Time flew when it was spent around people you loved.
Three days passed in a blink.
Camp Stymphalian stayed loud, warm, chaotic, and somehow more impossible than before. Training filled the hours. Recovery filled what remained. The children kept Phong busy. The Timatoes were left behind in Camp Orthrus. The Mushroomires settled further into the healed scorched land. And then, just like that, it was time for Team Nemean to move again.
This time, the departure felt cleaner. Not easier. Just cleaner.
They had a plan. A direction. A few more levels. A few more blessings. And enough stubbornness to try Floor 3 again.
Alexei and Rico, however, had spent those three days in personal hell. The fire chickens had not forgiven them. Not at first. Every morning began with chaos. Feathers. Sparks. The smell of singed pride. Alexei, who had somehow become the designated victim of poultry justice, needed his daily Sympathy Enoki just to keep pace with the team. Without it, he would have shown up to training half roasted and fully offended.
Rico did not fare much better. The raccoon had tried to turn the chicken coop punishment into a story of noble sacrifice. The chickens disagreed. They chased him. Pecked him. Set his tail fur smoking twice. At one point he came running out of the coop yelling that "bird oppression" had reached unacceptable levels.
Then, somehow, the chickens changed. Not all at once. But enough. By the third day, they had become almost polite. They still watched Alexei and Rico with judgment in their tiny fiery eyes, but they stopped attacking. They scratched the ground. Pecked grain. Acted like good little poultries.
Phong did not know why. His best theory was simple. Alexei and Rico had slept with them long enough that the birds vented all the aggression out of their systems. That, or Little Fireball had silently decided enough was enough and adjusted their behavior without anyone noticing.
Phong did not press the question. Some mysteries were safer left alone.
When Team Nemean finally stood ready beneath the lime-oak, packs secured and weapons checked, Phong bid them farewell with the same steady calm he always wore when people he cared about walked toward danger.
He looked at Dominic first. Then Alex. Then the rest. No speech. No dramatic promise. Just one firm nod that said come back alive. Then they were gone.
And for the first time in days, Camp Stymphalian felt bigger and quieter at once. Now it was just him and Rico left with the elf children. That alone should have counted as a full-time job.
Phong made his rounds anyway. First, he checked the healed scorched land.
The Mushroomires had settled into it more fully than he expected. What had once been black ruin was now turning into something layered and alive. Fungal growths spread in structured patches. Bone fragments from old meals had vanished into the colony's new body. Several Mushroomires from the meadow had already been guided back here, and from the look of them, many had reverted. Mushroompires no longer. Just Mushroomires again, their built-up stress and aggression likely vented during the fighting against Josh's army.
That theory pleased Phong. Not because it made the world kinder. Because it made it understandable.
Then he saw something stranger. One old Mushroomire, larger and broader than the others, simply sat down. Then it kept sitting. Its cap widened. Its body slumped and rooted. The flesh of it hollowed in places without dying, turning itself slowly into a low, rounded shelter. Smaller Mushroomires immediately started waddling inside and around it like this was the most natural thing in the world.
Phong stopped. Watched. And could only stare in awe as the old Mushroomire turned itself into housing for the smaller ones. Neither protest nor ceremony. Just a quiet, biological choice that made perfect sense to them and none at all to him.
Rico, standing beside him with one of the elves on each shoulder, whispered, "Mushroom retirement plan."
Phong let out a weak laugh. Then he kept moving. He brought Rico along for the rest of the route because leaving the raccoon unsupervised for too long was how civilizations ended.
First they went to Camp Harpy. The Greencap bunnies were, as always, tiny, military, and more intimidating than their size had any right to allow. Rico managed not to say anything stupid to the captain, which Phong counted as a personal victory.
Then they stopped by Lake Baratok to see the treants. The old wooden giants remained as they always did, stillness wrapped around hidden awareness. The children were a little quieter there, perhaps because even elf babies could tell when a place belonged to old things with roots deep enough to judge them.
