The three of them bantered back and forth for a while, laughing and joking.
Afterward, they relocated to a safer spot, deftly set up warning traps, lit a warm campfire, and set about solving their hunger problem.
Crackle!
Dancing flames licked the dry wood, popping and snapping cheerfully.
The three sat around stout tree stumps they were using as seats, absently tossing in more firewood while stirring the large pot suspended on the frame with a long-handled ladle.
A fragrant, thick stew bubbled merrily inside the pot.
Gurgle gurgle gurgle...
A clear and slightly embarrassing rumble of stomach broke the cozy silence.
Leon's stirring hand paused, the corners of his mouth lifting irrepressibly, his mischievous gaze aiming straight at Jeanne.
Rose, who was stirring a berry salad nearby, also tilted her head with a teasing smile, her eyes focusing over.
Under the combined gaze of the two, the fair face of Lady Holy Maiden flushed so deeply it looked fit to drip blood.
"D-d-don't look! It's embarrassing, okay!?"
Jeanne turned her face away in mortification, hands unconsciously twisting the hem of her clothes, legs pressed tightly together, her whole body tense, as if she wished she could find a crack in the ground to crawl into.
Leon raised an eyebrow, drawing out his words deliberately:
"Well, understandable, understandable. Lady Holy Maiden has exceptional gifts. Naturally she has a big appetite."
Jeanne's cheeks burned even hotter. She whipped her head around to glare at Leon, her voice cracking with a mix of shame and fury:
"Leon...!"
"Oh ho, getting worked up now, ha ha!"
Leon snickered and dodged a rag she might have hurled at him.
...
After that bit of lighthearted horseplay, and once they'd finished off the warm, comforting dinner, the three carefully erased all trace of their camp and set out on the return trip to the surface.
Compared to venturing into unknown territory, heading back along familiar paths felt far more relaxed and easy.
Floor 20... Floor 19... Floor 18...
The three stepped out of the massive tree-hollow stairwell passage. Passing through the Under Resort, they cast a distant glance westward, toward the ruins of Rivira shrouded in dusk and dust.
With no desire to linger, they turned and continued on.
Walking through the dim passages of Floor 16, Leon casually launched an Instant Cast Fireball, vaporizing two minotaurs that had just leapt down from the rock wall into drifting ash.
He stepped forward and bent down, deftly gathering up the Magic Stones rolling on the ground.
Jeanne watched Leon's busy figure, recalling Rivira's ruined outline, and mused aloud:
"With Rivira wrecked like that, I'd say it'll take a month at the very least to fully rebuild."
Rose scanned the gloomy surroundings warily and replied softly:
"The streets and buildings are secondary, really. As long as those outlaws are still there, Rivira won't fall. Didn't Leon say it himself? Those people have backers too."
Leon stowed the Magic Stones and walked back to join them:
"Yeah, I hear their backer is the Goddess Alliance. You two remember that one-eyed guy in Rivira, right?"
The three chatted as they continued down the passage.
"That Level 3 Adventurer? I remember his name was something like..."
Rose furrowed her brow slightly, trying to recall.
Jeanne supplied:
"Bors Elder. Word is this guy's the head of Rivira, sort of like the man in charge."
Leon saw dense, heart-pounding crimson eyes suddenly flare up in the darkness ahead. He raised a hand to clad himself in Frost Armor, then sent a Fireball howling into the red glow.
His hands never stopped moving as he explained:
"That guy runs the biggest buying post in town. Adventurers who frequent the middle and lower floors have all dealt with him at some point. Everyone's load capacity is limited, so when you've been in the Dungeon long enough that the loot won't fit, you end up selling some of it to him."
"Head of the biggest buying post?"
Rose had already raised her sword and shield, and she let out a soft chuckle at that:
"Then it looks like when we start exploring the middle and lower floors, we won't be able to avoid dealing with him either?"
Before the words were even out, she'd lowered her stance and shot forward like an arrow loosed from a bowstring!
Silver blade-light tore through the darkness. Where her cold edge passed, monsters fell in swathes like wheat before the scythe.
Leon's Fireballs kept flying without pause, precisely picking off any stragglers drawing too close.
