Leon pulled out his notebook and quill as he made his way down, licking the tip out of habit before scribbling away, recording every scrap of data, every sensation, every conclusion from his latest round of experiments.
The old saying held true: even the sharpest memory couldn't beat ink on paper. Scholar's Heart was powerful, sure, but Leon had never abandoned pen and paper. Besides, he nursed a quiet dream: filling the grand library of his future Familia with notebooks he'd written and Grimoires he'd collected.
He was a hoarder. A little collecting obsession was perfectly reasonable, right?
...
Floor 6, nothing worth mentioning.
Floor 7, same.
Floor 8...
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Deafening explosions rolled out from one corner in a relentless cascade.
A wide-open chamber. The ceiling soared ten meters high, banishing any sense of claustrophobia, and the room stretched to roughly the size of a basketball court. For a mage like Leon, it was the perfect arena.
"Fireball!"
Firelight played across the blurred features beneath Leon's hood, and a thread of deep blue light trailed his body as he moved.
The Fireball streaked forward with a tail of flame and slammed into the oncoming Killer Ant. In the blink of an eye it detonated with a roar, and savage fire swallowed two monsters whole.
Blue light filled Leon's eyes, twin reflections of the blaze burning in his irises.
Under this brutal ranged bombardment, the monsters charged one after another like lemmings off a cliff, wave after wave, yet none of them could breach the ten-meter perimeter around him.
His accuracy still needed work. Scorch, for instance, had a real chance of missing anything beyond five meters. But Fireball was different. A projectile the size of a washbasin plus area-of-effect detonation meant that even with shaky aim, Leon could land effective hits with ease.
"Fireball, Fireball, Fireball, Fireball, Fireball!"
Monsters were devoured by flame, incinerated in an instant, and what remained was scattered to dust by the trailing shockwaves.
A chain of explosions erupted from the floor, blistering heat and concussive force radiating outward until the air itself seemed to burn. The heat forced Leon to tug his mask higher, and a satisfied grin crept across his face.
"Now that's what I'm talking about. What's even the point of being a mage without AoE? Compared to that wimpy little Scorch, a fat Fireball the size of a washbasin hits different!"
After a stretch of dedicated training, his body had gradually adapted to short bursts of high-output casting, the technique commonly known as rapid-fire magic.
That humiliation against the Orc? That was just inexperience. He'd never fought at that intensity before. But inexperience didn't mean inability. Targeted training not only boosted his Magic stat quickly but also widened the "pipe" of his output, raising his burst potential. Two birds, one stone.
Now that he had Fireball in his arsenal, this kind of burst-down tactic would steadily become a staple of his combat rotation going forward.
...
Bathed in firelight, Leon bared his teeth in a low, raspy laugh. Even after every monster in the chamber lay dead, the fever in his eyes said he wanted more.
They say when you're riding high, you stop paying attention to the things that matter. He didn't notice that the ever-present malice of the Dungeon had turned its gaze on him.
As if provoked by a certain someone's arrogance, the great mother Dungeon decided to teach this upstart a lesson.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
Without warning, the walls of the entire chamber split open with countless fissures, and monsters poured out in a dense swarm as though they were free samples.
No time to mourn the charred dead. What came next was a Monster Party.
Leon stared.
The joy evaporated. The grin slid off his face.
"Oh boy. This is not great."
Crimson eyes. Hundreds of them. All locked on him. He said nothing, sweat rolling down his back.
He took one slow step backward, expression blank. Then another. Then a third.
Then he spun on his heel and sprinted.
"SKREEEEEE!!!"
...
It was around quitting time, and small groups of adventurers dotted the standard routes, heading home for the day.
"Is it just me, or has the Dungeon been way too exciting lately? The Guild still hasn't released their report on that Floor 7 Monster Party from a couple days ago, and now this? Don't tell me someone's stirring up trouble again."
"God, give me a break. Can't we just explore the Dungeon in peace? Let us make our money without all the drama."
"Take that up with the Evilus goons. Though I wouldn't hold my breath."
"I know you're freaking out, but calm down. Listen, aside from some explosions, nothing's actually happened. Chill."
