Hogni
Max pushed open the heavy doors of the training ground and stepped aside to let Hogni enter.
As the Dark Elf crossed the threshold, he stopped dead in his tracks.
The arena looked like it had been subjected to a localized catastrophe. The packed dirt of the track was violently gouged. Several of the massive, magically reinforced testing boulders had been reduced to smoking rubble. But what drew Hogni's eye immediately was the center of the room—a massive, blackened crater where a chunk of the floor had simply been erased from existence.
Hogni stood very still, his sharp senses sweeping the room methodically. The residual mana in the air was dense and layered. He identified the scorched, acrid bite of Allen's infernos in the older burn marks, and the pulverized dust near the walls that bore the heavier, coordinated signature of the Gullivers working in tandem. His jaw tightened before he could stop it, the familiar, low simmer of competitive frustration rising quietly in his chest. They were training and improving while he had been—
His mind caught itself.
He paused, actually looking at the room this time rather than simply reacting to it. His eyes moved deliberately from the scorched patches Allen favored to the pulverized boulders the brothers typically demolished, and then settled, slowly, on the crater at the center of the room.
That, he could not attribute to either of them.
The mana signature there was entirely different. Heavy, dark, and carrying a quality that didn't belong to any technique he had catalogued from the Familia's regulars. It was far too clean for Allen's explosive temper, and far too concentrated for the brothers' broad, coordinated strikes. This room was specifically built to absorb Level 4 punishment without complaint. For the floor itself to be missing meant whatever had happened here had pushed comfortably to that threshold and then pressed just a fraction beyond it.
His brow furrowed slowly as the weight of that deduction settled in.
Not everything in this room was Allen and the Gullivers. Most of it, perhaps. But not that crater and the rock.
He turned, glancing over his shoulder.
The boy was studying the ceiling with an expression of complete, innocent detachment, as though the catastrophic state of the room had absolutely nothing to do with him whatsoever.
Hogni looked at the crater. Then at Max. Then at the crater again.
A quiet suspicion he had been carrying since their dive resurfaced, settling in his chest with a new and considerable weight. A standard level up produced measurable, expected growth—parameters that climbed within a known range, instincts that sharpened incrementally. What he had been quietly observing in the boy since his return did not feel standard in the slightest. He hadn't pressed the matter before, and standing here now, looking at a crater that simply shouldn't exist, he felt the wisdom of that restraint reaffirm itself completely.
He decided, once again, not to ask.
Whatever Max had done in here was clearly nothing to be concerned about in a dangerous sense. If anything, it only quietly confirmed what Hogni had already begun to privately accept—that the boy's growth was operating on a trajectory that defied every rule he knew. He filed the observation away, letting out a slow breath, and turned toward the pristine weapons rack lining the far wall. The familiar comfort of blades and the purposeful clarity of teaching took over, as they always did.
"If we are to hone your edge," Hogni began, his posture straightening as he reached out and lifted a heavy Greatsword from its mount. His voice deepened, the stutter smoothing out as the Dark King took over. "We must first understand the vessel of your wrath."
He gave the massive blade a slow, deliberate test swing, displacing the air heavily. "There are those who seek only ruin. They favor the crushing weight, seeking lethality over efficiency. But lethality without precision is simply a slow death wearing an aggressive face."
He slid the Greatsword back into place and rested a hand on his own scabbard. "My body is built for sweeping, rapid motion. Long reach, fluid transitions." He drew Victim Abyss a fraction of an inch, the dark violet steel swallowing the ambient light coldly before he let it click shut. "Thus, I wield a longsword. The blade must match the soul, and the body must honestly dictate the art."
With that principle laid down, he walked Max slowly down the length of the rack, briefly touching each weapon in turn. The arming sword, compact and versatile. The bastard sword, its broader blade suited comfortably for both one and two hands. The heavy sabre, built for aggressive slashing momentum.
For each sword, Hogni gave a short, precise account of its strengths and natural limitations, which body types it rewarded and which fighting philosophies it quietly punished over time. He watched Max listen carefully, absorbing everything without interruption, and felt the quiet satisfaction of teaching someone who actually wanted to learn.
Hogni turned to face him. "Your movements, both in the Baptism and the dungeon, are linear. Piercing. You rely on sudden, violent acceleration to bridge the gap." He gestured toward the lighter end of the rack. "Select your instrument."
Max reached out without deliberation and pulled down a rapier, testing its balance.
Hogni observed the choice with a solemn nod of approval. "A piercing fang. It suits your tempo well." He glanced briefly at Max's build and the way he naturally settled into the grip. "However, if you ever find yourself managing multiple opponents at once, an arming sword or a bastard sword will serve you better—the broader blade gives you sweeping coverage you currently lack. But for a straight fight, the rapier is right."
With the selection made, they moved to a relatively intact section of the arena floor. What followed was a masterclass stripped of all theatrics, which was exactly how Hogni preferred to teach. He demonstrated stances first, showing Max how to distribute his weight to absorb impact without sacrificing his ability to immediately move afterward. He covered deflection angles, explaining how a small shift in wrist position could redirect a crushing strike rather than contest it directly, using the attacker's own momentum to guide the blade harmlessly past.
