Plop.
A half-eaten caramel toast, squeezed slightly out of shape, slipped from Hestia's fingers and landed on the expensive handwoven carpet.
Hestia jolted upright on the ironwood-vine sofa with a start.
Her two black twin-tails whipped through the air in wild disarray.
Those trademark blue eyes of hers were blown wide open, her entire expression still glazed from the shock of being woken so abruptly.
Her gaze swept across the great hall's long table and locked onto the figures standing in the entryway.
Haimer. Hephaestus. And the very root cause of why she'd rage-eaten three full breakfast portions this morning — Loki.
Beside Loki stood Ais, hauling that enormous iron chest, and Tsubaki, resting her chin on one hand with the look of someone thoroughly enjoying the show.
The air went still.
Hestia looked down at herself — the thin nightgown bunched up to her thighs, the belly that had puffed out into a distinctly visible little arc — and finally let her gaze drop to the half a slice of toast sitting on the carpet.
"I… uh..."
Hestia wrung her hands together, desperately grasping for something — anything — to salvage what remained of her divine dignity.
"Buuuurp——!"
And then, immediately after.
An extraordinarily loud, impressively prolonged belch erupted from Hestia's mouth, completely beyond her control.
Its echo lingered in the hall.
"…"
Haimer's eye twitched at a noticeably higher frequency upon hearing that.
Hephaestus, standing behind him, had her single red eye narrowed into an absolute slit, the stress vein on her forehead standing out in sharp relief.
"Hestia!"
Hephaestus ground out through clenched teeth and closed the distance in long, purposeful strides.
Without ceremony, she thrust out two fingers —
And grabbed Hestia's plump little cheek in a firm pinch.
Then she yanked. Hard.
"Eeeeeek!!"
"Ow! Ow! Ow!"
"Ahhh! Hephaestus! That hurts! Are you trying to commit deicide?!"
Hestia flailed her arms in every direction, on the verge of actual tears.
"Oh, so you can feel pain?"
Hephaestus's jaw was tight, her grip unrelenting.
"Haimer was kind enough to take you in, and what do you do? You eat until you're stuffed and sleep, sleep and eat, and you can't even be bothered to keep a decent sleeping posture — do you have even a shred of dignity as a goddess?!"
"Wuwuwu… I'm sorry, okay, Haimer, save me, ahh..."
With Hephaestus pinching her squishy cheek, Hestia's pleading came out garbled and indistinct, those watery blue eyes firing frantic distress signals straight at Haimer.
Haimer paid her no mind whatsoever.
He didn't even look her way. He simply turned his head aside, stepped out of the doorway to clear a path, and beckoned to Ais behind him.
"Go ahead and bring the chest inside — just set it in the middle of the hall."
Ais gave a quiet nod, hoisted the heavy iron chest packed full of deep-layer equipment onto her shoulder, and walked in with steady, unhurried steps.
Thunk.
The chest was set down solidly beside the obsidian round table.
Loki, meanwhile, poked her head out from behind and sidled up to where Hephaestus was still administering her correction to Hestia — a gleefully mocking grin plastered across her face.
"Oh my, oh my, little bean sprout — haven't seen you in a few days, and the belly pudge is practically catching up to those two lumps on your chest."
"Hah?!!"
"Who are you calling a bean sprout, you shriveled flat-board!"
The moment her old nemesis's taunt landed, Hestia forgot entirely about the pain, wrenched herself free of Hephaestus's claws, and lunged at Loki with teeth bared and fingers splayed.
Hestia and Loki instantly devolved into a full-blown brawl in the middle of the hall.
Tsubaki propped her chin on her hand and watched with rapt enjoyment.
Hephaestus pressed a hand to her forehead in weary resignation.
Haimer was equally resigned.
As for the others — it was their turn to be away.
Calculating by their pace, they'd probably already descended to a considerable depth by now.
—
At that same moment.
A gaze cuts through the deep earth.
Down, down, into the endless abyss beneath Orario.
Dungeon, Floor 17.
Inside a vast, dimly lit cavern of immense proportions.
The ground was composed of uneven bedrock.
The surroundings were unnervingly quiet.
Slash.
Tendou Kisara snapped her wrist.
The pitch-black cursed blade in her grip carved a perfect fan-shaped afterimage through the air.
