Noel waited outside the dungeon entrance, arms crossed, brow furrowed. He was already annoyed.
Even in the shadow of the tower he was roasting like a pig, the leather armour only exaggerated it.
Footsteps echoed down the cobble path. His senior--Renault, strolled up, yawning with theatrical laziness. "Morning, sunshine~"
"You're late."
"Time's an illusion," he said, then yawned again and reached out—ruffling Noel's hair mid-complaint.
"Oi! Keep those filthy gauntlets away from my clean hair."
"I washed 'em already."
"You never wash them. I do."
He grinned like a child caught red-handed. "Ah. Right. So, today we're heading to the seventh floor--festival's on, we should have it to ourselves."
"You already took me to the seventh floor. Why are we going again?"
He didn't miss a beat. "Correction. Today, we're going to the eighth floor."
Noel sighed. Right. He was always like that.
"Why the long face? You should be excited—new floor and all."
"You always say that. I'm basically just your luggage carrier."
"Never disrespect the noble art of porting."
"It's only noble because it's so boring."
His smile faded. Unexpectedly, he looked serious."No."
He locked eyes with him. "Without a porter, adventurers are just sitting ducks. Porters are the heart of a party. Every member should risk their lives to protect them."
Noel blinked. Where was this coming from?
"New parties skip hiring one to save coin. They think they can carry gear themselves. That works until it doesn't. Then they get stuck deeper in. No backup. No supplies. You know what gets them?"
"...Food and water."
"Exactly. Four mouths, one flask left. And then?"
Noel didn't answer. He didn't need to.
"They become monsters. Fitting, right? In a dungeon."
It made sense. Porters were vital for the deep floors. But—
"So what?"
"You want me to repeat myself?"
"Oh god, no. But that sermon only applies past the tenth floor. We're just going to the eighth."
"We are…?"
His 'wise mentor' mode snapped off like a switch. "Damn..."
"That wasn't even my point! Being a porter is boring."
"Welp." He shrugged with a lazy grin. "Character building."
He suddenly grabbed Noel's wrist and wrapped his index and thumb around it easily."Look at this. I can loop my fingers with room to spare. You need to bulk up."
He murmured the next part, but Noel caught it."...And grow taller."
"Kuh—!" Critical hit!
"Maybe if you beefed up, girls would actually notice you."
"Maybe if you weren't a slob, women wouldn't charge you!"
"Kwek—!" Counter attack!
"H-how would you even know about that!?"
"I saw you once—begging one of Ishtar's whores for a discou—mmph—!"
A gauntlet clamped over his mouth mid-sentence.
The man's eyes darted up and down the cobbled path, scanning for eavesdroppers. Thanks to the festival, the dungeon plaza was mostly empty .
Mostly.
A small group of adventurers lingered not far off. One guy and two girls. Pretty girls.
He let go and waved with both hands. "He's joking!"
"Mmmphhh!!
He wasn't joking!
The small group of onlookers—one slender, spectacled girl with sky-blue hair, a dark-skinned chienthrope, and some lucky bastard caught between them—watched on in mild amusement. The guy must be living the dream.
'No, halt your envy, Renault. Bigger fish to fry…'
Strangely, they didn't look as disdainful as expected. No scathing glares. No upturned noses or tight lips. In fact, and this wasn't much of a stretch… they looked almost tender?
"Pteu!"
Noel spat onto the ground and wiped his mouth aggressively with the sleeve of his armor.
"Bastard! Did you think I wanted to taste the fossilized history of your fights?!"
Now that was a scathing glare. Lips curled in disgust, brows furrowed tight.
"Hehehe."
That cursed giggle snapped Noel out of his rage.
"The hell's with that laugh?"
His glare turned cautious now.
"Oh my, isn't this just like us~ Getting rowdy in public like this."
"...?"
"You know what? After this, how about I treat you to a meal back at the Hostess of Fertility?"
"What are you—"
Then he saw it. The way Renault's eyes flicked—back and forth between him and the other group.
"You want to play the 'big-brother' act now?" Noel whispered, voice low and venomous.
"Drats." He caught on.
To the trio watching, they must've looked like siblings, or close enough. It didn't help that they actually did resemble each other: high cheekbones, golden hair, arched eyebrows.
But their eyes were unmistakably different—Renault's a cool forest green, Noel's a striking crimson.
"I was thinking more of a parent-child dynamic, though."
What.
"You're six years older than me! I don't look like your son!'"
"Calm down, mini-me."
Pat!
Again.
He ruffled his hair. He ruffled his hair!
Noel refused to let it slide.
"Gya!"
Renault's back buckled forward with a startled grunt.
The culprit stood behind him, smirking with wicked glee as he jabbed a bony finger into the soft spot just under his shoulder blade—right into the latissimus dorsi.
