Dungeon, Floor 7.
Ancient hunger buried beneath fertile earth! Entwine, evergreen thorns! Let agony be your wine, let wailing be your song!
Aura was deep in concentration, voicing the chant, but her footwork was stumbling and uneven.
A faint, unstable Magic surged around her body.
Within this cage of mine...
Roots, pierce their flesh! Vines, crush their bones! Drink deep the surging heat!
Across from her, Kureha, acting as her sparring partner, picked up on Aura's strain immediately. She eased off her offensive, lightening the pressure she was applying.
The instant Kureha dialed back her intensity, Aura's chant smoothed out noticeably.
Watching from the side, Leon raised an eyebrow.
At Aura's current level of Concurrent Chanting, this was the limit of what she could manage.
The moment Kureha's offense pushed even a fraction harder, Aura would panic under the sudden pressure spike.
The end result would be a sharp drop in her Magic control. If her grasp of her own spells weren't extremely solid, she would have miscast and triggered a Magic backfire from Kureha's very first wave.
Sip the scattering light! With your very life force...
Nourish my body, feed my soul!
Feast of the Bacchanal Harvest!
As Aura's spell triggered, thick vines and roots burst through the ground in an instant, and a heartbeat later they smashed clean into the wall behind Kureha.
Leon stepped forward, clapping, and offered Aura a smile of congratulations.
"Just a few days, and you've already broken through into Concurrent Chanting, even pulling it off in front of an Agility-type swordsman like Kureha. Aura, that alone is something to be proud of."
At the praise, Aura's face flushed red instantly.
She stammered her response.
"It's, it's not as impressive as you make it sound... I'm only just scratching the surface. And... Kureha was clearly going easy on me earlier..."
As the one on the receiving end, Aura had felt every ounce of pressure Kureha brought to bear.
What amazed her even more was that this master swordswoman had noticed the moment her form started to break under the strain, and had immediately adjusted her own attack rhythm.
That adjustment, in the exchanges that followed, let her feel the pressure of real combat without ever pushing her past her breaking point. The result was the most efficient training she could possibly receive.
And that precise sense of how far to push, this swordswoman clearly had it down to second nature.
"Aura, don't be embarrassed. Your progress is fast. That's just a fact, no one can deny it."
"Besides... back in her home kingdom, Kureha is known as the Sword Saint. From that alone, you can imagine just how deep her mastery of the sword runs."
Faced with their praise, Kureha kept her gentle, ladylike smile.
She slid her sword cleanly back into its sheath and walked over.
"It's not as exaggerated as Leon makes it sound. Honestly... I just instinctively sensed your limit, so naturally I held back a little."
Aura: "..."
Was that supposed to sound normal?
When fighting, didn't normal people give it everything they had?
To pick up on an opponent's state with that kind of precision in the heat of an exchange, then adjust her power output on the spot.
That kind of in-the-moment control was the luxury of only the very top tier of fighters.
Without even meaning to, Kureha had just shown the depth of her foundation as an elite swordsman.
"It's getting late. We should be heading back."
Leon pulled out his brass pocket watch, checked the time, then said to the two of them:
"Any later and we'll hit peak adventurer return traffic. The road back gets ugly then."
"All right."
They both agreed.
Leon and the others had been doing this kind of routine training in the upper floors of the Dungeon for over ten days now.
During their live combat training in the Dungeon, while the team rotation changed daily, the group was usually kept to three people or fewer.
Jeanne and Rose alternated without fail, accompanying Kureha, Aura, and Laurier on their exploration and training runs.
As for Leon...
Once he'd recovered, he made it a daily habit to push deeper into the middle floors to grind Excelia.
Most of the time, he stuck to floors 13-14. After all, this wasn't a formal exploration or Expedition. It was just a daily routine.
Besides... he had to make it back home the same day.
The middle floors were the middle floors. The Cave Labyrinth's monster spawn rate couldn't compare to the Great Tree Labyrinth, but once you factored in travel time both ways, floors 13-14 actually had higher overall efficiency.
And so...
Powered by the unbreakable spirit of a wage slave, Leon pushed through the tedium of the grind and butchered monsters day after day.
In just ten short days, his Excelia Pool had built back up to over 2,500 points again.
Today was a rare rest day for him. He'd stepped in to cover for Jeanne and Rose, who had business out, which was how he ended up here.
...
Meanwhile.
Jeanne and Rose had arrived together at Tsubaki's forge.
"Tsubaki, we're here!"
Hearing the call, Tsubaki, who had been hunched over her work, lifted her head.
Once she'd recognized her visitors, she set down her oversized hammer, stood, and pounded a fist into her sore lower back. Her greeting came mixed with a complaint.
"Jeanne and Rose, huh. Perfect timing. Now I've finally got an excuse to talk myself into slacking off for a bit!"
Huh?
Slacking off?
Was that something the One-Eyed Craftsman would say?
Was there anyone in all of Orario who didn't know how obsessed she was with smithing...
Jeanne and Rose exchanged a look, momentarily at a loss for how to respond.
Catching their bewildered expressions, Tsubaki gave a sour explanation.
"It's not what you're thinking. This damn axe is what's got me wrecked."
She jerked a thumb at the massive heavy axe lying on the anvil and started griping.
"Every time this thing gets sent in, it half-kills me. I really can't figure it out. That muscle-bound brute of a dwarf, where does he even get that kind of strength? He can mangle even top-grade adamantite weapons, with full precision finishing, into a state like this!"
Rose covered her mouth, her eyes widening slightly, and gasped softly.
"He broke an adamantite weapon... could it be... a First-Class Adventurer?"
Jeanne walked over to the weapon and studied it closely. Looking at the serrated axe blade, which looked like a husky had gnawed on it, she felt a chill of unease.
The owner of this weapon... it's not Gareth Landrock, Elgarm of Loki Familia, is it?
Tsubaki shot Jeanne a surprised look, then sighed.
"That's right. You guessed that just from looking? Don't tell me you actually know him?"
Rose nodded at her and offered a brief explanation.
"Know him? If a few brief encounters count, then yes, barely. But we are acquainted with Lady Riveria."
Tsubaki looked at Jeanne and Rose, and hearing those words... her thoughts immediately leapt to that man.
She muttered to herself.
Good grief, are they moving that fast? First they pulled together five hundred million worth of various resources from who knows where, then they brought in talent like Jeanne, Rose, Kureha, and those two elf girls. Now they're making contact with Loki Familia too, on top of their existing connections with Astraea Familia and us at Hephaestus...
A string of thoughts flashed through Tsubaki's mind, and she broke into a knowing smile.
"My, my. Looks like you've been doing rather well for yourselves these days."
Jeanne and Rose simply smiled back, saying nothing more.
Tsubaki waved a hand dismissively.
"Forget it, your business is your business. I can't be bothered to pry. Since you're the ones who came over, I take it you're here to pick up your weapons and armor?"
She beckoned them to follow, leading the way as she spoke.
"Don't worry, your gear was finished a couple of days ago. This way."
...
...
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