"That's our ticket in."
The moment Leon spoke, Elidyr silently activated his magic to scan the entire gorge. The gem on the staff hanging from his waist, hidden beneath his long robes, glowed as pulses of spatial-attributed magic radiated in all directions.
"Young master," he said, calling to Leon, who looked ready to jump over the railing.
When Leon turned towards him with a raised eyebrow, the man continued, "There seems to be a slight complication. These ruins you want to explore appear to contain a dungeon inside."
"Oh, that. I already knew about that," Leon replied casually, vaulting over the railing, while Camellya followed him without a sound.
"In fact, the dungeon is my target," he added, earning a look of surprise from Beriel and a faint frown from Elidyr.
"This is a dungeon, young master. That means that—"
"This place once contained a dimensional rift that another planet used to invade Citera. I am well aware that dungeons are trap structures built by the Old Rulers over the dimensional gates and rifts torn in the world's weakening spatial barriers during the War of Ancients to contain enemy forces that poured from the rifts."
Leon yawned lightly as he spoke, walking to the edge of the cliff and looking down the slope. "Again, I came here for the dungeon. So if you were about to tell me I shouldn't enter it, then don't bother."
"But this dungeon has been undetected for a long time. Who knows how powerful the monsters inside have become?"
Just as Elidyr voiced his concern, Camellya, her hands crossed over her chest, spoke up. "Level 130."
All eyes turned to her at the sudden mention of that level, and she continued, "That's the level of the strongest creature in that dungeon. I know because I've been there before and explored it to the end, more than once."
Glancing at Leon, she added, "Also, this dungeon isn't a rift dungeon from the War of Ancients. It was created afterwards, when monsters released by invaders bred with native species, producing hybrids and increasing the population.
I'm sure you know that to manage the growing threat, dungeon technology was repurposed to trap excess monsters while leaving just enough outside to avoid destabilising the planet's ecosystem. This dungeon is one of those, a small one, even.
The monsters inside are also lesser than the originals, since my brother and I have been hunting them over the years."
Camellya's explanation clarified why her Level was 140, while hinting that Cameron's level wasn't far behind.
Leon made a mental note to get an appraisal artifact, then looked at Elidyr while gesturing toward Camellya.
"Well, you heard the girl."
He was about to turn back to the dungeon when Beriel, who'd been silently scanning the entire gorge while they'd been talking, spoke up.
"Sorry to say, but I see no reason for us to trust her information."
"Well, I wouldn't have come to a dungeon with the intent to enter along with her if I didn't have a reason to trust her information."
With that response, Leon leapt off the cliff and nosedived straight towards the bottom.
"Young master?!"
Beriel instantly leapt after him, a pair of white-feathered wings phasing through his clothes as they unfurled behind him. He dove after Leon, catching up in a second and grabbing him, but before he could fly back up to the cliff, Leon spoke.
"Oh, good. Just fly me to the tower already."
"But, young master—"
"Beriel. Fly me to the tower," Leon repeated, his tone flat.
Beriel exhaled lightly, then glanced back and signalled to Elidyr, who was behind them, to come over before flying Leon toward the tower.
Elidyr teleported across, leaving behind Camellya, who used wind magic to carry herself across the gorge to the top of the tower.
Leon directed Beriel to set him down beside Camellya, and the moment his body passed through the open window of the tower's top floor, he spoke.
"Camellya and I are going in alone."
"!"
Without waiting for a word of protest, Leon continued, "Elidyr, you stay right at the entrance and use your spatial magic to monitor us, and if by any force of nature anything goes wrong, instantly teleport yourself and Beriel to our location."
Turning to the frowning mage, he tilted his head slightly to the side and asked, "Are. My. Orders. Clear?"
Leon's tone brooked no room for resistance, and framing his words as an 'Order' left Elidyr and Beriel with little choice in the matter.
"…yes, young master," Elidyr finally replied, and at this, Leon turned to Camellya and said, "After you, my lady."
