For Leon, pay-to-win power-leveling in the early stages was simple. Once you solved the initial startup capital problem, nothing could slow down your leveling speed. And once that snowball started rolling, it only picked up momentum, right up until it hit a wall.
That wall was Level 4.
According to Guild records, the floors where monsters with Level 4 equivalent strength spawned in large numbers began at Floor 37, the Deep Floors. In other words, now that he was Level 4, trying to keep farming Excelia in the Upper, Middle, and Lower regions was no longer viable.
Only by pushing into the Deep Floors could he maintain his previous leveling speed. No, it'd be even faster. The Deep Floors had high monster respawn rates, dense spawns, and fewer competitors. Nobody to steal his kills. Efficiency would only go up.
But the prerequisite was actually getting past Floor 37.
Everyone knew the Dungeon's interior was shaped like an inverted pyramid. The deeper you went, the larger each floor became.
According to intel leaked from the major Familias, Floor 37 alone, just the entrance to the Deep Floors, was already comparable in size to all of Orario. The floors beyond that went without saying.
That kind of massive area, stronger monsters, plus the sheer depth of the round trip...
Even if the Deep Floors had better grinding efficiency, the travel time alone would eat up enormous amounts of time and energy. On top of that, accidents were constant, Irregulars practically the norm. There was no telling how long a single round trip would take.
At the end of the day, Level 4 or not, Leon was still human. Flesh and blood. If he was going to spend extended periods in the Dungeon, he'd need supplies. And that wasn't even mentioning what long-term Dungeon exposure could do to someone's mental state.
The Dungeon's oppressive atmosphere kept your nerves wound tight every second. No sane person could just camp down there and grind mobs like they were AFK farming.
Thinking it all through, Leon sighed as he watched the battlefield below.
"Tch, if only I could solve the inventory space problem."
...
...
Three days later.
Orario. Babel, Dungeon entrance.
"Ahhh! Blue sky! White clouds! The sun!"
"So bright!"
People inhaled deeply, one after another. "That smell. That familiar smell."
"We're finally back!"
It was afternoon. The sun hung low in the west, and at the far edge of the horizon, wisps of red cloud peeked out beneath the city walls.
Leon's group emerged looking thoroughly exhausted, gazing out at this city full of life. The tension they'd been carrying finally drained away.
Leon turned around and watched the Astraea Familia members, each wearing that peculiar expression of people who'd narrowly escaped death. Something in him resonated with that.
Having clawed his way up from the very bottom, he knew exactly how that felt.
He let out a long breath, smiled, and addressed the redhead.
"Whew. Alise, Kaguya, Lyra, Ryuu, and all you lovely ladies of Astraea Familia, now that we've made it back safe and sound, let's say our goodbyes here."
He shrugged and spread his hands with a teasing grin.
"After all, your base is in the First District."
Everyone knew the First District was where the wealthy elite and the great Familias congregated. Demeter Familia's Wheat Manor was there, and so was Astraea Familia's Stardust Garden.
They could tell Leon was just messing with them, so Alise and the others didn't take offense.
Kaguya eyed the bulging packs strapped all over Leon's body, every one of them looking ready to burst at the seams, stuffed with expensive loot in those Lower Floor Supporter packs. She clicked her tongue and fired back.
"Tch tch, quite the haul, huh!"
"Funny how someone who's clearly loaded, raking in gold hand over fist in the Dungeon and selling Monster Hunter Specials on the side, is still renting Lady Demeter's house."
Leon's beaming grin froze. His mouth twitched.
Everyone saw the look on his face and knew the penny-pincher had been hit where it hurt. The girls burst out laughing.
Laughter never disappears. It just finds a new target. That truth held up even in another world.
"Jeanne, Rose, Persephone, Miss Kureha, Laurier, Aura, goodbye everyone!"
Waving to the group, Alise led the Astraea Familia down North Main Street, road-weary but in good spirits.
"Bye, everyone!"
Leon watched until their figures disappeared completely into the crowd, then turned back with a grin, eyes meeting the girls around him.
"Let's go home!"
"Yeah!"
...
Orario. Seventh District. Leon's house.
The garden gate creaked open, and the women, whose patience had apparently reached volcanic levels, charged inside.
They tossed down backpacks, weapons, armor, belts, battle gear, gloves, and boots one piece at a time as they went, then made a light-speed dash for the large bathhouse that had just been built recently.
Leon was left standing alone by the stone table, hair blowing in the breeze, faintly hearing Rose's voice drifting from the backyard bathhouse.
"Dear Mr. Leon, could you please handle the loot inventory for us? You know how it is, we haven't bathed in over a week down in the Dungeon, and we just can't take it anymore!"
Laurier and Aura are elves with a cleanliness thing, fine, I get that. But Jeanne, Rose, Kureha... you three have crawled out of battlefields piled with corpses. Since when did you get picky about hygiene?
But then again, if the Astraea Familia members hadn't all been wounded, forcing them to skip the chance to bathe on Floor 18...
"Whatever. They're ladies. I get it."
As for himself?
Since when was bathing more fun than opening loot boxes?
"Inventory first!"
...
...
Two hours later, the sky had gone completely dark.
As a veteran with over three years of experience, Leon had the loot appraisal process down to a science.
Forget the Upper, Middle, and Lower Floor materials and Drop Items he'd just catalogued. He even had the Drop Item and Material Output Catalogs for the Deep Floors and Beyond memorized cover to cover, floors he'd never even set foot on.
He knew those better than the floors he'd actually been to.
Yeah, it was the same principle as how people who can't afford supercars somehow know more about them than the actual owners.
"Man, you always want what you can't have."
Leon closed the Dungeon Drop Item and Material Output Catalog with a wistful look, reluctantly setting it down on the stone table beside him. He took off his single-lens Gale-Force Reading Glasses, stood up, stretched, and worked out the stiffness from sitting in the same position too long.
He drained the glass of water in a few gulps, then picked up his notebook and started tallying the final numbers.
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