Time, rewound a few minutes...
When Leo fell into the vertical shaft and was swallowed by the flames, and Ais wrapped herself in a current of air and jumped in after him without hesitation, the expedition party, still running at full speed, finally stopped and turned around.
"Ais!"
"That idiot girl!"
"That's way too reckless!"
Tiona, Bete and Tione cried out, swore, and scolded in turn, but none of them hesitated. They ran toward the shaft as if they meant to jump in together.
"Leo!"
"Miss Ais!"
Raul and Lefiya needed no describing. Both of their already pale faces went white as a sheet, their voices near screams, and their feet were already moving to carry them into the shaft.
"Wait! None of you are going!"
At the critical moment it was Finn who spoke in time and called them back.
"If it's those two who fell, then they'll be fine."
Finn said it with complete calm, and it brought everyone back to their senses.
"Right, Leo has flight magic, and Ais can fly briefly too. They both have magic protecting them, and my defensive magic is on them as well. Nothing will happen to them."
Riveria had recovered her composure as well, and said that much.
"True enough. If it's those two, they can come back up whenever they want."
Gareth added his agreement.
"Then, then why haven't they come back up yet?"
Alicia wasn't unworried either, and asked at once.
"...They probably stayed down there on purpose." Finn waited a moment, then frowned and continued, "Haven't you noticed? That feeling of being locked onto no matter where we are is gone. The attention of those Valgang Dragons on Floor 58 has most likely been drawn entirely to Leo and Ais."
At that, everyone froze, and only then realized that the sense of danger that had been shadowing them had disappeared.
"The wyverns' attacks have slowed too. Not one has flown up here since." Riveria understood, and said, "Leo and Ais must have gone out of their way to lure those monsters off, to take some of the pressure off us."
"Those two have probably followed the shaft all the way down to Floor 58 by now?" Gareth cursed with a wry smile and said, "Honestly. Reckless as always."
The crisis on the party's end had indeed been lifted for the moment, but on the other end there were only two people. Even with both of their abilities, breaking into Floor 58 with just the two of them and fighting that many dragon monsters was still too dangerous.
"Then shouldn't we hurry up and go after them? What are we waiting around here for?"
Bete was getting impatient, stamping his foot hard enough to ring, looking ready to bolt.
"No, we can't all go after them." Finn rejected Bete's suggestion without hesitation, and said, "If we go after them now, we'll only drag every monster along the way together into one place. That would just be more dangerous."
"Floor 58 has the same structure as Floor 50. It's an extremely simple, oversized chamber, no labyrinth, no complicated terrain. Getting surrounded by an endless stream of monsters in a place like that, even if we could handle it, would drain us to the last."
"We still need to keep enough strength and supplies in reserve to take on Floor 59. We can't spend all our resources and power there."
"So... we have to split into two groups here. One goes to support those two, the other continues along the proper route to Floor 58 and splits the monsters between us."
Hearing this, Tiona and Tione spoke up at once.
"Then let us go!"
"We'll go help them!"
The Amazoness warriors were fearless, and on top of that Leo and Ais were both old teammates of theirs, so they'd work together with more practice and better coordination.
"Then you two go."
Finn didn't waste any time and settled it on the spot.
"Take a Supporter along too, to carry supplies and spare equipment for you."
The moment he said it, Lefiya cried out, almost in tears.
"P-please let me go! I'm begging you!"
Setting aside the fact that Ais was down there, the simple fact that Leo had fallen into the shaft in the first place to save her and Raul made it impossible for the Elf girl to stay here any longer.
"Me too! Please let me go!"
Raul spoke up as well, his face full of self-reproach.
"Lefiya it is." Finn didn't take everyone's feelings into account and decided it outright, saying, "On terrain like Floor 58, Lefiya's massive firepower is easier to make use of."
"As for Bete and Raul... you two stay here."
There was no room for argument in Finn's words, which made Bete click his tongue and Raul's face fall.
