"Tighten formation from here. Stay alert at all times."
Jeanne's voice rang steady and clear, echoing through the dim cavern.
"Got it."
Leon obeyed without hesitation, instinctively closing the gap between them.
In his grand vision for the future, Jeanne was the Hart Familia's commander. The role every top Familia needed filled: Finn for Loki Familia, Hedin Selland for Freya Familia, Shakti for Ganesha Familia, Lyra for Astraea Familia. The one who held everything together.
He knew his own strengths, and battlefield command wasn't one of them.
Rallying troops, reading the flow of combat, orchestrating tactics on the fly... none of that came naturally. Leon believed in letting specialists do what they did best.
And Jeanne fit the commander role like she'd been born for it, even if she happened to be "somewhat decent" at fighting, too.
...
The two slowed their breathing and crept through the deep, narrow passage.
Then the corridor opened, and the world expanded.
"Holy shit, look at that ceiling!"
Leon's whisper came out sharper than intended, his eyes sweeping the vast space shrouded in white fog. Visibility was terrible, but the sheer sense of scale was unmistakable.
"Can't see a damn thing through this fog, but you can feel how massive this place is."
Ahead stretched a cavernous hall that seemed to go on forever, the mist swallowing its boundaries whole. What they could make out of the central chamber was barely enough, their eyes straining at the limit of their range.
But unlike the bare, featureless caverns of the upper floors, something had changed.
Scattered across the ground ahead, skeletal trees jutted upward. Leafless. Lifeless. Wrong.
The two exchanged a look, confirming what the handbook had warned them about.
"The Dungeon Armory," Jeanne said. It was phrased as a question, but her tone left no room for doubt.
They approached with caution. The bark was unnaturally hard, the trunks thick at the base and tapering upward in a structure no real tree would grow. Reading about it was one thing. Seeing it was another.
"That's exactly what it is." Leon's brow furrowed. "They don't just arm the monsters. They're obstacles, too. Trip over one of these in the middle of a fight, and you're done."
"Should we clear them out?"
Jeanne's frown deepened as she studied the eerie shapes looming through the mist. Leon hesitated.
This wasn't a quick job, and who knew if the Dungeon would just grow them back? Trying to guess what a living labyrinth would do next was a fool's errand.
"Forget it. Let's skirt the walls and push deeper into the hall."
Before the words had fully left his mouth, Jeanne's grip snapped tight around the Banner Lance. Her violet eyes locked onto something in the fog, and her voice dropped to barely a breath.
"We may not have that option."
Every alarm in Leon's head went off at once. His spine locked rigid, left hand already shooting to the outside of his pack, fingers closing around his staff in one fluid motion.
The fog strangled their line of sight. He couldn't see what was coming, but the tension was everywhere, a cold, crawling pressure that squeezed tighter with every heartbeat.
"Here they come."
Jeanne's voice was low, clipped.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The ground trembled.
Both of them narrowed their eyes. Deep in the fog, massive silhouettes swayed and shifted, each heavy footfall radiating a suffocating weight as they closed the distance.
The thunderous steps never stopped. The vibrations traveled up through boots and greaves and into bone.
Leon sized them up, fingers tightening around his staff. "First time facing something this big. Let's see what they've got."
He shifted half a step back, giving Jeanne room to work at the front.
"Bwooorgh..."
A guttural, savage growl tore through the mist, and the shapes shouldered their way into view.
"So that's an Orc." Leon sucked in a breath. "That's... a lot of monster."
Brown skin stretched taut over knotted muscle. A bloated, barrel-shaped body topped by a grotesque pig's head, snout twisted into something between a snarl and a grin. Scraps of matted hide hung around its waist like a tattered skirt. It stood at least three and a half meters tall, roughly twice Leon's height, and moved like a small hill that had decided to go for a walk.
Large-class monster.
Orc, making its grand entrance.
"Jeanne, you good to take point on that thing?"
One look told him everything he needed to know. The Orc was a pure stat-check brute, all raw power and crushing force. Massive health pool, massive damage. Exactly the kind of enemy a mage with no heavy-hitting finisher wanted nothing to do with.
"Handle it?" The focus on Jeanne's face was absolute, every line sharpened to a razor's edge as she tightened her grip on the Banner Lance. "No problem."
"Good. I'll back you up!"
The trust passed between them without ceremony.
Jeanne drew a deep breath. Her center of gravity dropped, the Banner Lance angled forward, stance settling into a flawless combat posture.
"BWEE-OHRRRRGHHH!!!"
The roar hit like a physical wall, raw sound hammering their eardrums. And right behind it rolled a stench so foul it was almost a weapon in its own right.
