The floor.
The Dungeon, 13th floor.
Just like the chamber you entered this floor through, this place had grey rock scattered everywhere.
It was like a natural cavern deep inside some mountain. The surrounding walls, the floor, the ceiling, all of them without exception were formed of bedrock.
A faint dampness drifted through the air, and the light here was even scarcer than the fog-shrouded 12th floor. Once you came out of the downslope that descended from the 12th floor, what awaited adventurers was a monotonous single rock path stretching all the way into the depths. It seemed to connect to a chamber up ahead, but even though the path didn't curve, you couldn't make out what lay beyond.
"So this is the Middle Floors?"
Leo stepped onto the rock passage and immediately began sizing up his surroundings, checking the terrain, the murmur slipping out before he meant it to. It made Line, who had caught up behind him, smile.
"Yes, this is the starting point of the Middle Floor region, the Dungeon's 13th to 24th floors. The Cave Labyrinth."
The Cave Labyrinth was the collective name for the five floors of the Dungeon from the 13th to the 17th.
As the name suggested, all five floors were labyrinths formed of cave terrain, characterized by this grey rock you could see everywhere, along with the vertical holes, each like a well, set into the corners of the walls.
"These are the trap holes that lead down to the lower floors, right?"
Leo walked over to one of those vertical holes and looked down, only to find he could see the floor below.
It was a sight you would absolutely never see on the Upper Floors.
The floors of the Dungeon were connected by clear, distinct passages, and to go up or down you generally could only take those passages. At least, that was how it was on the Upper Floors.
But once you reached the Middle Floors, that rule gradually broke down.
"Some of these vertical holes lead to the 14th floor, and some even span two or three floors, leading to floors much further down. They're traps. Once you fall in, you might never come back at all."
Line explained it quietly to Leo, and he gave an almost imperceptible nod.
It went without saying that if you carelessly stepped into one of these vertical holes and ended up on a floor beyond your abilities, your fate wouldn't be a good one.
Especially for those adventurer parties who had just arrived on the Middle Floors. They might not have even fully cleared the 13th floor yet, and if they accidentally dropped onto a lower floor, the mortality rate would shoot up dramatically.
The Middle Floors were already hailed as the Dungeon's first death line, with a mortality rate far beyond anything on the Upper Floors. If that mortality rate climbed any higher, it went without saying that survival was basically impossible.
The original protagonist's party had been unlucky enough to fall into one of these vertical holes, dropping straight from the 13th floor down to the 15th, which was why they'd nearly all died. If a certain Pallum girl hadn't been genuinely bold and clever enough to propose retreating all the way down to the 18th floor and giving up on going back up, the protagonist's group might really never have made it home.
"Of course, high-level adventurers with real skill can also use these vertical holes to cut down the time it takes to reach the lower floors."
Line told Leo this.
"The second-class adventurers in our Familia do it all the time. As long as you have a detailed enough map, then even if you don't follow the regular routes, you can still pin down your position and find the way up or down."
Clearly, Loki Familia had detailed enough maps.
After all, they were the strongest Familia, one that had already cleared down past the 50th floor. The Middle Floor region was something they'd surely figured out long ago.
"The phosphorescence here isn't very bright, and the passages connecting the chambers are long. To fight more safely, the first thing you should do after coming in here is get to the first chamber quickly."
Line went on explaining, and Leo listened carefully.
The labyrinth passages of the 13th floor were wider than the floors above, but ultimately still limited, and vertical holes were everywhere. Fighting monsters in passages like this really wasn't a good idea, especially with the Middle Floors producing far more monsters than the Upper Floors. Fighting here would sooner or later land you in a bind: being swamped by countless monsters.
What's more, once you reached the Middle Floors, adventurers basically never went alone. Teamwork was a basic condition for exploring here, and joining forces with party members in a narrow space like a passage was bound to be limited, making it easier to get surrounded by monsters swarming in. By then, what an adventurer would face was a passage packed full of monsters, the fight grinding to a deadlock with no way to retreat.
