Inside a gloomy hall built from massive stone blocks, torches crackled and blazed along the walls. The flickering firelight barely pushed back the darkness, casting the silhouettes standing throughout the chamber into twisted, menacing shadows.
"..."
The hall was deathly silent.
A dense mass of foot soldiers in black hooded cloaks and face masks packed the spacious room. Every one of them stood with their head down, staring at the tips of their own feet as though treasure lay on the ground, not daring to even breathe loudly.
A short distance ahead, heavy footsteps paced back and forth across the stone floor. Each step fell like a boot pressing down on everyone's taut nerves. An invisible pressure clamped around every throat in the room, and fear grew wild in the silence.
Just as the crowd stood there trembling, terrified, the atmosphere crushing enough to make breathing difficult, a furious roar exploded in their ears.
"Bastards! A pack of useless wastes, I just sent you to grab some stuff! And you couldn't even handle something that simple!?"
"This is Evilus? Had your heavenly dreams smashed by a justice whore in three punches, and you still think you deserve to worship evil gods?"
"Looks like your brains got kicked around like footballs by the monsters in the Dungeon!"
"Huh!? Speak! Have you all gone mute!?"
"Three squads sent out. One squad wiped by the One-Eyed Craftsman, fine, nothing to say about that! They were bait to begin with! It was their honor to die for the faith!"
"But let me ask you!"
"What about the other squads? I just sent them to steal some things! Why did they all get wiped out too!?"
"Huh!?"
"Speak, all of you, speak!"
"Fuck!"
The one roaring had short, disheveled purple hair. Rage twisted her features into something vicious.
Arachnia, Valletta Grede.
Level: Lv.5.
Core member of the dark faction, and supreme commander of Evilus.
In other words, this raid was something she had carefully planned.
She'd assumed sending people to steal something from Hephaestus Familia would be a sure thing for Evilus, a done deal.
Instead, the unthinkable had happened.
She'd dispatched three squads: three Lv.3 executives, five Lv.2 elites, and over forty Lv.1 grunts.
In the end only a few miserable scraps came crawling back?
Everyone else had been cut down.
While Arachnia had still been leisurely savoring the slaughter, fantasizing about Braver begging for mercy at her feet, listening to the screams of the justice whores...
One of the useless wretches who'd fled back in a panic had delivered the bombshell.
In that moment, her whole mind went blank.
"I don't understand!"
Valletta's voice was hoarse and shaking from sheer fury and disbelief.
"Three Lv.3 executives, backed up by five Lv.2 assassins, how in hell does an operation like that fail!?"
"What the fuck happened!?"
"Who?"
"Who wiped out the Second Squad?"
"Fuck, we don't even know who did it!?"
"Huh!?"
"Will someone tell me!?"
"Worthless!"
"A pack of worthless trash!"
Boom!
The rage she'd bottled up to the breaking point finally burst.
"Gah!"
A grunt standing closest to her shrieked as a kick sent him flying. He slammed into the stone wall, his fate unclear.
Valletta's face twisted as she roared, her voice cracking with fury. Her killing intent turned so thick it felt almost solid, freezing the air in the entire hall.
...
"Aaah..."
In the small courtyard in the Seventh District, Leon stretched languorously, his joints giving off small pops.
He stood up, loosened his stiff body with a few movements, looked up at the sky now washed in dusk, and muttered in a relaxed tone:
"It's about that time. Jeanne and Rose and the others should be coming back soon."
"Hm, wonder how they did today."
Leon settled back into the comfortable rattan chair, casually put on the single-lensed Gale-Force Reading Glasses, picked up the Grimoire that had been set aside, and began flipping through it, his expression focused.
Now that the necessary errands were wrapped up, building his strength was naturally top priority.
Today's skirmish with Evilus had only been a test of the waters, but it had driven home just how insurmountable the gap between Lv.1 and Lv.2 really was.
That chasm was... something an ordinary person had almost no hope of crossing.
Just as the saying widely passed around in Adventurer circles went: the Lv. gap is absolute.
Every rise in Lv. was a full-spectrum sublimation of the individual.
Every level-up was a total elevation of the essence of life itself. For a low-level to challenge a high-level was like an ant trying to shake a tree.
Unless...
You were cheating!
"Yeah, that's exactly the problem."
Flipping through the book, Leon muttered to himself:
"This Orario may not have much going for it, but it sure has a lot of cheaters."
"As the center of the world, this labyrinth city has to have, what, eight hundred familias? A thousand?"
"And the ones with names worth mentioning, the ones actually active, are just a few dozen. The rest don't even rate a name..."
"And as for the top familias with First-Class Adventurers..."
Faces flashed through his mind. Leon pinched his glasses hard and sighed.
"Heh, who doesn't have a few trump cards for punching above their weight?"
"Trying to climb? Hard. Too hard."
He stood and walked over to a corner well away from his precious potted plants, eyes lowered, expression as calm as still water.
"Frost Armor!"
Wooom.
The instant the chant left his lips, magic power coiled into an unseen vortex with Leon at its center. A silver-blue magic circle flared to life at his feet and vanished just as quickly.
