Leon crouched among the scattered corpses, mask and hood pulled tight, and worked his Carving Knife through the nearest monster with practiced efficiency.
He popped out Magic Stones one after another, quick and clean, while lecturing Rose and Laurier, who stood nearby trying not to look sick.
"The fight ending is nowhere near the end of the job."
"For Adventurers and Supporters, the real work starts after the last monster drops: processing the loot. These three little words should put the fear of god into any Adventurer. Why do we kill monsters? For the Magic Stones inside them and whatever Drop Items they might leave behind."
He paused mid-cut, glanced at the two of them, and added, "Of course, some people treat money like dirt and care more about glory and reputation. The Astraea Familia, for instance, they're all about ideals and public image. Loki Familia cares more about achievements and prestige."
A small grin crossed his face. "As you can see, the Hart Familia, or rather, me personally, does not fall into either camp. I'm a pragmatist. Everything else is fluff."
"So remember: take this job seriously. It's the financial lifeline of the Familia and the difference between eating well and not eating at all."
He turned to Laurier, a teasing edge in his voice. "Laurier, you don't want to end up living under a bridge in Daedalus Street, do you?"
"Waaah! Rose! Leon's being mean to me again!!!"
Laurier puffed out her cheeks, ducked behind Rose, and stuck her tongue out at him.
Rose sighed. "Alright, Leon, leave her alone."
The joke did its job loosening the tension, and Leon moved on to a proper walkthrough of techniques and best practices. Money mattered to him more than most things, and a Supporter's skill set was central to keeping the valis flowing. The moment the fight had ended, he'd dragged Rose and Laurier straight into the thick of it for hands-on training.
...
Nearby, Aura had finally caught her breath after a short rest.
"Miss Jeanne, I..."
Her voice still sounded thin.
Jeanne brushed a hand over Aura's white hair and smiled. "Aura, you did well. Without your magic, taking down those Orcs would've cost me a lot more effort. So don't sell yourself short. You were great."
She paused, her tone shifting into something steadier. "Remember, the key to fighting in the Dungeon is efficiency. End things fast, spend as little energy as possible, and preserve your stamina. That's how we keep reserves for whatever the Dungeon, or anything else, throws at us next."
She left that last part deliberately vague. She didn't want Aura or Laurier exposed to the darker realities lurking beneath the surface, not yet. Leon felt the same way.
Down here, cut off from the world above, hostile terrain and violent monsters were the baseline. Bad luck could even throw an Irregular at you.
But the real danger lived in people.
Whether it was the fanatics of Evilus or the calculating stares of fellow Adventurers sizing you up, the threats you couldn't see were the ones that put a chill down your spine. An arrow from the dark was always worse than a sword in the open.
"I... I understand," Aura said, the tension finally draining from her shoulders as she let out a quiet breath.
...
Half an hour later, the party regrouped.
Rose looked the same as always, unflappable. Laurier's ears drooped and she had the look of someone who'd seen too many monster guts for one day. Leon, on the other hand, was practically glowing.
One look at the haul and he couldn't keep the grin off his face. It kept creeping back no matter how hard he tried to push it down.
"Judging by that expression, we did well?" Jeanne asked, amused.
Leon raised an eyebrow and flashed a wider grin. "Well doesn't cover it. Try jackpot."
Jeanne tilted her head, thinking. "That's probably the beginner's bonus you mentioned, right? We do have three Dungeon first-timers in the party."
Something about the way she said it set off alarm bells. If he let her keep talking, her Revelation might actually steer things in that direction, and he did not need that kind of prophecy manifesting.
No. Absolutely not. That is NOT what Revelation is for.
He cleared his throat before she could continue. "Ahem. Based on how this run went, I think we can handle the floors below. I'm proposing we do a quick sweep of Floors 10 and 11, then focus our exploration on Floor 12. Sound good?"
The plan was solid, and nobody objected.
"Then let's take a short break and head for Floor 11."
...
...
"Whoa! So this is Floor 11? The ceiling's way higher than Floor 10!"
Laurier stood at the front of the formation, one hand resting on her sword, head swiveling as she took everything in.
The party had just emerged from the connecting passage and stood on a ledge overlooking the floor below. A massive cavern stretched out before them, a broad central staircase descending from where they stood. Like Floor 10, thick white fog blanketed the landscape, though the passage entrance itself served as a kind of buffer zone where visibility stayed clear.
Leon counted that as a blessing. If we'd stepped out of the passage straight into a wall of monsters, that would've been the end of any profit margins.
From the ledge, the cavern spread wide and far, an open grassland where the blades came up to mid-boot. Scattered across it were familiar sights from Floor 10: dead-looking trees and the telltale formations of Dungeon Armories growing out of the terrain.
"Tch, more Dungeon Armories. Do these things show up on every floor past 10? Getting a little old."
This was Leon's first time on Floor 11 too, and the sight of those natural weapon racks gave him a mild headache. As a mid-line caster, he could keep his distance and lay down fire, so armed monsters were a manageable problem for him.
Rose and Jeanne were a different story. They held the front line. Every monster that grabbed a weapon from one of those things became twice as dangerous, and the difference between an armed opponent and an unarmed one was night and day, monster or human.
"Move out. Standard formation, circular array with Aura at the center. Stay sharp," Jeanne ordered, already locked in.
The party responded without hesitation, falling into position around Aura and descending the wide staircase into the fog-covered grassland.
The grass rustled against their boots with every step, dragging faintly at their movement.
They walked for a while without encountering anything.
Leon split his attention between watching the perimeter and cross-referencing his map against the terrain, scratching notes and corrections with a quill as they moved, calling out directions to the group.
"Bear right. There's a connecting passage ahead. Take a right at the junction. The map marks it as the main route."
"Got it."
Everything was going smoothly. The party entered the first corridor without incident.
A faint crackling sound echoed from somewhere ahead.
Laurier's eyes narrowed and her ears twitched, picking up something the rest of them couldn't.
Almost at the same instant, Jeanne threw up her arm to signal a halt. She brought her Banner Lance across her body, expression sharp. "Contact. Something's approaching. Heading straight for us."
Rose dropped into a low stance, shield forward, sword leveled ahead. "Orcs?"
Jeanne shook her head, reading whatever Revelation was feeding her. "No. Something tougher than Orcs."
Leon motioned for Laurier to cover Aura and pulled out his copy of The Adventurer's Handbook: Dungeon Environments and Monsters, flipping to the Floor 11 entry.
"Found it. Armadillos, commonly known as Hard Armored. First appearance: Floor 11."
With that prompt, the rest of the party recalled what they'd studied. All those late nights buried in reference material hadn't been for nothing.
According to Guild records, Hard Armored shared a key trait with the Killer Ants of Floor 7: a specialized shell that massively boosted defense. But unlike the ants, whose armor covered their entire body, the Hard Armored had exploitable weak points at the belly and chest. The trade-off was that their shells were far harder than anything those mob-calling ants could manage.
Countless Adventurers had learned the hard way that Hard Armored boasted the strongest defense of anything in the upper floors. Their shells could deflect full-force strikes from Strength-specialized dwarves without so much as a scratch. A walking fortress, in every sense.
The Handbook's recommendation was blunt: in close combat, a Level 1 Adventurer soloing one of these was next to impossible. Rare prodigies and outright cheaters excluded.
And their base potential rating was S.
Floors 11 and 12 monsters generally ranged from B to S in potential, but the Hard Armored single-handedly set the difficulty ceiling for the entire stretch.