In the office, furnished with a large bookcase and fireplace, Finn sat behind his desk as usual. Riveria stood by the wall and Gareth sat on a wooden stool. All three watched Leo enter with warm expressions.
Those eyes held both the relief of seeing one of their own juniors finally grow into his own, and the delight of their Familia gaining another pillar to lean on.
"I'm here, Captain."
Under those gentle eyes, Leo scratched his cheek without thinking, then stepped forward and stood in front of the desk.
Just a moment ago, Finn had sent someone to tell him to come by the office, which was why he'd come.
"Well, well." Gareth was the first to speak, sizing Leo up as he laughed heartily. "How's it feel to be a Lv.5, kid?"
From the teasing look on the old man's face, he was clearly in a good enough mood to be poking fun at Leo.
"It's fine, I guess." Leo didn't really feel it was anything special, and said honestly, "It just feels a little unreal, that's all."
The unreal thing he was talking about was the attitude of the people around him.
Because he'd risen to Lv.5 and become a first-class adventurer, everyone treated him differently. Even Raul no longer slung an arm around his shoulders. Instead of seeing a junior who needed care, Raul now looked at Leo as he did Ais and the others, instinctively treating him as a superior.
He had suddenly earned the respect and admiration of many people.
Of course, it wasn't really that inexplicable.
"Never mind you, even we can't quite believe it." Gareth sighed. "It wasn't long ago that you were just a new member who'd only just received the Falna, and in the blink of an eye you're a Lv.5. The world really is unpredictable."
"It's true." Finn nodded and smiled. "We always figured the Familia's next Lv.5 would be one of Raul, Anakitty, or Alicia. We never expected you'd come up from behind and, in less than three months, walk the whole road they've spent nearly ten years on and still haven't reached. There really is no predicting how the world turns."
"...Somehow it feels like your first time coming to report to us, back when you were getting ready to become an adventurer and enter the Dungeon for the first time, was only yesterday." Riveria couldn't help putting in a word too. "A growth rate this incredible has never once appeared in all the history of the lower world. It's hard to believe someone with this kind of talent would show up right beside us."
"Well said." Gareth stroked his beard and laughed. "We really ought to thank Ais for bringing such a prodigy into our home. Otherwise we'd have missed out."
"If only they'd just stop being so reckless all the time." Riveria let out a sigh. "Last time, at Lv.2, he dared to challenge a Floor Boss classified at Lv.4, and this time, at Lv.4, he dared to challenge a Floor Boss whose potential is even above Lv.6. I really don't know what to say to you two."
Clearly, Riveria was lumping the absent Ais into her scolding as well.
After learning that Leo and Ais had challenged Udaeus together, the Familia's resident mother hen had surely been itching to lecture them both.
Leo knew he was in the wrong, so he laughed sheepishly, obediently shut his mouth, and said nothing.
"Alright, since the outcome was good, let's let them off this once." Finn smiled and smoothed things over. "If it weren't for this, our Familia wouldn't have gained a new Lv.5 and a new Lv.6. In the end it's something worth celebrating, so let's not spoil their mood right now."
"I don't want to either." Riveria said, brows knitted. "But if I don't give them a proper talking-to, it feels a bit like encouraging them to take risks, and that's not a good thing."
"Mm, being too reckless is bad, true, but daring to take risks is also a virtue." Gareth's thinking clearly differed a little from Riveria's, and he said breezily, "Cowards can't become first-class adventurers, you know."
The three of them chatted away like this right in front of Leo, clearly quite moved by Leo and Ais's rank up this time.
The three of them were Lv.6 themselves and had always guided those coming up behind them as the Familia's leaders. Now Ais had caught up, while Leo was advancing fast with no sign of slowing. He would probably catch them soon as well.
For the three of them, who had always led the children of the Familia as their guardians, it was impossible not to feel something over this.
Still, the three of them were getting on in years after all. Even Finn, the youngest, was already over forty, so it wasn't very likely they'd feel pressed and frustrated over it the way young people would.
So the three of them simply reflected for a moment, then moved on to the next topic with perfect composure.
"Actually, the reason I called you over this time is to tell you something." Finn watched Leo, his expression gentle. "Since you're a Lv.5 now, it doesn't seem quite right to keep treating you as an ordinary member."
"The few of us talked it over and reached a consensus. We've decided to make you an executive of the Familia, like Ais, Tiona, Tione, and Bete."
"What do you think?"
At that, Leo raised an eyebrow.
Familia executive?
That was no empty title.
Ais and the others might look like they lounged around with nothing to do all day, but that didn't mean the Familia's executives held no real power. In fact, this position was the highest one there was, short of the three Familia leaders.
Becoming a Familia executive meant gaining the right to mobilize the members below you, and enjoying certain privileges within the Familia as well, such as borrowing a particular item from the Familia treasury, or taking out a loan from a commerce-type Familia in the Familia's name and having the Familia front the loan for you, and even being able to consult more information and intelligence over at the Guild. It could be said the benefits were plentiful.
These benefits weren't especially visible in normal times, but at the crucial moments they were very useful.
So becoming an executive wasn't a bad thing at all. On the contrary, it was a position with a great deal of real power.
What's more, becoming an executive greatly reduced the burden of routine chores. The patron deity and three Familia leaders decided major issues, while lower-ranked members handled minor ones. Executives in the middle therefore had more freedom and time for their own affairs.
Leo had seemed unusually free before, spending whole days in the Dungeon every few days. Even expedition preparations and post-expedition work rarely fell to him, leaving him free to study under Ais, Finn, and Riveria. That was because Finn and the others had deliberately looked out for him.