The next moment, a crystal-clear shield, like the shell of a giant frozen egg, wrapped itself around him.
The temperature around him plummeted, bringing a refreshing chill. Leon opened his eyes, feeling the power of the new magic, and the corners of his mouth pulled up into a grin he could no longer hold back.
"Ha!"
"Hahahahahahaha!"
The triumphant laughter had barely exploded out of him when the courtyard gate slammed open with a bang.
"Leon, we're back!"
Laurier charged in first, with Aura, Jeanne, and Rose close behind.
But the instant all four women stepped into the courtyard, their footsteps and laughter froze at the same moment.
Over in the corner of the yard stood the man encased in an eggshell of ice, one hand covering half his face, bent over and trembling all over as he laughed maniacally.
Leon: "..."
The four women: "..."
The air solidified. The silence was terrifying.
An awkwardness rolled rapidly through the courtyard.
Looking at the strange mix of expressions on the four women's faces, at the shoulders trembling from the effort of holding in their laughter...
Leon felt like he could curl his toes hard enough to dig out a three-bedroom apartment.
It was over.
His perfect image, shattered.
"Haha... hahahahahaha!"
Laurier was the first to lose it, bursting out laughing with a loud snort.
One hand pointed at Leon, whose face had turned dark with wildly shifting expressions, the other clutching her stomach. She almost laughed hard enough to hurt.
Even Aura, who always put etiquette first and kept a cool expression in daily life, had her little face turning bright red, her whole body shaking.
Jeanne and Rose were even worse. All the times Leon had teased them came back now, and their delight showed it.
"Laurier, you little devil, daring to laugh at your captain. I think you need a lesson!"
Leon forced back the embarrassment, straightened his face into a solemn, righteous look, and glared ferociously at the elf girl...
Then he pounced like a tiger, lunging for her.
"Waah! Jeanne! Rose! Leon's picking on me!"
Laurier didn't buy the act for a second. She ducked smoothly behind Jeanne and Rose.
And so the two of them started running circles around the others.
"Hahaha, can't catch me, can't catch me, nya nya nya!"
Laughter echoed over the courtyard, adding a touch of warmth to the Orario that stretched out beneath a thousand glowing lamps.
The clear sky pulled on its veil of night, stars scattered across it.
In the reception room of Leon's home.
Warm-toned lamplight spilled lazily through the space. The group, worn out from the day, curled up on the sofas and soaked in the quiet of the evening. No one spoke.
After about an hour of quiet rest like that...
Leon took off the glasses, closed the Grimoire, and rubbed his tired eyes.
He glanced at the Magic Stone clock on the wall, and a smile tugged at his lips as he offered:
"Everyone, how about a late-night snack?"
His gaze swept over the ladies, a playful glint flickering in his eyes.
"I'm sure you're all confident in your figures. You wouldn't mind something sweet, would you?"
In the middle of such lazy hours, the suggestion immediately got everyone's attention.
Rose rested her head on the arm of the sofa, hugging a cute cushion to her chest, a torn look spreading across her pretty face as she wavered between wanting to eat and worrying about weight.
"Dessert... well... at this hour, might not be the best idea."
Jeanne reacted the same way as Rose. Her face said no while her eyes said yes.
Laurier and Aura didn't share the concern at all.
Elves were absolute masters of body management. Other than that one well-known "exception" over at the Guild, Leon had never actually seen an elf eat their way out of shape.
It had to be some kind of racial gift, at least that was how it looked to him.
"What's the trouble? There are ready-made ones in the ice cellar. Just need a quick bake."
After immersing himself in advanced magical knowledge for so long, Leon was tired too. He needed to do something else to unwind and switch gears.
So he went with simple cooking. Toss the prepped desserts into the oven, a bit of finishing work at the end, and a plate of tasty sweets would be ready.
With that, he didn't even wait for Rose or Jeanne to say anything. He headed straight for the underground ice cellar.
...
A timer bell rang from the kitchen. Leon pulled on his gloves and carried the heaping plate of desserts out to the coffee table.
"Classic Orario treats: Orario butter shortbread and banana toffee pie! Please, dig in!"
Fresh from the oven, the desserts gave off an irresistible aroma. The sight alone made your mouth water.
Jeanne's throat bobbed involuntarily. She reached out a hand, pulled it back, face a mess of conflict.
Rose pressed herself hard into the sofa, turned her face aside, bit her lip, and only dared to sneak glances at those devilish sweets out of the corner of her eye.
"Heh heh, Jeanne, Rose, if you're not eating, then I won't hold back!"
Laurier wasn't going to worry about any of that. She grabbed a banana toffee pie and couldn't wait to pop it into her mouth.
The pastry was too hot though, and with a small yelp she had to toss it back and forth between her little hands for a while, blowing on it several times before finally taking a careful bite.
The bomb of flavors that went off in her mouth, the sweet richness that lingered on and on...
Laurier's eyes lit up, and the words came out on their own:
"Ohh... it's good!"
Leon grinned and flicked his apron:
"The hospitality is humble!"
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