So when fighting in the Cave Labyrinth, the key was to use the more spacious chambers, letting all party members spread out and cut down monsters each on their own, making full use of numerical advantage and coordinated action.
This applied to Leo too. After all, if he alone got surrounded by monsters packing a passage, escape would be even harder, and it could even drive this supporter-cum-Healer, who couldn't be protected, into a fatal spot.
"Then let's head to the chamber up ahead first."
Leo stopped studying the terrain and followed Line's guidance toward the chamber.
As a professional supporter who could draw maps by hand, Line had long since grasped the Middle Floor terrain. She knew the way to go without even looking at a map, and Leo didn't need to bother thinking about it at all.
So Leo, having come here, still had the same single task as before.
And that was to fight to his heart's content.
"Jii!"
Soon, as Leo and Line advanced, monster cries began to sound up ahead in the rock passage.
Before the two of them could even stop, several monsters came hopping out from deep down the path ahead.
They were monsters that looked exactly like rabbits.
Long ears swaying back and forth, fur a mix of yellow and white, a sharp single horn jutting from the forehead, standing on two legs, about the size of a human child. They were horned rabbit monsters that walked upright.
"It's Almiraj!"
Line named the monster in one breath.
Almiraj looked very docile, seemingly not much different from the Needle Rabbits of the Upper Floors, but in fact it was a monster that first appeared on the 13th floor.
Almiraj looked gentle but were actually extremely aggressive, and like Imps they were cunning and fond of fighting in groups, frighteningly strong, which was why the Guild's threat assessment classified these rabbit monsters as Lv.2.
That's right, they were actually stronger than the Orc and the Silverback, the large category monsters that appeared on the Upper Floors. At the very least, their threat level was above that of the Orc and the Silverback.
"Jii jii! Jiii!"
The instant the red-eyed Almiraj saw Leo and Line, they let out shrill cries, and then with their impossibly slender little fists they smashed the big rocks beside them, pulling out small stone axes.
Those were brand-new natural weapons born only on the 13th floor.
Many of the rocks in the Cave Labyrinth were the Dungeon's armory, hiding all kinds of natural weapons the Middle Floor monsters could use, adding even greater threat to these already terrifying monsters.
"Jii jii jii! Jii!"
Brandishing their small stone axes, the Almiraj let out piercing cries and charged together toward Leo.
"The monsters are coming! Mr. Leo!"
Line called out the warning while quickly falling back, clearing the battlefield.
"Click!"
In the very instant the Almiraj charged, Leo equipped his short sword and raised it.
"Jii!"
Seeing this, one of the Almiraj rushed at Leo alongside its companions without slowing, then suddenly hurled the stone axe in its hand viciously at him, the axe spinning toward him at terrifying speed.
"Clang!"
Almost without thinking, Leo swung the short sword in his hand, knocking the flying stone axe cleanly aside with the smallest possible motion, sending it flying into the air to land on the ceiling.
That motion was exactly identical to the one Ais usually made when she knocked Leo's slashes aside with her scabbard.
Clearly, this was a parrying technique Leo had learned from Ais.
"Jii jii jii!"
"Jiia!!"
Seeing this, the remaining Almiraj all flung the small stone axes in their hands too, sending axe after axe spinning toward Leo. But just like before, Leo stood his ground, swinging the short sword in small arcs a few times, knocking every incoming axe away one by one.
After knocking away all the flying axes, Leo abruptly dropped his stance, kicked off the ground, and shot forward. That speed was so fast the Almiraj rushing at him couldn't react in time at all.
"Splrch!"
As the sword-light swept across, the Almiraj charging at the very front was cut in two, blood spraying into the air.
Leo moved like the wind, and in the instant he brushed past that Almiraj he swung this fast, sharp stroke, killing it while at the same time charging without slowing toward the other Almiraj.
"Splrch!"
"Splrch!"
As two more Almiraj were cleanly cut down by Leo, the rest finally reacted, letting out shrill cries and launching furious attacks at the onrushing Leo.
Some swung fists at Leo that could shatter rock, while others lowered the horns on their heads and rammed at him. That ferocious manner of theirs looked nothing at all like harmless rabbits.
