After chatting for a while in the courtyard, Leo and Ais parted ways, each heading back to the tower where they lived.
Leo had originally wanted to go find Loki and have her update his Status, to see exactly how much proficiency he'd gained over the course of the day, how much he'd grown. But Ais told him Loki had run off on her own after dinner, and no one knew where she'd gone.
"...Off drinking again, probably?"
Leo thought to himself with conviction.
That trashy goddess had plenty of personal hobbies. She liked her drinks, liked teasing pretty girls, even liked copping a feel off pretty girls. She didn't seem like a goddess at all, more like some lecherous old man out of nowhere, and people couldn't stand her for it.
But of course Loki Familia happened to be a huge operation, not like some impoverished gods with only a handful of members or even just one Familia member. Those gods were so strapped for cash they couldn't go out and have fun at all, stuck watching over their own kids day in and day out, hoping for them to make it big. Gods like that had time almost every day to update their members' Status. Not like Loki Familia, where there were just too many people. On normal days, you really couldn't go find your patron deity to update your Status every single day.
As a rule, aside from right before an expedition or right after returning from one, Loki Familia members rarely went to Loki privately to have her update their Status.
So after some thought, Leo gave up on waiting for Loki to come back and update his Status.
"Even without updating the Status, if I keep training in my current state, I can still grow."
What they called excelia was something you could obtain through various actions. Just as the word suggested, it was the phenomenon of experiences a person had actually been through.
It couldn't be seen or touched, but it was the history a person had actually walked through. The gods turned this history into the nutrients of growth, using it to rewrite the Falna inscribed on their children's backs, turning it into real, tangible strength, slowly making their children stronger.
Why was it that using a certain basic ability raised the proficiency of that basic ability?
Because in the process of using that ability, you'd already accumulated the excelia from using it.
Just by drawing it out, the basic ability's proficiency could be raised, and your power would grow. Some of the highest-quality excelia, the kind that could be called "great feats," could even turn into your Magic, Skills, Development Abilities, and so on. Once enough of this high-grade excelia accumulated, an adventurer's Level could be raised.
And the accumulation of excelia wasn't affected by your strength. Or rather, not entirely affected.
Put simply, even if you were weak, as long as you were genuinely gaining training and growth from your current actions, you could accumulate excelia.
The acquisition of excelia had no direct relationship to your strength. It was only related to how difficult the action was when you took it.
At Lv.1, an adventurer running into a Goblin definitely had to fight hard to bring it down at first, and as a result could gain plenty of excelia from "defeating a Goblin." But by the time he reached Lv.2, he could kill a Goblin with a casual swing. That was the same as stepping on an ant. It was impossible to get any training, any growth, any excelia from that.
The accumulation of excelia didn't look at strength. It only looked at how difficult the experience was, and the quality and quantity of feats accomplished.
So even if Leo didn't update his Status and kept roaming the first few floors of the Dungeon, as long as he could keep getting training from his actions, those actions would definitely turn into excelia and lie hidden in his body. When the Status was updated, it would all be drawn out at once, becoming the nutrients to make him stronger.
In the original work, Ryuu Lion, known as Gale, kept her Level at Lv.4 for several years on end while encountering life-or-death fights, and never had her Status updated again. When her Status was finally updated years later, she pulled off an unprecedented run of back-to-back Rank Ups, tearing through Lv.5 in days and pressing straight on to Lv.6. That was the best proof.
If Ryuu Lion had updated her Status partway through, she would definitely have risen to Lv.5. But if she'd risen to Lv.5, the situations she encountered later wouldn't have been so dangerous.
Handling those situations with Lv.5 Status would have been a lot easier.
But that way, she wouldn't have been able to accumulate the kind of high-grade excelia that qualified as "great feats" in those repeated life-or-death corners, and she wouldn't have met the conditions to level up to Lv.6.
It was precisely because she kept pushing her limits, taking on impossible odds at Lv.4 strength, that she racked up enough great deeds for a Rank Up again and again. In the end, those great deeds piled up so high that her Lv.5 lasted only days before she ranked up again straight to Lv.6, a figure without precedent.
"If I update my Status and get stronger, I definitely won't be able to keep getting excelia from the monsters on the first few floors of the Dungeon. I'd have to go deeper, find opponents that suit me better and challenge them."
Leo thought this as he walked toward his room.
"But if I don't update the Status, I can keep fighting in the first few floors and get training from enemies who, for now at least, aren't weak. I can keep accumulating excelia for growth down the line."
With that, Leo was no longer in any rush to update his Status.
"Let's just keep challenging the Dungeon at this strength and see how far I can go."
Leo had a lot of patience.
As long as the future held promise, he could keep enduring his current weakness and walk steadily forward, step by step.
What people feared most was not being able to see a clear future, not knowing whether their efforts would be rewarded.
Flip that around, and as long as you knew the reward was guaranteed, you could keep walking forward without ever giving up.
...
At the same time, in another tower reserved for female members, Ais was also heading toward her own room.
But as she walked, something suddenly weighed down on her back. Not light, not heavy.
"Ai~s~"
A bright, carefree voice rang out behind her, telling Ais that someone had jumped on her back and thrown their arms around her.
Ais turned her head and saw a familiar smiling face.
A face that matched the voice. Bright and carefree all the way through.
The owner of that face was a girl with a healthy tan, smaller in build than Ais but dressed far more boldly.
She wore the Amazonesses' signature dancer's outfit. A single thin strip of cloth covered her chest, a long wrap skirt was tied around her waist, and her navel and her shapely body were on full display, giving off a wildly provocative impression.
"...Tiona."
Ais called out softly, naming the bronze-skinned girl who'd latched onto her.
