Max
He stepped into his room and let the door click shut behind him, the quieter air of Folkvangr settling around him all at once.
For a moment, he just stood there, letting the lingering adrenaline of the negotiation wash out of his system.
Once the quiet fully set in, he reached out through the mental link. He pushed a quick request toward Kairu, asking for the gems they had collected. Max fully expected the familiar, eager rush of his companion hurrying back to him. Ever since their first meeting, Kairu had been clingy by nature, always staying by his side.
But Max knew exactly where that clinginess came from. He hadn't exactly set a reassuring example when the dungeon had tried to violently assimilate him during their first dive. Kairu's constant proximity had always been rooted in a lingering, protective anxiety.
So, when the response finally came through the link, it caught Max entirely off guard.
It wasn't a rush to return. It wasn't an apology that he couldn't make it. It was a bright, bubbly pulse of deep satisfaction—the clean, uncomplicated feeling of someone enjoying themself immensely. And beneath that satisfaction was the unmistakable sense of motion. Of hunting. Of play.
Max stilled.
A second later, there was a soft pop on the bed.
He looked up just as the air warped for the briefest instant. A scattered spill of dark, jagged gems dropped neatly onto the sheets, perfectly appearing from the teleportation circle hidden beneath it.
Max blinked once.
He checked the link again out of reflex. Kairu was still down in the dungeon. Still moving. Still occupied. The slime hadn't come back, and hadn't even tried to. He had simply sent the haul up and gone right back to whatever he had been doing.
For a second, Max just stood there looking at the gems.
For Kairu to choose, entirely on his own, to stay behind instead of returning meant he was finally comfortable. Worse, it meant he was actually having fun. But more than anything, it meant that the slime finally believed Max was safe enough on his own to leave him be.
Which was deeply ironic, Max mused, that his familiar trusted his survival skills more than Freya did. But then again, Kairu was a Level 3 familiar now. Independence was to be expected.
The thought pulled the faintest smile from Max before he could stop it.
Good, he thought.
That quiet realization landed somewhere deeper than he expected. He let out a slow breath, then pushed a brief, fond response back through the link.
Be careful, buddy.
The answering pulse was immediate and cheerful enough to feel almost offended by the warning.
Max huffed a quiet laugh through his nose and cut the connection.
Crossing the room, he started gathering the gems by hand. They were heavier than they looked, all sharp edges and ugly shine, clacking together softly as he dropped them into his storage pouch. Out of pure, idle curiosity, he left a few sitting on the mattress, turning one over between his fingers for a second longer than necessary before deciding to just keep them as samples.
He didn't bother counting the rest. That was Hermes's job.
Max turned and headed back downstairs.
-◈ -
Raymond
Standing silently by the wall of his own office, Raymond watched the Messenger God wait.
The conversational looseness Hermes usually wore like a second skin was entirely gone. The deity sat slightly forward in his chair, his posture carrying the tense, focused anticipation of a man sitting on death row.
Raymond kept his expression carefully neutral, but his mind was racing with a healthy load of suspicion. Many of the elite merchants operating within the big familias knew about Hermes's quiet connection to the Guild. His role as their shadow associate for sensitive, miscellaneous items was an open secret among the right people. So, when Hermes had bypassed standard channels to approach him directly about Maximus's "unusual find," Raymond knew immediately that this was not regular dungeon loot.
After swiftly securing permission from his goddess, Raymond had invited the deity inside, offering him his own chair as befitting his station, before heading upstairs to fetch the boy.
As a man who kept his hands carefully balanced in both the light and black markets of Orario, Raymond's mind had already run through dozens of parties who would eagerly pay a literal fortune for a single sample. They wouldn't even need to know what the gems did — the mere fact that the Guild was acting this secretive and desperate was enough to drive the price into the sky.
If he were a lesser man, he would have easily turned to the shadier parts of the city and made a massive, untraceable fortune for both himself and Maximus.
But Raymond was a dutiful servant of his Goddess. He had not entertained the thought. He had simply summoned the boy and presented him to the god as requested, though he was deeply eager to see how the meeting would unfold. He had anticipated a highly delicate situation, knowing exactly how dangerous it was for an adventurer with secrets to negotiate with a god. It was a well-known, absolute truth in Orario that it was impossible for a mortal to deceive a deity.
He knew Hermes well. The god acted carefree, but underneath, he was terrifyingly shrewd. Raymond had fully expected the deity to leverage his divine perception and talk circles around the young adventurer.