"There's no time to lose. Get going."
"Keep an eye on those two. Don't let them do anything reckless again."
Riveria and Gareth spoke up in unison, giving their instructions.
Tiona, Tione and Lefiya nodded repeatedly, adjusted the equipment and gear they carried, and one after another jumped into the great hole under everyone's eyes.
"Next, Bete and Tsubaki, you two take point. Riveria and Gareth are still the rearguard, Raul and Alicia in the middle, following me. No one falls behind again."
Finn reorganized the formation quickly.
"Those three will be all right?"
Tsubaki came up beside Bete and asked in a low voice.
"What could go wrong?" Bete kept his face cold, but what came out of his mouth was, "With those three, the only ones with a problem will be those damn garbage monsters down below."
Tsubaki laughed.
"You've got a point there."
...
The conversation on Floor 52 was, of course, something Leo and Ais knew nothing about.
They had no leisure to think about any of it. Having barged straight into the lowest level of the Dragon's Urn, they were receiving an enthusiastic welcome from the locals, caught in a fight where every second counted.
"Roooooooaaaaaaaaarrrrrr!!!"
The roars of the dragon monsters were deafening, layer upon layer, forming waves of sound that spread through the whole wide chamber of a floor like a storm.
Sensing that intruders with a death wish had broken in, every monster on the floor went berserk with rage, all of them attacking toward where Leo and Ais were.
Above all the several great red dragons, red from head to tail as if their whole bodies were burning, roaring as they opened their jaws, the searing flames surging between their fangs compressing into cannon blasts of enormous power that they fired one after another at the two intruders.
With no floor ceiling to obstruct them and not a scrap of their power lost, the great fireballs came down like so many small suns, landing one after another on the ground, blasting it into violent tremors, carving out craters more than ten meters across, sending rubble, blasts of flame, black smoke and dust erupting endlessly, exactly like a natural disaster.
Facing this terrifying bombardment, neither Leo nor Ais chose to simply tank it. Even though their protection was enough to take it fully, they still chose to evade, one turning into a comet and rising, the other flying on a storm, and only after dodging every incoming fireball did they both charge at the enemy.
Leo, able to keep accelerating, was the first to slam into a Valgang Dragon with terrible force, knocking it bodily away to crash onto the ground, plowing through soil and rock and leaving a deep trench behind it.
"Roar!"
"Roar!"
The surrounding Valgang Dragons had just reacted and were about to open fire when Ais, riding the storm, stopped them.
The golden-haired, golden-eyed swordsman didn't charge headlong and straight the way Leo did. She used the best countermeasure against Valgang Dragons: getting in close against their chests.
Because a Valgang Dragon's forelimbs, like an Ill Wyvern's, are enormous wings, and because they stand on their hind legs, if you press in and get right up against their chest, their only way to attack an enemy that close is to open their mouths and bite down. There's nothing else they can do.
But the most fearsome thing about a Valgang Dragon is the great fireballs of astonishing power it can spit endlessly from its mouth, which is also its most frequently used means of attack, rather than biting an enemy with its fangs.
In other words, they're extremely poor at close combat, or rather incapable of close combat at all. They're monsters specialized for ranged attacks, and even the long, thick tail behind them is difficult for them to swing.
As long as you get in against a Valgang Dragon's chest, you're safe.
Not only that, getting in against one Valgang Dragon's chest also slows the other Valgang Dragons down, because they're afraid of hitting their own kind, which makes it hard for them to fire their great fireballs.
Ais made full use of this weakness, charging straight in against one great red dragon's chest and delivering two godlike-fast slashes at the hind legs it stood on.
Two cutting sounds rang out almost at the same instant, and both of the Valgang Dragon's hind legs were severed at the root, spraying blood everywhere.
Paying no attention to the dragon's wretched wailing, Ais tossed her long golden hair and rushed for the next Valgang Dragon without a pause, slipping in against its chest just before the flames compressing in its mouth could pour out, and running her sword into its chest.