After that came the trolls. The mountain still held. The tribe still breathed. The war with Josh had not broken them. Rico became louder the moment they neared the caves, which Phong decided was his natural state around troll territory anyway.
On the way back, something near the inner ponds of Camp Stymphalian caught Phong's eye. Movement. Small movement.
He crouched. And stared in shock. New baby lizardmen had hatched. Not humanoid, not even close. They were barely bigger than tadpoles, tiny slick-bodied creatures wriggling from the small pond in camp toward the larger water channels leading back to the lake. Little tails. Little limbs not yet committed to anything useful. Nothing in them suggested the disciplined, spear-carrying, humanoid lizardmen he had come to know.
Phong blinked once. Then again.
"How," he said softly, "do those become people."
Rico looked down too and made a face of complete seriousness. "Puberty."
Phong stared at him. "That is not an answer."
"It is for raccoon."
The tiny lizards kept wriggling onward in a determined little stream, leaving damp tracks as they made for the broader water beyond camp.
Phong watched them go, still baffled.
The dungeon kept doing this to him.
Just when he thought he understood one corner of its life, it opened another and reminded him that every alliance he had made rested on species histories, instincts, and growth cycles he barely grasped.
He stood slowly, one elf child clinging to his sleeve, another to Rico's tail, and looked out over Camp Stymphalian.
The team was gone.
The next push into Floor 3 had begun.
And he, left behind again, found himself surrounded by children, mushrooms, trolls, bunnies, treants, baby lizards, and a raccoon who kept trying to act like this was all normal.
Phong sighed.
Then went back to work.
Phong used the lime-oak to surface in Lyon.
The route opened in the backyard of Maison Delacroix – Chambres d'Hôtes, Camille's family motel, and the moment he stepped through with Rico at his side, the cold surface air hit different from dungeon air. Cleaner in some ways. More ordinary in ways that almost felt strange now.
He paused for a second and looked at the yard.
Coming back here reminded him of exactly how ridiculous all of this had started.
Rico sleepwalking.
Mrs. Delacroix finding the sapling.
One accidental planting during Halloween last year.
And from that complete nonsense, their first lime-oak outside the dungeon had taken root.
History, apparently, liked bad jokes.
Rico looked around and puffed his chest. "Raccoon legacy site."
Phong gave him a flat look. "Raccoon accident site."
The back door opened before Rico could defend his honor.
Monsieur and Madame Delacroix stepped out in surprise first, then warmth right after. Their English was broken, but sincere in the same way Long's always felt. Enough to get the meaning through, with feeling where grammar failed.
"Phong!" Madame Delacroix said, eyes widening. "You come back!"
"Mister Phong," Monsieur added, already smiling. "And little raccoon."
Rico bowed as if being formally introduced to nobility. "Correct."
Phong smiled despite himself and was about to start with the important part. The apology. The explanation. The part where he told them what happened at Camp Orthrus and said he was sorry their daughter had been trapped on Floor 2 through Christmas and New Year because his life could not stop creating problems for everyone nearby.
He got maybe half a breath into that intention.
Then Monsieur Delacroix slapped a thick stack of cash down in front of him so hard it made Rico jump.
Phong blinked.
Madame Delacroix nodded with fierce satisfaction. "You take."
He looked from the money to them. "What."
Monsieur Delacroix folded his arms like a man who had prepared this argument and had no intention of losing it.
"The lime," he said, tapping the stack. "Snow Lime. Very beloved here."
Madame Delacroix nodded rapidly. "Divers come. Always stop. Must stop. Maison Delacroix, now famous little place for the lime."
Phong stared.
Monsieur Delacroix continued, "So. We decide. Is reasonable. At least half for you."
Phong tried at once. "No, I can't just—"
"Yes," Madame Delacroix said firmly.
"No, really, you found the place, you did the work—"
Monsieur Delacroix cut him off with a dismissive wave. "Your tree."
"That was an accident."
"A good accident," Madame Delacroix said.
Rico pointed at the money. "Raccoon vote yes."
