Wish Fulfillment System

Amidst the sounds of snoring, Loki sat in her study, reading a book to keep her busy mind distracted. For now, she couldn't do anything but wait patiently, as she wasn't able to have any other influence on the ongoing situation.

The warm light of the magic stone lamp on her desk illuminated the room just enough for her to avoid any damage to her eyes - not that she wouldn't have been perfectly capable of recovering from that due to being a goddess. Two of the sofas in this room were currently occupied by Bete and Tione, who were using this time to recover from the previous day's exhaustion.

Suddenly, the trickster goddess raised her head and stared straight at one of the walls, seemingly capable of seeing straight through it. A small smile showed on her lips before she whispered to herself and closed her book.

"They're back."

Less than a minute later, a knock could be heard from the door, which made the two rookie Level 6 adventurers snap out of their hopefully pleasant dreams.

"Come on in."

While Bete and Tione were still rubbing the sleep out of their eyes, Finn opened the door to the study and entered, followed by Ais, Gareth, Riveria and Tiona. In response to Tione's beaming and welcoming smile, the Captain showed a slightly awkward but appreciative one himself, then he looked at the goddess of his familia.

"I hope you're not tired, Loki, because my report won't be short."

-----

High above the expansive city below, Freya stood in front of one of the windows of her residence on the top floor of Babel. From here, she could see almost all the way to Orario's walls during the daytime. As it was about 2 a.m. right now, she could only vaguely guess their outline due to the occasional miniscule lights courtesy of the watchtowers and the magic stone lamps carried by the patrolling guards in between.

She was wearing little more than a bed sheet wrapped around her captivating body. The vast majority of people would nearly get their souls snatched from them at the entrancing sight. There was a contemplative look on her face, and a glass of ridiculously expensive wine in her right hand. Even though its smell constantly tickled her nose, she didn't pay any attention to it.

'Why did they enter the dungeon in such a rush, and only for such a short time?'

Her mind was fully absorbed with analyzing the information that she had been presented with a couple of minutes ago.

A few hours prior, less than a handful of strong adventurers coming from the direction that the Loki Familia's Twilight Manor was located in had charged all the way into the dungeon, passing by Rivira in a time so short that it was certain that they all had to be at least Level 6. Although nobody could be sure of who exactly they were, it wasn't hard to narrow the list of suspects down to a handful.

What baffled all who had received this intel was that they couldn't figure out why exactly this group had even needed to display such urgency. Usually, the Loki Familia's members would be far more composed, and at least wouldn't display their outstanding power here at the surface. Anyone thinking about this unusual behaviour would undoubtedly make the connection to the familia's newest member, the one who had become the talk of the town since yesterday.

What made the situation even more confusing was that shortly before 2 a.m., the same group had charged past Rivira, out of Babel and towards the Twilight Manor. Just like when they had entered, they had been too fast for anyone to determine their identities, or even their numbers. Also, the biggest questions of all remained unanswered. What had they been doing down in the dungeon for such a short amount of time, these couple of hours? Why had they been in such a hurry, not only during their descent, but also upon their return?

News centered around Orario's strongest, no matter how minor they may be, would be discussed by the public on a daily basis. But the ones who paid even closer attention to these matters were the various influential factions of the city, who did anything but completely trust each other. If they didn't know the exact positioning of all of the most dangerous forces serving their competitors, then they could possibly be in danger. It was in their best interest to always stay informed as best as they could. Even the goddess of the strongest familia in the city, Freya, was no different.

The frown on the goddess of beauty's face deepened over time, and a hint of confusion could be seen in her eyes. Contrary to everyone else, she was focused on a much bigger picture - Isaac's detailed plan, which she intended to unravel.

Had this maneuver been an attempt to attract attention and divert it from another place? Was the Loki Familia working on a secret project down in the dungeon, and something went wrong that had required their immediate attention?

Try as she might, she couldn't figure it out. There simply wasn't enough information to make heads or tails of it yet. Still, she was confident - sooner or later, she would be able to piece the entire puzzle together.

Little did she know that what she was trying to fit in currently was only very remotely and indirectly connected to the riddle that she wanted to solve.

