the middle of the 15^th floor.

 

“Ah don’t worry about it, the upper floors are much smaller and the monsters are hardly a challenge, after the 10^th floor it’ll only take us 2 to 3 hours to reach Orario at most”

 

That made sense, the place we were in was an oppressive cave system made from bare rock and filled with dark corridors, the air was humid and shadows flickered everywhere, if I didn’t have my eye I was sure it would be very easy to become lost.

 

 Worse yet, I had to stay alert to avoid any stray level 2 monster least they spawn on top of me or rush the carts before I could avoid them but, from what I remember from the anime, the upper floors are much better illuminated and had human sized monsters at most.

 

“Yo Mord, good to see you’re alive!” came the strong male voice as Hashana himself dropped besides me and took off his helmet “Who’s the new guy? A little too skinny for Ogma don’t you think?”

 

“I resent that” mumbled Scott while biting on a piece of jerky but everyone just ignored him.

 

“He’s a level 1 we found on Rivira, got abandoned by his party down there when the Goliath spawned and needed some money so we hired him as a porter for a little while” Mord answered while shaking the man’s hand “He’s a good one, actually own him my life you know?”

 

“Really? Which familia are you from anyway?”

 

“Yeah about that….” I scratched at my neck trying to think of something but decided some of the truth was good enough “My god is… strange, he never actually told me his name”

 

 “Hmm, odd” he said while scratching at his chin “then again my own god spent all our money transforming our home into a huge statue of himself with the entrance at his crotch so I can’t really judge”

 

“Ogma is mostly okay but he does have his oddities” Mord shrugged while laying down on the floor for a rest

 

“Not telling you his name… seems like the kind of thing Loki would find amusing” Hashana mused then put a hand on his own chest and made some grabbing motions “You sure it wasn’t a petite woman? Loki’s straight as a door, she could pass as a man if she tried”

 

“Pretty sure it wasn’t Loki” I answered and decided it was best to change the subject “Why do you guys go to all this trouble to get dungeon monsters anyway?”

 

“Cuz Ganesha finds it amusing… mostly” Taking a sip from his water bag Hashana stretched his arms and sighed “I mean pretty much everything that happens in Orario is because one god or another finds it amusing but the monster Feria does give us a good amount of money, a lot of people pay to see the monsters outside the dungeon”

 

“Plus the chance to practice taming without having to worry about other monsters or having backup is good” said Scott “Adventurers can’t keep monsters on the city and there’s always a risk when trying to tame something in the dungeon” 

 

“How does tamming even work anyway?” I asked Scott now genuinely curious.

 

“Hey don’t look at me, he’s from the taming family” he said pointing to Hashana.

 

“Fine, let your uncle Dorlia enlighten you! I’m not a tamer myself but, as I understand it, the dungeon creates monsters with set instructions” he says while using the handle of his axe to draw a little goblin on the floor “A newly spawned monster will always follow that set of instructions to the letter. A goblin will always try to jump at you and stab you in the face, a firebird will always pause in the air and spew flames, it gets really predictable after a while.        

 

The longer the monster has been alive the more it learns, it adapts and grows, a tamer takes advantage of that to teach the monster to obey, the best way is to show it how futile fighting is and make it fear getting punished.

 

Every dungeon monster hates adventurers so it may take some time and practice to make it fear more than it hates but, after you have done it to the same kind of monster enough, you learn how to do it faster. Plus you’ll probably get a skill”

 

“Could you tame a monster like a normal animal? Using rewards and kindness I mean.”

 

“Theoretically? It is possible but I have never seen it work, I once heard Shakti say I’d just take too long to overcome the instinctual hate” Hashana told me and then smirked “Doesn’t stop some fool from trying every year, very amusing”

 

Patting my shoulder Hashana put his helmet back on and pushed himself back to his feet “Anyway I’d better make sure Murita has everything in order for us to move on, hey Murita!” He shouted towards a sweating Modaka and left us.

 

“Thinking about trying your hand at taming?”

 

“Maybe” I told him while lost in thought “It sounds interesting enough”

 

Could I use illusions to make taming faster? In Naruto there were genjutsu that messed with an enemy’s sense of time, could I make something like that.

 

Soon we were moving again and I had to kill a wounded Hellhound as it tried to spew flames at me, after what Hashana had told me I made sure to watch the monsters closely and quickly found a pattern to their movements.

 

It made predicting them with the sharingan much, much easier.

 

Six hours later we finally reached the 10 floor and the caravan started to pick up the pace, Hashana himself grabbed the wagon with the most monster and pulled it alone while the adventurers took care of the small fry and, in only 2 hours, we were pulling the wagons through the dungeon entrance.

 

My first look of Orario was… underwhelming, Babel itself was impressive I admit but I had lived in a modern city my entire life, the tower was wider than anything I had seen but it didn’t seem all that much taller than a skyscraper.

 

The city itself was huge, probably larger than any medieval city of my world and much better build, the streets were clean and the buildings looked both new and well built but, again, it didn’t reach the level of a modern city or have any wondrous aspect I had come to expect from a fantasy world.

 

No floating islands, no clearly magical castle, no spells flying everywhere, Orario most resembled a well preserved historical city sparsely dotted with modern houses and mansions.

 

“Come on, it’s the Ganesha familia problem now” said Mord as he pushed me away from the entrance “Let’s go sell our lot to the guild so we can get your money”

 

Seeing us leaving Hashana waved at us “See you at Ishtar’s place later tonight?”

 

Mord looked at Scott’s missing arm and sighed “Can’t, we’re gonna have to save money from now on”

 

With that said we made our way towards the guild hall.