Is It Wrong To Crave Love (In A Dungeon) Chapter 1 - Voice

Chapter 1: Voice

“....so he plucked the feathers off the chicken, barged into the lecture hall with it and screamed: 'Behold! A man!"

The air was filled with laughter. Deep, bellied laughs, chuckles and hearty, genuine guffaws. A boy sat at the steps of the library, surrounded by both the children of Orario and passing adventurers, all whilst with a wooden cup kept to his side, slowly being filled with coins. His eyes bright and shining, as he spun and wove tales, his hands moving exaggeratedly, and comically.

He wove different tales, some of which were familiar to her, but others, completely alien and strange. Some tales had the children weeping, some had others laughing, while some were naughty and completely flew over the heads of the little ones, but had the adults giving knowing looks.

The storyteller himself was an odd child. He reeked of seawater. His clothes, though dry, were rough and torn, and patched, and clearly one size too big. His hair was sharp, deathly blue, cold-blue, the blue of faces lost to frostbite and corpses drained of blood. His eyes were a stormy gray, no different from clouds pregnant with rain, from lingering smoke and flowing ash, from a budding hurricane, a distant storm, approaching the horizon.

Those stormy eyes, however, held smoldering intensity she had not seen from anyone, anywhere, not once, not in Tenkai, Heaven Above, nor Gekai, the Earth Below.

She had Penia to thank, that old, grouchy, cheapskate Goddess of Poverty, who had told her of the 'Pauper's Orator' that sat outside the library that had become known by the poor and destitute alike. She mentioned offhandedly whilst passing by the jagarmarukun shop, that she’d encountered him, a young man who neither ate nor slept, but sat at the outskirts of the library, narrating tales to everyone who would listen in exchange for coin. A young man who claimed he had tales no one had ever heard before, and tales none would ever hear from any but him.

A young man who wagered her that if she had not heard of his tale, she would have to pay him the sum of twenty valis, but if she had heard of it, he would pay her tenfold, two hundred valis. A young man who had not known she was a goddess, nor what goddess she was, and yet took that wager, and won it, by speaking of a tragic tale of a princess from a distant land called Zelda. A young man who, despite winning the bet soundly, had not only waived her payment and ended the wager, but given her the little coin he had because she bemoaned her poverty.

It was foolish of him, Penia told her, laughing. But there was an admirable quality to that foolishness.

Standing before the boy now, looking into his eyes, Hestia suspected Penia had understated what it was about him that drew her attention. The boy was not particularly handsome, he was not tall, nor was he muscular, nor did he look strong or dependable. He was about seventeen or eighteen at best, scrawny, with flabby, skinny arms, and a freckled face.

Despite the ordinariness of his appearance, there was an intensity in his gaze that almost made her shiver.

The boy had stopped in the middle of his tale as soon as he set eyes on her, and went ramrod stiff.

He focused on her face, with pupils dilating and his breath all but visibly hitched in his throat. The reaction made it clear to her that it was not fear. It was not terror or dread.

Can it be…?

She wanted to dismiss the possibility it was love at first sight, but she couldn’t. Her intuition, not only as a goddess, but as a woman, told her the boy had set his eyes on her and fallen in love.

She was aware she of her charms and her wonderful assets, but the boy had not looked at those assets, and she would be worried for the type of dunderhead who would devote their life to her for those assets on their first meeting.

She was very certain of that fact, having attempted forty-one times now to find someone to join her Familia, and the boy before her being her hopeful forty-second attempt at recruitment. Most treated her like a bratty child, before they would feel her divine nature and hastily apologize once they understood she was a goddess. Once she offered them to join her Familia, the reactions typically followed the same pattern. 

The kind would bow politely, shake their head, sway their necks, and clasp their hands in apology. The meek would have eyes rapidly go shifty, their feet would turn towards the direction of the swiftest exit, they would mutter under their breaths that they had something they needed to do as they made a swift getaway, forgetting that it was impossible to lie to a god.