Camellya silently rolled her eyes and leapt off the broken railing of the circular stairs leading down to the bottom of the tower, with Leon following right after her, then the two guards, all four of them descending deep into the underground sector of the facility whose ruins dotted the gorge.
◇ ◇ ◇
The two teens left Beriel and Elidyr at the entrance and proceeded down the hallway leading deeper into the facility, their footsteps echoing lightly against the marble floors.
Leon moved slightly ahead, his steps light as if he weren't in a dungeon where monsters could be anywhere, and as she trailed just behind, Camellya looked at him with a curious expression.
"Leon. That briefcase from yesterday…" she began, trailing off before completing her sentence.
Nevertheless, that was enough for Leon to understand what she wanted to ask about, and he responded calmly.
"Well, I can understand that you'd want to know why she brought it out, but that concerns the contents of my conversation with her, which, last I checked, she hasn't given me permission to relay to anyone else," Leon said, stopping in his tracks before turning to Camellya and adding, "Even her daughter."
'So he isn't going to talk, huh?'
Camellya reached that rather obvious conclusion instantly, and she wasn't exactly pleased about it, especially since she had plans for some of the items in that briefcase.
'Should I tell him about them?'
She considered it for a moment, but as she and Leon turned a corner, something caught her attention and made that thought vanish, and she raised her head immediately.
"Leon, about what I said earlier regarding killing."
"You're still on that?" Leon said, lightly surprised she'd let go of the briefcase topic so easily.
"Yes, I'm still on it," Camellya replied, her tone serious. "Your experiences and personality from your previous life are influencing you now, even if you don't realise it. It can also affect your mental fortitude when it comes to things like killing, given the vastly different outlook and necessity of taking a life in both worlds."
The world Alex came from was one where people didn't face monsters and rarely had to kill for survival or to gain power, so the need to take a life was far lower there than on Citera.
"So I suggest that before we face multiple monsters, we start with a few to get you—"
Camellya hadn't finished speaking when Leon suddenly vanished in a burst of lightning.
A moment later, a small grunt echoed and from a crack in the wall stepped a 4-foot-tall green creature with scaly skin and large, pointed ears resembling fish fins. Its white eyes were wide, and its mouth filled with tiny teeth.
Clutched in its claw-like fingers was a rusted short sword, and the moment it emerged and saw Camellya, it screeched and charged at her with fervour.
Camellya, however, didn't move a single inch, because before it could reach her, there was a purple flash from its left side, and its entire body was smashed into the cracked wall beside it, breaking off more pieces of the structure.
Leon, the one responsible for this, calmly flicked the dark purple blood from his fingers, then lifted his gaze from the crushed skull of the creature to meet Camellya's eyes.
"Didn't I say so beforehand? The 17 years I've lived as Leon Raviaz didn't just vanish into thin air."
Turning back to face the crack where the first monster had emerged, he formed finger guns and pointed at the opening just as more creatures began charging out, screeching and roaring.
Magic flowed from Leon's heart into his arms through the energy circuits running alongside his veins and arteries, and from his fingers, bolts of purple crackling lightning shot out, streaking through the air and striking the charging monsters, riddling their bodies with holes within seconds of their appearance.
He jumped back to create some distance, landing beside Camellya as he continued speaking, "You and I both know I was born at Level -100, and now I'm Level 69."
Leon opened his left palm, and two arcs of purple light curved through the air in front of it, forming two concentric circles, and with a rune appearing at their centre, the magic spell circle construction was complete.
"The amount of effort I've put into raising my level is enough to put my Level in the 170s. I have punched, stabbed, and slashed so many monsters to death that adding the memories of another life isn't going to dull my killing instinct."
A ball of lightning erupted from the spell circle in front of Leon's left hand, blasting one monster, then jumping to another, then another, and another.
Camellya watched the Chain Lightning spell electrocute the monsters to death, and after the last corpse fell to the floor, she spoke.
"I see. It seems I spoke out of turn. My apologies."
"No biggie. Thanks for worrying," Leon responded, turning to her with a bright smile, before snapping his fingers and sending another bolt of lightning at a half-dead fish-headed monster trying to crawl away.