Instead, what had just happened had completely surprised him. He certainly had not expected Maximus to instantly catch the scent of Hermes's hidden desperation and calmly talk his way into such a violently favorable deal.
As a merchant, Raymond's own mind had supplied several aggressive tactics to squeeze even more Valis out of the Guild, but he had dismissed them as too dangerous. Usually, pushing the Guild this hard resulted in forced asset seizure without compensation, or an immediate blacklist. But watching Maximus operate, Raymond realized the normal rules didn't apply to him. Their mistress had taken a distinct, heavy interest in the boy, giving him a political shield the Guild can not take lightly.
As his thoughts settled, the office door clicked open.
Maximus walked in. He didn't bother with a dramatic buildup or a polite reintroduction. He walked straight to the desk, opened his pouch, and inverted it.
The gems cascaded onto the polished wood.
Raymond inhaled sharply, his professional mask slipping for a fraction of a second. It wasn't just a handful. It was a sprawling, clattering pile of dark crystal that sounded entirely too heavy for the quiet room. There had to be over a hundred of them!
Hermes didn't gasp. Instead, his easy, friendly persona evaporated instantly, replaced by a cold, clinical sharpness. Without a word, the god reached into his coat and produced a pair of thick, wyvern-hide gloves. He pulled them on meticulously, then produced a set of long steel tongs.
Raymond felt a chill run down his spine. He had expected caution, but Hermes was treating the stones like a highly volatile monster. A bomb waiting to go off. He refused to let the gems touch even the gloved leather, using only the tips of the tongs to separate them. Whatever these things really were, they must be terrifying.
Maximus watched the display with an eyebrow raised, keeping his amusement to himself.
"One hundred and three," Hermes breathed finally.
He used the tongs to sweep the very last gem into a specialized, lead-lined bag on the desk, pulling the drawstrings tight with palpable relief. He looked up, his eyes doing the mental math, and a distinct wince broke through his serious facade.
"Which, at two point five million apiece," Maximus said pleasantly, leaning casually against the edge of the desk, "comes out to two hundred and fifty-seven point five million Valis. Tax-free."
Hermes slumped back into his chair. The clinical expert vanished, replaced instantly by the aggrieved, exhausted administrator. He rubbed his temples with gloved fingers.
"Maximus," Hermes groaned, "that is a staggering amount of liquid capital. Even for the Guild, consolidating that much untraceable cash on such short notice is going to take time. It's a logistical nightmare."
Raymond knew it was a bluff. The Guild had a monopoly on the mint; they could materialize that kind of money in a day.
"I understand the bottleneck, Lord Hermes," Maximus said smoothly, offering an understanding nod. "So, I have a better idea."
Hermes lowered his hands, eyeing the boy with a sudden, wary suspicion. "I am suddenly terrified."
"I'm in the market for high-grade armaments," Maximus explained, crossing his arms. "I need precious metals. Orichalcum, Adamantite, Mythril. If the Guild can provide me with a bulk supply of those three, I'd be willing to waive a massive chunk of the cash payout. Say... a hundred million Valis worth."
By the wall, Raymond went entirely rigid. He was essentially demanding the Guild hand over their most fiercely guarded, scarce resources directly from the strategic reserves.
But even as the shock hit him, Raymond's merchant brain did the math, and his awe only grew. With Evilus currently plunging the supply lines into chaos, the true market worth of those three metals was easily fifty percent higher — if not double — their usual listed cost. Maximus wasn't just waiving debt; he was securing appreciating assets that were functionally priceless right now.
Hermes sat up straight, his face hardening into absolute, uncompromising authority.
"Impossible," the god said, his voice ringing with righteous finality. "Maximus, the city is in a dire situation. Yes, the Guild want the gems, but that does not mean you can exploit our current vulnerability to strip away the most critical, highly restricted resources we possess."
Maximus didn't flinch. He held the god's gaze for a long moment, as if carefully measuring something.
"Then let me be direct," he said finally, his tone dropping low and even. "I came here willing to sell. I still am. But if the Guild considers these metals more valuable than keeping a hundred and three of those gems off the open market permanently — then I'll accept that answer. I'm sure I can find other interested parties."
He let the implication settle without elaborating.
Hermes's expression didn't change. But his eyes moved — once, briefly — to the lead-lined bag on the desk.
