The Irregular that had struck Floor 24 of the Dungeon was over.
With Revis, the Masked One, and the rest of the masterminds having retreated, the outcome of the whole affair was already decided.
True, even after Revis and the Masked One pulled back, the Pantry was still crawling with the great mass of Violas they'd force-grown, and those Violas alone were enough to bring Hermes Familia serious trouble, even a life-or-death crisis. But with the Creatures gone, Leo and Ais now had their hands free to back them up, and could join the fight.
Before either of them had leveled up, the two together were already strong enough to take down a Floor Boss like Udaeus. Now that they'd each leveled up, their strength greatly increased, dealing with a swarm of Violas side by side was as easy as it got.
And so the battle lasted only a little over ten minutes before it ended. Every last Viola was cut down, and Hermes Familia even recovered those iridescent magic stones.
"With this, we can settle up with our client."
Asfi's face just then was full of relief.
There was no helping it. This request had been far too dangerous.
The iridescent Violas were one thing, but the string of anomalies that had shown up along the way, the jeweled fetus, the Creatures, the Giant Flowers, the seedbed, every one of them had shattered Asfi's whole understanding of the world, dragging her and her comrades through one brush with death after another.
The Evilus remnants had even thrown themselves at them in suicide attacks. Remembering those repeated self-detonations, Asfi still felt her heart clench.
You could say that if Leo and Ais hadn't been on the scene this time, there was no way this group of theirs would have survived to see the request through.
"What happened here, I'll take responsibility for reporting to our patron god and to the Guild as well."
Asfi said this even as she thanked Leo and Ais for their help this time around.
Something this big had happened, and a being that defied all common sense of the world, a Creature, had appeared. She had no choice but to report it to her Familia's god and to the Guild.
Leo had no objection to that. It saved him the trouble of haggling with the Guild.
As for Ais, her mind had long since left the cleanup behind.
"Floor 59..."
She stood outside the ravaged Pantry, gazing at the great cavern, now gone gray like a lamp burned dry of oil, and muttered as if lost in thought.
Clearly, Revis's words had turned Ais's every thought toward that place.
Floor 59, a floor no one had ever reached, and the very floor Loki Familia was currently challenging.
Last time, that floor had been Loki Familia's final destination, but the appearance of the worm monsters had forced them to retreat in defeat.
Freya Familia's deepest reached floor was currently Floor 58 as well. The two strongest Familias in the city had yet to reach Floor 59, let alone any of the others.
Of course, the two great Familias that had ruled all of Orario for nearly a thousand years up until fifteen years ago had surely reached it, but they'd never made that information public. Apart from the Guild and a handful of Familias, almost no one knew which floor they'd finally reached.
And over these fifteen years, through the joint efforts of the new strongest Familias, Loki Familia and Freya Familia, the deepest floor adventurers had reached was Floor 58.
As for Floor 59, it was an unknown region no one had set foot in for fifteen years.
What exactly had happened there?
Why did Revis want her to go to Floor 59?
What was there that could unravel the doubts she'd carried until now?
And all of it, what did it have to do with "Aria"?
These thoughts flickered through Ais's mind, leaving her feelings tangled beyond measure.
Until...
"Don't think about it so much."
Beside her, a familiar voice reached her ears.
"You want to know what's there, go take a look and you'll find out."
At that, Ais turned her head and looked at Leo beside her.
"The next expedition's coming up soon, right?" Leo met her gaze and smiled. "The captain and the others are already getting ready. When the time comes, that place is where we're headed."
"So if you want to know what's there, wait for the expedition and we'll go see for ourselves."
That made Ais nod quietly, but she also wore a look like there was something she wanted to say and couldn't.
"What is it?"
Leo found it a little strange.
"...You, don't you want to ask me anything?"
Ais was silent a long while, then came out with that.
Leo knew what she meant.
As the one who'd been with her through all of it, this wasn't the first time Leo had seen or heard Revis call Ais by that name, "Aria," and he'd watched with his own eyes the fierce reaction that name drew out of Ais.