-----

A relieved sigh escaped Loki's lips when Finn's recounting of the events finally drew to a close. She was clearly happy about her children not having been hurt, and also ecstatic to hear that Isaac had yet again increased his Level at a breakneck pace. Most of the people here were already used to this mind-numbing speed of advancement at this point, so they only felt happy for him. After all, once one got used to the extraordinary, it would become the new ordinary. Bete, on the other hand, had grown pale before storming out of the room - he clearly didn't want to be around anyone for now.

"Still, artificially created monsters on the 59th floor, ones with unusual abilities at that, as well as Demi Spirits and Creatures… that is a whole lot of unexpected information to take in."

Sighing yet again, Loki muttered under her breath and shook her head in exasperation. While they had already known that the dungeon's floors up until the twenties had entrances to Knossos and were being used by the illegal organizations living in the shadow of society, she hadn't thought that even floors that nearly nobody had ever set foot in before would have manmade dangers lurking about.

"Thanks for the report. All of you, you've worked hard. Take some well-deserved time to rest, and sleep well. We'll talk about this again in the evening."

Noticing that she had kept them all around for quite some time already, the usually mischievous goddess showed her caring side, and hurried her children out of her study. When she was left all alone, she plopped down on her chair again and massaged her forehead in annoyance.

'Who could the one behind this be? Which of these bastards is causing trouble again?'

There were more than a few candidates who came to mind, but as far as she knew, none of these deities should currently be in Orario. If that was the case, it was likely to be the work of someone who she simply hadn't ever considered before.

A couple of minutes of thinking later, she opened her eyes a little and glanced at a corner of the room, at another comfortable sofa that seemed to be empty.

"What do you think, Hel?"

She waited for a long while, only to not get an answer.

"Hel?"

Even upon repeatedly calling out to her, nothing changed. The worst part about it all was that she couldn't even be certain whether the gloomy goddess was simply asleep, ignoring her… or present in the first place.

With a vein popping on her forehead and an expression of exasperation, she grabbed a relatively heavy pillow from a chair nearby and got into a throwing position.

"There is only one way to find out…"

Seconds later, a panicked and disoriented yelp sounded from Loki's study.

-----

Before Isaac ventured past the wall that was dutifully being maintained by the ridiculous numbers of Vesios, he combed through the entire terraformed area, picking up whatever caught his fancy. All of Revis' supplies and belongings, as well as the occasional fruit or plant got stuffed into his inventory. By the time that he was finished, more than an hour had already passed.

"I assume that you will be able to defend yourself. Do your best to keep up with me, and don't interfere with my research."

He shot a glance at the obedient and silent Titania, who had docilely carried him all the way to the wall, before jumping off her back and taking the khopesh out of his inventory. Although this newest servant of his behaved in a very servile and weak manner, he was aware that purely stats-wise, she would probably be able to easily obliterate any and all monsters that could be found in the Glacier Territory, and even a bit beyond. Well, that was with the exception of Monster Rexes.

With a couple of quick slashes, he cut open a hole bit enough for both him and Titania to fit through. After they had arrived on the other side, he put the piece of wall that he had cut out back into place again. It wasn't that easy, mostly due to the vast temperature difference between the two areas, but as he had been prepared for this, he managed to tide through it without a problem. Just seconds after he had sealed the wall back up, his cuts had already disappeared, due to the dutifully working Vesios injecting their energy into it to make up for any and all flaws.

Now that he had entered the true Glacier Territory, Isaac quickly felt the weapon in his hand growing almost unbearably cold. If he had been a normal human, or even a regular Level 6 adventurer, then it would have been impossible, or at least highly difficult, to move around in this region without any source of heat. Even as a god who had Ichor flowing through his veins, he found the environment to be highly unpleasant. Sure, he could warm up his body to a sufficient degree, and avoid any hypothermia-related problems, but he still needed to expend a bit of energy to maintain this state. It was not enough to be able to compete with his natural regeneration, but it was still enough to be noticeable.

With a slight frown, he searched his inventory for a bit, before deciding on a piece of clothing for himself. It was a long coat that went all the way to his knees, made out of Old Bison wool and Lindwurm scales. Apparently, it had been enchanted by a Spirit that was classified as a Salamander - no, not the monster species. There were various different types of Spirits amongst those that could be considered of a lower tier amongst their kind, one of which were the Salamanders. Due to their mastery over fire and heat, a few of them made a pretty penny by selling various enchanted items to adventurers, such as this Salamander Woolen Trench Coat.