The blood clinging to the edge flew free.
It spattered across the hard stone with a faint, sizzling hiss.
Her dark hair lifted in the wake of the swing.
The pure white sleeveless training suit fit snug against her frame — the fabric cinched at the waist, tracing the line of a flat stomach without a single ounce of excess, then flowing downward into the black training pants that mapped breathtaking, full curves beneath.
Several meters behind Tendou Kisara.
Two Minotaurs — massive, standing well over two meters tall, every inch of them corded with muscle — stood frozen in place, utterly motionless.
The thick battle-axes gripped in their hands were still raised mid-swing, but they would never come down.
Across the center of each of their thick, coarse-furred torsos, a smooth dividing line had appeared — one so clean the eye almost couldn't register it at first glance.
Running from the left shoulder all the way to the right side of the waist.
After holding that frozen posture for several seconds —
Their massive upper halves and lower halves shifted apart with a thunderous crash against the stone floor.
The two severed bodies, the instant they touched the ground, crumbled apart.
Dissolving into great drifts of black ash that scattered in every direction.
When the ash settled, all that remained were two faintly glimmering mid-purity Magic Stones and a single broken horn.
Click.
The crisp sound of Tendou Kisara fully snapping her sword guard shut echoed in the silence.
"Yes! Kisara got hers too!"
Aihara Enju came bounding around the corner of a nearby rock face, twin-tails bouncing.
Her orange hoodie was dusted with a little grime, and she was tossing a handful of Magic Stones up and down in one hand — the ones that had popped loose after she'd kicked some monster's skull in.
"The monsters down here are a little tougher than the ones up above, aren't they."
Enju stopped in her tracks and looked down at her boots — the edges had blown open into serious cracks — and puffed out her cheeks in annoyance.
The shoes were nearly done for.
"Still too weak, though."
Hiruko Kohina followed up from behind, holding her small black blade in a reverse grip with both hands.
Onigawara Rin, Kikakujou Mary, and the others were staring straight ahead.
There, at the far end of the cavern.
A vast, flat expanse of grey-white rock wall rose up to meet the ceiling, cutting off all passage forward.
"This must be the Wall of Sorrow?"
Onigawara Rin walked up to the wall, tilted her head back to look, and pressed one palm against the cold stone.
"It's just stone. Nothing but stone. There's nothing here at all."
"Looks like we came at a bad time."
The Holy Emperor, who had been kept carefully in the center of the group throughout, gazed up at the enormous wall with open puzzlement on her face.
"Miss Rin, is there something special about this wall?"
"Holy Emperor, you're new — you wouldn't know yet."
Hanasaka Warabi was perched astride the broad back of Kyoubou, the black bear, a simple map scroll purchased from a roadside stall in hand.
"According to our intel, this wall deep in Floor 17 isn't here to block the way."
"It's where a Floor Boss called the Goliath is born."
"A super-sized monster standing several dozen feet tall, with combat power estimated to reach Lv.4."
Warabi said this as she rolled the map back up and tucked it into her hip pouch.
"We'd originally been thinking — now that everyone's Grace has been updated to Lv.2, and with you new members joining the team, it would be the perfect chance to use it as a warm-up bout, see where our team's limits actually are."
At that, Warabi let out a small sigh and shrugged.
"But as it turns out, once a Floor Boss gets defeated, they apparently take a full two weeks to respawn on the spot."
"Looking at how clean that wall is, someone else — a higher-level adventurer party — must have cleared it a few days ago as a matter of course."
"Two weeks between spawns..."
Tendou Kisara heard this and turned her gaze away from the wall.
"That really is a rare resource."
"Well, if the Floor Boss isn't around, there's nothing to be done about it."
Kikakujou Mary reached up to brush a lock of golden hair back from her chest, then turned and pointed toward the large, sloping staircase at the edge of the rock wall that led to the lower floors.
"Let's just keep going down."
"Follow that path, and we'll reach Floor 18 of the Dungeon."
At the entrance to the staircase.
Kikakujou Mary paused and let her expression settle into something more serious.
She glanced back at the Holy Emperor, Tendou Kisara, and the others.
"A quick heads-up first."
"Floor 18 is completely unlike all the floors above it — the ones crawling with monsters."