Phong ignored him and tried one more time, but the couple would not bend. They had already decided what was fair, and as far as they were concerned, Phong arguing against being paid only made him polite and foolish in equal measure.
So in the end, he took half the cash.
Not comfortably.
But he took it.
After that, he made the practical trip first.
Fuel.
Spices.
Basic necessities that were harder to get right inside the dungeon or through camp trades alone.
He moved quickly through the errands, keeping low enough not to attract unnecessary attention, then returned to the motel yard with the supplies.
When he got back, he asked Monsieur Delacroix to send his regards and his apology to Séline's parents too.
That turned out to be unnecessary.
The moment the Lamberts' name was mentioned, they appeared from the restaurant next door, Restaurant Lambert – Cuisine Lyonnaise, like they had been summoned by old magic and neighborhood gossip.
Monsieur Lambert took one look at Phong and snorted.
"You are too much stranger," he said.
Phong opened his mouth to apologize anyway.
Monsieur Lambert waved it away at once. "No. No. Divers disappear sometimes. Unpredictable things happen. This is the job."
Madame Lambert, warmer but no less firm, nodded along. "You come back. That matters."
That took more weight off Phong's shoulders than he expected.
Then, naturally, the Lamberts insisted he and Rico stay for lunch.
Private.
No strangers.
No one would even get a peek at them.
Phong was on the verge of agreeing when Rico, because intrusive thought was the only true religion he followed, asked in complete seriousness, "But elf children going hungry if farmer stays."
Silence.
Then all four adults turned toward them.
That was enough.
The Delacroix and the Lamberts immediately upgraded the invitation from lunch for two to lunch for the whole impossible household.
Rico was sent back at once to fetch the elves from Camp Stymphalian and bring them through the lime-oak to the motel, where they could all eat in private.
Phong pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered, "You really can't help yourself."
Rico looked proud. "Raccoon advocates for children."
And somehow, against all odds, it worked out.
The moment the elf children arrived, Madame Lambert and Madame Delacroix looked ready to adopt them on the spot.
Not metaphorically.
Actually ready.
The little monsters won them over in seconds just by existing in the same room and saying "bonjour" in accents so broken and cheerful they should have counted as a crime against language.
Then the food came out.
And the elves destroyed it.
Absolutely destroyed it.
They attacked the French lunch like leafy menaces descended from a higher plane of hunger. Bread vanished. Meat vanished. Sides vanished. One of them tried to sneak a second pastry before finishing the first and got caught only because Phong saw the movement from the corner of his eye.
He sighed and did what he always did.
He taught.
"Sit properly."
"Use your hands less."
"No, not like that."
"Chew first."
"Do not reach across the table."
The elves mimicked him as best as they could. For a little while, at least. They copied how he held the utensils. Copied how he sat. Copied the order in which he ate.
Then boredom got them.
And once boredom arrived, order lost.
Soon they were laughing again, jostling each other, reaching too fast, trying to trade bites across the table, and generally turning the private lunch into a scene of affectionate disaster.
Phong kept correcting them with the tone of a tired father who knew he had already lost half the battle the moment sugar entered the room.
The two French families, meanwhile, looked delighted.
Rico leaned back in his chair with the self-satisfaction of a raccoon who believed he had made the correct diplomatic call.
By the end of lunch, the elves were each given a pouch of cookies and sweets by Madame Lambert.
She pressed them into their hands one by one with the solemn gravity of a grandmother provisioning children for winter.
The elves looked at the pouches like they had just been handed treasure.
Phong looked at the women and knew at once that if he let them, they would feed the children until they became round enough to roll.
Not that the kids would have objected.
When it was finally time to head back to Camp Stymphalian, the elf children were sticky, happy, and carrying their treat pouches like sacred relics. They waved and chirped their goodbyes in a mix of broken French, Vietnamese, and whatever else they had picked up from too many adults across too many floors.
Phong stood at the lime-oak with Rico, the children, the supplies, and the strange warmth of a lunch that had felt too normal for the kind of life he lived now.
Then they stepped back through the network toward home.