Under Leon's firm order as party leader, Laurier ducked into the tent with a pout while Aura followed with her usual blank expression. Their chance to experience night watch duty had been officially revoked.
The disappointment was written on their faces, but both understood why. They were first-timers who'd been dragged to the deepest reaches of the Upper Floors on day one, and tomorrow they'd be heading into the Middle Floors.
What kind of rookie got this treatment?
Even the major Familias, when training newcomers, wouldn't crank the difficulty this high right out of the gate. The only reason it worked was because the party had Jeanne and Rose holding the front line, plus Leon running support as a cautious, overpowered mage.
Without that lineup, forget night watch duty. They wouldn't have made it to Floor 12 in the first place.
...
Deep in the night.
Leon was drifting somewhere between sleep and consciousness when he felt someone nudging his arm. Before he could fully wake, a cool hand found his cheek and pinched it hard.
"Ow..."
His eyes snapped open to find the Holy Maiden herself, grinning at the success of her little prank.
"Shift change?"
"Mmhm," Jeanne hummed.
Leon sat up, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and pulled on his boots. He stepped forward, wrapped Jeanne in a brief hug, buried his nose in her hair to catch its scent, and smiled before pushing through the tent flap and leaving her behind.
"You... you shameless flirt! Hmph!"
Jeanne's cheeks flushed pink, the protest half-whispered through her embarrassment.
Leon walked to the center of camp and stretched, then picked up the Scholar's Staff leaning against his pack. He squinted, studying the Dungeon around him in the quiet hours.
"The light doesn't change much between day and night... thanks to the glowing moss." He kept his voice low. "One of the Dungeon's perks. Even without a lantern, there's enough to see by."
He settled onto a length of dead wood near the campfire and warmed his hands, then pulled out his notebook and quill. "The temperature on Floor 12 is noticeably cooler than the surface. It's midsummer up there, but the Dungeon stays relatively constant outside of special floors. Not a bad place to beat the heat, all things considered."
He closed the notebook and let out a breath that misted white in the air. He stood, made a careful circuit of the camp to confirm everything was secure, then drew his spare short sword and went back to hacking at the corridor walls around the perimeter. Keeping the Dungeon busy with repairs meant keeping monsters from spawning. Routine maintenance.
...
The stew bubbling in the pot sent its aroma curling through the camp, and the hungry party members kept swallowing despite themselves.
Leon stirred the pot with a ladle and grinned at Laurier and Aura, both sporting dark circles under their eyes. "Look at those bags. Seems like every precaution I gave you yesterday went in one ear and out the other."
Laurier immediately latched onto Rose's arm with a pitiful whimper, nuzzling against her like a cat. "Nooo, Rose, look! He's being mean to us again!"
Rose tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her smile as gentle as ever. "He's right, though, Laurier. How are you going to handle the Dungeon without a full night's rest?"
Laurier's expression froze, then she scrambled to defend herself with watery eyes. "W-we didn't want to stay up! We just... we couldn't fall asleep!"
Rose exchanged a knowing look with Jeanne and Leon.
"So you were too excited to sleep," Rose said.
"Like grade-schoolers the night before a field trip. Can't really blame you."
"G-grade-schoolers?!"
Laurier's voice shot up an octave, and Aura's face darkened beside her.
"We are not little kids from the school district!"
Aura's sudden outburst drew surprised interest from the others. Leon's group could call themselves veterans compared to the two elven girls when it came to the Dungeon, but in terms of the wider world beyond Orario, Laurier and Aura had probably seen more than any of them.
The school district, though...
Leon filed that away. He'd actually seen it once, back when he first arrived in Orario. The mobile school district had returned to the city for repairs and resupply right around that time.
...
In the Dungeon, everything about daily life was stripped to the essentials.
Though Leon's definition of "essentials" and every other Adventurer's were on completely different planets.
Most Adventurers traveled light: cold rations and dried food for every meal, eaten fast and forgotten. Leon's party got three hot meals a day, and the tents weren't improvised from Dungeon materials but proper Magic Stone gear hauled down from the surface.
It added to the party's logistical burden, but Leon, filling the Supporter role, didn't care in the slightest. No point arguing with people who had different standards. His philosophy was simple: eat poorly, sleep poorly, fight poorly.
He clapped his hands and looked at the women in front of him. "Camp all packed up? Do a final check for anything left behind. Once we're clear, we head for Floor 13."
"All good, let's go!" Laurier's hand shot into the air, practically bouncing with eagerness. She couldn't wait to see what the Middle Floors looked like.
"If everyone's ready, we move out!"
"Yeah!"
The response came in unison.
Their campsite wasn't far from the floor passage. What they hadn't expected was the crowd waiting at the stairway entrance. A sizable number of Adventurer parties had already gathered, all of them armed to the teeth and radiating the sharp awareness of seasoned fighters.
Leon studied them for a moment and put it together.
Rose leaned close to his ear. "These teams seem to have camped nearby too, and now they're all converging here. I'm guessing something big is about to happen."
The words sent a jolt through him. Wait. If I count the days... the Floor Boss should be close to respawning.
He pulled out his brass pocket watch and checked the date.
It lined up exactly with the timeline in his memory.
He glanced at the other parties milling around in small clusters, then caught his teammates' eyes and gestured them closer.
"If I'm right about why all these people are here, then Rose's hunch about a big operation is probably dead on."
"Big operation?" Aura and Laurier looked at each other, lost.
Leon opened the pocket watch and showed them the date. "See? Today's the fifteenth. The last time the Loki Familia took down Goliath, the Middle Floors' Floor Boss, was the first. So if nothing's gone wrong, today is the day Goliath respawns." He paused, letting the implication settle. "Now take a guess. All these Adventurer parties gathered in one place at this exact time. What do you think they're here to do?"
...
...