Pulling their gazes back from Leon's retreating figure, Alise and the others set aside their curiosity about his behavior and warmly greeted the women approaching them.
"Miss d'Arc, Miss Marbleheart, Miss Clyret, and Laurier, Aura, it's been so long! Thank you all for coming to help."
Alise, Lyra, Kaguya, and the other members of the Astraea Familia, despite their weakened state, forced smiles and greeted Jeanne and the others one by one.
Then their eyes landed on Persephone. They studied her for a moment, surprise on their faces.
"You're... Persephone, the captain of Demeter Familia? This is really, uh... what I mean is, I didn't expect you'd be down in the Dungeon too..."
Alise's expression turned slightly awkward as she trailed off.
Given the close relationship between the goddesses Demeter and Astraea, Alise and Persephone naturally knew each other, and got along quite well. So she knew a thing or two about this senior Adventurer's circumstances and history.
And precisely because she knew Persephone had devoted herself to agriculture and hadn't set foot in the Dungeon for ages, seeing her here in Leon's party on Floor 27 of the Water City came as a genuine shock.
Persephone's expression didn't change at the justice girl's greeting. She smiled faintly.
"Alise, Kaguya, Lyra. It's been a while."
She nodded to the spirited young champion of justice and to Yamato Rindou and Sly Mouse flanking her, then shifted tone.
"What, is it really that surprising to see me in the Dungeon?"
Alise blinked and was about to open her mouth when Kaguya and Lyra cut her off, terrified she'd blurt out something tactless.
"Persephone is a Level 3 Adventurer. It's perfectly normal for her to be exploring the Water City."
Lyra answered while quietly kicking Alise's ankle under the radar.
The redhead caught on and nodded frantically.
"Right, right, right! You've been sitting at Level 3 for several years now, haven't you? After this Amphisbaena raid, assuming nothing went wrong, you should have enough for your Great Feat. Once we're back on the surface... you'll definitely level up. Congratulations in advance!"
Persephone's expression went briefly distant.
She turned to look at the massive dragon carcass sprawled across the lake's surface, then lowered her gaze to her own slender, pale hands. Something turned over inside her.
"Level 4..."
She murmured the words, and as if something occurred to her, her eyes drifted toward the figure of a certain man currently scrambling all over the dragon's corpse.
"Hmph... it's just Level 4. Nothing special."
...
...
Deep in the bottomless Dungeon, any sense of time blurred away.
An hour or two slipped by.
At the lowest level of the Water City, along the banks of the great cavern lake, both the Demeter and Astraea teams were hard at work.
On the Astraea side, with so many wounded, Alise and the few Adventurers still mobile were rushing to treat their members' injuries, trying to get everyone back to the bare minimum condition needed to make the trip to the surface.
Lyra, the brains of the Familia, was tallying up their post-battle losses with a deepening frown.
On the Demeter side, apart from Leon, who was still busy with the carcass, everyone else had their own tasks.
Compared to the justice crew, though, Jeanne and her team had it easy. They even had time for casual conversation between tasks.
Of course, being the busiest man on the field, Leon had first completed his hands-on investigation report on the Monster Rex before throwing himself headfirst into the battlefield cleanup he'd been dying to do.
"Drop Treasure Chest, Drop Treasure Chest, Drop Treasure Chest..."
"Dammit, why is this corpse so freaking huge? Finding one chest is a nightmare!"
He circled the massive dragon carcass several times, grumbling the whole way as he squeezed and crawled underneath it.
After a solid ten-plus minutes of struggling, he finally spotted it beneath the chest area: the blinding golden glow he'd been waiting for!
A Drop Treasure Chest!
Leon's eyes lit up like searchlights. One Flash Step and he was on it, snatching it up faster than the eye could follow.
"Hehe! Perfect!"
One Expedition, and not only had he leveled up beyond all expectations, he'd even burned through most of his Level 4 progression already.
Add two Drop Treasure Chests that would massively boost both his own and his Familia's strength, and this trip had paid off in spades.
And that wasn't even counting the high-value Drop Items he'd collected along the way through the Lower Floors: Mermaid's Blood, Blood Coral, Blue Crab Shells, plus naturally occurring Dungeon materials like Adamantite Ore, Mithril Ore, Magic Iron, and White Leaves, all of which could be converted into serious cash.
Once he got back to the surface and properly cashed everything in, both he and the Familia would see a massive jump in power.
The thought set his blood pumping. He couldn't wait to get back to Orario.
...
...
"Alright everyone, time to head back!"
"Yes!"
After a brief rest, the two parties set off together on the return journey.
But with the Astraea Familia members all in rough shape, the group's travel speed was painfully slow.
The entire way, the Demeter squad handled escort duty. Leon didn't mind the monsters one bit. In his eyes, every single one was free Excelia. He'd never turn that down. In fact, the more the merrier.
Once they left the Lower Floors, grinding Excelia would mean scraping by on one-tenth payouts, table scraps at best.
Even with his teammates feeding him Excelia, the total monster count up here was fixed. Compared to the Lower Floors, the income was a drop in the bucket.
Well, at least he could sit back and let the passive Excelia roll in. That was some consolation.
...
Once the group left the Water City and entered the Great Tree Labyrinth on the Middle Floors, Leon finally eased off and handed escort duty over to Laurier, Aura, and Kureha.
Monster killed. Excelia +0.1
Monster killed. Excelia +0.1
Familia member killed a monster. Excelia +0.1
Familia member killed a monster. Excelia +0.1
Familia member killed a monster. Excelia +0.1
...
...
Leon stood on a small hill, leaning on his Twisted Staff like a walking cane, watching Kureha and the others mow down monsters below. His mouth twitched.
"Dammit, leveling up too fast has its downsides. Great. Now that I'm Level 4, if I want to grind Excelia at any decent rate, I'll have to go mow lawns on the Deep Floors. Wonderful."
...
...
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