Raymond watched the god absorb that. From where he stood, he suspected he could guess exactly what Hermes was calculating: the political cost of pulling restricted metals from Ouranos's reserves against the far larger catastrophe of those gems circulating freely through Orario's black market, Evilus supply chains, or worse. It was not a comfortable equation.
"You're asking me to requisition from the strategic reserve," Hermes said at last. His voice had lost the righteous edge. What replaced it was quieter, and somehow more serious. "Do you understand what that means politically?"
"I understand it means the Guild values the gems enough to make it work," Maximus replied simply.
A silence stretched between them, the kind that had real weight to it.
Then Hermes let out a long, slow breath — not the theatrical groan from before, but something that sounded genuinely tired — and leaned forward.
"One hundred and fifty million off the total," he said. "A guaranteed, sizable supply of all three ores from the reserve. That is my ceiling, Maximus. I mean that."
Maximus studied him for a second.
Then he extended his hand across the desk.
"Done."
Hermes reached out on pure reflex, but froze halfway. The god blinked, looking down at the thick wyvern-hide gloves still covering his fingers. Treating them with the same intense wariness as the gems themselves, he immediately pulled his hand back. He meticulously peeled the gloves off by the cuffs and sealed them away into a separate, isolated pouch inside his coat.
Only then did he extend his bare hand and shake Maximus's firmly.
From his vantage point by the wall, Raymond caught a distinct hint of genuine respect gleaming in the god's eyes.
Raymond found himself nodding in silent agreement. Anyone who had the sheer gall to back the Guild into a corner, stare down a deity, and walk away with the city's most restricted resources deserved exactly that. In fact, watching the boy operate gave the merchant a sudden idea. If the opportunity arose, he would formally petition their mistress to let the boy learn under him. Maximus clearly had the raw instincts and the nerve; he just needed to be taught the broader knowledge of the world, its markets, and its intricate tales to truly sharpen his edge into a weapon.
With the heavy business finally concluded, the oppressive atmosphere in the room evaporated like mist.
Hermes brightened instantly. The exhausted pragmatist vanished, and his signature carefree smirk snapped effortlessly back into place.
"Well then!" the god declared, clapping his hands together and standing up. "Since you are now a remarkably wealthy man, Maximus, I believe it's only fair that you treat me to a hearty meal at the Hostess of Fertility to soothe my wounded pride."
Maximus chuckled, shaking his head as he gestured toward the open office door. "No need to go all the way there. We have a mini Hostess right upstairs. Come on, I'll show you to the dining area."
Hermes's eyes lit up at the prospect, and he happily let the young adventurer lead the way out of the office.
Raymond let out a quiet breath, finally detaching himself from the wall to follow them out. As the adrenaline of the high-stakes negotiation faded from his system, his stomach gave a polite, demanding rumble. He had only eaten a light breakfast that morning, and after witnessing a deal of that magnitude, he decided he definitely needed his fill of brunch.
-◈ -
Celty
The sharp, deafening crack of displaced air left a high, thin ringing in her sensitive ears.
The corridor reeked violently of ozone and flash-fried monster ash.
For a long moment, the absolute silence in the dungeon tunnel felt heavier than the explosion itself. Celty stood perfectly still, staring at the smoking, blackened trench carved deeply into the stone. Her mind, naturally analytical and fiercely sharp, was already tearing the event apart. That hadn't been a crude magic sword that shattered upon use. The ring had perfectly channeled, condensed, and unleashed a tier of destructive magic that defied standard logic.
Her innate elven thirst for knowledge flared, a hot, bright itch in her palms. Her fingers literally twitched with the sudden, overwhelming urge to snatch the ring from the Pallum's trembling hand, dissect the engravings, and map the magical pathways inside it.
She forced a slow breath into her lungs, locking her arms at her sides, and let her fingers brush against the pockets where her own set of rings rested.
That exact brand of consuming, obsessive curiosity was what had turned the elves of her home village into monsters in her eyes. She refused to walk that path. Instead, she deliberately shifted her focus to the practical implications.
The simple fact that the Pallum's ring was still completely intact changed everything. Magic swords inevitably shattered into useless fragments when their spell was spent. These rings, however, were clearly forged from materials strong enough to withstand the violent, concentrated output of advanced magic without warping or cracking. A sudden, intense eagerness washed over her. Now that she knew they weren't a bluff, she couldn't wait to test her own set in combat. She only hoped that, when they finally hit the market, they would be cheaper than standard magic swords.
