The Dungeon, the 18th floor.
As the first safe floor adventurers visited in the Dungeon, the 18th floor was utterly different from the floors that came before it, and from the floors deeper down as well.
This floor had another name too: Under Resort.
As the name suggested, it was a resort within the underground labyrinth. Not only did it spawn no monsters, but the scenery stretching out before the eye was exceptionally beautiful, nothing at all like being underground.
If adventurers came to this floor, the first thing they saw was a forest.
The entrance to the 18th floor lay in the passage cavern on the south side, and just ahead of the cavern was this forest. If you crossed the forest and headed north, you'd come upon a vast grassland with crystals scattered all about.
This emerald field, spreading out across the floor's central region, was magnificent, and at its heart stood a giant tree called the Central Tree, with a hollow at its roots that was the entrance down to the 19th floor.
To the north of the grassland was a grand wetland zone; from south to east, the whole stretch was verdant forest; to the west lay an azure lakeshore and a great island floating on the lake's surface, with rocky cliffs encircling the entire floor, so that at a glance you could tell the whole floor was circular, giving the impression of an enormous landscaped garden.
And the source that turned all of this into beautiful scenery was the light, enough to drive away the darkness of the whole underground world and make this place into a complete resort.
Yes, there was light here, and it was very bright, bright as day.
This light all came from the crystals scattered throughout the floor, and on the ceiling especially, countless crystals grew densely packed together, forming a crystal jungle.
These blocks of white crystal gathered together like an underground sun, the light they gave off lighting up the entire floor directly, forming daylight, glittering and radiant, so that although this 18th floor lay underground, it possessed a "sky" all its own.
The brightness of this "underground sky" also changed with the passage of time, forming periods like "morning," "daytime," and "night." Though it diverged from the surface's time, and this "time difference" was sometimes large and sometimes small, shifting at any moment, this kind of mysterious Dungeon phenomenon always captured the hearts of many adventurers. Some wealthy households would even specially commission adventurers to escort them down here to sightsee, just to see this radiant scenery with their own eyes, this nature made of dreamlike crystals and a mysterious firmament.
Thanks to this, the 18th floor was not only the Dungeon's first safe floor but a wonder that lived up to the name of resort. The beautiful glowing crystals could be called this place's hallmark; this kind of crystal grew in every corner of the whole floor, and even the forest was dyed indigo under the glow of blue crystals that sprouted from cracks in the ground, beautiful beyond compare.
Even Leo, when he'd first descended into this world and come here, after his initial bewilderment and helplessness, had marveled at this wondrous sight despite himself.
Now, at last, he had come to this floor once more, come to the place where he'd first descended.
"It really takes me back..."
Walking out of the forest, Leo looked up at that rocky firmament and crystal jungle, standing there in a daze for a good long while.
Beside him, Loki Familia members pushing carts loaded with large cargo crates passed by, chatting and laughing among themselves as they walked on ahead, the mood so lively it didn't seem like they'd come to the Dungeon to adventure, more like they'd come to do business in some foreign little town.
"This is where Mr. Leo first ran into Miss Ais, isn't it?"
Line couldn't possibly not have heard about Leo's story, and looking at him standing there in a daze, she asked curiously.
Beside her, Lefiya said nothing, but quietly pricked up her pointed ears.
"Yeah." Leo had never hidden the matter, and said mildly, "If I hadn't run into Ais here, I might never have made it back to the surface."
Or rather, if when he'd first crossed over he hadn't descended straight onto this floor but somewhere else, he'd probably have died long ago.
"So how did Mr. Leo get here in the first place?"
Line had no way of knowing Leo's inner voice, and simply found it strange.
By Leo's own account, he'd been completely alone when he was here, and a body that hadn't received Falna besides, so weak at the time he couldn't truss a chicken. Forget leaving the 18th floor, even getting back to the surface from the 1st floor would have been a tall order.
That being so, why had he turned up here on the 18th floor?
He certainly hadn't had the ability to reach this floor on his own back then, so who exactly had brought him here and abandoned him?
Line found it strange, and couldn't help puzzling over it.
