"A Blue Papilio?!"
Confusion flickered across Jeanne's face, replaced almost instantly by recognition. She dug into her belt pouch and pulled out the field reference she carried everywhere: Adventurer's Guide: Upper Dungeon Monster Compendium, Volume I. Her fingers flew through the pages.
She found it in the rare species section.
Name: Blue Papilio Type: Rare Range: Floors 7-12 Drop: Blue Papilio Wing (precious recovery elixir ingredient) Description: Possesses four translucent azure wings that scatter faintly luminous scale powder in flight. So beautiful that observers may momentarily forget they are looking at a monster.
She closed the book and looked up. The creature drifted overhead in lazy spirals, its wings catching the dim light like stained glass. Her eyes lit up.
"We're in luck, Leon. The handbook says Blue Papilio drops are incredibly valuable."
Leon's mouth was already curling into a grin he couldn't suppress. His eyes practically glittered with valis signs.
"Kill it."
"Careful," Jeanne warned. "Damaged Drop Items lose most of their value."
"Right... so magic's out." He sheepishly hung his staff back on his pack and reached for the shortbow instead, drawing an arrow from the quiver at the small of his back.
He nocked, drew, and settled into position with the fluid ease of long practice. Clearly, he hadn't neglected his archery. In the days before he'd unlocked magic, the bow had been one of his only ranged options for survival.
He took aim.
The shortbow bent into a full crescent, wood and sinew groaning under the tension.
A sharp hiss. The bowstring thrummed. The arrow tore through the air and struck true, sending the Blue Papilio tumbling from its flight path. Their prize.
"Good. At that range, I was pretty confident." Leon exhaled.
Flying monsters were a genuine headache for most adventurers, who overwhelmingly lacked ranged attacks. Weight limits meant few people bothered packing slings or throwing weapons into the Dungeon. Only parties that didn't mind the extra hassle, or those with a dedicated Supporter, carried a handful as insurance. As for specialist archers or mages? That was premium team composition, the kind only established Familia squads or veteran groups could field. And those were the minority.
Besides, the odds of even encountering a rare species were far lower than the odds of successfully harvesting a drop. Being unprepared was the norm.
Leon carefully carved free the precious Blue Papilio Wings and tucked them into his loot bag, tension draining from his shoulders.
"Let's see." He smacked his lips. "A pair of Blue Papilio Wings... if I sell these to Nazha at the Blue Pharmacy or Airmid at the Dian Cecht Familia Treatment Center, I can push well above market price. Or Heith from the Freya Familia. Those maniacs in her crew run Baptism drills in the combat wilds every day. They've gotta burn through recovery supplies like crazy, and Lady Freya's loaded."
"Heh. These are rare goods. You don't just stumble across them. Every Familia with a potion-making operation wants as many as they can get, no questions asked. The market's been bone-dry for ages. Permanent demand, zero supply."
As far as Leon knew, anyone looking to buy these materials in bulk had to post dedicated commissions through the Guild. The bounties were generous. Especially now, during this dark period, when constant Evilus raids and street battles had spiked elixir consumption through the roof. The Guild notice boards were wallpapered with open-ended procurement requests from every major pharmaceutical Familia in the city.
"Two hundred thousand valis, just like that. Beautiful."
Watching Leon descend into full money-obsessed mode, Jeanne's expression hovered somewhere between amusement and disbelief.
"Hm?"
He caught the look and raised an eyebrow.
Then he remembered. The girl they jokingly called a "country bumpkin" was, in fact, the daughter of an actual landed estate. He clicked his tongue in understanding.
"My dear Lady Jeanne, you've never tasted poverty. Naturally, you can't appreciate the sweet music of money. Especially that crisp little clink when gold coins knock together. Intoxicating."
She stopped mid-step, her expression complicated.
"Sorry for being so insensitive about money, I guess," she muttered.
Humble-bragging, are we? Leon groused internally. Of course. She's a local. Born to it.
Over the hours that followed, the pair wove through Floor 8's labyrinth of tunnels and chambers.
They explored cautiously, cross-referencing every turn against the public maps and data provided by the Guild. Whenever Leon found a discrepancy, he logged it meticulously in his notebook and corrected the map by hand.
Every Familia-affiliated adventurer did this. It was a standing Guild commission. The Dungeon was alive, after all. Reporting terrain shifts or discovering hidden, uncharted zones paid well.
"Scorch!"
Boom. A Needle Rabbit barely had time to emerge from the wall before Leon's magic reduced it to cinders.