To fully ground herself, she looked away from the smoking trench and glanced at Ryuu.
Her fellow elf was staring at the scorched wall, her usual unshakeable stoicism completely fractured by genuine disbelief. Celty respected Ryuu's blunt honesty more than anyone else's in the world, and seeing her this visibly stunned spoke volumes about the sheer absurdity of what had just happened. In the front, Alise slowly lowered her rapier, blinking rapidly to clear the afterimage of the blast from her eyes.
It was Gojo who broke the heavy silence.
"I'd give the stance a solid seven," he remarked casually, his tone entirely unbothered by the sheer annihilation of the corridor. "But the raw, unadulterated overkill definitely gets a ten. Good job."
He reached up and patted Lili on the head.
Lili, still frozen with her small arm extended, turned to look at him with an expression caught somewhere between indignation and profound shock. Then, very slowly, something that might have been pride crept into the corners of her mouth despite her best efforts to suppress it.
As they finally moved on, the sheer shock of the rings settled into a quiet, hyper-focused vigilance. They made excellent time through the rest of the Upper Floors. Fortunately, the monster spawns were unusually sparse, and the few Killer Ants and Needle Rabbits that did emerge were quickly and ruthlessly dismantled by the vanguard.
When they finally hit the tenth floor, the dungeon's architecture widened into a massive intersection, and a pack of heavily muscled Orcs spawned from the bedrock.
"Ah," Gojo announced, his tone brightening in a way that was entirely too cheerful for the wall of muscle walking toward them. "My partners in crime! Watch carefully everyone, this might help you when you face an orc as well."
Before Alise could issue a command, and before Iska or Neze could even heft their weapons, he stepped smoothly out of formation.
The lead Orc swung first. It was a wide, brutal overhead strike with enough raw weight behind it to split stone. Gojo swayed left by a fraction of an inch, letting the crude weapon pass close enough to ruffle his white hair, and drove a single, compact punch into the side of the creature's jaw.
The crack of impact was sharp and final. The Orc folded sideways and hit the floor without so much as a grunt, completely unconscious before it landed.
He was already moving to the next one.
What followed was less a battle and more a systematic dismantling. He didn't dodge dramatically. He didn't posture. He simply moved with an economy of motion that bordered on insulting, slipping inside each swing at the last possible moment and hitting with the focused precision of a man treating a life-or-death brawl like a morning stretch. The commentary he kept up throughout did nothing to make the display less unsettling.
"Terrible posture on this one," he observed, redirecting a wild haymaker and countering with a short elbow strike that dropped the Orc in a heap. "Leads with the shoulder, telegraphs everything."
"This one's actually decent," he admitted, blocking a faster swing with his forearm and responding with two quick strikes to the ribs that produced an ugly, echoing crunch. "Better instincts. Still lost though."
Celty watched with her staff half-raised and found she genuinely had no reason to lower it further than that. Neither did anyone else. Within the span of a few minutes, every Orc in the corridor was on the floor.
The only person breathing hard was Neze. The werewolf had flinched into a feral combat stance twice out of pure reflex, only to find her targets already unconscious, and was now crossing her arms, visibly annoyed that her prey had been stolen so effortlessly. Iska let out a low whistle, her Amazonian respect for pure physical dominance overriding any irritation.
Lyra had her arms crossed. Her expression was perfectly neutral in the way that meant she was actively working to keep it that way.
Gojo dusted off his hands, surveyed the pile of unconscious monsters with the mild satisfaction of a man who had just finished a mundane errand, and rejoined the formation without ceremony.
"Peer review complete," he said simply, by way of explanation.
Celty had to admit, watching a man engage in near-suicidal brawls with a smile on his face somehow brought a strange sense of relief to the dive. Between his absurd combat methods and detached comedy, the oppressive gloom of the dungeon barely seemed to register.
By the time they reached the threshold of the Middle Floors, however, the environment had fundamentally changed. The air turned damp and heavy, smelling distinctly of sulfur and wet earth, signaling the beginning of the dungeon's poison and abnormal ailment hazards.
Alise called a halt in a quiet corridor just before Floor 13 to let everyone catch their breath. Knowing the dive was only going to get exponentially more dangerous, she quickly instructed the group to shift from their rigid diamond into a looser V-formation better suited for the winding, unpredictable cave networks ahead.
As they reorganized, Gojo suddenly shrugged off his heavy outer coat.