This was actually something many in the Familia found strange too, only some chose tacitly not to ask, while others had asked but never got a straight answer out of Leo.
This time was the same.
"Who knows?" Leo's tone was so detached he didn't sound like he was talking about himself, offhand. "Maybe some out-of-town noble hired adventurers to bring his whole family down here for a vacation, then dumped some good-for-nothing son he couldn't stand and figured was a lost cause to fend for himself? Who's to say."
This was all complete nonsense from Leo.
But Line and Lefiya both, their faces shifted slightly, and they fell silent.
They thought this might just be the truth.
How else to explain Leo appearing here alone, unable to get back to the surface, and the way he stubbornly refused to bring up his own past after Ais brought him back to the Familia?
Lefiya and Line came to think that what Leo said now might be true, that he was someone abandoned here by his family, which was why he wouldn't speak of his past and set his heart on joining the Familia and working to grow stronger.
Perhaps he wanted to prove himself, that he was absolutely no good-for-nothing lost cause, or perhaps he wanted to throw away his past entirely and go on living in Orario as a member of Loki Familia from now on, never going back.
At this thought, the way Lefiya and Line looked at Leo changed somewhat.
A pity that Leo had no idea his careless ramblings had led the two girls to such a wildly mistaken flight of imagination, or he'd surely have been caught between laughter and tears.
"Hey, you three, what are you still standing around there for?"
Ahead, Gareth, leading the group with his battle-axe in hand, turned back and bellowed at Leo and the other two talking at the forest entrance.
"Get over here, quick! We're going to rendezvous with Finn and the rest!"
At that, Leo pulled his gaze back from the crystal dome, and Lefiya and Line stopped their imagining too.
"Let's go, we'll meet up with Ais and the others first."
Leo took the lead, heading toward the main force, and Lefiya and Line hurried to follow.
The group's destination was the Central Tree at the floor's center, and not far from there was the rendezvous point Loki Familia's two units had agreed on beforehand.
Soon enough, Leo and the rest of the Second Unit caught sight of the vanguard resting there.
"We're here, Finn."
Gareth's booming voice was the first to ring out again, making the vanguard members, scattered about resting and chatting, all look over.
"Lefiya! Line! Over here!"
Tiona had been bickering with Bete, but the moment she saw the two girls walking up with Leo, she raised a hand to wave them over.
Tione, meanwhile, was huddled at Finn's side fawning over him, paying no mind at all to the people coming to rendezvous.
Raul and the other core figures of the Second Army hurried over to help push the carts.
"Run into any trouble?"
Riveria asked that, just in case.
"Of course not, we only came over to the 18th floor. What trouble could we run into?"
Gareth replied, unconcerned.
Though the main fighting force was all concentrated in the First Unit, with Gareth the only first-class adventurer in the Second Unit, with their abilities, never mind the mere Upper Floors and Middle Floors, they could advance with ease even on the Lower Floors.
The members who could join an expedition force each had their own strengths to begin with, either Lv.3-and-above first-class adventurers and second-class adventurers, or Healers like Line, and even Line was Lv.2, so even if the Second Unit's combat strength wasn't as strong as the First Unit's, they could move freely through the Middle Floors even without counting Gareth, with basically no chance of running into any danger.
Along the way, the number of monsters they encountered was few and far between too, since they advanced along the route the vanguard had passed through; the monsters blocking the way had basically all been wiped out by the vanguard, and even if a few more turned up later, those were just a matter of firing off a few rounds of Magic to handle.
Gareth hadn't even lifted a hand the whole way; the ones doing the fighting were all those Lv.2 and Lv.3 members, and even Line had seized the chance to club a good number of monsters to death with her magic staff, let alone Leo.
Back when he was Lv.2 he'd been able to cut his way in and out of the floors before the 18th seven times over, and now that he'd risen to Lv.3, he didn't even need to use Magic; he'd draw the Dragon Fang Sword, charge back and forth a few times at random, and slaughter who knew how many monsters.