"It's what's known as a Safe Floor."
"A Safe Floor?"
The Holy Emperor's attention sharpened on the term immediately.
"That's right."
Kikakujou Mary nodded.
"Because that floor, by its very nature, doesn't generate or spawn any monsters."
"Precisely because of that unique environment, many adventurer parties use the eighteenth floor as an ideal waypoint."
"Over time —"
"A town took shape there — built and run entirely by adventurers themselves."
"It's called Rivira Town."
The moment she heard the word 'town,' the gloom that had been sitting over Aihara Enju ever since her boots broke evaporated in an instant.
Her eyes lit up, bright as stars, the twin-tails on her head swaying with her excitement.
"A town?! There's actually a town hidden inside the Dungeon?!"
"Does it have lots of great food stalls, and places selling all kinds of weird and wonderful things?!"
"Whether the food and the wares are any good, I couldn't say."
Onigawara Rin walked over and gave Enju's head a couple of firm ruffles with one hand.
Her gaze swept around to the newer members.
"But you need to remember."
"That is not some cozy place where you can wander around and relax as you please."
"The accommodation and goods in that town are priced at outright extortion levels — even a single roll of bandages can go for highway-robbery prices."
"And more importantly——"
Onigawara Rin lowered her voice.
"That town is run and managed entirely by adventurers. It has no connection whatsoever to the Guild on the surface."
"Which means——"
"It is a completely lawless zone, outside the reach of Guild regulations entirely."
"Double-crosses, extortion, dangerous cursed weapons banned from surface trade, dealings that can't see the light of day — none of it is restricted there."
At those words.
Tendou Kisara and the Holy Emperor's eyes both sharpened at the same instant.
They knew all too well what a place without the constraint of order meant.
It was often a hundred times more dangerous than the Dungeon itself, swarming as it was with monsters.
At least monsters ate people out of instinct — their objective was clear.
But when people preyed on other people, they wouldn't leave so much as a bone behind.
"Since the town is that dangerous, Miss Rin — have you all been there before?"
The Holy Emperor asked with some concern.
After all, if the senior members had been before and had experience, at the very least they could guide everyone away from unnecessary trouble.
"There's no way we've been."
Onigawara Rin shook her head and spread her hands.
"To be honest, this is our first time on Floor 18 as well."
"Before now, every time we descended into the Dungeon, we'd basically sweep through the upper dozen or so floors, load up on loot, and head straight back to the surface."
"Today we're only pushing this far because everyone has already undergone their Level Up to Lv.2, plus we've got you new members along, so our total numbers are up."
"That's the only reason we charged all the way down here in one go."
"Don't overthink it, though."
"Let's move."
Hanasaka Warabi gave the thick-furred nape of Kyoubou the black bear an encouraging pat.
"Whatever comes up, the blades in our hands aren't just for show."
"As for everything else — go see it with your own eyes."
And with that.
The group crossed the open ground before the Wall of Sorrow, descended the rough sloping passage, and stepped onto the staircase leading down to Floor 18.
As they pressed deeper.
The light in their surroundings began to shift dramatically.
The cold, dark bedrock walls gradually fell away, replaced by a gentle, luminous pale blue glow.
They passed through the last stone archway.
The view, which had felt slightly oppressive and confined between narrow rock walls, suddenly opened up into something vast and breathtaking.
A wave of exceptionally crisp, fresh air hit them — rich with the scent of grass, earth, and greenery — instantly sweeping away every last trace of the blood-stench that had clung to the floor above.
Before them lay an underground space of indescribable immensity.
The expanse stretched so far that the eye could barely find its edges — roughly half the size of Orario itself.
The ceiling soared so high overhead it made the head swim to look at it.
Across its surface, countless enormous crystals were set in irregular clusters.
At the center hung a single colossal crystal radiating pure white light, encircled by a constellation of smaller crystals pulsing with pale blue radiance.
This peculiar light source illuminated the entire vast underground space as brightly as open daylight — even simulating the hue of a real sky.
Ahead.
Thick, lush forest stretched out along the horizon, spreading southward and eastward in an unbroken sweep of green.
To the west lay a broad, glittering lake, its surface mirroring the crystalline light from above like a sea of crushed stars.
And at the very center of their field of view.