The stubborn and arrogant would sneer and scoff before ignoring her. The perverted would ogle her chest, clear their throat, before ultimately declining. The overly ambitious would flash a dirty grin, lick their lips, and forget themselves as their eyes wandered her body.

The boy's reaction did not align with the stubborn, the perverted, the meek, the kind, the foolish, or the overly ambitious. It was something new. Something novel. Something entirely out of her expectations.

“Is it... Is it really you...?"

His voice trembled as he spoke. He rushed forward, his voice soft, almost a whisper, and he reached out with a finger, his right hand, probing gently.

She, confused and curious, also reached out with a finger.

There, in front of the library in Orario, surrounded by witnesses, a Goddess and a Boy touched fingertips.

The boy screamed.

“AHHHH!”

“AHHH!"

She screamed instinctively as well, jumping back, her heart racing. All around them, there were barks of laughter, chortles and giggles. Slowly, her shock and surprise morphed into indignation as she puffed up her chest. “Hey! What was that for?!"

“I doubted... I doubted... and I doubted. They called it third-person syndrome..." the boy rambled. “They said, it happens to people in stressful, life or death situations...  that hearing that voice that didn't mean anything... that I should let it go... that you weren't... that you couldn't be..."

His stormy gray eyes grew clouded. He pointed with that shaky, trembling finger.

“But it was you. All along, it was you."

Did he mistake me for someone else?

No, he clearly recognized her. Despite being certain she had never met this child before today, his words, however, did not hold any element of deceit. Either he was saying the truth, or what he believed to be true.

“Can you... Please... tell me… a set of words? Please, I know, it’s a selfish request, but I really… I really just want someone… no, that voice, I want it… to tell me those words.”

The boy rapidly cleared his throat, gazing at her with wide, earnest eyes.

“The first is… Don't give up,” the boy whispered. “The second set is... You can do it.”

He trembled.

“The third set is…. you'll make it."

As a goddess, she had experienced a lot of things, and there were few things that could really surprise her. They told her coming to Gekai would do just that, that witnessing the children live and seeing their ambitions and struggles and stories, the richness of their emotions, the depths of their grief, and the profundity of their joys was an experience that could not be matched.

Standing before a child who trembled before her with such pure eyes, and asked, blatantly, for what anyone with a brain could understand as words of support—

Something choked in her throat and stirred in her chest.

“Don't give up."

The words resonated with her. It resonated with her struggles ever since arriving at Gekai. A part of her wondered if she had made a mistake, a part of her pondered if it would have been better not to have descended at all. However, she couldn’t give up. Though it was hard, though the struggles of needing money, financial aid, needing to scrimp and save and work were agonizing, despite it all, she continued. 

She endured.

There was a beauty in it.

“You can do it.”

The repeated failures, attempting and striving to find someone, anyone, who would join her Familia, who would join her family, who would become a child she could tease, glomp on, complain to, hug, hold, cherish — someone to share these worldly burdens and concerns with.  She wanted to believe she could do it. She could find it.

Because she could do it.

Softly, she whispered.

“You’ll make it.”

Because she would make it.

The boy trembled.

“It's… the same voice."

He shook.

“The same voice… The same… the same voice!” The boy slammed his head into the ground. He bowed directly in front of her and wept. “AH! MY GODDESS! MY GODDESS!”

“E—eh? W-wait, what are you—”

“Thank you! Thank you for being there… thank you for supporting me… thank you for giving me the strength to endure… thank you, thank you, thank you, so much!"

The boy cried, he wept, publicly, ashamedly. There were people staring in confusion, looking befuddled. They were making a very loud and visible scene in front of the library, but Hestia did not notice or care. She was flustered by his abrupt sincerity, by his tears, by the depth of gratitude she could feel in his words, even though she could not understand why.

“Anything… anything you want,” he said. “I’ll do it. For you… for my one, and only goddess.”

The sound of her blood was deafeningly loud in her ears.

“Do you want to maybe… join my Familia?”

The weeping boy looked up to her with a smile that could have melted Icarus’ wings—

“I would love nothing more.”

And he lit the fireplace in her heart.