Welf watched the War Shadow get blasted back.
The magic's raw power stunned him, but his instincts kicked in. He lunged forward and swung the longsword.
The blade chopped the War Shadow into four neat pieces in a single strike.
Killing two of these high-level monsters with one swing didn't make Welf happy, it scared him.
He moved way too fast that he didn't even have time to react!
He only realized he chopped the monster to bits after his brain caught up with his hands.
"Don't just stand there," Noah called out.
Seeing Welf spacing out in the middle of a fight, Noah sighed.
He flicked his wrist, shooting out two sharp blades of wind. The vacuum blades sliced through the air and instantly killed two more monsters trying to sneak up behind Welf.
Stacked with Noah's buffs, Welf tore through the rest of the War Shadows.
But he didn't make it out without a scratch.
"Hiss... that stings!" Welf winced, holding a nasty gash on his side.
Noah told him to sit down on a rock as he held his hand out and cast a water spell.
Back in the Blazer world, medical tech could fix almost any physical wound in minutes.
Using high-level mana control to copy that tech with simple water magic was a trick nobody in Orario knew how to do.
Welf watched his deep cut stitch itself together right before his eyes.
"This is insane!" Welf gasped. "Is this healing magic?"
Then he paused.
'Wait a minute. Didn't Noah just cast that without saying a word? Didn't magic always need a long chant to work?'
...
Clink!
Clink!
Deep in the dark dungeon, Welf was dripping with sweat.
Swinging a sturdy pickaxe Noah made for him, Welf looked like a miner working himself to the bone to strike it rich.
He stared at the big pile of rocks he just dug up. He felt good about the haul, but he started to doubt Noah's big promise.
"I've dug out a ton of rock already. Are you sure there's really Blue Steel Stone hiding in this wall?"
Noah leaned against a wall nearby, keeping a relaxed watch.
He glanced at the vein of ore.
His skill told him the blue steel was still sitting right there, making up about seven percent of the rock.
Welf just hadn't hit the right spot yet.
"You just have terrible luck," Noah said, shaking his head. "Keep digging."
"How do you even know it's in there?" Welf groaned.
His stats were super low, and his back was killing him.
He was breathing hard, wondering why he agreed to this!
Noah didn't want to explain his Truth Seeker skill, so he just tapped his head.
"Just a gut feeling."
Welf let out a long, tired sigh.
'A gut feeling. Yeah, right. Super reliable.'
Clink! Clink!
The loud strikes echoed far down the quiet tunnels. Between his own heavy breaths, Welf suddenly felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
A cold chill ran down his spine as he peeked over his shoulder and froze.
"Whoa!"
A massive swarm of monsters blocked the hallway!
This wasn't a small pack of seven or eight, this was a real horde.
There had to be at least thirty of them staring right at him.
Noah looked at the angry mob, looking bored.
"No way," Welf panicked. "People say giant spawns like this don't happen on the upper floors! Is this an Irregular?"
"So you actually know what an Irregular is," Noah teased.
"I..." Welf trailed off.
Okay, maybe he paid attention to his guild advisor for five whole minutes instead of daydreaming.
But staring down an actual Irregular spawn made every warning stick in his brain like glue.
"This is really bad. Can we even fight this many at once?"
Noah had taken his shiny longsword back a while ago. Freaking out, Welf held the pickaxe up like a shield, hoping it would help.
Seeing Welf panic, Noah stayed calm.
He pulled a heavy bullet from his belt, loaded it right into his big gun, and slammed the bolt forward with a loud clack.
"Don't sweat it," Noah said. "Keep digging your rocks. We need to head back to the surface soon anyway."
"What do you mean, head back?" Welf yelled. "Those things aren't gonna just let us walk away!"
Click.
Noah sat down on a flat rock and aimed the Annihilator right at the horde.
Bright magic circles lit up the air around the barrel.
"Bombardment."
BOOM!
A thick, red beam of pure energy shot down the dark tunnel and hit the center of the monster army.
For a split second, everything went quiet.
Then, a blinding red light exploded with a deafening roar. A mini mushroom cloud of fire rose up, swallowing the entire horde before they could even make a sound.
The insane heat burned the monsters straight to ash, melting their magic stones into nothing.
A few seconds later, the packed hallway was empty. All that was left was a huge, smoking black scar on the dungeon floor.