A single tree of staggering, almost unbelievable girth stood like a pillar connecting this floor to the one above, a central column linking the layers of the world.
This was nothing like the lightless depths underground.
It was more like stumbling into the fabled secluded garden of elven legend.
"Wooooah——!"
Aihara Enju's jaw dropped. She stood rooted to the spot, completely slack-jawed.
"Is… is this really underground?!"
Hiruko Kohina's amber-red eyes went wide too, the small black blade in her hand entirely forgotten.
However.
The commotion they made drew the attention of the veteran adventurers who had set up camp to rest at the edge of this safe zone.
A wave of stares swept toward them all at once.
At first.
Most of the looks were purely scrutinizing.
But.
When these veterans — hardened by years on the razor's edge of life and death, their eyes razor-sharp — took in the full picture of this party.
The massive, unmistakable silhouette of Kyoubou.
And these several sword-bearing girls — each dressed differently, each beautiful in her own distinct way, whether cool and blade-like or elegant and noble or small and fierce, flawless from every angle.
The entire camp fell into a peculiar, dead silence lasting several long seconds.
"Hey… look over there by the entrance..."
A scarred, heavyset man who had been sitting on a rock scrubbing down his battle-axe with a cloth swallowed a thick mouthful of saliva, his wiping hand freezing mid-motion.
"No mistake about it."
Beside him, an adventurer with most of his face hidden beneath a tattered grey hood dropped his voice low.
"Traveling with a giant black bear, every member of the party a woman with a sword or blade..."
"A composition like that — there's not a second group like it in all of Orario."
"It's the Haimer Familia!"
The moment those words landed.
The previously quiet area erupted into chaos.
Deliberately hushed whispers spread through the crowd like wildfire.
"It's actually them?!"
"The Guild posted a notice in the hall just yesterday morning saying their whole roster shattered the speed-leveling record held by the Sword Princess — they've only been in Orario a matter of days and they've all already reached Lv.2!"
"Just how in the world were they trained..."
"And now they've made it down to Floor 18?"
"They're… they're an absolute bunch of freaks."
Chaotic murmuring tangled together with a barrage of complicated stares from every direction.
Amou Kirukiru, walking at the front of the group, caught those words — and her previously unhurried stride came to an abrupt halt.
She tilted her head slightly to one side.
A cascade of jet-black hair spilled down her back.
Her lightweight armor was buckled snug across her frame, tracing the lines of her tall, full figure.
In those narrow, dark eyes of hers, the wild frenzy of a true battle maniac spilled out completely, unrestrained.
For someone like her — someone who believed with absolute conviction that strength was the only truth —
This behavior — shrinking back, skulking behind the crowd, whispering and pointing — was precisely the kind of conduct she despised most.
Words were always hollow.
What decided one's standing was always whose fangs were sharper.
Amou Kirukiru knew this to her core.
"Noisy."
"If none of you want your tongues or your eyes anymore —"
"I don't mind pulling them out for you right now."
Amou Kirukiru's thin lips parted.
Her voice was not loud.
Low and lazily raspy — yet it cut precisely through all that noise and found its way into every single ear in the place.
In that instant.
With those few weightless words.
A killing intent — the kind that made it feel as though the very air had stopped — radiated outward from her as its center, sweeping across every camp in the vicinity in one fell motion.
It was as if the air itself had been sucked dry in that moment.
The veteran adventurers who had been whispering moments before —
The instant that undisguised, palpable killing intent touched them —
Every voice was cut off as if seized by an invisible hand and strangled silent.
Extinguished in an instant.
Dead silence fell over the entire area.
Several people with weaker nerves even found themselves involuntarily stepping back two paces, palms clamped white-knuckled over the hilts of their own weapons, hands drenched in cold sweat.
Give me a break.
This woman — who, even back at Lv.1, had torn apart thick-hided monsters with her bare hands and laughed doing it — was now officially Guild-certified at Lv.2.
A fearsome reputation carved out in real blood and real kills.
Even hardened veterans had no one iron-skulled enough to go poking that particular hornet's nest.
Looking out at the now thoroughly cowed crowd.
Amou Kirukiru let out a cold, contemptuous snort.
"Let's go."
"Time to take a look at what Rivira Street has to offer on this floor."
____
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