After clearing out that massive wave of monsters, the tunnel finally returned to a moment of tranquility.
The Focalors Familia didn't halt their steps, continuing to wander through the vast Large Tree Labyrinth of the 19th Floor, purging the spawning monsters along the way.
"Captain, are we... looking for that weird, red-haired girl?" Cassandra held her holy crystal staff and walked shoulder-to-shoulder with Hyacine, asking the question in a weak, timid voice.
"Mm, Ai-dear probably wants to exact revenge," Hyacine covered her mouth and chuckled lightly. "After all, as you saw, he got beaten up pretty badly."
"What do you mean 'beaten up pretty badly'? She didn't have it easy either, alright? That was a tactical draw—mutual destruction," Aiden retorted, his ears burning. With his sharp hearing catching Hyacine's teasing, he felt a flash of embarrassment.
He dashed over in a flash, reached out with both hands, and accurately pinched Hyacine's soft, squishy cheeks, pulling and kneading them outwards.
"That's what you get for talking nonsense and ruining my reputation."
The soft, bouncy texture was simply irresistible. Aiden loved it.
"Waaa, Aiden, you dare pinch mwe! Take thwis!" Hyacine obviously wasn't going to take it lying down. Shouting somewhat incoherently, she reached out her little hands and pinched Aiden's cheeks as well. The two of them began pulling at each other's faces right in the middle of the formation, engaging in a childish bout of "mutual destruction" and roughhousing.
"Alright, alright, you two." Robin finally couldn't watch any longer. Letting out a helpless sigh, she stepped forward and delivered a sharp flick to both of their foreheads, separating them.
"We are in the Dungeon right now. Can we please have a slight sense of danger? And you too, Hyacine, spoiling him so much isn't good."
In her eyes, the fact that the usually reliable and steady Hyacine was roughhousing with Aiden like this was purely because she spoiled him too much.
"Ahem!"
Aiden also noticed Daphne and Cassandra giving him a bizarre, 'I can't even look' stare.
He immediately brought a fist to his mouth and cleared his throat, attempting to salvage his majesty as the Captain. "You make it sound like I'm incredibly immature. Robin, that's not right of you. I am the Captain."
Robin gave him a devastatingly beautiful eye-roll, not even bothering to expose him. Did she really not know just how mischievous he could be?
The party continued advancing, casually dispatching the monsters that occasionally spawned from the walls.
As they passed a massive wall of roots, a crack had barely opened when Aiden unsheathed his sword with reflex-like speed.
Streaks of silver light flashed, and a Bugbear that had only half-emerged from the wall was pierced through the skull. Before it could even grunt, it dissolved into black smoke, the execution clean and crisp.
Having wandered around the 19th Floor for so long, Aiden was fairly certain the red-haired girl had already left this level.
It was just as he suspected: what birthed her might have been a Ley Line Blossom, but it was completely different from the ones in his memory.
However, his goal for this trip wasn't solely to find her.
"I'm not the kind of person who holds a grudge," he muttered under his breath—source: trust me bro.
"Do you want to see her again? Even if it's just a phantom?" Robin, who had been walking quietly beside him, suddenly asked in a soft voice.
There was a barely audible sigh in her tone, and deep within her lake-green eyes hid a faint trace of reproach. Just yesterday, she had confirmed her relationship with him, yet this man was still so hung up on another woman. That level of obsession was deep enough to make her heart skip a beat.
"I can't help it. I can't forget her," Aiden clenched his fists, his tone calm but incredibly firm. "And, if I don't beat her up with my own hands, my mind won't be at peace."
The more you lost something in the past, the more you learned to cherish it.
She was his sole salvation when he first arrived in this world, when the system was dormant and he was entirely alone without family. Originally, that salvation was meant to belong to Furina. But fate played a cruel joke: Furina unexpectedly fell into Heaven, while he was left entirely alone in the lower world.
Of all people, it just had to be that arrogant, cold woman who took him in, becoming his very first light in this world.
So, asking him to forget Alfia was worse than killing him.
What pained him even more—what ultimately birthed his obsession—was that in the end, Alfia chose the 'world' over him. That made him feel like he had been easily discarded, and he was incredibly pissed off about it.
Coupled with the fact that she had beaten him black and blue every single day when he was a child, the old grudges and new resentment merged together, morphing into an almost paranoid obsession that he "must beat her back at least once with his own hands."
"...I'm really being foolish, competing against a rival who doesn't even exist anymore," Robin shook her head, laughing self-deprecatingly.
Alfia was dead. How could a living person ever win against a deceased, flawless, unreachable ideal?
From that perspective, Alfia already stood utterly invincible.
Having found neither the red silhouette nor any other Ley Line Blossoms, Aiden felt an inevitable sense of regret in his heart.
He knew the chances of seeing Alfia again were incredibly slim, but he still couldn't resist hoping for that faint miracle in this vast Dungeon. It probably wasn't just him; if any adventurer knew a Ley Line Blossom could resurrect the phantom of a deceased loved one, most would likely throw themselves into the danger for it.
That kind of obsession was simply human nature.
Several hours had passed since they entered the 19th Floor. The deeper one ventured into the Dungeon, the vaster the area became. It was no longer like the upper floors that could be fully explored quickly. There were even many uncharted territories here that remained unmarked on maps and undiscovered by adventurers.
Although the Focalors Familia appeared to be playing around on the surface without a shred of tension, a careful observer would notice that both Daphne in the front and Tifa on the flank had their nerves constantly taut, hyper-aware of monsters that could emerge from behind the bark walls at any moment.
The environment felt like the interior of a colossal divine tree. The ceiling was so high that its end faded into darkness. There were numerous large and small tree hollows embedded in the walls, serving as natural hiding spots for monsters.
The pathways were incredibly wide, surrounded by bizarre flora unique to this stratum, as if trying to use their brilliant colors to bewilder wandering adventurers.
There were massive fungi spotted with red and blue, strange herbs scattering golden fuzz, and viscous sap dripping heavily from the bark walls like honey... In a certain cavern at the end of the road, the ground was even covered entirely by a silver flowerbed. Its tranquil beauty made one want to preserve the scene in a painting.
Walking at the very front of the group, Aiden discreetly cast a glance at a hidden corner in the distance.
There, he clearly felt a gaze.
The stare carried no malice, only pure curiosity, and his intuition—sharpened by countless battles—didn't issue any warnings.
He had a rough guess as to what was watching them.
Probably the Xenos, Aiden deduced internally.
After all, within this Dungeon, whenever normal monsters spotted adventurers, they would mindlessly charge forward to engage in slaughter—kill or be killed, pure and cruel. As for other adventurers, if they had no malicious intent, there was no reason to hide.
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