"That moment from the Sword Princess was so cool, hard to believe she's just a girl."
"Click your tongue all you want, but shouldn't the focus be that idiot over there?"
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A cloudless, sunny day, with warm sunlight gently pouring over the body.
As usual, adventurers and supporters, whether alone or in teams, clad in armor or robes and bearing weapons, gathered toward the center's chalk-white giant tower.
For fame, for fortune, for glory.
All of these could be obtained in the dungeon, as long as adventurers gambled their lives to go on an adventure!
However, the avenue in the northern district of the city looked a bit unusual today.
Not only ordinary citizens, but even the so-called "respected adventurers" voluntarily gave way to a marching team that was catching everyone's attention.
They stood by the roadside, whispering, fanatical, jealous—various emotions mixed in the noisy sky and turned golden along with the sunlight.
Within the team, the war banner of the familia fluttered in the wind.
The playful clown emblem gave off a strange sense of honor.
[Loki Familia]!
No need to say more, the emblem alone represented prestige, wealth, and honor!
One of the city's two strongest kings, standing at the top of all familias in the city.
Babel Tower.
In the vast central plaza, the teams that had arrived early had already pulled in large carts of supplies.
This was one of the two units, led by Finn and Riveria—known as the first unit.
"Everyone should be here, right?"
Standing on a crate filled with supplies, Finn looked around below.
"Ah, everyone has already..."
"Um… I don't see Miss Ais and Mr. Fron."
Anakitty interrupted Raul's report.
"..."
Riveria rubbed her forehead and sighed:
"Don't mention Fron—he was probably dragged off by Ais to buy fried potato balls."
...
『The Benevolent Mistress』 tavern.
"For me?"
Fron opened his eyes wide, looking incredulously at the girl holding a bento in front of him.
"A late present, meow, congratulations on reaching Lv.3, meow!"
Ryuu, Anya, Chloe, Lunoire, and Syr stood opposite him. Ryuu was holding the bento, but it was Anya who explained.
"Take it already, meow. Who knows what's good about you, meow. You actually got to eat a bento made by Ryuu herself, meow. I'm mad, meow!"
Fron scratched his head and looked slightly downward at the elven girl who had turned her face away, her eyes darting around and body trembling slightly.
Was this really the "Gale" he remembered?
"Hey, Ryuu!"
"Th-Then, please accept this. Congratulations on your level up!"
Hey, that doesn't sound sincere at all, Miss Elf.
Still, Fron accepted the bento box tied with a cute elven handkerchief.
"Fron, we're going to be late. Finn will scold us."
Ais stood beside him, expressionless inside.
"Okay, I'll take my leave first. When I return from the 'Expedition', I'll come back here and have a big feast!"
"Do your best, Mr. [Flame Demon], meow!"
"Hey, you annoying smelly cat! Stop saying embarrassing things like that!"
Fron shouted fiercely as he walked away.
The girls waved at him, Anya smiling cheerfully.
"Ryuu's chosen man is pretty charming too!"
Lunoire curved her lips and bantered with her companions.
"Don't say nonsense! I... I just have a strict personality, that's all!"
"Elves sure have sharp tongues, meow."
"Ryuu is no exception."
...
...
Before the final supplies were delivered to the central plaza, Fron and Ais hurried back to the team.
"If you two hadn't made it back just in time, you'd have been made examples of."
"Ah, sorry, sorry."
"Alright, Ais, you're in the first unit. Fron, you're in the second unit."
"The two units will move separately and rendezvous on the 18th floor. Understood?"
"Yes."
As for the reason for the division, Fron had recently supplemented a lot of knowledge and understood the rationale.
This had to do with the dungeon's terrain.
A basic feature of this underground labyrinth was that the lower one went, the larger the floor's scale and area became.
Comparing it to the 5th floor, that level's size already matched the area of this central plaza.
According to the data he read from the archives, by the time one reached the 40th floor, its area rivaled an entire urban district.
It was hard to imagine the scenery below the 40th floor, as each level down surpassed Orario in area…
This showed the difficulty of the "Expedition."
Of course, not every floor strictly followed the rule that deeper equals larger, but generally speaking, the dungeon did have a conical structure. The corridor width and chamber size generally increased the deeper you went.
Because of this, during expeditions—especially for large-scale teams like Loki Familia with dozens of members—there was no problem with space on the lower or middle floors. The trouble came from the upper floors...
If dozens of people started from the 1st floor, the narrow spaces might seriously hinder movement.
Don't forget, besides the number of people, they were also carrying a lot of supplies.
Just imagine the scene: dozens of people moving through narrow corridors and small chambers in the upper floors. Forget fighting—normal movement would already be a luxury.
After all, narrow passages that only one person could pass through were quite common in the upper floors.
Moreover, one of the unspoken rules in the dungeon was to avoid forming long lines, as it could easily cause unnecessary disputes.
Hence, when going on expeditions, most major familias would follow the convention of splitting the team—into two, three groups, etc.—and, as Finn instructed, they would regroup at a specific intermediate floor.
The 18th floor was an excellent rendezvous point.
For a powerful faction like Loki Familia, whose members were all high-level adventurers, floors above the 18th could be traversed casually, no different than walking on the surface.
A team of over ten Lv.2 adventurers passing through the 18th floor—no one would dare mess with them.
"Ehh, Fron got assigned to the second team, we can't move together, so sad!"
"It's just until the 18th floor, Tiona. With our team's speed, it'll be over in no time."
"Okay, but I really wanted to see how cool Fron would be in action!"
Fron's face darkened slightly. Was that really your reason?
But I'm just a Lv.3 still punching weak monsters before floor 18, what's there to see?
Even he found it a bit boring.
Since reaching Lv.3, Fron had secretly entered the dungeon once. He originally wanted to see if he could raise his stats through battle (turning knowledge into experience), but clearly he had overestimated himself.
Unless he had a qualitative breakthrough in some technique or combat experience, it would be better to just read quietly in the library.