Chapter 380: Kitahara Iori and the Boys Get Tricked? Lili's Deep Worries!
....
A short while later.
The Dungeon, the 45th Floor.
"Hey, you little punks! Weren't you guys acting incredibly thrilled when you tried to screw over your granddaddies just now?"
"Hehehe...! I knew you boys looked clever from the start! Who knew you'd actually dare to plot against us? Pretty impressive! Truly amazing!"
"Hehehe! Do you want to keep playing now?!"
"Come on, come on! Let's keep going! Scream a little louder for us!"
"..."
Near the edge of a steep cliff inside the labyrinth.
Kitahara Iori stood looking down at five adventurers dangling over the edge of the precipice, a cold sneer on his face.
These adventurers belonged to the Soma Familia. As for how they ended up in this miserable state? The reason was hilariously simple!
Just a moment ago, when Iori led Lili down to the 3rd floor, these exact fools had purposely gathered a massive horde of monsters and dumped them right in front of the Fatui Guild members. They had expected Iori and the boys to cover their retreat while they made a clean getaway!
This unexpected trick had left Iori and his group completely dumbfounded. However, after easily slaughtering the monsters, they immediately tracked down and captured these absolute idiots.
From that moment on... every single time they reached a new floor, they took turns tossing the five fools straight into the monster spawns. By now, all five of them were severely battered, missing limbs, their clothes shredded to pieces, and their bodies covered in blood!
Standing to the side, Lili was shaking like a leaf.
She felt as though she had accidentally joined a deeply terrifying squad. Watching the five adventurers get brutally tormented by Iori and the boys all the way down the maze struck pure terror into her heart.
These seniors were the exact people who constantly bullied and mistreated her back at the mansion. In the beginning, when she first saw them getting beat up, Lili had felt an intense surge of excitement and satisfaction. But as time passed, she quickly realized something was very wrong.
This is way too brutal!
Lili felt as though she wouldn't be able to escape alive today either. She could only pray that once they left the Dungeon, Iori and his group would let her go. She didn't care about the money anymore; at this point, saving her own life was her absolute priority!
"Ahhh!!"
"Help me!!"
"Lord Adventurers! Please, just spare us!!"
"Waaaah~~"
"We were wrong~!"
The five adventurers of the Soma Familia cried out in unison, their tears flowing uncontrollably. These suited monsters were simply too ridiculous—they weren't acting like human beings at all!
"Spare you?"
A dangerous, dark crimson light flashed across Iori's eyes. "Sure. Once we drag you boys down to the 80th floor, we'll let you go. Whether you can walk out of there alive will depend entirely on your own luck."
"!!!"
Hearing his words, the five adventurers completely lost their minds.
Damn it! This is just a slow, painful death sentence!
"No! Please, Lord Iori, we really don't want to go down there!" The adventurers wept loudly, their faces covered in tears. They truly had no desire to follow Iori to the 80th floor. That would be a fate infinitely worse than death!
Slurp~
Beside them, Hidenori Tabata extended his tongue, slowly licking the edge of his pocket knife. "That is completely out of your hands!"
"Move out! Let's head down to the next floor!" Hidenori shouted to the rest of the group, not wanting to waste another second.
Hearing the order, the guild members casually hauled the five weeping adventurers back up the cliff.
Right then, Iori turned his head toward Lili, speaking in a firm, commanding tone: "Once we clear the area and leave the Dungeon today, don't even think about running off. You're coming straight back home with us!"
His reasoning was simple. Seito had explicitly given them the task of securing Lili this morning. To ensure she wouldn't face any immediate revenge from the Soma Familia, Iori planned to bring her straight to their headquarters the moment they exited the labyrinth and hand her over to Seito.
"!!!"
Lili's eyes widened in absolute disbelief. Her tiny body trembled frantically.
Go back home with Kitahara Iori and his crew??
Could it be...!!
Thinking about her gender and looking closely at the wild, unhinged faces of the men surrounding her, Lili felt entirely certain that she was falling straight into the jaws of a pack of wolves today! For a moment, she felt a powerful urge to burst into tears. But since she didn't want to die, she could only suppress her terror and nod submissively.
"I... I understand, Lord Grand Drunkard."
I'll just find an opportunity to slip away the second we return to the city streets! she thought bitterly.
"Mhm~"
Iori nodded in satisfaction. "Let's go! To the next floor!"
The group marched steadily toward the next layer of the labyrinth, while Lili followed closely behind, trembling with every step.
Meanwhile, back at the headquarters of Seito's Familia.
Inside the main house, Maple was chatting happily with Hestia, while Seito and Kirukiru Amou were embedded in a text conversation with the rest of their core team.
[Executives Private Chat Channel]
Seito: The situation is exactly as I described. The three of us will be staying on the DanMachi world for the next couple of days.
Seito had just finished giving everyone a thorough briefing of their current circumstances. He intended to remain on this planet for a good while, so returning to the main sector wasn't on the table anytime soon.
Shizuka Hiratsuka: What did you mean when you said your Divine Power pool has completely stopped growing?
Sora: Did one of your mirror clones get destroyed or something?
Seito: No, the clones are perfectly fine. It's just that they can no longer find any isolated gods wandering around.
The steady growth of Seito's Divine Power values had completely flatlined. The reason was simple: the local deities had stopped coming out of hiding!
He calculated that because his clones had systematically executed far too many gods over the recent period, the resident God-Kings had become hyper-vigilant. They must have issued a global lockdown ordering their subordinates to stay indoors. Otherwise, the hunting fields would never have dried up so quickly.
"What a massive headache. I'm only thirty million points short," Seito muttered, rubbing the space between his brows as he pulled up his status interface.
[Name: Seito]
[Divine Title: Space God-King]
[Rank: Late-stage God-King Realm]
[Divine Spark: Space Divine Spark]
[Talent: Absolute Spatial Mastery]
[Divine Power Required for Ascension: 970 Million / 1 Billion]
[Skills: Velocity Space (Exclusive), Spatial Phase-Step (Exclusive)...]
[Equipment: Space Deity Set (God-King Tier)]
His accumulated pool sat comfortably at 970 million points, meaning he only needed a tiny fraction of 30 million more to officially breach the ceiling into the peak of the God-King Realm. But with all the local ancient powerhouses turtling up, tracking them down manually was going to drain a lot of time. Still, Seito wasn't in a rush; he could easily afford to play the long game.
Seito: @Sora. I plan to wait a bit longer to let the heat die down. In the meantime, I want to focus on helping all of you Executives break through into the God-King Realm!
Sora: Did something pop up over there?
Kirukiru Amou: Yeah! The overall strength of this Western Mythos Faction is incredibly dense. They house quite a large number of God-King tier powerhouses.
The moment Kirukiru dropped her message into the chat, the rest of the Executives froze in surprise. A single divine faction commanding multiple God-King level entities? It looked like the water running through the God-King Star Sector was infinitely deeper than they had originally anticipated!
....
Thank you for reading.