Mira had brushed against death more times than she could count.
That was why she craved strength.
And more than anything else, she craved the sense of security that came with it.
Perhaps that was why she had been so captivated by Leon and perhaps it was also what led her to join the Hestia Familia.
The Hestia Familia.
A small Familia led by the goddess Hestia.
It was practically unknown—more of a newly formed startup than an established Familia. At the time, it had only a single member.
Leon Mishima.
Though throughout Orario, he was better known by another name.
The Golden Rookie.
But now that she knew Leon personally—now that she had become part of the same Familia—calling him a rookie felt almost laughable.
The title no dind't suited him.
Leon was no rookie.
He was a goddamn monster.
More monstrous than the creatures she had encountered in the Dungeon itself.
Stronger than any adventurer she knew—and that meant a lot coming from her.
She had heard the stories before. The rumors about how he treated the Loki Familia's elites like children.
At first, she thought people were exaggerating.
Then she saw it with her own eyes. She still remembered the sight of Leon inside the Dungeon.
A Level 5 monster—one powerful enough to wipe out entire parties—was being effortlessly manhandled by him alone.
And he did it without breaking a sweat.
The scene had felt unreal.
Mira knew exactly how terrifying monsters of that level were. Even with a full party supporting her, she doubted she could defeat something like that. Alone, she wouldn't have stood a chance at all.
Yet Leon faced it head-on as if it were nothing more than an inconvenience.
No panic. No hesitation. No struggle.
Just absolute domination.
If she hadn't witnessed it with her own eyes, she never would have believed it.
A Level 1 defeating a Level 5 monster.
The very idea sounded ridiculous. Impossible, even.
But Leon had made the impossible look effortless.
And then there was the fact that Leon had leveled up in a single week.
She still remembered how it had caused an uproar across Orario. It was all anyone talked about for days, spreading from adventurers to guild workers to taverns, until even those who had nothing to do with the Dungeon had heard of it.
Even without an official Denatus, the moniker "Golden Rookie" had quickly become inseparably linked to his name.
At first, it sounded like another exaggerated rumor meant to inflate a rising talent.
But the more people spoke about it, the harder it became to dismiss.
So when the Hestia Familia held its recruitment drive, she somehow found herself there as well.
To be honest, she had not expected to be accepted at all. Not even a little.
After all, there were dozens—if not hundreds—of aspiring adventurers gathered in one place, all of them driven by their own reasons, their own desperation, and their own hopes, each one competing for the attention of a Familia that, at the time, barely had a name to its existence.
To the point that even the famed Sword Princess of the Loki Familia had left her own Familia for reasons unknown.
It hadn't just surprised Mira—it had shaken all of Orario.
Rumors spread faster than anyone could control, filling every corner of the city with speculation about what could have possibly driven one of the strongest first-class adventurers to leave Loki Familia behind.
No one had a clear answer.
Well, until now—hearing the reason directly from the Sword Princess herself.
"To be stronger."
Those words resonated with her more than she expected.
Because Mira wanted the same thing.
She wanted strength just as badly. She hated being weak, hated the feeling of being unable to do anything when it mattered most, when everything was slipping out of her control and all she could do was survive the aftermath.
And now, hearing it spoken so plainly, it only made that feeling clearer than ever.
She hated how weak she still was.
Hated it in a way that sat deep in her chest, quiet but constant, like a weight she could never fully put down.
And now, she was feeling it again.
Watching Ais deal with the monsters all by herself.
It happened so fast that it almost didn't feel real. One moment they had been in the hot spring, speaking, and the next, everything had been torn apart by the sudden presence of monsters surrounding them.
Of course, she tried to fight back. Thankfully, their weapons were nearby; they hadn't been foolish enough to leave them out of arm's reach, not in the Dungeon.
But she was wrong.
The monsters were Level 5. Each one of them. A full dozen, all of them at Level 5.
That realization hit like a stone dropped into her chest.
This wasn't something she could interfere with.
It only took one strike from a monster to knock her out of the fight completely, sending her reeling and removing her from the battle in an instant.
She was forced to watch, helpless, as Ais fought alone against enemies far beyond what Mira could handle, the gap in their strength made painfully clear with every passing second.
Forced to watch as Ais slowly began to lose. As strong as she was, she was severely outnumbered, and even her movements were starting to fall behind the pressure of overwhelming numbers.
"Damn it…" Mira cried out in frustration, her voice trembling with helpless rage.
And then she saw it.
Ais was struck down.
Her body sent crashing back, motionless for a brief moment that felt far too long.
One of the monsters turned.
Its gaze locked onto her next.
Mira froze.
She was going to die.
She felt it in her bones before her mind could even fully accept it.
No.
She knew it.
The memories came rushing back all at once.
The terror she had buried for years, the night her previous Familia collapsed, the helplessness of watching everything fall apart while she survived by sheer luck alone. It all came crashing down over her in an instant, drowning out every thought except fear.
Her former Familia surfaced in her mind first—faces she could no longer save, voices she could no longer hear.
And beneath that, like something she had only just begun to accept, came the new one.
Leon. Ais. Grokk. Hestia.
The people she had started to call family again.
Regret tightened in her chest, sharp and suffocating. Not just regret, but something deeper, heavier—helplessness. The same feeling she had sworn she would never experience again.
And yet here she was.
Unable to move. Unable to help.
She wished she was stronger.
That thought burned brighter than anything else as the monster closed in.
Then everything stopped.
No, not just stopped—the monster in front of her froze mid-motion, as if the very concept of time had been interrupted.
Mira's breath caught in her throat.
And then, bit by bit, the monster began to disintegrate.
Its body broke apart into fragments of light and ash, unraveling into nothingness before it could even complete its attack.
"What the—" she whispered, stunned.
As the last traces of the monster vanished, a silhouette stood behind it, steady and unmoving.
"Leon…" Mira muttered, her voice trembling, almost breaking.
Tears had already gathered at the corner of her eyes without her noticing.
"…Sorry," Leon said quietly. "I'm late."
Before she could respond, Leon turned his head slightly, his gaze shifting toward the remaining monsters.
There were still many left.
At the same time, she realized something that made her stomach tighten—Ais was nowhere in sight.
Before Mira could say anything, Leon moved.
It happened in an instant.
One moment he was standing in front of her, steady and still.
The next, he was gone.
A split-second later, he reappeared behind the monsters.
And then—
They began to disintegrate.
One by one, their bodies broke apart into particles of light and ash, collapsing in perfect silence as if they had never existed at all.
Then Leon turned around.
His gaze swept the area once before he spoke.
"Where is Ais?" His voice was calm, but there was an edge of focus beneath it now.
Mira froze for a second, still trying to steady her breathing after everything that had just happened.
"…She was here," she said quickly, looking around the hot spring area. "Right before you arrived."
But Ais was gone.
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