There was one week until the Denatus. One week until the formal meeting of the gods to decide the details of the war game that the Hestia Familia declared against the Apollo Familia.
For most people, that wasn't enough time to prepare contingency plans. That wasn't enough time to ensure that unexpected variables wouldn't pop up, or make sure that the familia members were all prepared.
Of course, I wasn't most people, and neither were the people in the Hestia Familia.
Emma's eyes shimmered with a kaleidoscope of lights before one turned red, like mine, and the other a clear blue, like Tia's. The she swept her hand out, sending out a fireball of pure white flames that mowed down a horde of goblins rushing towards her through a crack in the dungeon wall.
Seeing that, I chuckled. 'So Emma's skill works like how I thought it does, huh?'
We were on the first floor of the Dungeon
And by 'we', I meant me, Emma, Primo, and Karen.
Considering that danger could pop up out of the blue anytime until, during, and after the War Game, everyone agreed that the best thing to do was to improve the average power level of our familia.
To that end, I'd taken those three girls with me in order to power level them and teach/awaken the full potential of their skills.
Emma lowered her hand, her pink hair still fluttering from the force of the fireball she sent. Her eyes shifted back to their usual pink hue, and then she shook her head, staring at the magic stones littering the floor in front of her. "This..." She held her hand up and murmured. "This is Fina's power...?"
"Mmhm." I nodded and kept leaning against the wall, keeping alert for any tricks Dungeon-chan might try. "My baby girl is a bit... how can I put it? Beyond normal standards of measure?"
Falna showed everyone's statistics as numbers, with roughly every 100 or so corresponding to a new letter grade. But what it didn't show was the fact that those numbers were really a modifier to a person's base abilities, not a measure of them.
For example, an elf and a human could both have a Magic stat of I 99. They could both know the spell
...At least that appeared to be roughly how it worked to me. I wasn't entirely sure since rules were more suggestions to my life, but it seemed to apply to other people, so it was the guideline I was following.
Either way, the point was that my dear princess Fina was already so high-spec that even as a Level 1 her abilities were pretty outrageous.
And since Emma's skill let her borrow the skills of mostly everyone else in the Hestia Familia, she was also pretty broken now.
Which was good, since I'd rather not have Fina be the one trying to protect everyone. Not that she couldn't. Oh no, Fina definitely could protect everyone. The problem was that children didn't know restraint. And considering Fina had the strength and fuel to literally raze the entire continent down to ash... yeah.
Primo walked up to Emma, amazement on the young elf's face. She clenched her staff, hands trembling with excitement, and said, "Emma... I thought adults were strong, but... Wow. You can be that strong as a kid?" She turned to look at me and said, "And is Fina that strong too, Mister Bell?"
"First, it's just Bell, Primo." I smiled and said, "And yes... probably. I don't know for sure though since she's still to young for me and Tia to be comfortable bringing her to fight. Although..." I paused and looked at Primo.
Primo was small. Not petite, but still young at only ten years old. A child who should be at home playing or going to school. And someone who looked even younger because of her blonde twin tails.
I sighed. "And honestly, you're still a bit too young to be coming here too, Primo."
Primo pursed her lips and lowered her head. "...I know." She slowly nodded, clenching her wooden staff hard enough for her hands to turn white. "I'm young and dumb and thought I was cut out to be an adventurer. But then all of that..." She trailed off.
I didn't speak, knowing all too well what she went through. What all the other girls went through. And I was also once again happy that I made sure something like that could never happen again after clearing out the Ishtar Familia and flipping the entire red-light district on its head.
Primo shook her head and looked up with determined purple eyes. "Big Sister Ryuu said that if I want to stop something like... like what happened to me from happening again, I need to be strong. And to learn everything properly. So... I have to do this, Mister... Big Brother Bell." She finished with her cheeks slightly flushed from embarrassment at calling me Big Brother. But she was still determined. "...So teach me. Please."
I let out a bitter smile.