Chapter 38: The Familia Expedition.
...
Aiz returned to the Loki Familia and passed the news to Riveria, who smiled, smoothed Aiz's hair, sent her off to bathe and rest, and then walked to the captain's office.
"Finn. Kihara agreed to join the expedition."
"Pay him at the Level 5 rate for auxiliary work when we're done. His capabilities aren't in question."
The phrase not in question brought to mind the memory of Bete — who had, some weeks earlier, decided that his pride required him to test Kihara personally, and had subsequently spent two days wrapped in bandaging, unable to get out of bed. She kept the smile off her face with moderate success.
According to Aiz, Kihara had been fighting with a sword during the dungeon run — not his fists. Which meant the state Bete ended up in was the restrained version of the outcome.
"Inform the others. Expedition launches in two days. Target: floors below the thirty-seventh."
"Understood."
On the morning of the expedition, Kihara arrived at the Loki Familia's gate well ahead of schedule. Six months of dropping by to meet Aiz had made him a recognisable face, and he was waved through without difficulty.
A Familia expedition was a fundamentally different undertaking from ordinary dungeon work. It required stockpiled logistics, advance route intelligence, and a division of labour — Level 2 adventurers designated as rear support, holding position in safe zones and maintaining supply lines for the forward team. The personnel and financial requirements were substantial enough that only a Familia with the Loki Familia's resources could sustain the model comfortably. The investment was rarely questioned once the returns came in — deep-floor monster materials, rare crafting components, uncommon medicinal plants, none of which had adequate supply on the surface.
The pre-expedition ceremony was, as always, a serious occasion by Loki Familia standards. Adventurers who had entered the guild around the same time as Kihara — many still working through the Level 1 plateau — watched from the crowd with the specific expression of people doing mathematics about their own progress.
"I send you off with my blessing — return with honour and treasure! Forward, my children!"
Loki delivered the closing line while directing a pointed look at Kihara. The intent was clear enough.
What she found was him leaning slightly toward Aiz, the two of them talking in low voices, at a proximity that had crossed every internal threshold she'd established for acceptable distances. Her expression underwent a rapid series of changes, and she produced a small straw figure from her pocket — Kihara written on a tag around its neck — and began introducing it to a small knife with focused repetition.
Finn assessed the situation and made a command decision.
"Move out! Into the dungeon!"
"YEAH!"
With Finn, Riveria, and Gareth — three Level 6 adventurers — setting the pace, the Loki Familia moved through the upper floors at a speed that would have seemed implausible to any outside observer. By midday they were on the eighteenth floor.
Here the expedition split into its two components: the forward exploration team — all senior fighters — and the logistics contingent, mostly Level 2 adventurers with some Level 3s, tasked with holding position in the safe zone and providing resupply as needed.
Kihara went with the exploration team alongside Aiz. Before the push to the nineteenth floor began, Finn addressed the group with the directness he brought to everything.
"Most of you know Kihara already. His registered level is 3, but his operational capability is equivalent to Level 5 — you've all seen enough to verify that independently. This expedition is a serious undertaking, and having one more reliable fighter changes the margin. Standard formation and responsibilities stay unchanged. Kihara — you've been partnered with Aiz for six months. Work with her the way you have been."
"Understood."
"Then — expedition begins."
For someone whose dungeon experience had been almost entirely solo or with one other person, working inside a full Loki Familia formation was a genuinely different kind of experience.
When monster groups blocked the path and couldn't be routed around, Gareth led the vanguard in to fix them in place while the two mages — Riveria and Lefiya — began their chants, bringing wide-area magic down across the engagement. Finn managed the overall picture from a position that gave him sight lines on everything. The coordination was seamless in the way that came only from years of running the same patterns together.
Kihara recorded entrance and exit positions as they moved, floor by floor. He also found a moment to ask Finn a question.
"The frost compound Riveria used — where would I buy it, and how much?"
Finn tilted his head. "What do you need it for?"
"Solo run on Amphisbaena. Twenty-seventh floor boss."
The casualness of this delivery required a moment to absorb. Finn had been about to point out that Amphisbaena operated at approximately Level 6 capability, then remembered the cumulative record — every engagement since Kihara arrived in Orario had been a level overmatch, without exception — and reconsidered the utility of that warning.
He told him where to buy it instead, and explained what Riveria and Lefiya had done to achieve the effect they'd produced.
Another day of pushing brought them to the twenty-fifth floor — the Aqua Labyrinth.
The entire floor was submerged. A vast underground lake covered everything, broken only by the ruins of some ancient stone construction — columns, archways, bridges — most of them half-drowned, the parts above the waterline providing only scattered footholds. The ceiling crystal threw pale blue light down across the surface, which reflected it back up in shifting patterns. The water looked still. It wasn't — below the surface, concealed attack-fish waited with the patient attention of things that had been doing this for a very long time.
The Aqua Labyrinth had been the worst part of the previous expedition, by Finn's account. Most of their time had been spent managing the impossible geometry of the floor and dealing with threats from below rather than in front of them. This time he'd come with a prepared answer.
"Riveria. Lefiya. The frost compounds."
Both of them reached into their packs, drew out the prepared vials, and began channelling mana into them through a structured incantation. Riveria finished first, stepped to the edge, and threw.
The bottle hit the water surface and split from the tip outward, the contents launching across the lake like something thrown rather than poured. Everywhere the stream touched, the water went pale and rigid, spreading outward until a solid ice bridge three people wide connected the near side to a stone ruin some thirty metres distant.
"Good result. This method holds for the remainder of the expedition."
The forward team moved out onto the ice. Monster contacts occurred in the crossing but were handled without significant difficulty.
Kihara noted the floor layout and continued taking records.
....
Thank you for reading.