Night fell quietly amid the Loki Familia's constant bustle and laughter.
In the Loki Familia's camp, a few magic-stone lamps lit up, illuminating the area around them.
"Food's ready!"
At the call from the female members in charge of cooking, the people in the camp gathered one after another and sat down around the big pot set over the bonfire. Inside the pot simmered herbs and nuts gathered from the Dungeon, along with meat-flavored fruits that had the taste and texture of meat. These nuts and meat-fruits produced by the labyrinth were monster food, but they did no harm to Humans or demi-humans, so they could be cooked and eaten during an expedition.
"Mr. Leo, this is yours."
Line ladled out a big bowl for Leo and pushed it into his hands, the aroma wafting up at him.
"Thanks, Line."
Leo took the bowl, and his taste buds came alive, his appetite better than ever.
You didn't get to eat anything good during an expedition; most of the time you just made do with the rations you carried, so this one meal already counted as a rare delicacy after all these days. Everyone, Leo included, couldn't wait to dig in.
Only one person was still gnawing stubbornly at a block-shaped ration.
"Miss Ais, you're really not going to eat?"
Lefiya had ladled out a big bowl for Ais too, but got no positive response from her.
"I don't need it," Ais said.
She was sitting right beside Leo, and her gaze had clearly been drawn to the richly fragrant food in Lefiya's hands, but she quickly turned her face away and refused with no expression.
It wasn't that the girl disliked good food, otherwise she wouldn't have fallen in love with junk like fried potato puffs.
But for some reason, she firmly believed that taking in too much of a meal would affect her body's condition in battle, so only in the Dungeon, and especially during an expedition, she would resolutely refuse delicious food and eat only the rations she carried to fill her stomach.
Naturally, Leo didn't agree with this view.
"Eat something nutritious and your body'll be in better shape, right?"
Leo coaxed Ais, but it got no concession out of her.
"This is fine."
Ais remained unmoved, displaying her iron will.
Leo raised an eyebrow and, to Lefiya's stunned expression, took the bowl out of her hands.
"Here."
He scooped up a spoonful and fed it straight to Ais's mouth.
A trace of red showed on Ais's expressionless face.
"What?!"
Lefiya was so startled by the sight that she cried out, her voice cracking.
"Pfft!"
"Cough, cough...!"
Of the people nearby who'd noticed this, every last one either spat out their water or choked on their soup.
"What the hell are you doing, idiot?!"
Bete was so furious his face went crooked. He was about to slam down his bowl and march over when the pair of Amazoness twin sisters appeared behind him without a sound, one pinning his arms and one covering his mouth. With movements practiced and natural, they dragged the troublemaker away, paying no mind at all to his struggling.
"Now this is interesting."
"What exactly are those two playing at?"
"Hahaha, Ais's face went red. You don't see that every day."
Finn, Riveria, and Gareth reacted in turn, one smiling, one helpless, and one laughing out loud in delight.
Leo ignored all of them, staring straight at Ais, as if to say, Don't eat and I'll just keep holding it up like this.
Ais, who'd kept her expressionless look until now, really wavered this time. Her eyes darted and dodged, and in the end, as if giving up, she swept back her hair, opened her small mouth, and ate the food brought to her face.
"She ate it!"
"She actually ate it!"
"Agh! I'm dead!"
A wave of wailing rose around them again.
Leo still paid them no mind. Seeing Ais eat obediently, he smiled faintly, then fed her spoonful by spoonful.
By the time the two of them finished, one feeding as if no one else were there and the other eating with faintly flushed cheeks, only then did they notice the dead silence around them.
"...What's wrong with all of you?"
Seeing everyone staring over at her with bloodshot eyes, Ais actually spoke up in confusion.
The airheaded Doll Princess hadn't realized at all just how big a shock that scene a moment ago had been to the people around her.
As for Leo, the moment he turned his head, he got a fright.
A certain Elf girl had completely set aside her racial fastidiousness and brought her face right up to his, staring at him with dull eyes, a black aura practically rising off her back as she made a terrifying sound.
"...Duel me."
"I refuse."
After a farce like that, the atmosphere in the camp gradually cooled down, no longer so restless.
Everyone finished off this rare delicacy and ended the meal, then sat there quietly, waiting for their captain to speak.
Finn didn't stand up either, just spoke right where he was.
"According to the plan we set, we've successfully reached Floor 50 and established our base here. Now at last we can take on the challenge of the floors we haven't reached yet."
Hearing Finn's words, some wore serious expressions, while others grew excited.
