A Familia with a grudge against them?
Not likely. Their group had always kept a low profile and never made any deep enemies among the other Familias. Besides, they were the Demeter Familia. Who would go out of their way to provoke a crowd of good-natured pushovers like them?
With the other Familias ruled out, what remained could only be a hostile force.
The first name to surface in Leon's mind was Evilus.
If it's Evilus... apart from a handful of high-level executives, their rank-and-file soldiers and assassins simply have no ability to push deep into the Lower Floors. Surely it's not the Lv.3 and Lv.4 executives coming after us personally?
After a moment's deliberation, Leon judged that possibility extremely low too.
Knowing the style of Valletta and her twisted lot, if they truly wanted to spend this much effort on a team of fewer than ten, wouldn't it suit their interests better to spend that strength on the surface, launch another wave of indiscriminate attacks, and stir up more chaos in Orario?
Besides, without intelligence on the team's actual strength, anyone with half a brain wouldn't casually make a move in the region past the eighteenth floor. That would be nothing short of suicide.
On top of that, Orario's "big-shot" caliber Familias weren't just for show, and the order faction's intelligence network was no hollow shell either.
So who the hell is it?
Leon sifted through the possibilities in his head but still couldn't lock onto a target.
Even so, he had a vague feeling it was in all likelihood Evilus people all the same, because... going by Jeanne's senses, the other party had kept a considerable distance the whole time.
Too wary to close the distance, huh? Then it's almost certainly an Evilus watcher planted on the eighteenth floor.
Gathering intel, huh...
In a flash, Leon had a rough read on the intent behind the prying eyes.
Rivira, this Under Resort, feels like it's practically becoming an Evilus stronghold underground...
He shook his head with a scoff and sank back into his weapon maintenance.
...
An hour later.
After a flurry of work, the group finally had camp pitched.
"Everyone, food's ready!"
"Coming!"
Using the campfire, Leon and Rose simmered the provisions they'd brought into a thick soup together with fresh berries and wild greens gathered from the forest. Paired with soft bread and assorted jams, the simple but warming dinner was settled in no time.
With the meal done, everyone carefully laid warning traps around the camp, then, following the established schedule, prepared to spend the night in the Dungeon.
Deep in the labyrinth, so long as nothing unexpected came up, recovering body and mind always came first. They were all experienced Adventurers; no one understood that better.
So, after arranging the night watch in rotating pairs, the rest quickly slipped into their tents and forced themselves to sleep, even though faint monster growls drifted over from the distance, even though the "wind" in the woods slipped through the leaves in a ceaseless soft rustle.
Silence slowly settled in, accompanied by the campfire's faint crackle.
...
...
The night was calm. Nothing unexpected happened.
Their first Expedition night in the Dungeon passed just that peacefully.
The beautiful crystals of the vault above once again shed their soft, dawnlike "light," slowly rousing the whole forest.
Unlike the dead silence of night, the "daytime" forest seemed to spring suddenly alive. Monster growls, wingbeats, the pounding of running feet, mixed with the soft rustle of brushing branches and leaves, drifted into the camp in snatches.
Leon had already washed up and gotten fully dressed.
Humming some nameless little tune, he fixed breakfast beside the dying embers of the campfire.
Rose, the group's other capable cook, had covered the back half of the night watch and was still resting in her tent. Leon had no intention of waking her. In the Dungeon, keeping everyone at full energy mattered far more than saving a little manpower in the moment.
The last thing he wanted was some tiny oversight born of a passing fatigue, left to accumulate and stack over time until it punched through the whole team's margin for error, bred disaster, and ended in a total party wipe in some unknown corner of the Dungeon.
There were far too many examples of exactly that. Nearly every party that had perished underground began with a single seemingly trivial mistake.
Which was why, true to his cautious, play-it-safe style, Leon would rather slow his pace than casually overlook any potential risk.
"What are you thinking about?"
Persephone's voice pulled Leon out of his thoughts.
He smiled at his "boss," the coolly elegant older beauty leaning against a tree trunk with her arms crossed, his hands never pausing as he prepped the fresh ingredients and chatted idly:
"Up this early? I thought your watch slot was at midnight. You should know perfectly well that, in the Dungeon..."
Persephone raised a hand and cut him off cleanly:
"I've been an Adventurer a lot longer than you. You don't need to remind me of the basic rules."
Leon shrugged, and his gaze dropped to what she was carrying, a flicker of surprise crossing his eyes:
"Is that... a non-alcoholic berry honey drink? A Rivira specialty?" One eyebrow arched. "When did you go to Rivira?"
The stuff was a favorite among Adventurers at the surface taverns, but since it came from Rivira Town on the eighteenth underground floor, and its ingredients were mostly gathered from deep in the labyrinth, the surface's big taverns not only charged outrageous prices for it, supply was super scarce on top of that. And with the supply route itself fraught with risk, it existed in a near-permanent state of listed prices and empty shelves.
Which was precisely why the drink was, if anything, especially popular in High-Class Adventurer circles.
As for why...
If you couldn't get it on the surface, or couldn't afford it, why not just stop by Rivira while you were down there working and buy some?
Cheaper, easier. Two birds with one stone.
Clearly, that was exactly what Persephone had just done.
As for Low-Class Adventurers? Sorry... if you couldn't reach the eighteenth floor, you didn't even have the right to drink it, unless you were willing to be the "sucker" at a surface tavern, and even then you had to get lucky and hope there was stock that day.
Famous and hard to come by as it was, the drink was naturally beloved by Leon, Persephone, and the rest of the party as well.
Short of the liquor the goddess Demeter brewed with her own hands, it was probably one of the very few good things they would praise from the heart.
"Quick, pour me a cup!"
Leon leaned in eagerly, eyes gleaming.
Good drink, beautiful women, gold, magic. Those four had always been the loves he found hardest to resist.
Of course, he had plenty of other interests besides those.
Watching him look so impatient, the corner of Persephone's mouth lifted, all but imperceptibly. She'd known it... there was no way this guy could resist a "berry honey drink" when he saw one.
...
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