Orario, Seventh District, Leon's house.
It was deep into the night by now. The city had fallen utterly silent, yet the windows of this little house still glowed with warm, bright lamplight.
On the living room couch, the two elf girls were long since worn out.
They curled up in opposite corners like two drowsy kittens, each clutching a soft cushion tightly to her chest.
Their little heads bobbed uncontrollably up and down, as if keeping silent time to some rhythm of sleep.
Clearly, they were forcing themselves to stay awake against the heavy tide of drowsiness, stubbornly waiting for news of the three.
On the couch across from them, Kureha gently closed the last page of the book in her hands.
She raised a hand, pinching the bridge of her nose with slender fingertips to ease the soreness that had built up from hours of reading.
Then she lifted her head, gazing out the window into the deep darkness of the night, lost in thought for a long while.
Two and a half days. I wonder how Jeanne and Rose are doing? They should have... found Leon by now, right?
Given that the two of them are top-tier even among Lv. 2 adventurers, if they still haven't come back after this long, then we can basically rule out any accident happening to Leon. The more likely situation is... the other possibility we all guessed at.
Her fingertip traced absently along the cover of the book, feeling the warm, smooth texture of the leather and its faint grain. Suddenly her mind cleared:
Leon was in such a rush to dive into the Dungeon in the first place because he wanted to wring out every second he could for Excelia... If you factor that in, the reason they haven't come back yet almost goes without saying.
Having worked it out, the weight Kureha had been carrying in her chest finally lifted a little. She let out an almost inaudible breath of relief.
Thankfully, the worst case hadn't come to pass.
Though they had all known the odds of that were vanishingly small, once the seed of worry had been planted, especially after learning that the town of Rivira in the Under Resort had also been ravaged by Evilus, even her complete confidence in Leon's strength couldn't quite chase away that lingering concern.
Just as Kureha's thoughts were drifting...
Creak...
The sound of the courtyard gate being softly pushed open rang out startlingly clear in the quiet of the deep night.
"Hm?"
Catching that faint noise from outside, Kureha's eyes lit up.
The next instant, she sprang up from the couch like a lithe white cat.
Not bothering with shoes, her small pale feet bare, still in that plain white dress-style nightgown, she darted toward the door.
When her quick footsteps carried her out into the courtyard and she saw the three familiar figures filing in...
A brilliant, tension-releasing smile bloomed across her pretty face.
"Jeanne! Rose! Leon! You're finally back!"
Her voice brimmed with irrepressible joy.
The three of them all smiled faintly and answered softly:
"Yeah, Kureha, we're back."
"Welcome home!"
Beaming, Kureha hurried forward and pulled Jeanne and Rose into a tight hug.
Leon, standing off to the side, let his gaze drift.
He arched a brow with keen interest, and his eyes swept over this silver-haired swordswoman from head to toe, slowly, like a scanner.
That plain white nightdress traced the slender lines of her figure, and his gaze eventually lingered, lingered for a long while, on her bare pale little feet and on the slim, straight calves showing beneath the hem of her nightgown.
As a master swordswoman, Kureha's awareness of her surroundings was razor-sharp to begin with.
Leon's gaze, distinctly warm, hadn't even been on her calves and ankles for three full seconds before she noticed it, as though struck by an invisible jolt of current.
"L... Leon..."
Kureha's head snapped up like a startled doe, her pale cheeks flushing scarlet in an instant.
The blush spread rapidly, staining even her dainty earlobes and the long line of her neck a tempting shade of pink.
As an ascetic who had never experienced romance in her life, her body was far too sensitive to a look like that.
Just being watched that way sent a strange, tingling weakness rushing through every inch of her.
Off to the side, Rose took in the whole scene. She glanced at Leon, her lovely eyes sparkling with mischievous, teasing amusement.
Jeanne's face, on the other hand, darkened immediately. Those azure eyes were now glaring venomously at Leon, as if she wanted to devour him whole.
And besides... this scene was practically a perfect replay of what Leon had done to the two of them on the road home just now!
Catching the two girls' wildly different looks, Leon suddenly remembered that he had just finished teasing Jeanne and Rose on the way back.
And now here he was, ogling Kureha with absolutely no attempt to hide his lecherous intent. This behavior... he was practically signing his own death warrant!
That realization hit, and Leon immediately put on a sheepish smile, raising both hands in surrender with admirable self-awareness:
"Ahem! You girls chat, you girls chat! I'll... I'll just head back to my room to sort out my stuff and take inventory of the haul!"
Before he'd even finished the sentence, he had deftly scooped up the bulging backpacks from the ground and slipped away like a greased eel.