After wearing it, Isaac nodded to himself and mentally thanked Ais for handing him a couple of sets of the supplies that the Loki Familia had prepared for their venture into the Glacier Territory before she had left. While he was still leaking body heat, and therefore energy, via the areas that weren't covered by the coat, he could handle this minor expense far more effortlessly. Although he still had various items on hand that could shield him from the cold more thoroughly, they would only hinder his movements and senses even more, which wouldn't be a worthwhile trade-off in his eyes.

Before he could set off into this uncharted territory, however, a shivering and terrified voice sounded from next to him.

"M-Master! I'm ve… very cold. I'm sorry!"

He turned to look into the panic-filled eyes of Titania, who had curled up her body in a desperate attempt to preserve more heat. Her nose had already turned runny, and she was shivering heavily, enough for her teeth to clatter. Maybe she had it even a little bit worse than a regular Level 6 adventurer would have, as she was a plant… and one that wasn't very adept at surviving in low temperatures. She had lived her whole life in a warm jungle, where it stayed at around 25 degrees Celsius all year round. Now that she had entered an area that was at least 50 degrees colder than that, the shock had to be immense.

For a moment or two, Isaac stared at her silently. Admittedly, he was simply speechless by how little of a cold resistance she had. He honestly had expected more from a Demi Spirit. Still, he wouldn't hold such a minor matter against her, especially because this was entirely out of her control.

Wordlessly, he focused his gaze on his inventory and settled on a huge amount of items, which he soon piled up in front of her. Amongst them was clothing made out of the same material as his coat: another trench coat, gloves, a beanie, a woolen mask used to cover most of one's face, as well as a scarf. Lastly, there were a few tens of magic stone-powered heating pads, which could be held close to the body to basically be used as heat batteries. All of these, undoubtedly, had cost a small fortune - thankfully, due to the mind-boggling value of drop items and magic stones that could be acquired in these depths, these expenses would only amount to a drop in the bucket.

"Alright, put these on. We'll set off once you're finished."

Once he had provided her with a small mound worth of resources, Isaac turned around to observe his surroundings in more detail. Everything that he saw reminded him of some of the ill.u.s.trations in textbooks from his old world. Back during the various ice ages of that world, the coldest of regions wouldn't have looked much different from this place. There were no trees to be found, nor was there any vegetation. Heck, everything he laid his eyes upon was covered in snow and ice, sometimes piled up to mountainous heights of close to five kilometers. If he scaled some of these peaks, he would even be able to touch the ceiling of this floor!

Not too long after he had pinpointed all of the surrounding monsters of various new species, he noticed that Titania was now all packaged up in the warm and cozy clothes that he had given her. She was hugging her waist tightly and pressed the heating pads to her monster body with her tentacles, looking a little miserable. Still, her state was far better than before.

"Time to set off."

From the movements that he had observed, it wasn't difficult for Isaac to determine which monster species present here was the weakest, so he carefully dashed right into the direction that housed the biggest group of its individuals.

There were at least a couple hundreds of humanoid-shaped figures staggering through the snow, each of them about three meters tall. Their bodies, albeit humanoid, looked like they hadn't eaten in years, and white, sparse hair was growing all over their bodies. Some of them looked to be male, while others were obviously female. What made this group look different from most other humanoid monster species was the fact that they had pieces of their flesh missing, and bite marks covered huge portions of their bodies. The flesh and blood that was exposed to the elements both seemed to be frozen and oddly wet at the same time. However grievous these wounds appeared to be, they didn't impact these monsters at all.

After engaging them in combat, Isaac noticed multiple things. First of all, their Strength and Endurance stats were at D-550 / 29,050. And secondly, they seemed to behave even more brainlessly than most research specimens that he had come across so far. No matter in which way or how much they were damaged, they would simply stagger or crawl in his direction again, completely obsessed with taking a bite out of his delicious snack of a body.