It didn't take much effort. With Renault having sold his chestplate for a better sword, all he wore now was a glorified strip of leather. His defenses were practically decorative.
Renault endured and countered by getting Noel in a headlock.
"Give in and accept my fatherly love!"
"Kya! Never!!"
The both of them stopped caring for appearance and grabbed hair, scratched and bit one another.
The audience of a party looked away, finally preparing to move on from this road.
One lingered their analytical gaze on the taller of the duo.
"Asfi..?"
"It's nothing, let's go."
—--------------------------------
The moment they stepped past the threshold, the air changed. Gone was the heat of the surface—replaced by a damp, heavy chill that clung to skin and armor alike. The stone walls were uneven and moss-veined, slick with moisture, as if the dungeon itself was breathing in slow, shallow gasps.
Noel was almost grateful to escape the blast of the sun, the dungeon was akin to a paternal embrace.
A particularly creepy parent…
The light dimmed as they traveled deeper. What little sunlight crept past the entrance faded to a dull blue glow that radiated faintly from crystals clustered along the floor and ceiling. It wasn't much, but it was enough to make out the jagged layout, and once their eyes adapted, that would be all they need, at least on the upper floors.
The two continued, weaving through tight corridors that gave way to low-ceilinged chambers, the smell of iron and wet earth thick in the nose.
The silence was worse than any noise. It made every footstep echo, every breath feel like a shout. But beneath the silence, there was something else. A vague pressure. The kind that made your back itch and your gut tighten, like the dungeon was waiting impatiently, like a child on Christmas day.
Here, on the first floor, the monsters were weak—mainly goblins and perhaps a kobold here and there, but complacency killed faster than claws. Every fight had to be efficient, Noal learned his lesson from his past blunders on this floor,
"You know, it's time to stop pouting."
"You bit me! I have the right to pout all I want!" Renault retorted.
Their voices echoed throughout the cavern, drawing the attention of goblins.
"Fine, I'll suppress my ire until I get out of here," He glared at Noel, "but only until then."
"Aye Aye cap'n."
"Chi-chi-chak!"
The pitter-patter of small feet smacked against the stone floor. The noise grew louder and louder, until four goblins rounded the corner of the tunnel leading into their chamber. They came in a disorganized sprint, claws scraping the walls, mouths gnashing with salvia cascading down their chins.
Small, humanoid creatures with mottled green skin and long arms, they had wiry muscle stretched over tiny frames. Patches of dark fur sprouted along their thighs and lower torsos like makeshift pants. Bald heads, sharp teeth ,scleras burning yellow.
"Skkreeee!"
The leading goblin shrieked, flailing its gangly limbs and clawing at the air as if to rip it open.
Renault's expression flattened. "Here's a good outlet for my stress."
He hoisted his new sword, light and well-balanced, and burst forward without hesitation. A flying knee crashed into the first goblin's face, flattening its nose with a nauseating crunch. The creature's feet levitated off the ground before it collapsed in a heap.
Renault didn't stop. His boots slid across the damp stone as he pivoted mid-air, slicing toward the second goblin. It leaned back, snarling, and barely avoided the edge—but even so,the steel still kissed its belly. A shallow wound, not deep enough to kill, but enough to weaken.
It stumbled. Renault didn't let it recover. A swift kick to its inner knee toppled it beside the first.
"Hyah!"
With a grunt, Renault dropped his full weight down and drove his knee into the goblin's skull. The crunch that followed was unmistakable, a watermelon smashed underfoot. One down.
Two to go.
He turned just in time to see another goblin leap at him, deceptively high, jaws wide, claws spread.
"Come on," he muttered, eyes narrowing.
He jerked his head back, then snapped it forward like a spring. Skull met skull. The goblin's jaw cracked sideways with a loud pop, and the creature was stunned midair. Before it could even fall, Renault caught it by the neck.
"Get over here!"
He spun and flung the creature like a sack of meat into the wall.Shplat! It slid down, twitching once before going still.
The wall was painted with its innards.
One remained.
Renault looked around for it, grip tightening on his sword. He could almost taste the satisfaction. This time, he'd cleave the thing in half—vertically.
"PWAK!"
A dull, wet thud. The final goblin crumpled to the ground before Renault even spotted it. A rock—no, a perfectly aimed sling bullet stuck out of its temple.
"Huh?" Renault blinked. "That's kill-stealing!"
Noel stood at the edge of the chamber, twirling his sling in one hand with a faint smirk. "Eh? No way. You shouldn't have taken soooo~ long. Aren't you a Level Two? Should've been ten seconds, tops."
Renault's mouth opened in outrage, but no words came. He pointed at the goblins, then at his sword. "I'm still Level One! It's called capping out your stats. I was testing the sharpness!"