He was afraid that if he stuck around any longer, Jeanne and Rose would eventually lock his door, and all his careful maneuvering on the way home would have been for nothing.
"..."
Watching his scrambling retreat vanish behind the door, Jeanne and Rose narrowed their eyes in perfect unison, cold little smiles curling at the corners of their mouths.
Hmph. You think slipping away like that gets you off the hook? Dream on...
In Jeanne's mind, a scene was already playing out, Leon kneeling before her, begging pitifully for mercy, and a quiet, secret satisfaction rose up from somewhere deep inside.
Of course, it would never have occurred to her in this moment that the mercy-begging scene of the future had a very good chance of becoming something more like "Fallen Holy Maiden.avi"...
But that's another story.
Rose caught the rapid succession of expressions crossing Jeanne's face and quietly sighed to herself, the look she turned on her friend full of silent pity.
Dear Jeanne. Should I call you naive, or...
Sigh...
---
Slam!
Leon ran back to his room and shut the door.
He didn't even bother showering. Still busily stripping off his armor, he impatiently pulled up the status panel.
His eyes skipped right over the complicated data up top and locked in precisely on the [Excelia] and [Assets] rows at the bottom.
Assets: Reserve: 3.62 million | Cash: 515.4 million
Excelia: 3,219 points
The moment that four-digit number, a full 3,219 points of Excelia, met his eyes, Leon's mouth twisted sideways and a near-manic look spread across his face.
"3,219 points!"
Leon sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth.
The sheer efficiency was terrifying. Forget other people, even he was floored.
"Three days. Three lousy days, and I grinded 3,200 points!"
Leon pumped a fist in excitement.
"The Great Tree Labyrinth really is the way. Especially those cluster-spawning insect monsters, one Fireball in and the Excelia came pouring up like a Valis jackpot. So damn satisfying!"
Comparing it to the cave labyrinths earlier, undisguised contempt flashed across his face.
"Cave labyrinths? What a pile of trash. Only Killer Ants can even begin to hold a candle to the Great Tree Labyrinth's farming rate."
"Shame they're locked to lower floors. Even if you farmed them into the ground, they wouldn't reach the Great Tree Labyrinth's pinky toe."
Once the excitement died down, Leon calmed himself and started breaking down the composition of this massive Excelia haul:
"The Great Tree Labyrinth does have dense forest terrain, which puts monster variety and numbers at the top. But at the end of the day, it's still only Floors 19 to 24. Normal hunting runs, even getting lucky and cleaning out a few monster nests, there's no way I'm pulling 3,200 Excelia in three days."
"So the bulk of this really does come from Evilus's deluxe gift basket, huh?"
Recalling the horrifying wave on Floor 19 that Evilus had so "carefully curated," drawing together the monsters of the entire floor, Leon let a "kindly" smile cross his face:
"For the sake of this generous gift, that whole business where I got caught in the crossfire earlier... this great lord will magnanimously call it even!"
Then he rubbed his hands together ferociously, and with an almost religious excitement, he shouted aloud:
"System! Let's go all in, baby!!!!!!"
Hummm...!
At his words, the numbers on the panel began jumping frantically.
999... 1000... 1001... 1100... 1200... 1300... 1400... 1500... 1599!
The numbers finally locked in at 1599!
At the same time, the basic abilities row on the panel underwent an earthshaking change:
...
Strength: H102 → G288 | Potential: S999 → SSS1599 | +186 Endurance: H119 → F399 | Potential: S999 → SSS1599 | +280 Dexterity: H101 → F311 | Potential: S999 → SSS1599 | +210 Agility: H115 → F328 | Potential: S999 → SSS1599 | +213 Magic: G299 → B722 | Potential: S999 → SSS1599 | +423
...
A single wave had maxed out his potential. Looking at the neat, orderly numbers on the panel, for someone with a bit of a compulsive streak like Leon, the satisfaction was indescribable.
"That's the stuff. So good!"
After letting out an ecstatic shriek, he smacked his lips with a hint of unfinished appetite.
"Shame the window was too short, didn't rack up enough Excelia, or I'd have maxed the base stats in one wave too! Tch!"
Shaking his head, he shifted his gaze to what remained:
Assets: Reserve: 3.62 million | Cash: 485.4 million
Excelia: 219 points
"Tch, this much Excelia..."
Leon curled his lip in disdain, his face a picture of regret:
"Looks like until I've burned through these few hundred million, my one and only job is grinding the Dungeon like a madman."
[Read 40+ chapters ahead on Patreon: patreon.com/NiaXD]