Akira's POV
The D-rank discipline lasted longer this time.
That was the honest measure of progress… not that it worked, but that it lasted longer before it didn't.
Through the first level, which was clean and quick, the suppression holding at the ceiling I had set and my footwork doing what four months of Thursday sessions had built it to do.
Through the passage to the second level, which was narrower than the previous joint entry and required the same single-file arrangement, he was ahead of me and I was tracking the formation and the suppression was holding.
The second level opened into a chamber.
The Winged Lion was at its centre.
I had read about them. The system's hospital briefing, the inherited memories of the previous Akira, four months of mission logs and dungeon documentation accumulated across the registration period. I had the theoretical profile in full.