"Oh sure. Totally looked like sword-testing when you were body-slamming them with your knees." Noel squinted. "Just look at your pants."
Renault glanced down. The fabric covering his kneecaps was completely shredded, strands of cloth flapping like banners.
"Damn," he muttered.
"You really should've kept the knee guards," Noel added, smug. A Big "I told you so" look on his face.
"Bah! The only thing I need is this sword of mine!"
A goblin—the first one he'd struck, its face a mess of blood and mucus—groaned and clawed weakly at Renault's leg. He barely looked down.
Thunk.
His heel smashed into its throat, crushing the windpipe with a sickening crunch.
"See?" he huffed. "Problem solved."
Noel gave a lazy clap, a suiting applause for this fraud of a swordsman "Truly, the mark of a master swordsman. Aerial knees, headbutts, and a surprise heel drop."
"You just don't understand style."
"I understand you're bleeding from the knees."
Renault followed his gaze and winced. "...Battle damage. Builds character."
Noel snorted. "That would certainly explain your large character then."
Noel gazed at the corpses, before kneeling to fish in their guts for a magic stone.
Renault swung his sword once, flicking gore off the edge. "Anyway, now that we're warmed up, time to head deeper. Hope you're ready."
"Oh, absolutely," Noel said, throwing the stones in his backpack and walking past him toward the tunnel's mouth. "After all, you're the one who said we'd have the eighth floor to ourselves."
Renault followed, shaking out his sore knee. "We'd better. Otherwise, you're doing the next headbutt."
—--------------------------------
Their journey continued without any real complications.
The upper floors blurred together in a chain of battles. Squads of goblins rushed them early on, screeching and flailing. Noel picked a few off from the back with his sling while Renault bulldozed the frontlines, still more knee and fist than sword. The green pests posed little threat to the high-tier level 1 and his newbie junior, but their sheer numbers were tiresome.
By the fourth floor, kobolds began showing up. Taller than goblins, dog-faced and covered in coarse fur, they barked and howled as they charged. Their lanky arms gave them more reach, and their movements were more coordinated. Renault took a few nicks, on account of him being distracted by the kill-stealer, but he finally started using his sword more precisely.
Then came the dungeon lizard.
It defied gravity as its mass clung to the ceiling, moving with the speed and grace of a dancer. The beady eyes full of cold malice, occasionally being obstructed by a nictitating membrane,
"I got this."
"You sure?" Noel replied, spinning his stone sling, a belt of leather with a stone in it, the middle widening in to contain the rugged stone ammo. "You don't wanna share some excelia with your son?'"
Renault didn't answer. Launching a pocket knife at the lizard's shoulder blade, it fell back to earth on it's back. He darted in, rolled beneath the whipping tail just oozing with panic, and stabbed his blade between the scales under its jaw. It hissed, writhed, and thrashed, knocking over several protruding boulders. In the end, it died with a deep gurgle.
"See?" Renault said, his breath not out of rhythm even the slightest. "Crushed it."
Despite acting like a child, Renault was in a class of his own when it came to level 1s,
Noel recalled Renault claiming he was maximizing his stats, a good decision to get the full potential out of each level.
'If only I had enough time for that'
No matter.
He walked over to the upside down lizard and gutted his stomach, his knife passing through the thin stomach hide with slight struggle.
After retrieving the magic stone, larger than it's goblin and kobold predecessors, he chucked it into the backpack.
They kept going. By the time they reached the fifth floor, their boots were stained with blood and monster ichor, their breathing heavier, their pace slightly slower. Noel was worse off than Renault, despite him mostly sticking back with no input in the battles, his bag was far heavier, more so than the previous times they came here.
"Let's take five," Renault said, dropping onto a flat rock large enough to be called a boulder.
Pach!
The bag shook as Noel collapsed backwards.
"I have never seen an adventurer with stamina worse than yours."
"Tch, and I have never seen you so eager to kill every monster in sight, I mean seriously, was it necessary to leap into a pack of kobolds? At least take a couple out from afar…" He grumbled in retort between panted breaths.
Renault gaze evaded Noel.
"You remember what's beyond this floor, right?"
"Huh?" Noel blinked, pulling out a cloth to wipe his brow. "Yeah. My guild advisor nags me to memorize monster data every week. Cram sessions and all that."
Renault unscrewed a flask he fetched from Noel's backpack and drank deep. "Then…" He let out a satisfied ahh and tilted the flask for the last few drops. "Glug, glug… say it out loud for me." He wiped the remaining moisture from his lips with the back of his wrist.
Noel groaned and straightened his back, sitting cross-legged. "Alright, alright. Floors six and beyond are where most arrogant newbies kick the bucket."
Renault raised an eyebrow. "Arrogant eh?."