'What the hell?' Welf stared at the smoking crater, his jaw basically hitting the floor.
He wasn't just a clueless rookie.
As the only guy in the Crozzo family who could actually make magic swords, he knew his stuff. He made the famous "Crozzo Magic Swords" with his own two hands.
Nobody knew their destructive power better than him.
But that blast Noah just fired? It matched the power of a high-end magic sword perfectly.
Hitting thirty monsters at once with that much speed and heat? You either needed a rare magic sword or a top-tier spell to pull that off.
After seeing all the crazy stuff Noah did today, Welf knew for sure the kid was a genius mage.
Noah checked out the empty, smoking hallway and calmly put his gun away.
Now, Welf knew for a fact the rumors were true.
People talked crazy talk about this kid for a reason. Back in the Rakia Kingdom, Welf saw a few elite knights who could fight a couple of guys at once.
But compared to the monster sitting on that rock, those knights were garbage.
Orario.
He definitely made the right choice coming to this city! With freaks like Noah running around, pushing himself to the limit was the only way to reach the top!
...
Walking out of the Babel Tower, both of them carried heavy bags stuffed with rare rocks.
"Hahaha! With all this good stuff, my new weapon is basically finished!" Welf cheered. He stopped walking, turned to Noah, and gave him a deep, serious bow. "Noah, thank you so much for going into the Dungeon with me. I don't get along with the other smiths in the Familia. Forget teaming up for fights, those guys won't even sit near me at dinner..."
"I know," Noah said.
"Huh?" Welf blinked, surprised by the calm answer. "What do you mean you know?"
"Hephaestus told me all about your drama," Noah explained. "She asked me to keep an eye on you."
"Lady Hephaestus did that?" Welf was floored.
He thought the goddess only let him join because she wanted his famous Crozzo magic sword bloodline.
He told her straight up that he refused to make those swords anymore, but she still cared enough to protect him?
The redhead felt a lump in his throat.
He clenched his fists, his eyes shining a bit.
"Um, hey," Welf started. "I heard a rumor that you forged a magic sword that doesn't shatter after you use it a few times. Is that true?"
"Hmm?" Noah thought about it for a second.
"That's not exactly right," he replied. "I custom-made a special weapon for the captain of the Astraea Familia. I won't tell you what it does, but it's not a 'magic sword' the way you think of them. I prefer to call it a magic blade."
"A magic blade..." Welf muttered.
Not a magic sword, a magic blade? He fell quiet, thinking hard about the difference.
Welf hated magic swords.
They always broke and abandoned their masters right when they were needed most. And because of that, fighters just treated them like cheap, disposable trash.
He couldn't stand that whole idea.
Weapons shouldn't just shatter into pieces. Back home, the Rakia Kingdom and his own family treated him like a factory machine meant to pump out weapons of mass destruction.
Watching the king and the Crozzo family abuse his creations to start wars, burn villages, and kill innocent people made Welf sick to his stomach.
He came to Orario and joined the Hephaestus Familia hoping things would be different.
But the other smiths just begged him to make the same disposable trash.
He loved forging, he really did.
He wanted to be a top-tier blacksmith and make amazing weapons that stayed by a warrior's side until the bitter end.
But to pull that off, he needed to get a lot stronger.
He needed to unlock the Blacksmith development ability first, or else he was just talking big for no reason.
"Today went well," Noah said, snapping him out of his thoughts. "I'll be teaming up with you for the next week."
Noah promised the goddess he'd spend a week helping Welf get the hang of the upper floors.
On day one, they already hit the fifth floor.
Sure, Welf relied on Noah's buffs and that crazy sharp sword a lot, but it did the trick.
Welf wasn't scared of the Dungeon anymore.
For a rookie, freezing up out of fear was the fastest way to get killed.
A week was plenty of time to teach Welf how the monsters fought and how the tunnels connected.
That was the best part of joining a big Familia.
Instead of wandering around blind and getting killed, a rookie got a massive head start. Noah figured he could boost Welf's stats a ton over the next few days.
"Man... I feel a little bad taking up your time," Welf said, scratching his head.
He clearly felt like a burden.
Noah waved it off, telling him to just treat it as a blessing from their goddess, which made Welf feel a lot better about the whole thing.
Now that they were back in Orario, it was time to cash in their loot.
Doing these escort missions was the perfect way for Noah to ease himself back into the daily grind of an adventurer.
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