Martial Arts Encyclopedia - Chapter 6

Goals for the future (2)

Strength I0 -> 10

Durability I0 -> 10

Agility I0 -> 3

Utility I0 -> 5

Magic I0

…

Right, there’s a certain “newbie boost” for the first update where my stats increase incredibly fast at first and then the growth slows down to a crawl.

Thinking back on my college classes, I remember passages about production growth and how you end up optimizing a process until you squeeze higher production becomes impossible, then at that point you must discard that process and either seek a better process or invent new ones. It’s also viable through the strategic lens, where if the strategy stops producing the desired results you need to either improve the strategy or switch to a new one. It fits with the corporate metaphor in Danmachi, and while this might not be a story now, that doesn’t mean certain things won’t follow a similar logic.

I also need to figure out how the Hercules Method interacts with the growth from the Falna, but that’s a long-term project, and I need to buy some office supplies if I want to accurately record the progress.

My goddess sighs at my side, cracking her neck from stress. Right now, she’s unwilling to share her burdens with me, perhaps I can help her recover.

“Now it’s your turn, get on the bed. Let’s smooth out those tensed muscles.”

With a raised eyebrow she stares at me suspiciously. “And you think you can help with that?”

“I took a masseur course while studying to earn extra cash, but now with my new purchases I think I’m much better at it. Why don’t you try it?”

She nods, hearing the sincerity of my words and she lays down on the bed showing me her back, and what a fine back that is. She clears her throat, and I snap from the view and get back to business.

I started tracing her shoulders, and behind that deceptively smooth and soft skin were steel hard muscles at the limits of tension. Drawing on my newly acquired understanding of the body from the Hercules Method and the Xiaoli technique. 

At first, I tried applying force to certain muscles, but her body didn’t budge at all, so I quickly changed strategies and started coaxing her indirectly. Through my experience I stimulated less used muscles around the real target, assaulting the fortress that was her body, trying to find a crack in her defenses by looking at parts no sane general would think to attack and no castle would bother to defend.

“Ugh, ah!”

The first line of defense is gone, and I finish that part before moving to the other side, getting a similar result from her.

“Please don’t bite the pillow down, it defeats the purpose of the massage if you tense up again.” She sends me a dirty look before setting down and trying to relax.

Like most sieges, the easiest method to win is through trickery, and having Artoria work with me will make my victory a certainty.

Slowly my hands travel down her back as I smooth the accumulated tension, which is a lot. I mean, a lot. It feels like she was holding the weight of the world for so long that she forgot what it is like to relax, almost as if the sky would fall and the earth would crumble beneath her feet if she didn’t keep it up. That hint of enlightenment made me return to my task with renewed vigor, and I extracted another loud moan from her.

Then another, and another, and another.

“Uhhh, ohh, A-Andrew, p-please, n-not t-t-the-re~”

She was barely making coherent sentences now, and I’m almost done. When the final tensed area smoothed out, she let out a powerful sigh of relief as her body went completely limp.

“How did you like it, Artoria? Not bad, huh?”

She didn’t answer, and instead started snoozing on the spot. I shake my head with a smile before turning her around on her belly, and then deciding I had enough excitement for the day and joining her to sleep.

…

The next day we both woke up at dawn, with Artoria stretching her back like a lazy cat and radiating positive energy, as if she got her first good night of sleep in a long time. Since we’re both already awake we made plans for our new routine.

There are three major focuses that we have to focus on: making the temple habitable and ready for new Familia members; daily training and dungeon diving; and daily domestic chores. The last item is the one that will take more time than I’m used to, for multiple reasons.

This is a pre-industrial world, despite various magical house appliances, so processing food takes a lot of time and skill. The convenience of buying bread instead of baking it yourself is not worth the expense, for instance. Another issue is that running magical appliances is expensive, and many things that I once took for granted we now need to perform manually. For instance, Artoria had to draw the bath manually, filling the bath with buckets for our use.

After a back and forth with my goddess, we came up with a plan of action for the development of our Familia.

On the Operational level, we set up a daily schedule that divided our activities between costs (money we pay that is directly tied to our status as an Exploration Familia), expenses (money we pay that indirectly supports our status as an Exploration Familia), direct revenue (Dungeon Exploration, Quests), and indirect revenue (properties, rent, tithes, other incomes not tied to Exploration). While crude, this division of labor will help us build an efficacious timetable when new recruits start to join us.

On the Tactical level, we would share the burden of managing the operations and record keeping the activities of the Familia, with me bringing Artoria up to speed on some of the important bits that require her signature.

On the Strategic side, Artoria will negotiate with other gods to find good suppliers for the products and services we will be using for the Familia, however, she surprised me with a certain request.

“You want me to decide on the future goals of the Familia? Shouldn’t that be under your purview?” Left unsaid were the various reasons she’s supposed to take care of this.

“I don’t have any grand ambitions in this world.” She confesses, “at least, nothing that requires my immediate attention.” She hesitates for a moment before continuing, “Camelot didn’t have a good end, and what came afterwards, it was inexcusable.”

Is she talking about the Camelot Singularity? So, she has both of her Lancer and Lancer Alter aspects together? No, I’m putting the cart in front of the horse here, after all, she already introduced herself as the Goddess of Rhongomyniad to me.

She was the Lion King, the one who put the Human Grand Order at risk by working together with Goetia.

“Eh?”

I surprised her with a hug she needed after all this time. Lancer Artoria was accepted by Ritsuka, and Lancer Artoria Alter might feel unworthy of forgiveness, but it is the Lion King, the Goddess of Rhongomyniad that bears the weight of those sins. She paid for her mistake with her life and the life of her Knights, and in the end the singularity burned off anyway by Goetia until Ritsuka managed to save everyone in the nick of time.

“I won’t fail you, Artoria. I swear to you.”

She didn’t move for several seconds, and I tried my best to comfort her. When I eventually tried to break contact, she hugged me back with desperate levels of force.

Oof, my back!

After a while she released me and regained her composure. “Thank you… Andrew. I appreciate your earnest feelings.”

“You’re welcome,” I answer back with a slightly higher pitch of tone, “I will start breakfast.”

As I went to prepare our food, I could feel my goddess gaze on my back, and not for the first time I wondered about her mysteries.