Who exactly was "Aria"?
Why did those Creatures call Ais that?
Was there some connection between Ais and those Creatures?
These questions should have been the ones to surface.
That was why Ais had spoken as she did.
But she didn't know that Leo had, in fact, already learned all of it, and simply hadn't said so.
He knew Ais didn't want anyone to know any of it.
It touched on her origins, on her past, even on why she'd come into this world at all, and why she carried such deep hatred.
She didn't want people to know these things, or rather, didn't dare let them know.
She was afraid her comrades would look at her differently.
Knowing all of this perfectly well, Leo had kept his silence, saying nothing, asking nothing, only quietly watching over Ais.
That was right, just as she had once done for him.
"My background's mysterious and suspicious enough, isn't it?" Leo said calmly. "And yet you've never once asked me about any of it, have you?"
Ais fell silent.
"You don't want to talk about it, then you've got your reasons, same as I've never been willing to bring up where I come from." Leo smiled. "So really, don't think about it so much. If you don't want to say it, don't. Just tell me whether or not you need help, that's all."
"And of course, even if you say you don't need it, I'm definitely still going to help you." Leo reached out and ruffled Ais's beautiful long golden hair. "You've helped me so much. Without you, I'd probably have died in the Dungeon long ago, and there'd be no me the way I am now."
"Now it's my turn to help you."
"No refusing, all right?"
The smile on Leo's face just then wasn't all that bright, in fact it was very faint.
Yet looking at Leo like this, something unfamiliar stirred in Ais's heart.
What that feeling was, Ais didn't understand.
She only knew that here and now, there was one thing she absolutely had to say.
"Thank you."
Ais gazed at Leo's face and said it very earnestly.
"Having you by my side, it's really been a good thing."
This was probably the first time since joining Loki Familia that Ais had expressed what was in her heart so honestly.
After all, though this girl's inner world wasn't as cold as her outward appearance made it seem, her poor way with words still left her rarely putting her true feelings into speech.
It would leave her feeling an inexplicable embarrassment and shyness, just like any ordinary little girl.
But this time, Ais spoke her heart honestly, without feeling the least bit of embarrassment or shyness. It came completely naturally.
The hand ruffling Ais's hair paused slightly, then its movements began to soften.
"Idiot."
As if talking to himself, Leo said it in a low voice.
"That line, it should be me saying that."
Without the girl in front of him, he couldn't begin to imagine how things would have turned out for the self who, a year ago, had just come to this world, and come straight into the Dungeon at that.
Without the girl in front of him, given his conditions back then, forget joining Loki Familia, the strongest Familia in the city, as a trainee, even getting into some no-name little Familia would probably have been difficult.
Even if by some luck he'd escaped the Dungeon he'd first landed in, reached the surface, joined some Familia, successfully received the Falna, and gained that bug of a Skill, Stranger from Another Star, it would still have been hard for him to grow this fast the way he had.
Consider it: when he first became an adventurer, every piece of gear and every supply on him had been given as gifts of friendship by his comrades in the Familia. Without that gear and those supplies, he'd have been able to draw only the most basic Guild-issue weapon to challenge the Dungeon. In that case, forget reaching floors past Floor 5 in a single day, he wouldn't even have been able to make it through the first four floors.
His swordsmanship had been taught by Ais, the strongest female swordsman in the city. His strategies for taking on the Dungeon had been drawn up in the library from the detailed information his Familia's seniors had left behind. His teammates once he entered the Middle Floors had been arranged by the Familia, starting out with a Lv.2 Healer. Even challenging a Floor Boss, it was only because Ais and his Familia comrades were watching his back that he'd dared throw himself into it body and soul. Without all of that, Leo definitely wouldn't have so boldly picked a Floor Boss as his target for earning great deeds.
Let alone the Giant's Battle Garb on his body, or his earlier gear like the Dragon Fang Sword and the Emerald Staff. Which of those hadn't he gotten through Loki, his goddess, pulling strings behind the scenes?
