The long night passed in the end, and Leo, who knew nothing of everything that had happened the night before, woke as always when the sky was just beginning to lighten. He grabbed his washing things and headed out the door.
But as Leo walked down the corridor, the senior Familia members he met weren't greeting him the way they normally did. The moment he appeared, a whole crowd of them swarmed around him, eyes shining, faces full of disbelief.
"You're finally up, Leo!"
"There you are, kid!"
"Quick, tell us!"
"Is the news actually true? Did you really already..."
Leo didn't catch the rest of it at all.
Because it was just too loud.
The senior Familia members were all worked up, all fired up, even shouting in shock, each voice louder than the last, each more excited than the last, and it gave the still-groggy Leo a nasty fright.
He was completely dazed, with no idea what was going on, only that the uproar coming from all sides was loud enough to burst his eardrums, his head spinning so badly he nearly turned and bolted.
At the critical moment, it was Raul who shoved his way out of the crowd and threw an arm around his shoulders.
"You really went and pulled off something huge without a word to anybody!" Raul said, just as worked up, just as thrilled. "I never thought you'd be able to break Miss Ais's record. It's unbelievable!"
Seeing Raul appear was like seeing a savior. Leo let out a long breath.
"What's going on here? Why are you all so worked up?"
Leo asked quickly.
"Still trying to keep it hush-hush, huh?" Raul was still fired up. His words sounded like a complaint, but they were really full of happiness for Leo. "The whole Familia knows already. You leveled up, didn't you?"
At that, it clicked for Leo at once.
So that was it. Word about him leveling up had gotten out?
Made sense. There was no way to keep something like that hidden, especially not within the same Familia.
It was just...
"You all found out this fast?"
Leo hadn't expected the news to spread so quickly.
He'd only leveled up last night, and by the time he got up first thing this morning everyone already knew. That was awfully fast.
If it were the Familia's leaders and executives leveling up, that kind of speed would make sense. They were first-class adventurers, the pillars of the Familia, and every time one of them leveled up it meant the Familia's strength would take a huge jump. When something like that happened, there was no way Loki wouldn't immediately spread the word to every last person.
Even if it were one of the Lv.4s of the Second Army, like Raul, leveling up, the speed would still be understandable. Reaching Lv.5 and becoming a first-class adventurer was the kind of thing that would race through all of Orario in no time, never mind within one's own Familia.
But him?
He'd only gone from Lv.1 to Lv.2. There was really no need for it to spread this fast, was there?
As one of the city's strongest Familias, the very bottom rung of Loki Familia were Lv.2s. He'd only gone from a green rookie who couldn't keep up with the main group to one of those bottom-rung members. There was nothing worth spreading.
It was precisely because he thought this way that Leo had given no weight at all to his reaching Lv.2. After coming back from Loki's God's Chamber last night, he'd dropped straight into bed and fallen asleep, so he had no idea what had happened after he left the chamber.
And now, after sleeping clear through to broad daylight, he'd woken up to find himself the center of attention in the Familia?
He really hadn't seen that coming.
This was the downside of coming from a big Familia.
Because the people around him were all upper-class adventurers, the cream of the crop, and because he dealt day to day with first-class adventurers like Ais, Leo simply hadn't realized that reaching Lv.2 was no small thing anywhere.
Especially given that he'd done it in under a month. It would have been stranger if it hadn't caused a sensation.
Why were these senior Familia members crowding around him so worked up, so thrilled?
Not because he'd become a Lv.2, but because the time it had taken him to become a Lv.2 was just too short.
"Last night, our goddess announced it right in front of us. You'd successfully leveled up, you weren't Lv.1 anymore." Raul marveled. "Less than a month, and you went and reached Lv.2, broke the fastest level-up record Miss Ais left behind."
"You've got no idea how excited Loki was last night. She came out of the God's Chamber yelling her head off and charged straight into the captain's office, woke everybody up."