Underneath, he wore a sleek, fitted black uniform that offered absolutely no restriction to his movement. Without a word, he draped the massive coat directly over Lili, who was still securely perched on his shoulder. The heavy fabric swallowed the tiny Pallum almost entirely, leaving only the top of her head and her wide, startled eyes visible above the collar.
She sat very still for a moment.
Then, with the careful, deliberate dignity of someone trying desperately not to look affected by an act of casual kindness, she reached up and pulled the lapels slightly closer around herself.
"Keep it on," Gojo told her, adjusting the collar. "The material is heavily woven for Abnormal Resistance. I know I gave you a potion to counter the Purple Moths earlier, but the Middle Floors love their poison and ash hazards. That will keep your lungs and skin clear."
Lili didn't answer immediately. She just looked straight ahead, her small hands gripping the fabric tight. Her expression was composed in the careful way of someone who had decided not to say something they might regret.
"...Understood," she said finally, her voice barely a whisper.
Before anyone could comment on the generosity of handing over high-tier defensive gear to a stranger, Gojo reached into his pockets. He produced several small crystal vials filled with a softly glowing, ethereal blue liquid.
"Mind Potions, everyone!" Gojo announced, slipping effortlessly back into his suspicious salesman persona. He tossed them around the group. "Courtesy of my supplier. Drink up. I need my commission."
Celty caught hers effortlessly. She uncorked the vial, gave it a cautious sniff, and took a sip.
Her eyes immediately widened, sparkling with genuine academic excitement. Most mind restoratives were notoriously bitter, leaving a heavy, unpleasant residue on the tongue due to the volatile magic agents. But this tasted completely different.
"It's crisp," she noted aloud, fascinated. "Like mint and cold spring water. The distillation process must be immaculate to remove the magical aftertaste so cleanly."
As she took another sip, her sharp senses caught something else. The liquid was distinctly thicker than a standard potion, carrying a very faint, almost imperceptible gel-like consistency as it coated her throat. She didn't point it out to the others, but her mind eagerly filed the anomaly away. In addition to testing the rings, she was now incredibly eager to eventually meet the enigmatic merchant capable of brewing something this alchemically complex.
Beside her, Neze knocked the potion back like a shot of cheap tavern ale. The werewolf scrunched her nose, her ears twitching in disgust. "Ugh. Smells weird. Goes down like sweet slime," she grumbled, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Then she blinked, her eyes widening as she shook her head. "Damn. Kicks fast, though. My head feels like it just woke up from a nap."
"Too sweet," Iska agreed bluntly, tossing her empty vial in her hand. The Amazoness smirked, rolling her broad shoulders. "Needs more burn. I prefer stamina potions, but I won't argue with the juice."
It was Maryuu, however, who truly appreciated what they had just consumed. The healer hadn't gulped hers down; she was gently swirling the remaining liquid in the vial, studying its luminescence with a deeply critical eye.
"The stabilization is incredible," Maryuu murmured, her gentle voice laced with professional awe. "It restores Mind without sending a shock through the nervous system. Usually, a potion this potent causes a momentary spike in heart rate, but this is entirely smooth." She looked up, fixing Gojo with a sharp, inquisitive stare. "Who exactly is this supplier of yours?"
Gojo merely tapped the side of his nose with a secretive smile, pulling out his small notebook to dutifully jot down their reactions. Once he tucked the notebook away, he rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck with a quiet, deliberate crack.
Celty noticed the shift before she consciously processed it.
Without the heavy coat, his entire silhouette had changed. The broad, unhurried ease of a sightseeing tourist was gone. What replaced it was something leaner and considerably more lethal. The posture wasn't tense—it was simply ready, in the terrifying way that certain predators were ready. It was as though combat wasn't a mode he switched into, but a natural state he merely allowed to surface.
Alise raised her hand. The formation tightened. The advance into Floor 13 began.
Celty tightened her grip on her staff and kept her eyes forward, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end.
She had a feeling the Dungeon was about to find out it had been considerably more patient with this man than it needed to be.
-◈ -
Max
After finishing a heavy brunch in the dining hall and spending another hour trading veiled, exhausting banter with Hermes, Max finally took his leave. He told Raymond to notify him the second the metals and the money were secured, then made his way upstairs.
Stepping into his room, he locked the door and leaned against the wood for a moment, letting out a long breath. Negotiating with a deity had taken a quiet, psychological toll, and he was glad for the silence.
