Aboveground, the Guild-led order coalition meeting was locked in a shouting match, the sharp divisions between each faction turning the room into absolute chaos.
Below ground, deep within Rivira on Floor 18 of the Dungeon, the support team was mired in chaos of its own kind.
Thanks to the intervention of Riveria and the others, the damage inflicted by Evilus had already been greatly reduced.
But even so, the number of wounded still far exceeded what the support team had anticipated, and they were now stretched painfully thin on both manpower and resources.
"Over here! Quick! Elixirs! Are there any Elixirs left!?"
A healer held onto a bleeding patient and shouted himself hoarse toward the supply point.
"We... we're out! Every last Elixir we brought down... all used up!"
The Adventurer running logistics went pale, his voice shaking.
"What!?"
"How is that possible!?"
"I-it's because of yesterday's Evilus attack, the casualties were massive! The stockpiles of every major pharmaceutical familia and healing clinic in the city were wiped out long ago! They can't spare any for us. It's more like even their own reserves are running dry!"
The logistics staffer explained in despair.
"Damn it!"
The healer slammed a fist down on a nearby wooden crate, his face dark.
"Damn it! Wasn't this wound of his just healed by Vana Mardoll? How did it split open again?!"
Another healer stared at the reopened gash under the bandages, blood flowing unstoppably, caught between panic and fury.
"Aaaaagh, it hurts, it hurts so much!"
"I'm dying of the pain!"
The patient's screams tore through the air.
"Save me! Please, please save me! I don't want to die yet!"
"Please! Give me medicine! Give me something for the pain!"
"Shut up! Shut your damn mouth!"
Just then, a passing "outlaw" type who had been helping clear the rubble walked by.
He glanced at the man's face, twisted with agony, remembered this same man's suspicious attitude and cutting remarks toward Heith earlier, and let out a spiteful sneer:
"Hmph. Where's all that swagger you had strutting around in front of a young lady earlier? Seeing you like this, such a pathetic wretch, now that's satisfying."
"Aaaaagh, the pain is killing me!"
The only answer was an even more pitiful scream.
Not far away.
The Dwarf Gareth and the Boaz Ottar stood in silence, shoulder to shoulder, watching the hellish chaos with cold eyes.
After a long while, Gareth let out a heavy sigh, his grizzled beard trembling slightly with his breath.
"Evilus, those bastards. This time they've really hit us where it hurts."
Hearing the suppressed fury in Gareth's words, Ottar nodded without expression.
"...So the city's stockpile of medical supplies and Elixirs is already gone. Evilus's plan... is to use the lives of innocent civilians and Adventurers as disposable pieces, drain our supplies, and eventually... trigger internal division and chaos."
Gareth stroked his thick beard and let out a cold snort like rolling thunder:
"Valletta's mind games, one layer after another, vicious as hell!"
"Looking at it this way, these indiscriminate attacks they keep launching, beyond whatever other hidden objectives they have, consuming and draining our resource reserves is also a key move on the board."
"A way to force us to send the majority of our members into the Dungeon to gather materials, and so split our combat strength aboveground?"
"Quite the calculation."
Ottar's eyelids lowered slightly. Arachnia, Valletta Grede...
Finn's archenemy, is she.
...
...
Whether above the surface or in the depths below, all of Orario had been dragged into exhaustion by Evilus's chained attacks and venomous scheming, scrambling to keep up.
Leon, however, had anticipated all of this and had long since executed a beautiful "backstep," sauntering clean out of the center of this whirlwind.
If the sky fell, let the tall guys hold it up.
As the captain of a small familia, why on earth would he go fighting for the thankless job of being a load-bearing pillar?
Heads down in the Dungeon, grinding monsters and leveling up, building up the foundational strength of their own familia, that was the right path for them.
As for those top-tier factions? Let them worry about their "happy troubles."
"They enjoy the perks that come with the glory, the fame, and the accolades, so naturally they have to shoulder the duties the city lays on them."
Leon peeled monster slime off his boots as he casually offered his commentary:
"Just look at Freya Familia. Those goddess-of-beauty fanatics really love getting tangled up in Guild and city bullshit, do they?"
"Obviously not. But they're one of the main contributors who drove Zeus and Hera out of Orario. Now that the city's in trouble, they've got to plug their noses and help the Guild clean up its mess."
"No matter how sick of it they are, they have to grit their teeth and bear it."
The Dungeon, Middle Level, Great Tree Labyrinth, Floor 20.
Leon, Jeanne, and Rose, the three-person team, were hunkered down resting in an enormous chamber shaped like a natural tree hollow.
Looking around, the little "mounds" made up of piled monster corpses spoke silently of the fierce battle the trio had just fought through.
Leon hefted the weighty Magic Stone Pouch in his hand, listening to the clear, pleasant clinking of the Magic Stones inside, his mouth stretching practically to his ears.
It was the purest expression of hunger for wealth.
Seeing him as utterly fixated on Valis as ever, Jeanne and Rose exchanged a look both resigned and amused.
Jeanne closed the notebook in her hand, glanced at her ornate pocket watch, and spoke up:
"Leon, it's already the third day. Shouldn't we head back for a bit?"
"At the very least, we need to let Kureha and the others know we're alright. And... we came down to support you because of Goddess Demeter's warning. I'm sure she must be worried sick about us too."
"Three days?"
Leon lifted his head, looking a little dazed.
Rose chimed in from the side:
"To be exact, counting from the attack on Rivira, it's been two days and one night."
Leon nodded in realization, stroking his chin:
"Tsk. I've been in the Dungeon that long without even noticing? If you hadn't mentioned it, I wouldn't have felt a thing."
Jeanne and Rose both burst into laughter at the humblebrag:
"No feeling at all? That's thanks to those few supply packs you swiped out of Rivira!"
"Good grief, it's a different story once you open them up. The stuff crammed inside, packed to the gills. If not for those supplies, we never would've been able to hold out down in this hellhole for two days and one night with room to spare. Relying on your own pitiful provisions, with me and Rose traveling light, there's no way we'd have been able to keep up with your high-intensity grind."
Rose, finishing up her pack, couldn't help but join in the teasing:
"Or maybe our dear captain was so absorbed in the joy of watching his Excelia shoot up that he lost all track of time?"
Leon instantly put on an innocent face, throwing up his hands theatrically:
"Joy? Where was the joy? I'm about ready to drop dead from exhaustion!"
Then his tone shifted, tinged with a trace of frustrated regret:
"At the end of the day, Fireball is still a single-target attack spell. Compared to those wide-area clearing spells, the farming efficiency is just too low. It's seriously holding our pace back..."
Before he'd even finished speaking, Jeanne and Rose had rolled their eyes in perfect sync, looking utterly speechless.
Jeanne finally couldn't hold back and snapped:
"My dear captain, if you have the guts to say that to literally anyone outside our familia, I'm honestly worried you'll either drown under a tidal wave of furious spit or get brained by a flying brick of envy!"
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