With a bang, the wind wrapped around Desperate burst, blowing the Valgang Dragon's chest into a bloody ruin.
"Roooooooaaaaaaaaarrrrr...!"
Watching this, the remaining Valgang Dragons roared in shock and fury, and without further hesitation fired the great fireballs in their mouths.
"Meteor Dance!"
The huge fireballs cut through the air, and just before they could hit Ais, who hadn't yet pulled her sword free, several thick meteors descended from above and intercepted them.
The thick meteors slammed straight into each of the great fireballs, colliding violently, bursting apart and sending blasts of flame blooming one after another like gorgeous fireworks that scorched the air.
Leo, who had already canceled his acceleration and his flight magic, was drifting down from midair, but above his head a magic circle glittering with starlight spun round and round.
"Light of heaven, sword of stars."
Having smoothly finished the ultra-short incantation, Leo raised the Starlight in his hand high.
That weapon, of a quality reaching legendary class, was shining brilliantly now.
The light came from the golden gem at the top of the hilt, and from the diamond-shaped gem at the center of the round openwork crossguard.
Both magic treasure stones were releasing extraordinary Magic, responding to the magic Leo was casting, lighting up every one of the golden patterns engraved from mysterious lines of broken gold.
Leo could clearly feel that the Mind he was pouring out was being amplified by this weapon, converted into a volume of Magic he wouldn't normally have.
This weapon wasn't merely an extremely sharp and powerful sword. It was also a staff whose performance ranked just below the Five Greatest Staves.
Leo brought out that staff function, amplifying the magic he was using right now, and the magic circle above his head expanded.
The next second, countless meteors emerged from the magic circle, becoming a dense meteor shower that fell from the sky toward the earth.
Astonishing explosions broke out across the entire surface of Floor 58.
The meteor shower came down wave after wave, striking the monsters on the ground or striking the ground itself, becoming an endless barrage that bloomed across the whole floor.
The sight was like countless meteorites falling on the land, every one of them producing a great explosion, leaving no monster able to escape the disaster.
The huge Valgang Dragons were the first sitting ducks to suffer it. Each of them was hit by more meteors than anyone could count, blown into a mass of wounds and streaming blood in the blink of an eye, some with their wings and limbs blasted clean off, all of them wailing pitifully.
"Amazing..."
Ais, who had ridden the wind up into the air to avoid the indiscriminate bombardment covering the entire floor's ground, looked down at the ruined scene below and murmured softly.
She noticed that the power of Leo's magic had grown stronger again, and by a considerable margin.
"The power of this magic... it's not weaker than Riveria's anymore."
Ais gave it the highest evaluation there was.
In terms of the sheer power of magic, Riveria, the city's strongest Mage, was without question beyond anyone's reach. At least until now, Ais had never seen anyone who could cast magic stronger than Riveria's.
But now, perhaps she had.
"Then all at once..."
Ais, as if greatly encouraged, rode the wind, meaning to finish off every monster on the floor.
The monsters on the ground no longer needed her attention. What she had her eye on now were the Ill Wyverns flying out of the vertical shafts in the ceiling.
Those Ill Wyverns came from the floors above, drawn almost entirely by the commotion here, and were flying down toward this floor in a steady stream.
Ais was about to go kill them when she heard a familiar shout.
"Fusillade Fallarica!"
From that shaft pouring out endless Ill Wyverns, arrows of fire fell in a downpour that blotted out everything, striking those Ill Wyverns.
Another grand chain of explosions, the downpour of flame landing on Ill Wyvern after Ill Wyvern, bursting and blasting their flesh apart, dragon roars of pain ringing out.
The wide-area bombardment reduced dozens of dragons to ash, and even those not scattered as ash fell as charred silhouettes, a wretched sight.
"Lefiya!"
Of course Ais knew who this magic belonged to.
Their companions had finally arrived.
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