"Wait. Do you guys feel that? The ground is shaking."
"Earthquake maybe?"
"This is the goddamn Dungeon!"
"Then what else? Abnormal monster surge, obviously."
And then, from the far end of the corridor, they saw a cloaked figure sprinting toward them with a horde of monsters on his heels.
"Is it just me, or does that guy look like he's heading straight for us?"
"Son of a... You and your big mouth!"
The adventurer who'd been cursing stared, slack-jawed, as the cloaked figure burst from the tunnel. Before he could process what was happening, the guy blurred past him.
"Have a great weekend, folks."
As he brushed past, the cloaked figure glanced at the Familia Crest on the nearest adventurer, narrowed his eyes, and tossed off those breezy words before vanishing down the corridor.
"???"
The group of adventurers, mid-conversation, went silent as if someone had grabbed them all by the throat. Every last one of them stood frozen.
"What are you standing around for? RUN!"
A torrent of profanity erupted behind him.
Leon's figure disappeared around the bend, the sound of their cursing still ringing in his ears.
"Soma Familia?" He smirked. "Small world."
Soma Familia. A chaotic bunch who'd do anything for their god's divine wine.
Leon knew their type all too well. To earn money for that precious liquor, there was nothing they wouldn't stoop to in the city. They caused so much trouble and disrupted public order so often that Ganesha Familia and Astraea Familia had disciplined them more times than anyone could count, and they still never learned.
If they were like that on the surface, the Dungeon was worse. Robbing other parties was just another Tuesday for them.
...
Roughly half an hour later, Leon slipped quietly back into the underground adventurer plaza.
Recalling the adventurers he'd just gifted a Monster Party to, a devious smile spread across his face.
They must have had a rough time. And a few of those faces looked awfully familiar.
He drifted toward a corner of the plaza, turning the memories over in his head, and it didn't take long before one surfaced: those early days, not long after he'd first arrived in Orario.
He'd just gotten settled, been an adventurer for only a few days, and one lucky trip netted him a Drop Item. He was green as grass back then.
Fresh off a small payday from the Exchange, he'd had the wonderful luck of catching the eye of some Soma Familia thugs, who cornered him in an alley and roughed him up. First time in two lifetimes he'd been bullied, so the memory stuck.
Persephone, captain of Demeter's Familia, had dragged him along to settle the score before the day was out. But Leon held grudges.
Which was exactly why dumping a Monster Party on a crew that ran with Evilus and had a personal history with him came with zero guilt.
He'd never had the chance before. Now that one had fallen into his lap, mercy wasn't on the menu.
Causing a little trouble for those lowlifes? Public service, really.
He wasn't delusional, of course. The monsters on that floor weren't going to wipe out a party of adventurers. Everyone had a card or two up their sleeve.
But making them bleed a little, burning through their equipment repair budget, maybe wasting a few charges on a Magic Sword? That was plenty.
Killing them would be too quick. Draining their wallets so they couldn't afford their precious divine wine? Now that was cruelty.
For people like them, that hurt worse than dying.
...
He lurked in an unremarkable corner of the plaza, watching, and sure enough, the Soma Familia crew stumbled out of the corridor looking exactly as wrecked as he'd hoped.
Battered, bruised, gear visibly damaged, but no one missing. Full headcount.
The hall was crowded with adventurers, and plenty of them noticed.
"Look, Soma's crew. Wiped out? That's hilarious."
"Bunch of arrogant pricks. About time karma caught up."
From the reactions alone, it was clear: Soma Familia adventurers were universally despised.
Compared to their earlier polished appearance, every one of them was banged up now, equipment cracked and chipped. One of them was still coughing blood.
"Goddamn it. Spent all year hunting, and the birds pecked back. If I ever find out who that bastard was..."
"Cost me a Magic Sword. Months of work down the drain!"
They cursed the culprit with everything they had, faces flushed red with fury.
But Leon noticed that compared to the rest of the hotheaded idiots, the one wearing glasses looked far more calculating.
He studied the man for a long moment, then quietly made his way back to the surface.
A handful of small fry. Not worth the brainpower to remember. Their greatest contribution to his day was a bit of entertainment, nothing more.
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