"We thought something serious had happened. It was only after old man Gareth came out that we found out it was you who'd leveled up."
By the time he said this, Raul's face was still full of disbelief.
"How on earth did you do it? Even Miss Ais took a whole year to reach Lv.2, and you went and did it in under a month."
It wasn't just Raul. The faces of the others present were full of disbelief and amazement too.
Heaven only knew how stunned they'd been when they first heard about it the night before.
They'd even assumed Loki was drunk off her head and rambling nonsense, right up until Gareth stepped in and confirmed it, leaving them no choice but to believe.
Even so, they still found it unbelievable, hard to credit.
Couldn't be helped. Leveling up in under a month really was a bit too absurd.
Ais having leveled up in a year had already struck people as unbelievable and caused a stir across the entire world, and now Leo had not only broken that record but cut it from a year down to under a month. Who could believe that?
So that was why they were all this worked up, this thrilled, first thing in the morning.
"Um... how do I put this?"
Seeing Raul and the others all staring at him with shining eyes, Leo scratched his cheek.
"Even if you ask me how I did it, I don't know what to tell you. I just explored the Dungeon normally, went adventuring and trained normally. I didn't do anything special."
This was the absolute truth.
He'd just explored the Dungeon normally, gone adventuring and trained normally. What special thing had he done?
The reason he could level up this fast was, first, that he really did dare. Back when all his abilities were at I0 he'd dared to charge into the seventh floor of the Dungeon alone, run into more than a few life-or-death crises, and done things others couldn't. And second, that the unreadable special Skill, Stranger from Another Star, was genuinely broken, letting him grow at an inhuman pace like the original protagonist, and seemingly even lowering the difficulty of leveling up for him.
You could say that without the Skill Stranger from Another Star, there was no way Leo could now level up to Lv.2 by breaking through his ability limits across all stats at once. At most he'd have pushed each of his basic abilities up a few stages, and someone like that would probably still be struggling on floors five through seven of the Dungeon, with no chance of moving through the twelfth floor like it was empty, going wherever he pleased the way he had yesterday.
As for leveling up?
Without putting in a few years, it simply wouldn't be possible.
Worse still, if Leo's potential had been too mediocre, he might not even have been able to level up at all.
Having that self-awareness, there was no way Leo could offer any decent answer, and no way he'd carelessly expose the existence of Stranger from Another Star. He could only tell Raul and the others something like this.
As much as Raul and the rest wanted to know how Leo had managed it, they knew when to stop, and didn't push the matter into the ground. Instead they kept chattering excitedly and happily about Leo breaking the world record.
They didn't feel anything like jealousy, either. If anything, they were genuinely glad.
After all, Leo was a comrade of their Familia, one of their own. The more special he was, the happier they were for him as fellow Familia members, because it meant Loki Familia was growing stronger and stronger, and they shared in the glory.
After that, whether they were people who knew Leo well or people who didn't, the moment they saw him they'd come crowding over, all talking at once about him leveling up, until the crowd around him only grew bigger and he couldn't take it anymore.
In the end, all the commotion on their side disturbed Gareth too, and woke the old man up.
"What's all this racket first thing in the morning? Break it up, the lot of you! Go do whatever it is you should be doing!"
The old man's voice was loud enough to rattle the ceiling, and the people crowded around Leo scattered without a second's hesitation.
"Thanks, old man."
Already barely able to handle his Familia comrades' enthusiasm, Leo expressed his gratitude to Gareth as he walked over.
"What, you can't take it already?" Gareth looked at the sweat-drenched Leo and smiled teasingly. "Then you're in for a rough time from here on out."
At Leo's rate of growth, this sort of thing was bound to happen often from now on.
And within the Familia it was still mild. Once he went outside, that was when things really got lively.
Leo had a rough idea of what Gareth was getting at.
"Whatever happens later, I'll deal with later."
Leo sighed and said as much.
"This is the price of fame. Better get used to it."