"Bam!"
Leo's figure was still as fast as the wind, weaving and dodging with crossing steps to avoid the punches of several Almiraj, and against the one ramming with its horn he twisted sideways and flew up with a kick, driving his foot into the side of its body and sending it flying with a heavy, dull thud.
"Splrch!" "Splrch!" "Splrch!"
Right after, Leo spun back quickly, and before the punching Almiraj could regroup, the short sword in his hand slashed out one after another, carving out streaks of sword-light and cutting them each in two.
"Jiiia!"
In an instant the Almiraj's dying screams and furious howls rang out one after another, echoing through the rock passage along with the noise of battle.
Leo fought fiercely against this whole swarm of Almiraj, sometimes circling to dodge their attacks, sometimes swinging his blade to cut down the rabbit monsters lunging at him, sword-light and the hopping shapes of the rabbits appearing again and again.
In under a minute, the number of Almiraj Leo had slaughtered already exceeded ten.
That was already more than the number of Almiraj that had appeared at the start.
"Careful! Mr. Leo! There are Almiraj coming the whole time from all around!"
Line warned this more than once from behind, explaining why the number of Almiraj Leo slaughtered was so high.
Whether they'd been drawn over by the noise of battle, or there had simply been this many Almiraj lying in wait all around, the point was that as the fight went on, the Almiraj around Leo not only didn't drop in number, they kept growing, until countless white shapes nearly swamped him, nearly swamping the entire passage.
Gradually, Leo began to feel the strain.
The growing number of Almiraj was one reason he felt the strain, but the bigger reason was that the ever-increasing number of monsters around him took up so much of the passage that his running steps started to be constrained. His speed and footwork couldn't be fully unleashed, the range he could move in got smaller and smaller, until he fell into a situation of being besieged, even being forced fully onto the defensive.
"This pressure... so this is the difficulty of clearing the Middle Floors?"
It had been a long time since Leo felt this much strain, which showed that the difficulty of clearing the 13th floor was, just as he'd predicted at the start, a qualitative leap compared to the Upper Floors.
This was exactly why, even though the 13th floor could be cleared as long as you were Lv.2, the Guild still recommended forming a three-person party.
The monsters here didn't just get much stronger, the numbers in which they appeared were also far beyond the Upper Floors. One slip and you'd fall into a situation more troublesome than being besieged by an army of Killer Ants. If you weren't fast enough at killing the monsters, they'd only keep multiplying, and in the end you would surely find yourself surrounded by monsters on all sides, unable to kill them off no matter how you tried.
"No good! We can't fight in the passage!"
Line made a judgment at once, an anxious look surfacing on her face, and then she actually ran straight toward Leo.
"Jii jii!"
"Jii jiii!"
"Jiia!"
Only now did the Almiraj seem to notice there was another enemy here, and they let out shrill cries one after another, beginning to lunge toward Line.
"Line!"
Leo cut down the two Almiraj rushing at him face-on with one stroke each, and only then saw this, crying out in shock.
Line acted as if she hadn't heard, running on with her head down, and actually drew off a portion of the monsters.
"Mr. Leo! Get to the chamber up ahead!"
Line called out as she ran, letting Leo know her intent.
"No!"
It wasn't that Leo didn't want to go to the chamber ahead, but that he'd long since spotted the monsters lying in wait there.
"Look ahead!"
At Leo's warning, Line finally noticed too. At the entrance of the chamber up ahead, several monsters crouched in wait.
Their bodies had uneven, bumpy skin, all of it pitch-black, and a pair of eyes that glowed with a fierce red light. Their builds were somewhat overly muscular, and they bore savage faces unlike a wolf's, baring their teeth and snarling low toward this direction.
Plain as day, these were the monsters most to be wary of and most to be feared on the 13th floor. Hellhounds.
"Grrrrrrrr...!"
The Hellhounds' howls rattled the air, their savage fangs splitting open, red light flickering in their mouths.
The next second, scorching flames spewed out of them, lighting up the passage, and lighting up that delicate, pretty face.
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