Ais actually knew better than anyone: it wasn't that she'd become hard to improve, but that she'd already grown as far as she could.
Just as Leo could feel before every level up that he'd already reached the limit of his current Level and could no longer effectively raise his abilities, Ais too had clearly felt the existence of something called a "limit."
It had already been three years since she rose to Lv.5, and over those three years she'd raised the abilities she was good at to near S. To push any further now, the difficulty was bound to be very high.
Not everyone could break past the limits of their Status as easily as Leo.
For other people, reaching the S stage with an ability was already the limit, and those who could reach that limit were extremely few. Apart from a tiny handful of heaven's favored, for an ordinary adventurer to raise their own abilities to the D stage and meet the basic conditions for leveling up was already considered pretty good.
Ais was without question one of heaven's favored. She'd raised even the abilities she wasn't good at to D, and the rest of her abilities had all drawn close to the highest S. How could she possibly not hit a wall?
That Magic parameter of hers, just a sliver of proficiency away from reaching S yet which, even after this expedition, stubbornly couldn't be pushed up that last little bit, had already proven she'd run into a barrier.
This was without doubt telling her that she'd already gone as far as she could at the Lv.5 Level, that she'd reached her limit and had little room left to grow.
Even if she kept going like this, it would be hard for her to accumulate enough excelia to raise her own abilities.
This was the real reason Ais's mood had soured so badly.
"...What about you?"
Ais didn't reveal what was in her heart, and instead asked Leo this.
The implication was clear: she was asking Leo how his own haul had turned out.
Leo badly wanted to say that he was just like her, that his haul wasn't much.
But this time he'd already leveled up, and the news would surely be reported to the Guild soon and made public, at which point he'd instead be suspected of deceiving Ais.
He didn't really want to deceive Ais.
So even knowing it would sting her, Leo still pressed his lips together and spoke with a touch of reluctance.
"I'm already Lv.4."
The surroundings went silent at once, no other sound left.
Ais gazed at the youth before her, her own lips pressing together without her meaning them to.
Lv.4...
He's already Lv.4?
That's... really fast.
It's only been two months. Why can he grow this fast, while I keep marking time in the same spot?
Next, is he going to make his sprint toward Lv.5?
And this time, how long will he need to achieve it?
A month? Or even less?
By the time he rises to Lv.5, I'll surely still be marking time in the same spot, won't I?
In that moment, Ais finally felt it.
This man before her, once so pitifully weak, the one she herself had brought out of the Dungeon, had already caught up to her.
At his rate of growth, he'd soon reach the same domain as her, wouldn't he?
And before long, it was even possible she'd be surpassed by him.
A sense of urgency quietly took root, and the pressure abruptly multiplied many times over, leaving Ais with a faint feeling that she couldn't breathe.
It wasn't that she couldn't stand to see Leo grow stronger; she just couldn't stand that she herself couldn't grow stronger.
"Why..."
Why doesn't a rate of growth like that belong to me?
For the first time in her life, Ais felt the emotion called "jealousy" sprout inside her.
"You okay, Ais?"
Leo looked at the girl with some worry, seeming to sense the violent swell of emotion in her heart at this moment.
"...I'm fine." Ais fell silent again for a while, then said, "Congratulations."
With that, Ais turned and left.
Leo watched Ais's retreating back, and for a moment didn't know whether he should chase after her.
In the end, he gave up the thought of chasing.
"Let her have some time alone."
Right now, whatever he said probably wouldn't be quite right.
The next day, early morning.
Today Twilight Manor would be bustling as ever, and even all of Orario would grow very lively.
On the first day back from the expedition, Loki Familia also had to start dealing with the various spoils they'd brought back.
Magic stones, drop items, or the rare mineral metals and the like gathered from the Dungeon, all of these had to be taken out and sold, exchanged for money, to make up a little for the enormous costs spent before the expedition.
Of course, this batch of spoils certainly wouldn't make up for the pre-expedition costs.
There was no helping it. The expedition force had run into worm monsters, after all, which had caused massive losses of supplies.