While he would have felt flattered and disturbed if he had been surrounded by a group of regular people that harboured such intentions, zombie-like creatures that wanted to tear him apart limb by limb didn't exactly make him feel comfortable either. Oddly enough, however, he would choose this situation over being surrounded by a group of thirsty beauties any day - after all, he could slaughter the dungeon's monsters without having to bother about any consequences whatsoever. Not that he would fear accusations of rampant murder and manslaughter, but those would still be moderately annoying to deal with.

It took a while for him to completely dismember these seemingly undead monsters, and in the process of cutting them into tiny pieces, he finally found their weak point. Right next to their magic stone, there was a five centimeter tall ice figure that looked just like a sleeping human. If those were shattered or sufficiently damaged, then the monsters would instantly die. In fact, it was the only way to actually kill them that was even remotely energy-efficient. No matter how thoroughly that he cut them apart otherwise, unless he literally obliterated them, they would still be considered 'alive'.

Subconsciously smiling happily to himself like a kid who had gotten a new toy, Isaac decided on a name for this heretofore unknown monster species: Chenoo. It wasn't the most original of names by any means, but as these beings seemed almost like carbon copies of creatures of myth and folklore from his old world, he wouldn't bother with coming up with an entirely new moniker. It sounded appropriate and evoked the most closely fitting imagine in his mind, so it would suffice.

The reason that he was delighted to name his discoveries wasn't because he wanted to create the most outstanding names in history, or even because he wanted to avoid naming monster species after beings that he had read about in his old world - after all, that was literally what he had just done.

No, there was only one purpose to his actions - to avoid having these monsters named even worse, just like a huge portion of those that he had come across before. To prevent a tragedy, he would forge ahead. He would give these pitiful creatures the respect that they deserved - while tortur--- researching them thoroughly, of course.

To his surprise, Titania didn't behave as cowardly anymore when he was experimenting with every nook and cranny of the Chenoo. While she still shivered a little occasionally, that was most likely mainly because of the cold. For a moment, he felt taken aback by her shift in behaviour, especially considering how terrified she had been back when he took those artificial monster species apart, but then he realized what was going on.

Most sentient beings would feel a considerably heavy mental impact upon bearing witness to the suffering of beings that were relatively similar to them. It was far easier to instinctively imagine themselves to be in the same situation, which was why they would feel so horrible. It wasn't just because of empathy, far from it. Just like how most humans from Isaac's old world wouldn't throw up uncontrollably and faint upon seeing a random animal or insect getting killed, a plant monster wouldn't feel more than slightly displeased upon having zombie monsters be slaughtered in front of it. Back when Titania had been confronted with the horrifying experience of having her fellow plant monsters massacred as lab rats, she had understandably felt as appalled as a human would have felt if the same had happened to their fellow humans.

Nodding his head in understanding, Isaac finished his Chenoo-related research and quickly eliminated the rest of their numbers, before speeding off to another place in the distance. All the while he didn't notice that Titania had been staring at him with a different kind of shock evident in her eyes.

'He has a cute side to him!?'

She had blissfully ignored what would amount to the most grievous of war crimes taking place right in front of her, and focused on the unexpected and pure positives. That smile that he had shown for only a few moments, it had shaken the poor Demi Spirit who had subconsciously twisted Isaac's existence into the most vile of demons in her mind. Not that it wouldn't be more than possible to argue that he wasn't exactly a normal and peaceful person. Still, this ray of light made her notice that, while he was indeed a nightmarish figure, he also had good parts about himself. And if she did what was asked of her, then she would probably not be treated too badly.

A firm determination settled in her heart, and she silently followed behind him, using a few of her spare tentacles to get rid of the occasional monsters that were ignoring her master and charging at her from time to time.

'I'll do my best, I promise!'

[ Titania's Loyalty has increased by 5. ]

Taken aback by this sudden notification, Isaac momentarily turned his head to look at his servant.

'Her Loyalty is rising awfully quickly. It kind of reminds me of what happened back when I first met Mina. Still, back then, I actively helped her out, so the increase was reasonable. I did give Titania some supplies before, but shouldn't her Loyalty have increased earlier if those are the catalyst for this change? Why would they take so long to show an effect? Is it because she was worried about whether or not I would take away the clothes that I gave her?'

Ultimately, as this was a matter that concerned the heart of another person, he wasn't able to come to a definitive conclusion. Thankfully, he had far more interesting matters to focus on - the rest of the monster species inhabiting the Glacier Territory.