Gareth clapped a big hand on Leo's shoulder, nearly knocking him to pieces.
Truth be told, this Dwarf great warrior had a seriously heavy hand. Just what you'd expect from a brute who'd hit S in both Strength and Endurance.
"And this is only the beginning." Gareth went on patting Leo, his words carrying a pointed edge. "The truly tricky one is still waiting for you to deal with."
As he spoke, Gareth's gaze drifted out the window, toward the courtyard.
Catching his meaning, Leo followed Gareth's gaze, and saw that figure swinging a longsword in the shade of the trees.
"Go on." Gareth smiled in encouragement. "Don't let our princess get stuck in her own head."
Leo was silent for a moment, then nodded.
......
The morning courtyard still carried a little of the night's chill, leaving a crisp, cool feeling drifting in the air that lingered and wouldn't fade.
In the time before the sunlight reached this spot, Ais was already here, dancing with her beloved sword the same as she had for ten years running.
The crisp air was cut open again and again by sharp slashes, and every swing of her sword sent a streak of silver flashing through the air, cold and keen.
But anyone here who knew Ais well, seeing how she was now, would notice that today's Ais seemed somehow distracted, not focused the way she usually was, to the point that even her sword paths had gone a little ragged.
The ordinary members, still helplessly caught up in the matter of Leo's level-up, naturally couldn't notice this. Seeing their Sword Princess utterly unaffected by outside things, still disciplined enough to practice her sword every day, all they could do was express their admiration and awe.
And though Leo had known Ais for only a year, he understood her far better than those ordinary members who could only gaze at her from a distance, so he picked up at once on Ais being out of sorts.
But he said nothing, and like always, didn't disturb the girl at all, watching quietly from the side.
The girl, though, had already sensed the familiar presence arriving, and stopped at once, letting the longsword in her hand drop.
She turned around, those translucent golden eyes fixed on Leo, emotions no outsider could ever read swimming inside them.
Seeing this, Leo walked straight over.
"Why'd you stop?"
He greeted Ais the same as any other day, a faint smile on his face, calm as could be, as if he had no idea how much of a sensation he'd caused in the Familia.
Ais lifted her eyes, glanced at Leo, then lowered them again.
She set the longsword down beneath the nearby tree, leaning it against the trunk, and picked up the scabbard that had been standing there.
"...Want to go?"
The girl raised the scabbard in her hand, its tip pointed at Leo, her meaning plain and simple.
This was a scene that had cropped up often over the past half month, and over the past year.
This, too, was an everyday thing between the boy and the girl.
Having practiced the sword with her for a long time now, Leo drew the short sword at his waist without a word.
Then he heard her say this.
"...Give it everything."
Ais's voice came, with a stubbornness only Leo could catch.
Leo's hands paused, and inwardly he sighed.
Well. His habit of hiding his strength during their earlier sparring, of playing the weakling all along, had finally blown up on him.
Now that he'd leveled up, if Ais still couldn't tell he'd been hiding his strength before, she wouldn't be a natural, she'd just be an idiot.
And she finally understood why she'd always felt something off whenever she sparred with Leo before.
Now the truth was out.
"Let me see your real strength now."
Ais looked Leo straight in the eye, her expression dead serious.
Looking at her like this, Leo knew he wasn't getting out of it.
"All right."
In that case, Leo didn't drag it out, and nodded straight away.
"I'll give you everything I've got now."
Even as he said it, his stance didn't shift in the slightest, yet the aura coming off him changed.
It was the kind of aura only a battle-hardened veteran gives off.
Leo had been an adventurer for less than a month, but having thrown himself into combat without pause for twenty-seven days straight, calling him battle-hardened was no longer a stretch.
Leo like this made the hand Ais had on the scabbard tighten just slightly.
The two of them stared at each other, and the air between them turned tense, swords all but drawn.
Before long, they both moved at once, charging straight for each other.
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