To lose that many supplies before they'd even begun raiding the unreached regions was an extremely draining thing for Loki Familia.
The various supplies purchased before the expedition had been thrown away, and the large quantity of spoils gained during the expedition were gone too. All the expedition force brought back was the spoils gained on the way home, which fell far, far short compared to the haul from an ordinary expedition.
On top of that, most of the expedition force's equipment had been dissolved by the worm monsters, including the first-class adventurers' main weapons being scrapped, so the haul from this expedition fell nowhere near the point of making up for the losses. They'd lost their shirts on it.
"...You serious?"
In Finn's office, having heard the whole course of the expedition from his mouth, Loki dropped the bottle she'd been holding the entire time onto the floor.
Especially when Riveria laid out the full tally of the lost amount and, after finishing the count, spoke it aloud, Loki looked struck by lightning, her whole face draining gray-white.
The people of Orario also caught some sense of the situation as Loki Familia's members ran all over the place, beginning to deal with the spoils brought back from the Dungeon.
"So... Loki Familia's expedition this time was a failure?"
"They actually ran into a new species of monster that can dissolve weapons... isn't that just rotten luck?"
"Poor them. Forget Floor 59, this time they didn't even reach Floor 52, and they came home defeated."
"All you can say is, mercifully there were no casualties."
"Yeah, as long as the fighting power's still there, worst case they just go on another expedition next time."
"That's true enough, but still..."
Every corner of the city was filled with this kind of talk.
Loki Familia's expedition failing this time, though it left quite a few people startled, didn't stir up much criticism.
After all, the losses were on the heavy side and they hadn't met the goal they'd set out with, but as some people said, at least Loki Familia hadn't suffered any deaths or losses in fighting power, so the impact wasn't all that great.
If this expedition had not only failed but also produced casualties, then it would have damaged Loki Familia's reputation.
So while people talked, they didn't react too strongly.
Loki Familia didn't take it to heart either. Spoils that needed dealing with got dealt with; weapons that needed repairing and repurchasing got repaired and repurchased.
Tiona, eyes brimming with tears, placed a new order, preparing to spend a fortune forging another great double-bladed Urga, and had already braced herself mentally to take on an enormous debt for it.
Ais finally managed to sort out her feelings too, pressing last night's dejection down into the bottom of her heart for the time being, and took Desperate off to be repaired. But supposedly, because it was worn down too severely, the sword wouldn't be repairable anytime soon, so she could only make do for now with a sword lent to her by the Familia member who handled her weapon repairs, and swap it back once Desperate was fixed.
Finn, Gareth, Tione, and the others all entrusted smiths they were familiar with to forge them new weapons, which kept the whole day extremely busy.
Granted, the things to do after returning from an expedition piled up like a mountain to begin with, and every return from an expedition got busy like this, but this time was certainly busier than before, so not only the expedition force but nearly all of Loki Familia's members were mobilized, each assigned a certain amount of work.
Even Leo didn't escape it this time, getting assigned some of the expedition's cleanup work alongside Raul and the other core personnel of the Second Army, running all over the city the whole day, so busy he had no time to do his own things.
It was just that the news he'd risen to Lv.4 did, in the end, smoothly spread around.
"You're already Lv.4?!"
Raul, the first to learn of it, reacted enormously.
Forget him; even the others traveling with the two of them, dealing together with the post-expedition cleanup, were taken aback.
"Isn't that way too fast?"
Even the always composed and level-headed Anakitty clicked her tongue in spite of herself.
"...You're already Lv.4 just like that?"
Alicia's expression shifted likewise, and the look in her eyes as she watched Leo turned a little off.
"No need to be so surprised, is there?" Seeing everyone staring at him blankly, Leo felt a bit awkward, and said, "I've just finally caught up to your pace, that's all. You're all probably not far from Lv.5 yourselves, right?"
Leo really did think this way.
Raul, Anakitty, and Alicia, these three were the ones acknowledged within the Familia as closest to Lv.5, the topmost existences among the Lv.4s, and it wouldn't be strange whenever they leveled up to Lv.5.