He glanced at Jeanne, standing guard beside him and just as poised to strike, and a meaningful smile tugged at his lips:
"What makes you two so sure we absolutely have to deal with him?"
Jeanne shot him a puzzled glance, but her Banner Lance still darted forward like a dragon, stabbing sidelong without her even turning her head to pierce clean through the skull of a monster trying to ambush them:
"Hm? Don't tell me you have some other solution to our backpack space problem?"
She pulled the lance back cleanly, twirling it in a neat flourish.
"At our current farming rate, even one of those oversized Supporter-specialty backpacks wouldn't last half a day before loot blew it open."
With that, she gave a sharp shout and charged into the dense swarm of monsters as a streak of white.
"Ice Ring!"
Picking up on faint movement behind him, Leon slammed his staff down against the ground. The spell hummed to life and the stealthy monsters creeping up on him were frozen in place, and with a swing of the staff, erupting flames engulfed them in an instant.
He nimbly shifted his footing to dodge attacks while steadily striking every threat in sight with Fireballs.
"Hard to say..."
As he cast at high speed, he muttered under his breath at a volume only he could hear:
What if... one day we crack open a treasure chest and pull out some crazy tailoring blueprint?
With that thought, magical light rippled in his eyes, and he cut loose at full fire:
"Fireball, Fireball, Fireball, Fireball, Fireball, Fireball!"
Six fireballs tore loose in a single breath, the staggered detonations chaining into a rolling wall of fire that swept the chamber end to end. A chorus of dying roars rose and was swallowed in the flames.
Monster slain, Excelia +1
Monster slain, Excelia +1
Monster slain, Excelia +1
...
Before three Adventurers whose capabilities qualified as "supermodels," this Monster Party made up of several hundred monsters failed to stir up the slightest wave. In the blink of an eye, the creatures were sent cleanly back into their mother's embrace.
And from this, one could see...
Just how powerful the three had become after leveling up to Level 2.
Monsters with potential on par with the trio's current level couldn't survive a single round, let alone piling on together to pose so much as a sliver of threat.
Not unless the numbers reached that terrifying scale where quantity became quality...
But within the limited space and terrain of the Middle Level, clearly that kind of scale wasn't achievable.
At the very least, nowhere near enough to push the three of them to their limits.
...
...
"Whew! We're finally back!"
Stepping out through Babel's grand entrance, Leon tilted his head back and drew a deep breath of the surface world's cool night air.
The star-spangled night sky gently draped over the city. He spread his arms and stretched luxuriously, a lazy, contented look on his face.
Beside him, Jeanne and Rose also gazed up at the long-missed stars and sighed softly:
"It wasn't really that long, but the Dungeon's atmosphere... honestly, it's so oppressive."
"Yeah. Stepping back onto the surface feels like coming back from another world."
Leon glanced around.
Babel's entrance at this late hour was sparsely populated and quiet.
Only a few pairs of figures could be faintly seen huddled together beneath the dim yellow lamplight of the plaza.
Some sat on the fountain's edge whispering ear-to-ear, others leaned against benches embracing and kissing, and the air hung thick with that slightly cloying hormonal sweetness unique to youth.
Following Leon's gaze, Jeanne and Rose also noticed the intimate couples.
Both of them blushed faintly without a word and instinctively shifted half a step away.
Seeing this, a mischievous tilt pulled at the corner of Leon's mouth. He took two quick steps forward, squeezed between them, and draped his arms with perfect casualness around their seemingly "delicate" shoulders, one on each side.
He lowered his head, deliberately letting his warm breath brush against their ears, his voice dropped low and laced with a hint of seduction:
"Say, two lovely ladies, might I have the honor... of inviting you to join me for a romantic midnight supper?"
Rose, cheeks pink, turned her head and looked at him with playful laughter in her eyes:
"Oh my~ dear Mr. Captain, is that supposed to be an official date invitation?"
Jeanne, on the other hand, gave an indignant little scoff and tried to wriggle free of his arm:
"Playboy!"
Far from letting go, Leon instead declared with a face full of "deep emotion":
"Don't say that, Jeanne! Both of you are my most precious wings!"
"Wh-who's your wings!? Let go already!"
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