"Just what my advisor said." He cleared his throat, mimicking a nasal, high-pitched voice. "'The sixth floor is where overconfident beginners go to die. It's the War Shadows that end their lives—twisted, humanoid blobs made of darkness, with three long claws and almost no sound when they move.'"
Renault chortled "Impressive impersonation."
Noel grinned. "My mind won't let me forget her voice, I've had my fair share of nightmares."
He glanced around the floor. The fifth level was dimmer, damper. Slime clung to the stone walls like mold, and occasional puddles shimmered with greenish tint. The air smelled of wet stone and something vaguely amphibian.
"Speaking of which…" Noel muttered. "That frog thing was weird."
"The Frog Shooter?" Renault nodded, stretching his arms behind his head. "Yeah. Heavy thing. You see that bulging eye? I think it tracks movement like a hawk."
"It didn't hop so much as heave. Sounded like a sack of wet meat every time it landed."
"And that tongue." Renault grimaced. "Thing lashed out like a whip. Almost caught me in the face."
"You blocked it with your sword sheath."
"Hey, quick thinking is still thinking."
Noel recalled the corpse of an adventurer he saw fighting a group of those frogs, young like him, the first corpse he ever saw, at least in the dungeon.
The boy even managed to take a couple down with him, his cold hand still clutching its magic stone, not budging to a corpse looter's prying hands.
Noel leaned back, arms behind him, eyes staring up at the ceiling. "You ever fought a War Shadow?"
"Of course," Renault said after a beat. "That guild lady didn't do 'em justice, they are the real grim reapers in the flesh."
Silence settled between them for a moment.
"That's why I wanted to test this sword," Renault added quietly. "Make sure I know what it can and can't cut before we go deeper."
"I don't wanna be the arrogant newbie in question but aren't you a high-end level 1? You could probably just rip em to shreds with your bare hands."
"Perhaps," His gaze wandered, "But pride is a big killer in those floors, even level 5's get anxious in the next floor, habit I suppose."
Noel scratched his chin "Anxious, I find that hard to believe"
"Well believe it. Even with this indomitable sword I got creeps in the next couple floors, that's why I needed to practise my swordsmanship, to protect my kill-stealing junior.".
Noel looked over, expression softening just slightly. "And the knees?"
"That's just to keep my style consistent."
A snort escaped Noel before he could stop it.
Renault always found a way to keep the mood light. That's just the kind of man he is.
"I didn't want to pry, but before…"
Renault's gaze hardened.
"Did you know that trio back at the dungeon entrance?"
Renault pursed his lips, "What makes you think that?"
That question confirmed Noel's suspicion, "They seemed pretty interested in you."
"Well, I am pretty handsome." He boasted.
Noel waited a beat before faintly smiling, "Suppose so."
He would let him off the hook, he is his senior after all.
"Noel…"
Renault's voice weakened.
"Yeah?"
"How did you join this Famila?"
"Hmm…"
"Please, answer." He pleaded.
Was it that important to him?
"It's not particularly interesting."
"Even so."
"I was poor kid in the slums, wanted more money, better life, i tried different familias but my physique was so poor that no one wanted me, i could barely stand without coughing my lungs out, couldn't stand in the heat without getting faint headed or endure the cold without shivering. I was desperate."
Noel's eyes glazed over as he recalled the event.
"I agreed to help some guy rob someone, instead of asking for a portion of the money I wanted him to assist me in joining his familia. I was accepted pretty easily unlike the other ones, Soma slapped a falna on me and I was officially a member."
He looked towards his senior with a quizzical gaze.
"It should be a pretty standard story for a familia like ours, no?"
--------------------------------
Wow, first chapter of my first novel, It's a lot harder than i first expected, I was never satisfied with how the construction of paragraphs were nor the flow of scenes (＃`Д´)
but after a lot of revision and deleting paragraphs I am pretty content with how it turned out. ☆:.｡.o(≧▽≦)o.｡.:☆
For those who have a hard idea visualising Noels weapon, it is similar to a Balearic sling.
Sling shots are so good in the dungeon, cheap to make, don't need any service, and its ammo is just rocks.
anyway, I wanted to create this story because I couldn't find any villain danmachi story, and the ones I did find were a bit too edgy for me, I will try my best to keep this mc grounded, I want him to to be a more relatable evil, or maybe a normal guy pushed to do things immoral.
I don't want him going round collecting women like some harlot, he is a innocent virgin boy that will find romance but it won't be a focus.
what girl in danmachi is underused?
[character display]
{Renault Verrier}
age: 21
appearance: tall, handsome blonde man with a sloppy demeanour, his eyes are a lively green and he has a carefree smile on his face.
{Noel Greaves}
age:15
appearance: short, androgenous features with a neat head of blonde hair, his eyes are vividly burgundy like wine. He typically has a grumpy look on his face.