Compared to those three, he'd only just risen to Lv.4; there was nothing to make a fuss over.
Leo, thinking this way, earned only eye-rolls from everyone.
"Do you wanna listen to what you're saying?" Anakitty said, none too pleased. "How long did it take us to get this far? And how long did it take you?"
Nothing else needed saying. Take Raul and Anakitty: they'd been in Loki Familia for seven or eight years now, and only with great difficulty had they made it this far, the blood and sweat spent along the way beyond counting.
And Leo?
At the very most he'd only formally joined the Familia two months ago!
In just two months this person had caught up to them, who'd worked seven or eight years for it, and even so he still said there was no need to be so surprised?
Then when exactly were they supposed to be surprised?
"When I was Lv.4, you were Lv.1, and now I'm still Lv.4 while you're already Lv.4 too. You're making me feel like I can barely keep my face as your Familia senior."
Raul said this with a pained look.
Casting his mind back, when Leo was still a trainee, he himself had already been Lv.4, and had carried himself as a Familia senior the whole time, looking after Leo for a full year.
When Leo received the Falna and made his debut, Raul had even gone out of his way to bring a gift to encourage him and see him off.
And now, after only two months, that rookie who'd set out on the road to the Dungeon under his own send-off had already caught up to him and become a Lv.4 just like him. How was he supposed to take that?
That still wasn't the most terrifying part.
"At your rate of growth, I'm afraid it won't be long before you officially surpass us, will it?" Alicia murmured with a sigh. "Just as you'd expect of someone Lady Riveria went so far as to personally train into shape. You'll probably be able to rise to Lv.5 faster than us, and catch up to the first-class adventurers."
The moment she said this, forget Raul; even Anakitty and the other Lv.4s present fell into silence.
A tremendous pressure rose up in all of their hearts.
That feeling of being the old guard shoved aside by a rising newcomer, about to be left in the dust, was honestly not very pleasant to bear.
On the one hand, they were happy that their Familia had produced such a junior of immense potential and promising future.
But on the other hand, they felt their face as Familia seniors really was hard to keep.
The moment they thought about how they'd worked so many years only to be caught up by this rookie before them in three swift strokes, and how the other would soon be able to surpass them and catch up to those in the Familia's top tier, neither Raul nor anyone else could help feeling rather conflicted.
And to top it off, the person in question was still putting on a "this is nothing" face.
"I'd actually like to catch up as soon as I can, so I won't always need others to look after me, protect me, and worry over me." Leo said calmly. "So I still need to work a bit harder."
"You're gonna work even harder?" Raul couldn't help letting out a wail. "You already grow this fast, and you're still gonna work that hard? You're trying to drive us into the grave!"
He felt his mental pressure was about to max out.
That feeling, afraid your kid brother will struggle in poverty yet also afraid he'll outshine you, really left him miserable to the extreme.
To that, Leo only wanted to say: if the grind doesn't kill me, then you lot can just wait to be ground to death by me.
There was no helping it.
"What comes next is the real season of troubles."
Recalling the worm monsters encountered on Floor 51, and the female-form monster met on Floor 50, Leo's eyes turned deep and dark.
"When the real disaster arrives, there won't be any chance left to complain that you weren't strong enough."
Leaving behind these words that made no sense to anyone, Leo went on walking ahead.
He wanted to finish the work handed to him as fast as possible, so as to free up time to go seek instruction from Finn.
"I've got to raise my close-combat ability quickly, otherwise, relying on magic ability alone, it'll be hard to face the trials coming next on my own."
The familiar plot had officially begun, and the long-peaceful Orario would once again greet a time of turmoil.
Darkness was stirring, knives sharpened and ready, eyeing Loki Familia from the shadows, preparing to make its move against this Familia and against this city.
And there was Ais, too...
That girl would also meet a new challenge next, would meet villains who fixed their eyes on her and meant her harm.
To have the power to deal with these coming difficulties, he absolutely could not stop.
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