Finn and the others all knew his growth rate was astonishing, so they didn't want to disturb him unless it was necessary, which was why he'd been able to do his own things all along.
If not for that, Leo would have had to take shifts standing guard and on duty at the various posts in headquarters back when his level was low, and after becoming a second-class adventurer there'd have been all kinds of chores for him to handle. How could he possibly have been idle all day, either diving into the Dungeon, or practicing swordwork in the courtyard, or reading in the library?
It was precisely because Finn and the others held expectations for him and wanted to quietly watch over his growth that he'd received this special treatment. Otherwise there was no way he could have had so much free time to arrange as he pleased.
Now it was different.
If he became a Familia executive, then all the various chores wouldn't fall to him, and he could enjoy these privileges with a clear conscience.
"Whatever you all arrange is fine, Captain."
So Leo nodded without any hesitation.
"Good." Finn clapped his hands. "I'll announce this matter later."
"From today on, you're a member of the executive tier."
"Do your best. We all believe Lv.5 is nowhere near your limit."
Finn offered him enormous encouragement.
At this, Riveria and Gareth both nodded as a matter of course.
Everyone knew Lv.5 was absolutely not Leo's endpoint.
His future was filled with boundless hope. Becoming a Lv.6 like Finn and the others was only a matter of time, and even Lv.7 wasn't some overambitious goal.
Loki, and the three of them too, were full of confidence and expectation for Leo's future.
The highest level in Orario right now was Lv.7, and only one person had reached it, so much so that countless people called him the city's ultimate weapon, seeing him as an insurmountable mountain.
However, only the veterans who had lived through the era of the "male god" and "female goddess" Familias knew that this supposed mountain was far from unsurpassable.
What was Lv.7 as a mountain?
As of fifteen years ago, Orario had had Lv.8 and even Lv.9.
That was a true mountain, one that even the King could still only look up at even now, watching the backs of those people press forward, not daring to stop his own steps at all.
Finn and the others wouldn't dare claim they could reach that realm either, but in Leo they saw the possibility of reaching that realm, and even... surpassing it!
He was the true trump card of Loki Familia's future, the ace they intended to elevate above all others.
Perhaps the shared wish of the people of the lower world just might come true in him.
At the thought, the way the three of them looked at Leo became like looking at some dazzling treasure, their eyes even narrowing.
"There's one more thing."
Finn remembered something, and was the first to withdraw his gaze, his expression turning a touch more serious.
"Before, because you had plans to conquer the Deep Floors, we didn't press you about what happened at Rivira," Finn said. "I've heard the whole incident was caused by a mysterious powerful figure manipulating events from the shadows?"
At the mention of this, both Riveria's and Gareth's expressions turned serious.
Leo grew serious too, his spine straightening slightly.
"Do you need me to go over the whole thing again from the beginning?"
Leo asked this.
"Mm. We'd like to confirm it once more, ideally from you as one of the central participants."
Finn nodded.
Leo naturally had no objection, and laid out everything he'd experienced at the time.
From leading his group to the Under Resort on Floor 18, to hearing about the murder case in Rivira, then discovering that suspicious character Lulune, and finally chasing after her and discovering the jeweled fetus and the mysterious woman, coming into an irreconcilable conflict with the latter that set off a great battle, Leo laid out the entire experience in exhaustive detail.
Including the mysterious request Lulune had accepted, the mysterious woman's objective, the details of the fight with her, and the fact that she could summon and control Violas, Leo laid it all out.
The three of them listened quietly the whole time, without cutting in.
Once Leo had finished, the three of them fell into thought, and nearly every one of them knitted their brows tightly.
"By your account, that mysterious woman is an unknown being capable of controlling monsters?" Riveria said gravely. "Those Violas and the female-form monster must be connected to the creatures we encountered on Floor 50."
"That much is already obvious." Leo said calmly. "The worm monsters we ran into on our expedition back then, and those Violas, though they're different species, both have iridescent surfaces and magic stones."
"Same with the female-form monster. The lower half is different, but the upper half is exactly the same."
"As for the two female-form monsters, set aside the one from Floor 50. The one Ais and I encountered on Floor 18 was unquestionably born when the fetus from the green orb Lulune Louie and the mysterious woman were fighting over parasitized a Viola."
If that was the case, then there was reason to suspect the two were actually born on the same principle, just with different hosts.
"They both also have an abnormally strong reaction to Magic, so I suspect those Violas are, like the worm monsters, enhanced species capable of devouring magic stones."
"And both species now appear to be controlled by some entity behind the scenes."
"The mysterious woman we ran into on Floor 18 summoned iridescent Violas right in front of us, and was even fighting over that green orb that can gestate a female-form monster."
So, here was the question.
If all of this was the same, then back on Floor 50, who had been controlling those worm monsters?
And who had placed the green orb that gestates a female-form monster on Floor 50?
The implications were chilling.
"It seems we can no longer treat the worms and the female-form monster we encountered as mere new species."
Finn said these meaningful words, making Riveria and Gareth glance at each other.
"Captain, don't tell me you haven't investigated that iridescent magic stone?" Seeing this, Leo asked, "We did recover that kind of magic stone, didn't we?"
"That's right." Finn narrowed his eyes. "Back then, we did recover that kind of iridescent magic stone."
"But that magic stone, when we took it to the Guild, was forcibly confiscated by Guild members."
Hearing this, Leo understood at once.
Finn suspected that the Guild actually knew just what lay behind that iridescent magic stone.
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