He reached out through his mental links to ground himself.
A quick check confirmed Gojo was making effortless work of the Upper Floors. The feedback through the connection was smooth, relaxed, and entirely under control. Satisfied, Max let Independent Action take the reins completely.
Before pulling his focus back to his room, he extended a second thread of awareness to check on Kairu.
He found Kairu instantly. The slime was deep—pushing well past Floor 12 and into the Cave Labyrinth. Yet the feedback Max received was overwhelmingly positive. In fact, Max noted with a wry smile, the slime was arguably in better shape than he was. Max's recently depleted magic had just recovered from his regen while his familiar felt full even after hours of diving.
I wonder just how deep he's planning to go, Max mused, genuinely impressed. He mentally shrugged it off; Kairu knew his limits, and the Devourer skill was clearly putting in the work.
Use the teleportation network to come back once you are satisfied, buddy, Max sent through the link.
Ki! A bright, affirmative pulse snapped back immediately.
I'm about to run some tests on those weird gems you brought back, Max added, eyeing the few resting on his mattress. Wish me luck. I have a feeling I'm going to need it.
Ki-ki! The response was warm and vibrated with unconditional encouragement, as if the slime were waving tiny, gelatinous pseudopods from the middle floors.
Max chuckled, the sound loud in the quiet suite. The wholesome exchange cleared the last of the diplomatic fatigue from his mind, sharpening his focus into something cold and analytical. He let the active connection fade into a passive hum and walked over to the mattress.
He had a mystery to solve.
Max sat in his chair, turning one of the dark crystals over in his hands. He couldn't shake the image of Hermes meticulously pulling on those wyvern-hide gloves—the clinical, almost fearful refusal to let the stones touch even the leather. It hadn't been theatrical caution; it was the behavior of a man who knew he was handling live ordnance.
Max realized then that he couldn't afford to wait. Kairu was still down in the dungeon, likely collecting another pocketful of these things with a cheerful, dangerous lack of concern. If these were bombs, he needed to know exactly how they were triggered.
He started with raw force, closing his fist and applying a crushing grip that would have shattered a normal gem. The stone didn't give a fraction of a millimeter. Frowning, he drew his slime-forged sword and brought the blade down against the crystal with a heavy, focused strike.
With a sharp, jarring crack, the blade—hardened to the level of a standard-tier weapon—snapped clean in half.
Max froze, staring at the completely flawless gem. A cold spike of alarm moved through him. Natural durability was one thing, but a stone that could effortlessly shrug off that much kinetic energy without a single scratch was an impossibility. If it wouldn't respond to the physical, the trigger had to be magical.
Taking a deep breath to center himself, Max mentally prepped a teleportation anchor—a safety net to dump the gem onto the twenty-second floor if it detonated. Only then did he let a thin, concentrated thread of his demonic power coil around his index finger and press it against the gem's surface.
The reaction was instantaneous and terrifyingly violent.
The stone didn't just absorb the magic; it lunged. It latched onto his circuit like a starving animal, and Max gasped as a sudden, aggressive force tried to rip the magical reserves straight out of his core. It was a predatory, invasive pull that set his entire nervous system on fire. In the back of his mind, his Auto-Evade screamed—a blaring alarm of imminent, fatal danger.
Refusing to be prey, Max acted on pure instinct. He abandoned finesse and flooded his hand with the Power of Destruction.
The thick aura of erasure collided with the stone's drain, wrestling the force to a grinding halt. The room lit up with a piercing, sickly green glow as the gem fought back. Peering into the core, Max saw it: for a fraction of a second, a pulsing, organic seed was taking shape, desperately trying to root its tendrils into his magic core. It wasn't just feeding; it was hollowing him out to move in.
Before the parasite could anchor, his Destruction found it. The PoD swept through the stone with merciless efficiency, scouring the anomaly from existence. A sharp crack echoed through the room as the backlash incinerated a wide circle of the plush carpet beneath his chair.
Max jolted back, dropping the now-cracked stone to the floor.
He sat there in the sudden, ringing quiet, his heart hammering against his ribs. The adrenaline was immense—the particular cold flood of understanding exactly how close he had just come to a permanent, soul-deep mistake. He stared at the ruined crystal on the floor, waiting for his breathing to steady. Cautiously, he prodded the gem with a microscopic sliver of power. There was a deep resonance—a vast hum of stored magic—but the corruptive, hungry intent was gone. Whatever had been living inside was erased.