Even a Minotaur, famously powerful, reputed to be the strongest monster on the floors before the 18th apart from the Floor Boss, was now no match for a single exchange with Leo; one casual swing of his sword and it was instantly cut down.
So the Second Unit had walked this whole way without any pressure, the only thing being that they couldn't use the vertical caverns to reach the floors below quickly, which slowed their progress a little.
Whose fault was it that they were pushing supplies along, after all?
They couldn't very well jump down a floor along with the cargo carts.
"Good thing there was no trouble." Finn pushed away the fawning Tione and said to the Second Unit's members, "Take a rest here for now, then count the supplies over once more, and we'll set out after confirming nothing's missing."
"The captain's right." Tione chimed in unconditionally from the side, but then snarked, "Let's not have a repeat of last time, suddenly finding out a batch of supplies got left behind at home and having to go to the town to make it up."
Hearing this, the whole Familia's people took on subtle expressions.
The ones who'd lived through that incident especially, every one of them couldn't help speaking up.
"I don't want to go there again either, way too much of a ripoff."
"That time we got fleeced something awful."
"It's all Raul's fault, didn't count properly and cost us a huge sum of money."
"Th-, that can't be blamed on me, can it?!"
The group went back and forth at one another, all griping about it.
"The town, huh..."
Leo turned his gaze west, looking toward that stretch of azure lake.
From here you could clearly see that at the center of that lake was an island, towering and huge as if a corner of the continent had been cut off.
That was the lake island, and on it stood a town.
It was a Dungeon inn town run by upper-class adventurers who'd reached the Middle Floor region.
The town's origins lay in a large-scale relay base the Guild had once planned to set up in the Dungeon to open up unreached floors more efficiently, a place that had ultimately met with failure and been abandoned because the plan was repeatedly disrupted by monster invasions from other floors, on top of the enormous expenses of large numbers of personnel and defense costs.
After that, a group of adventurers had taken it over without permission and built the place up, establishing a town called Rivira, which besides shops for adventurers like weapon shops and item shops also had a buying station that traded cash for things like magic stones.
Because this was a safe zone where no monsters were born, and the only town in the underground labyrinth, most adventurers exploring the floors below the 19th treated it as a base, and if they planned to stay in the Dungeon long-term, they needed to resupply here and offload the spoils they carried first, to free up space to keep pushing forward.
Honestly, having a place like this where you could offload spoils and resupply without specially returning to the surface was, without question, very convenient for adventurers.
The pity was that precisely because it was so convenient, that group of adventurers with no official backing who'd taken over and built the place up grew utterly unscrupulous.
Relying on their advantage as the Dungeon's only relay and resupply station, they pulled Rivira's prices up to a frighteningly high level, charging five figures or more for a set of trail rations or a secondhand spare weapon, and the prices on other supplies were at the very least several times higher than on the surface, simply not so much ripping people off as devouring them.
But there was no helping it; that adventurers couldn't easily resupply in the Dungeon was a fatal weakness, and anyone planning to push the floors below the 19th long-term inevitably had to get fleeced, never mind that if some emergency left them desperately needing certain supplies to save their lives, they'd have to pay up no matter how much it hurt.
In the past, Loki Familia had once advanced this far on an expedition only to find a batch of supplies missing, and without resupplying there was no way to reach the unreached floors smoothly, so they'd had no choice but to hold their noses and shop in Rivira, getting fleeced soundly.
The moment this matter came up, Loki Familia's people were both furious and resigned, and Raul and the others who'd been directly in charge of the purchasing at the time all wore looks of money-pain, as if it were still vivid before their eyes.
"Hurry up and count, no more slip-ups."
Finn ended the conversation and dispersed everyone to go count the supplies.
Leo seized the moment and came before Finn.
"Captain, can I leave for a bit?" Leo said quietly. "I want to go look at somewhere else."
Finn, as if he'd seen through what was on Leo's mind, glanced at a certain girl who stood among the crowd saying nothing yet had been watching this way the whole time, and gave a knowing smile.
"All right, I'll grant special permission this once." Finn said with a smile. "Just this once, though. You can't do this again next time."
Leo nodded and agreed.
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