"Good god..."
Leon bit out the curse under his breath, silently thanking every coin he'd spent on his face mask. He didn't want to imagine what Jeanne was dealing with at closer range.
The girl's brow knotted tighter. She turned her head on instinct, holding her breath, one hand rising in a swift, elegant motion to cover her nose and mouth. When she spoke, a note of genuine offense colored her voice.
"Even on the battlefield, unleashing that sort of stench upon a lady is simply unforgivable!"
The Orcs, however, lacked the mental capacity for chivalry. Behind those crimson eyes, Leon and Jeanne were nothing more than warm, fragrant prey.
The pig-like bodies lurched into motion. Heavy feet cracked against the stone floor with each step, their massive frames shuddering as they lumbered forward. As they passed through the dead trees, thick arms shot out, and with horrifying grip strength, they ripped the trunks straight out of the ground.
What had been part of the Dungeon's landscape a moment ago was now a crude, terrifying club in a monster's fist.
The Dungeon Armory. Adventurers also called it the Natural Weapon Rack.
This was one of the Dungeon's most infuriating tricks.
The living labyrinth supplied its roaming monsters with an endless arsenal of natural weapons. The Dungeon Armory only appeared from Floor 10 onward, a deliberate mechanic designed to boost monster combat power.
The math was simple. An adventurer might handle a barehanded monster with ease. But hand that same monster a weapon, and without any change in its base abilities, its threat level skyrocketed. What was manageable became deadly.
Weapons mattered. For humans and monsters alike, the gap between armed and unarmed was the gap between nuisance and mortal danger.
"Floor 10 really does change everything," Leon muttered, his expression grim. "One mechanic, and the threat curve goes exponential."
Jeanne's sharp gaze tracked the Orcs' every movement, her own expression hardening further.
"Monsters already have natural advantages. Innate abilities, specialized physiology, all of it dangerous enough on its own. But if they can use tools on top of that..."
"Doesn't bear thinking about."
Leon exhaled hard, forcing the tension down, and snapped his staff up to aim at the closest target.
"First time on Floor 10. Being underprepared comes with the territory. Next run, we'll know better. Priority one: destroy the Dungeon Armory before anything can arm itself."
The handbook was clear on this point. The Dungeon Armory could be destroyed, but it was still part of the Dungeon. Given time, it regenerated. Worse, intelligence reports confirmed that the regeneration applied even to gaps left by monsters who'd already claimed weapons. The spot where an Orc had just ripped out a tree would sprout a new one before long.
Standard protocol for experienced parties was simple: if you had the time and breathing room, clear the dead trees first. Deny the monsters their arsenal.
But that window had already closed.
The Orcs clutching their massive makeshift clubs locked onto their prey. Ragged breathing grew faster, faster. Murky yellow eyes blazed with predatory hunger, the feral light swelling as killing intent flooded outward. Their enormous frames tilted forward, muscles bulging, coiled to charge.
First time facing a large-class monster. Leon rolled his neck, settling his grip on the staff.
"Ready when you are."
Jeanne's answer was a single nod.
And in that split second...
The Orcs' predatory instincts seized the opening.
A roar split the air.
"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHH!!!"
The battle cry detonated like a bomb.
Almost in the same heartbeat, Jeanne's boots slammed against the ground.
She launched forward, a silver arrow loosed from the string, all grace and lethal momentum as she hurtled straight at the nearest Orc.
The prey isn't running... it's charging me?
The Orc's maw split wide, tusks bared, something like a silent laugh twisting across its face.
An arm thicker than Leon's waist heaved the monstrous club skyward. Crimson light blazed to a fever pitch in those piggish eyes.
"Scorch!"
BOOM.
The spell struck first. While the Orc's attention locked onto Jeanne's charge, Leon released the magic he'd been holding at the ready.
"GRAAAAGHHH!"
Flames erupted across brown skin, searing and clawing at flesh as the monster howled in agony.
But Leon's expression didn't shift. His eyes narrowed, reading the result instantly.
All flash, no damage. That barely scratched it.
His mouth twisted.
Then...
CLANGGG!!!
A deafening crash of metal on wood exploded through the chamber, the sound ringing like a cathedral bell struck with a sledgehammer.
The Orc, skin split and blistering from the flames, had powered through the pain. Bloodshot eyes bulging with rage, it had met Jeanne's charge head-on.
Raw strength against raw strength. The most primal contest there was.
Jeanne, one hundred and sixty centimeters tall, locked in a direct contest of force against an Orc that towered past three hundred and fifty.
The sheer wrongness of the image hit Leon like a punch to the chest.