"What's the exact situation?"
"It's hard for me to explain it clearly to you, too. You can roughly understand it as this— the magic I possess is very special. When I'm on the verge of death, it heals me."
"And then..."
"Because of that magic, I'm hated by the Dungeon, and from time to time it can trigger the occurrence of an 'Abnormal Situation.'"
Considering they were all members of the same familia, Ron chose to give a simple answer.
When they had encountered the ancient dragon Lansseax, Daphne and Cassandra had not backed down, especially the latter, even when she herself had suffered backlash from Ashen sorcery.
Even though the healing had no effect, she had still done everything she could.
At the very least, for now, these two new members recruited into the Hestia Familia were worthy of Ron's trust as they headed into the Middle Floors to explore the Soulslike Dungeon.
This kind of situation was unavoidable.
Even for old-school ASS Soulslike players, it was fundamentally impossible to clear everything without dying even once.
And after hearing Ron's explanation, the countless doubts in Daphne's heart finally received an answer that made logical sense.
Reasonable.
After all, the unknowns on an adventurer's body were things even gods might not be able to fully understand. Possessing powerful magic and being hated by the Dungeon was something she could accept.
She looked once more at the Far East girl whose expression remained calm and undisturbed.
'Because there's something even more outrageous...'
Now she could understand why, when Ron had been on the verge of death, she had not seen even the slightest anxiety on Mikoto's face, nor any emotional disturbance at all.
So this girl had already gotten used to this kind of absurd stunt, had she?
"Captain."
Daphne tugged at the corner of her mouth. The fact that he could speak so plainly about a secret of this level let her feel the trust behind Ron's attitude.
Her tone was full of helplessness.
"At the very least, before we started exploring the Dungeon, you should've explained the situation in advance. Just now, Cassandra... she was really worried about your safety."
"If I'd told you, would you have believed it?"
"..."
The brown-haired girl gently shook her head.
If the facts had not been laid out right in front of her, she absolutely would never have believed that this kind of 'miracle,' never before seen in Orario, could appear in an adventurer.
She could also understand why Ron did not want to expand the size of his familia.
A special magic like this—she dared not imagine what it would mean on a worldwide scale, but it would definitely cause a sensation in Orario.
And that guy was her captain!
And in the face of the miracle of dying and coming back to life... what had been naturally overlooked were the details of Ron's battle with the ancient dragon Lansseax.
Seppuku.
The complicated look on Daphne's face had already betrayed the thoughts deep in her mind. Compared with the boy who had dueled Hyakinthos in the War Game,
it was hard to imagine... that the one who had explored the Dungeon with them today was the same adventurer.
It wasn't exactly painful to watch.
It was just an absurd feeling that was hard to describe—if you wanted to kill a monster, you had to cut the monster with your weapon, not disembowel yourself before the fight.
She had seen Lansseax's regenerative ability and defensive power with her own eyes.
Even with a greatsword in hand, Ron had only been able to leave shallow wounds, and even the bleeding injuries had healed at high speed.
On the other hand... after Ron had performed seppuku with those two short swords, that strange crimson aura made Daphne's heart pound violently every time she recalled the scene.
It was obviously a blitzkrieg tactic.
He had inflicted dense, unrecoverable wounds across the Floor Boss's enormous body, and in the end had detonated it completely from within, bringing the ancient dragon's life to an end.
That pale yellow magical barrier that could completely absorb the ancient dragon's flames.
The way Ron's strength had been temporarily enhanced after flames spread across his body, and so on—her heart was full of confusion, and even now, she could not obtain any concrete answers.
Looking ahead, at the figure carrying a greatsword on his back and dragging along the ancient dragon's drop items—
"Captain..."
Daphne's eyes were complicated. "Why does it feel like the secrets you carry are even more..."
"Outrageous?"
On the matter of our captain being a monster.
...
They had run into each other twice in a row.
Both times, it had been in the middle of 'Abnormal Situations' that had 'coincidentally' happened in the Dungeon. Anyone with even a little bit of brains could realize how much information was hidden inside that.
As the captain of the Loki Familia, Finn did not think he had any defects in his intelligence. It was very likely that all of this was because of the adventurer Ron—but even thinking that was hard to believe.
An adventurer.
Abnormal Situations in the Dungeon.
He found it difficult to connect those two things, but after personally witnessing Ron's revival from near death, was the so-called impossible merely something he had never encountered before?
There had been no frank explanation.
The blond boy cast a complicated glance at Riveria. A steadiness that did not match that youthful face now appeared on Finn's own features.
"Do you think... there are really that many coincidences in the world?"
"That guy definitely isn't a god."
"It can't be... that he has something to do with the Evilus gods, can it?" Riveria's slender brows drew together slightly, but the speculation that had arisen in her mind was quickly dismissed.
Evilus's objective was to completely overturn Orario and bring the Labyrinth City to ruin.
If Ron really had anything to do with Evilus, then when the Dungeon had produced that mutated Floor Boss, there was no reason for him to risk his life to slay that dragon.
She gently shook her head.
"Absolutely impossible."
"I think the most likely answer is that there's something special about Ron that warrants even the Dungeon going out of its way to target him."
At this point in the conversation, both Finn and Riveria found themselves entertaining an unrealistic thought.
The seed of a hero.
But even Ais Wallenstein, who was similarly gifted, did not receive this kind of treatment from the Dungeon!
Taking Ron's relationship with Lefiya into account, and considering that Ron was the captain of his familia, Finn stopped walking and swept his gaze across all the members present.
For the first time ever, the blond boy's attitude was utterly serious.
"About what happened today."
"I don't want to hear even the slightest rumor about it in Orario. Even if you've already formed your own guesses, it still concerns the other party's secret."
"As for the exact situation..."
"we'll discuss it after I've asked Lady Loki."
"..."
As the familia's core members,
Tiona and Tione, the werewolf Bete, and the dwarf Gareth—as well as the members of the expedition's first unit present there—all looked at one another, but none of them objected.
They understood that Captain Finn was not joking at a time like this.
Besides—even if they were interested in the secret Ron carried, there were many reasons to approach him directly. As for gossiping behind his back, they disdained doing something like that.
"Continue the return trip."
Because they had split up, and because of the delay on the twelfth floor, their return to Orario had been slowed somewhat. During the rest of the journey, the atmosphere was a little heavy.
Even after returning to the Loki Familia's residence, Finn and Riveria did not stop for even a moment. It was not because they were dealing with the tedious affairs that came after a familia expedition, but because they wanted to use a god's means
to obtain information related to Ron.
And then, they saw the god Loki, sitting on the sofa with narrowed eyes like some middle-aged uncle, along with the Guild receptionist Eina, seated in a single chair.
The main reason Eina was there
was due to business assigned by the Adventurers Guild. But for the moment, Finn had no time to deal with that. His eyes were filled with urgency as he looked toward Loki.
The blond boy got straight to the point and asked directly: "That..."
"Lady Loki, while we were carrying out the Dungeon expedition, did you happen to hear in Orario... about an adventurer named 'Ron'?"
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