Tiona was one of the excited ones.
"We can finally get to Floor 59!" The Amazoness girl clenched her fists and said happily, "Last time we'd already made it all the way to Floor 58, and then we couldn't keep pushing on after all. I was super bummed about it!"
"What's there to be bummed about?" Tione said with unexpected calm. "Whose fault was it that we ended up losing all our stamina and items, and even a good chunk of our equipment? In that state there was no way to keep pushing down to the floors below, right?"
"That's true, but I'm still bummed about it!"
"That was an order the captain gave. Are you saying you doubt the captain's judgment?"
"I didn't say that, did I?"
"You did so!"
The sisters started bickering, one pouting, the other losing her cool and looking ready to turn dark, scaring the people around them.
"Pair of idiots."
Bete was still over there fanning the flames, which earned him a pair of darkly glinting stares from the sisters.
"I'll continue, so listen carefully." Finn didn't lose his temper, just said calmly, "This time, before we launch our assault on Floor 59, we need to complete an adventurer request first."
An adventurer request, as the name suggests, was a task put out to adventurers, meaning the hiring of capable adventurers to do work for someone.
Unlike the Guild's Missions that had to be completed, an adventurer request was a matter of mutual consent between both parties. The requester might issue the request directly to a specific person, asking them to do the work, or might post the task at the Guild. The Guild would record the task's details on parchment, make it into a request slip, and post it on a notice board or the like, and any adventurer who met the requester's conditions could take it on.
Completing an adventurer request earned the reward the requester had promised in advance, so many adventurers were also willing to take on some adventurer requests and complete them, making a bit of extra money while they were adventuring.
This time, the Loki Familia had taken on an adventurer request too.
"This adventurer request is a bit of a pain. It calls for collecting a designated quantity of spring water from Cadmus' Spring on Floor 51."
The moment he said this, more than a few faces changed on the spot.
"Cadmus' Spring..."
Leo, who'd been listening quietly, had his pupils contract too, as if some memory had been roused in him, his face sinking.
So it's already this point in time?
My very first expedition, and it just happens to land right on this?
Leo thought this to himself, his eyes growing deep.
The others weren't quite like Leo, but their moods turned heavy in an instant as well.
There was no helping it.
Cadmus' Spring was a place located on Floor 51, and the spring water produced there had many properties. It was especially astonishing in effect when used to make potions, making it a material sought after by many high-level potion-crafting Familias.
As one of the few major Familias able to explore the regions below Floor 50, it was no surprise that the Loki Familia would receive a request like this. The problem was that the water in Cadmus' Spring wasn't so easy to obtain.
"Tch..."
Bete clicked his tongue openly and said a line.
"If we're going to fetch that damn spring water, then there's no avoiding running into that thing, is there?"
Which thing?
"Cadmus, the mighty dragon."
Someone said the name in a low voice, and the place turned oppressive.
Cadmus was a rare-species monster that took the area around the spring as its territory and dwelt there, still extremely few in number even in a place like Floor 51.
It was both the spring's guardian and the spring's consumer. Once the water in the spring had accumulated to a certain amount, it would drink it all down, so if you wanted to obtain the water from the spring, you were bound to face it.
And its strength was without question the highest tier on Floor 51. In fact, if you didn't count the Floor Bosses of other floors, among all the monsters discovered so far, it was a monster that could sit solidly at the very top of the ability charts.
Its strength was perhaps even greater than that of the Floor 37 Floor Boss, Udaeus.
That was why adventurers, full of awe, called it "the mighty dragon."
"I'm going to send two squads of a small elite few to Floor 51, heading separately to the two sites of Cadmus' Spring, to obtain the designated quantity of water."
Finn began assembling the teams, cutting through the tangle like a sharp blade.
"The first team will have me, Gareth, and Bete as combat strength, with Raul coming along as Supporter."
"The second team will be made up of Ais, Tiona, and Tione, with one more person added as Supporter likewise."
Without any hesitation, Finn sent out the first-class adventurers in the expedition force, himself included.
Without first-class adventurers as combat strength, there was simply no way to deal with a figure like Cadmus.
So this roster could be called an inevitable result.
"Riveria, you stay and hold the camp here. There's got to be a Lv.6 Familia leader keeping watch on this side."
Finn turned to the High Elf and said this.
"I don't have a problem with it." Riveria knit her lovely brows, hesitated a moment, then said, "But are the members of this second team really going to be okay?"
Everyone immediately looked over at Ais, Tiona, and Tione, and fell into silence.
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