Thanks to the "incident" with Persephone, Leon ate his breakfast carefully, watching his words to avoid giving anything more away than the women already knew.
Fortunately, Jeanne, Rose, Kureha, and even Laurier and Aura all knew exactly how... flexible Leon's moral boundaries were when it came to women. So nobody pressed the issue, just gave him enough grief to make the point.
Their goal was simple: ring the alarm bell, remind him not to get too brazen.
As for how everyone felt about Persephone?
They'd already reached consensus during yesterday's chat.
She was Leon's "old flame," after all. The two had lived under the same roof for months, and on top of that there was the whole superior-and-subordinate dynamic. If anyone believed nothing had ever happened between them, well, not even ghosts would buy that.
If Lady Demeter hadn't stuck her foot in the middle of things, those two would've been going at it around the clock during that entire period.
Still...
Persephone's stubborn, contrary personality had its own charm as far as Leon was concerned.
Especially the thrill of conquest that came with who she was...
...
In the courtyard.
Leon had finished gearing up and was making final adjustments.
Same signature look as always: hooded cloak over a full-length mantle, black light armor and leather underneath, a multi-purpose adventurer's utility belt at his waist.
He pulled up the black face mask, leaving only a pair of sharp eyes visible, slung his Supporter's pack onto his back, grabbed his twisted-wood staff, and addressed the group:
"I'm heading to the Dungeon to get used to my new abilities. Just leveled up and my body's still not fully synced."
Having stated his purpose, he shifted his attention to Jeanne and Rose:
"Jeanne, Rose, you two are close to leveling up too, right?"
The Great Feat requirement, the high-tier Excelia needed for these two frontline fighters to advance to Lv. 3, had long since been met. The only reason they hadn't had Leon update their Falna was that their Basic Abilities hadn't hit the numbers they were aiming for.
"Yeah... should be able to max out our base stats in the next couple days," Jeanne replied.
Leon wasn't surprised. He'd expected as much.
After all, now that the Familia's finances were flush, the Dungeon was no longer the only path to growth.
With money being no object, reincarnated veterans like Jeanne, Rose, and Kureha could grind their stats through brutal sparring sessions alone.
Their combat technique, battle experience, and tactical sense already far exceeded what their current levels would suggest.
Because of this, whenever the three of them went all out against each other, the sheer intensity of those fights sent their Basic Abilities skyrocketing at an absurd rate.
That was an advantage no one else could replicate.
Their foundations were simply too deep.
Everyone else, Leon included, lacked the kind of refined mastery and hard-won experience that only came from countless life-or-death battles across previous lives.
Perhaps only when their strength approached the peak they'd reached before reincarnation would that terrifying growth rate finally slow down.
And even then, "slowing down" was relative to the insane pace they were at now.
Besides... don't forget, they still had the powerful synergy between Leon's Beloved's Blessing and their own Beloved's Crest skill amplification.
Given how close they all were now compared to when they'd first arrived, that boost was incomparably stronger.
And this... was the convenient justification Leon loved to trot out whenever Jeanne pushed back at him about something.
Without that convenient excuse as a shield, would Jeanne have ever let him get away with half the things he did?
Even after all these days, Jeanne had not forgotten for one second... how she'd been brought to her knees before him, forced to look up, making those humiliating, muffled sounds.
Leon, of course, had no idea what shameful images were churning through Jeanne's mind right now.
He hefted his staff, turned toward the door, and gave a casual backward wave.
"I'm out!"
...
Standing in the grand plaza beneath Babel for the first time in days, Leon felt an odd sense of displacement, like he'd been gone far longer than he had.
"Huh... feels like it's been a while since I hit the Dungeon?"
"But if I actually count the days, it really hasn't been that long."
"All those back-to-back emergencies just made it feel like forever."
He gazed up at the White Tower piercing the clouds, its peak invisible, and let out a slow breath, muttering to himself.
His eyes swept across the familiar crowds surging toward the Dungeon entrance, and beneath his mask, the corner of his mouth curled. He slipped into the flow of traffic with practiced ease and vanished into the entrance.
The familiar spiral staircase. The familiar first-floor plaza. The familiar opportunistic hunters camping "Jack" spawns. And the familiar Goblins, Kobolds, War Shadows, Killer Ants...
Leon didn't stop, pushing straight through to the thirteenth floor in one go.
"Being stronger really does make a difference. This clear speed..."
He fished out his brass pocket watch and glanced at it, mildly surprised to find it had taken less than an hour and a half to reach the thirteenth floor.
"At this rate, even with the Middle Floors being more complex and time-consuming, with my current speed I could make it from the surface to the eighteenth floor in four hours, tops."
"And if I skip the return trip, I could reach the passage to floors twenty-four or twenty-five in a single day..."
...
...
Leon's daily routine returned to normal.
Wallet full, level raised, the whole Familia was living better than ever.
But what he didn't know...
Was that because of a certain "key individual," the Astraea Familia's headquarters had been turned completely upside down.
Inside the understated yet elegant parlor of Stardust Garden.
Goddess Astraea sat in the seat of honor, flanked by Alise, Lyra, and Ryuu.
Near the windows, Neze, Noin, Asta, and other members lounged in various poses: some perched on the windowsill, others sitting cross-legged on the floor without a care in the world.
But right now, every single pair of eyes, whether amused, curious, or sly, was fixed squarely on the center of the room. There, standing alone in a kimono, surrounded on all sides, was a beautiful woman being stared at like some rare exotic animal.
Given the atmosphere, it looked like a full-blown tribunal.
Though calling it a "friendly chat with the goddess while everyone grabbed popcorn" wouldn't exactly be wrong either.
"..."
Under the barrage of stares coming from every direction, the very guilty Miss Yamato Rindou stood in silence, head bowed, refusing to make eye contact with anyone.
After a round of whispered murmuring rippled through the parlor...
Iska, a member of the "big sister" group and a natural-born bold, uninhibited Amazon warrior, broke into a wide grin and spoke up to tease:
"Kaguya, so you've got yourself a man out there. Look at you, head down like you're afraid to show your face. What's there to be embarrassed about?"
"Seriously, what are you being shy for!"
...
...
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