Tiona Hiryute. One of the few people in the Loki Familia Ais could really call a friend.
On the outside she looked like a Human woman full of exotic charm, but she wasn't actually a Human. She was an Amazoness.
The Amazonesses were a martial, combative, all-female race. They were known for being uninhibited and dressing lightly, and there were no males within the race. They didn't even produce mixed-blood children. Their offspring were always female, and always Amazonesses. They had the body structure closest to Humans, but had to borrow men from other races to reproduce. So they had a habit of plundering men.
Because they were uninhibited and didn't hide anything about matters of love, in the eyes of other races the Amazonesses were basically a shameless race that knew no embarrassment. They were also the most open about the sex trade.
And yet, despite all that, the Amazoness girl named Tiona standing in front of her didn't have an ounce of her race's sensual gaudiness. She was as bright and carefree as a sunflower, cheerful and optimistic.
"I saw the whole thing, Ais." Tiona, hanging off the golden-haired girl with her whole weight pressed against her back, laughed happily. "You were waiting in the courtyard for Leo this whole time, weren't you? Right up until he came back?"
Clearly, Tiona had seen the whole exchange between the two of them in the courtyard.
Or maybe she wasn't the only one who'd seen it?
After all, plenty of people in the Loki Familia had their eyes on this pair.
"...Mm." Ais didn't try to hide it. Or rather, she didn't see anything worth hiding. She nodded. "I was a little worried about him."
She was always this direct, this brief.
Of course, Tiona had thoughts about it.
"Aren't you being a little too attentive to the newbie you brought back, Ais?" Tiona said with a grin. "That stinky wolf Bete has a lot to say about it. He keeps saying you've been paying attention to small fry, what a waste of time."
The words had barely left Tiona's mouth when another voice followed.
"Don't pay any mind to that stinky wolf. He's got something wrong with him, that's why he keeps saying stuff like that."
As she spoke, another girl strolled over, unhurried.
She was an Amazoness like Tiona, and her face was even identical to Tiona's, as if they'd been cast from the same mold.
What was different was that this girl had hair down to her waist, a fuller figure than Tiona's, and a far more composed air. She was nothing like Tiona's bright and carefree self, didn't seem like an uninhibited Amazoness at all.
"...Tione."
Ais named her too.
Tione Hiryute. Tiona's older sister, the two of them a pair of twins. They were always together, coming and going, and they counted as another beautiful sight in the Loki Familia, different from Ais.
Worth mentioning, both sisters, like Ais, had a Level as high as Lv.5, and were among only four executives in the entire Loki Familia.
Apart from the three Lv.6 leadership, the highest-ranking and strongest figures in the entire Loki Familia were these four Lv.5 executives. Ais, Tiona, and Tione were three of them.
"The captain already told me. The guy received his Falna today and officially joined our Familia, right?" Tione folded her arms with a smile. "Today was his first time adventuring in the Dungeon. How'd it go?"
Compared to her sister, who was more interested in the personal connection between the two of them, the older sister seemed to care more about his actual performance.
Well, what could you do. Tione was a true-blooded Amazoness who'd appointed herself the captain's right-hand woman, madly in love with that Pallum Braver. She couldn't not care about whoever the man she had her eye on was secretly paying attention to.
Though she was pretty curious about the personal connection too...
To this, Ais only lowered her eyelids and said one line.
"He's already gone to the Dungeon's 5th floor."
At those words, both twins raised their eyebrows at the same time.
"Floor 5?" Tiona said, a little surprised. "He went to Floor 5 on his first time adventuring in the Dungeon?"
"Wouldn't have guessed." Tione also looked surprised, muttering, "The kid usually seems pretty steady about things, who knew he was actually bold underneath. Have to look at him in a new light."
"He said it wasn't part of the plan originally," Ais said softly. "He only dared to go to Floor 5 because he got Magic."
"Oh?" Tione's surprise immediately deepened, and she said with interest, "He really got Magic?"
"So we weren't seeing things just now." Tiona clapped her hands. "I knew it. I was wondering why his hand suddenly started glowing. So that was Magic."
"Wonder if the captain and the others saw it." Tione couldn't go three sentences without bringing up her sweetheart. "Getting Magic right when he received the Falna means the guy's got something going for him, worth investing in, right?"
"If Lefiya hears about this, her competitive streak's gonna kick in for sure." Tiona thought of something and said excitedly, "That girl envies and resents Leo the most. He gets to stick to you every day and have you fussing over him. You wouldn't believe how many times I've caught her hiding in a corner spying on the two of you, biting on her handkerchief, crying tears of blood."
Ais tilted her head, a question mark hovering over her, like she didn't get what that meant.
"Well, this kind of thing's still a bit early for Ais. You don't need to think about it too hard." Tione patted Ais's shoulder, her tone meaningful. "Just know this. If that kid wants to stand next to you, he's got plenty of obstacles to push through."
"Isn't that great? It's romantic!" Tiona said excitedly. "Pushing through obstacle after obstacle to be with the princess. That's a story and a privilege only heroes get!"
"You..." Tione's face fell. She held her forehead and sighed. "Maybe lay off the hero stories a bit."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Tiona huffed. "What's wrong with hero stories? I just like them!"
The two sisters started bickering in the hallway as if no one else was there, leaving the golden-haired girl to watch in silence without joining in.
"A hero...?"
She still didn't understand what the twins were really getting at, and she'd always been slow about anything to do with romance. She didn't realize at all that they were teasing her.
She only repeated the word "hero" silently to herself, and her lowered eyes were filled with longing and shadow at some thought no one else could see.
The night passed quietly, without a sound.
This was not the end. It was only the beginning.
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