Max let out a long, shuddering breath and leaned back, his mind finally beginning to connect the dots. The quiet that followed was the heavy kind that comes after a genuine scare, a realization that felt worse than the encounter itself.
These weren't rare minerals. They were engineered.
Someone had built these leeches to survive extreme force and resist casual examination, knowing they would eventually be found by adventurers. They were traps designed to wait for the moment a curious mage or explorer tried to identify them with magic. At that moment, the parasite would root, and the victim would be drained dry from the inside out.
The full weight of the situation settled uncomfortably in his chest. Someone had planted them on purpose, knowing they would be found. And Max had just sold a hundred and three of them to the Guild.
He sat with that thought for a moment longer than was comfortable, the silence of the room suddenly feeling oppressive. Then, a soft knock at the door severed his train of thought.
Max blinked. He pushed himself out of the chair, hurriedly dusted the ash from his trousers, and opened the door.
Hogni stood in the corridor. The dark elf had his hood down—a small but distinct improvement from their last encounter—but the moment he saw Max's pale face and tense shoulders, the executive's posture stiffened completely.
"M-Max?" Hogni frowned, his voice laced with immediate concern. "Is... is something the matter? You look unwell."
Max glanced over his shoulder at the charred, smoking carpet, then back to the elf with a tired exhale. "Just a minor experiment gone wrong. Nothing to worry about."
Hogni looked past him at the ruined floor, then back to Max. He held the look for a long, heavy moment, his expression making it abundantly clear that he did not consider a carpet fire 'minor' in the slightest. But the dark elf didn't press the issue, respectfully letting it drop.
Max rubbed his eyes. "Did you come up to get me for the dungeon?"
Hogni gave a slow nod.
Max let out a quiet sigh. He was in absolutely no mood to go into the dungeon right now. Between Gojo escorting Astrea Familia through the Upper Floors and Kairu hunting aggressively in the Middle Floors, he was already crowding the dungeon enough for one day. He had no desire to throw a third piece of himself into the mix.
But he needed to move. He needed to hit something real to burn off the cold adrenaline still sitting in his veins like lead.
"Actually," Max said, "instead of heading into the dungeon today, is it possible for us to spar here?"
"Spar?" Hogni repeated, blinking. An unsure expression settled over his face, his eyes shifting away as if he were carefully weighing the request.
Max watched him, guessing the hesitation. Hogni was likely considering the sheer efficiency of dungeon diving for acquiring excelia; sparring didn't offer the same raw stat growth as killing monsters.
Quickly gathering his wits, Max leaned forward, dropping his voice into a conspiratorial whisper. "If you're thinking about stat growth... I leveled up. I managed to get a solid hold of my new stats during our last dive. Right now, what I really need is to improve my actual technique with a blade."
He left the rest unsaid. He didn't need to point out that Hogni was arguably one of the greatest swordsmen in the familia. The implication hung perfectly in the air between them—an unspoken acknowledgment of the dark elf's absolute expertise.
Hogni caught the meaning immediately. He thought about it for a second longer, a faint, proud flush touching his dark cheeks, before nodding eagerly. "In th-that case, I would be h-happy to help."
"Perfect," Max said, feeling a genuine wave of relief.
Together, they turned and made their way down the corridor toward the executive training room. Max cracked his knuckles as they walked, the cold weight of engineered parasites and planted traps still sitting somewhere in the back of his mind.
Right now, he needed a sword to master.
--> Devil in a Dungeon <--
AN:
Phew, managed to reach where I wanted to be. The chapter is a mix bag of everything with Max's galaxy brained move to get precious metals instead of money to his experimentation with the gem he sold and the dungeon dives... Definitely a rollercoaster of back and forth.
For those wondering, the gem Max gave to Raymond was included in 103 and I honestly thought of making it 106 or 109, or even 111 but we can't have all of them...
Also Max pov was earlier than where Celty's ended, that's why he says Gojo is in Upper Floors. In the next chapter, we will jump into the big day. Looking forward to that!!
As always, don't forget to share your thoughts on the story in a review/comment.
If you'd like to read 8 chapters ahead(around 40k words), support my work, or commission a story idea, visit p.a.t.r.e.o.n.c.o.m/b3smash.
Please note that the chapters are early access only, they will be eventually released here as well.
Next update will be on Friday.
Ben, Out.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.