If Ais hadn't brought him into Loki Familia, then even if he'd scraped through that initial survival period by luck, his later growth definitely wouldn't have gone as smoothly as it had.
It was precisely because he had Ais and Loki Familia, the strongest Familia in the city, as his backing that Leo had dared to run so wild.
Otherwise there would have been no glory like the kind he enjoyed now, no leveling up in under a month, or even under half a month. And even if he had somehow managed it, the attention would have brought the harassment and scheming of every faction down on him while he was still Lv.2, until he ended up a plaything of the gods, no longer even able to decide his own road ahead.
Not everyone was like the original protagonist, sheltered by a protagonist's halo, able to face down all that covetousness and harassment not only unharmed but climbing higher off the back of it.
That the original protagonist had such fortune was inseparable from the love of Hestia, that fiercely doting goddess, and inseparable too from the help of the comrades who gathered around him for his personal charm.
Leo reckoned he didn't have that kind of charm, the kind that could draw so many people to help him unconditionally, even willing to sacrifice themselves to do it.
You could say that if the god of the Familia he'd first joined had been someone unable to protect him, then all his glory would definitely have been no good thing, and would instead have become a death warrant.
In this world, there were far too many who couldn't rise because of a god's passing whim or the suppression of various forces, who even ended up tragic figures.
It was precisely because he knew this clearly that Leo had been willing to grind through a full year's probation to join Loki Familia.
Even knowing this Familia would end up dragged into an unimaginable maelstrom of malice like the one now, he took it gladly.
It was still far better than becoming someone else's plaything or puppet on strings.
Thinking this, Leo looked at Ais and quietly made up his mind.
His strength now was just about enough to protect himself, so maybe he could afford to act a little more boldly.
For instance, dragging the enemies hiding in the shadows out so they had nowhere to hide, forcing them into the open for real.
It had been morning when Leo and Ais left the Familia's home base and entered the Dungeon.
Even after that whole string of events, even after the fierce battle in the Floor 24 Pantry, the day still wasn't fully over.
By the time Leo and Ais left the Dungeon together and returned to the surface, the sky had gone dark, but the night wasn't yet deep.
So when Leo and Ais got back to the Familia's home base, their comrades in the Familia still had no idea what the two of them had been through that day.
The Irregular on Floor 24, serious as it was, wasn't really all that serious in the end, let alone the business that had happened in the Pantry, which no one knew about at all.
Hermes Familia had left immediately upon reaching the surface, off to make their report, and Leo and Ais, the moment they got back to the Familia, went to Finn's office and told the Familia's leaders about the whole thing.
"...Something like that really happened?"
Once they'd learned how the whole affair had gone, Finn, Riveria, and Gareth all knit their brows one after another, their expressions turning grave.
"The two of you went way too far." Riveria was the first to call them out. "How could you so easily accept a request put out by beings of unknown origin?"
"That's right, you two had far too much nerve." Even Gareth, always the easygoing one, was displeased this time, frowning as he spoke. "Something this big, you should at least have told us before deciding whether or not to go do it, shouldn't you?"
Knowing they were in the wrong, Leo and Ais didn't dare argue back at all. One gave a sheepish smile, the other lowered her head guiltily.
They really had acted on their own this time, getting caught up in something that big without so much as sending word back, so it was no wonder they were getting scolded by the parents.
In the original story, Ais had at least sent back a letter, getting the Familia to send people to support her. But this time, with Leo there, Ais had fewer worries, and Leo himself understood the whole affair perfectly well. The two of them talked it over and decided to just go in shoulder to shoulder, to spare the family at home the worry.
The result turned out like this, and a lecture from Finn and the other two was unavoidable.
Luckily, there was a bigger matter to discuss now.
"At this point we can basically confirm it," Finn said.
"Beneath the surface of this city, a dark force has been born."
"This force includes, but may not be limited to, the Evilus remnants and the so-called Creatures."
"They will become an enemy to us, and to this city."
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