"Oh? Needle Rabbit Fur! Nice. Weave that into combat gear and it boosts defense. Fifty thousand valis on the market."
He broke down the monster with practiced efficiency and eyed his haul. Has Jeanne's presence balanced out my garbage luck? The drop rate today is borderline supernatural.
He clicked his tongue, pocketed the loot, and moved on.
Time passed. Their explored territory steadily expanded.
They ran into plenty of monsters along the way, but nothing close to another Blue Papilio. Even ordinary Drop Items and Dungeon materials grew scarce, as if the world had remembered its usual stinginess.
The mild high Leon had been riding cooled back to baseline.
After several hours of wandering Floor 8 through the morning, the differences from the upper floors became impossible to ignore.
The floor was bigger, more open. Combat space was less cramped. Monsters spawned faster, and in larger groups. Lone stragglers were noticeably rarer compared to earlier floors. Leon felt the shift in every encounter.
He recorded every scrap of combat data and observation with meticulous care. Building blocks for the Familia's growth.
Somewhere along an off-route corridor, Jeanne's stomach let out a long, audible growl. She froze. Her eyes darted guiltily toward the man behind her. The tips of her ears flushed red.
Leon pulled out a battered brass pocket watch and checked the time with perfect composure. "Yeah, it's about that time. Let's take a break. Find somewhere safe for lunch."
His tone was casual. The slight eyebrow raise at the end was not.
Color flooded Jeanne's cheeks. "M-my stomach was not growling..."
"Right, right. Pretty girls don't get hungry. I understand. Completely."
He barely held back the laugh.
Clang, clang, clang.
Leon chiseled a small notch into the cavern wall with his backup weapon, propped his pack and staff against it, and the two settled into a relatively hidden alcove to prepare lunch.
He gathered stones and dry branches, assembled a makeshift cooking frame, and touched a fingertip of Scorch to the kindling. Flames caught and crackled to life.
Up went the small cast-iron pot he'd brought. Water from his canteen. While it heated, out came the cutting board and kitchen knife. He prepped the ingredients with practiced hands, added them to the pot in sequence, followed by a careful selection of spices, then covered it.
Before long, the alcove filled with the rich aroma of cream corn chowder.
Paired with the potato-shred wraps and crisp pickled vegetables he'd prepared in advance, a simple but satisfying wilderness lunch spread out before them.
The campfire popped and snapped, the sound oddly soothing in the silent cavern depths.
Leon cradled his wooden bowl and took a long, greedy pull of the scalding chowder. Satisfaction spread across his face. "Down here in the Dungeon, nothing beats a hot meal. Nothing."
Jeanne blew on her spoonful carefully, took a tentative sip, and her eyes went wide. "This is delicious! Cream corn chowder? I love this."
Leon's chest puffed with undisguised pride at the honest praise.
"Picked this up on the sly while I was working part-time. Compared to the tavern owner's cooking, mine's still a step behind... call it home-cooking level, I guess."
The morning's worth of exploration and combat had drained them both. They ate fast.
The pot was empty in minutes.
Jeanne leaned against the cave wall, let out a contented sigh, and rested a hand on her stomach. "You came ridiculously prepared for this."
She watched Leon methodically pack away his cookware and the little jars and bottles of spices, curiosity getting the better of her. "Why go through all this trouble? Making hot food in a place like the Dungeon?"
She couldn't wrap her head around it. Why was this man so obsessed with cooking, even down here?
Leon looked at her like she'd asked why the sky was blue. "Of course you eat hot food. Cold rations are fine once in a while, but every day? I'd lose my mind."
Silence.
Jeanne filed this away under things she would never understand about him. Was it some kind of personal tradition? A compulsion?
During their brief post-meal rest, Jeanne produced a whetstone and carefully honed the tip of her Banner Lance, keeping the weapon in peak condition.
Leon kept busy too.
As the rear-guard mage and de facto Supporter, non-combat logistics fell squarely on his shoulders: breaking down camp, organizing the loot bag, inventorying their remaining elixirs and supplies. He handled the backend work without complaint and without cutting corners.
Everything checked. Everything accounted for.
He stamped out the last embers, and they rose, refreshed and ready for the afternoon push.
Leon unrolled his detailed parchment map and marked their explored routes with a quill pen. After a series of annotations and cross-hatches, his pen tip came to rest on a specific point.
"At this pace, we've covered most of Floor 8. We can fill in the leftover corners another time."
"This corridor ahead links back to the main route. From there, we head straight for Floor 9."