"Do not fight the weight of the strike," Hogni instructed. As Max threw a sudden, accelerated thrust, Hogni stepped cleanly inside the guard and tapped the flat of Max's rapier off-center with his sheathed sword, effortlessly throwing him off balance. "Guide the momentum into the emptiness beside you."
Max absorbed the corrections quickly. His new stats made executing the forms fluid, and he was already instinctively applying logic he had picked up from Trent and Alfrigg—shifting his weight against crushing strikes, adjusting his grip ahead of a committed thrust, targeting weak points over armored ones.
The forms were rough and self-taught, but the underlying logic was genuinely sound. Hogni simply provided a clean, deliberate framework for those raw instincts to operate within, and watched them immediately begin to sharpen into something considerably more dangerous.
After an extended, grueling session that left Max's lungs burning and his arms heavy, Hogni called a natural pause. They separated, the sharp ring of steel fading into a comfortable silence as Hogni stepped back and leaned against an intact boulder, one hand settling thoughtfully on his scabbard while they both caught their breath.
"Some blades carry more than their edge," Hogni said after a moment, his voice losing its lecture cadence. He drew Victim Abyss fully and held the dark steel level between them, the blade seeming to swallow the light around it. "Hedin's Dizaria acts as a magical conduit—a mage's staff and a blade in one." He paused, his silver-green eyes settling heavily on Max's face. "And then there are cursed blades. Like this one."
His grip tightened on the hilt, almost involuntarily.
"This blade inflicts wounds that standard magic cannot close. A lingering death," Hogni said quietly, and let the implication sit in the air between them.
If you are asking about the cut Valletta dealt me, Max realized, catching the underlying, fearful intent beneath the dark elf's careful words.
"You noticed, then," Max said softly, pointing a finger to his own left cheek, exactly where the assassin's blade had grazed him.
Hogni's ears dropped immediately. A heavy, guilty breath escaped him before he could stop it. He had carried that particular weight since Floor 14, and hearing it confirmed out loud made it land all over again. "I... I failed to intercept her completely. The witch's venom halts the flesh's memory. It does not heal. I feared you were hiding the wound beneath an illusion."
"Hey." Max stepped forward and put a hand firmly on his shoulder, cutting him off before the spiral could deepen. "Don't worry about it, buddy. I managed to heal it. It genuinely isn't a problem anymore."
Hogni looked up with open incredulity. He had seen Max's flawless cheek with his own eyes, but hearing the claim stated so plainly broke every rule of magical theory he understood. Valletta's curse was notoriously, permanently irreversible. No potion, no high-level chant, no elven elixir had ever successfully purged it once it took hold with only one exception.
As if reading his doubt clearly, Max extended his hand, pointing casually toward the exposed edge of Victim Abyss. "Want me to prove it? Let me graze the edge of your sword."
Hogni flinched, pulling the scabbard back defensively with a sharp, horrified gasp. The dark steel clicked safely out of reach. "N-no!" the dark elf stammered, his eyes wide with a rare, undisguised panic. "Y-you must never touch this blade! The curse is absolute!"
Max swallowed hard, reading the raw terror on the elf's face instantly. He had pushed Hogni's deeply protective instincts far past their limit with a single thoughtless joke, and he felt a sharp stab of genuine guilt for it. He raised both hands immediately in a placating gesture.
"Ok. Ok," Max breathed, keeping his hands high and his voice steady. "I understand. Bad joke, Hogni. I'm sorry. I'll show you the other way."
Reaching down with deliberate calm, Max picked up his own standard training rapier. Without hesitating, he dragged the tip lightly across his left palm, wincing slightly as a thin bead of blood welled up from the clean cut.
"Watch," he said softly.
Hogni forced his panic down with visible effort, his chest still heaving as he watched Max hold the bleeding palm upward. A thin, concentrated film of black-red energy spread slowly across the wound without a single spoken word or chant. The erasure magic simply found the injury, and a moment later the cut was gone entirely, leaving nothing but unmarked skin as the dark energy faded into nothing.
Max turned his palm toward Hogni, showing the unblemished surface without ceremony.
Hogni stared at it in silence. As a veteran of countless battles and decades of combat, his mind quickly and automatically unspooled the raw mechanics of what he had just witnessed. It wasn't cellular regeneration. It wasn't a neutralizing agent. It was the absolute deletion of the wound itself—using a destructive, erasing force of enormous magnitude with surgical, microscopic precision to simply remove the concept of the injury from existence.
The application of it, turning pure erasure into something so exquisitely controlled, was without question one of the most brilliant and genuinely ingenious things he had witnessed in years. A dozen questions rose in his mind at once, each one pressing to be voiced first.
He opened his mouth.
"Satisfied?" Max asked with a bright, unbothered grin, lowering his hand and neatly cutting off the interrogation before it could begin. "So don't worry about me getting scratched. Speaking of special properties, actually..."
He reached into his pocket and produced a small silver ring with red enamel detailing, slipping it onto his index finger as he looked at Hogni. "Care to help me with an experiment?"
Hogni blinked, his train of thought derailed entirely by the sudden pivot. He eyed the jewelry with quiet, cautious suspicion, setting his questions reluctantly aside for the moment. "An... experiment."
Max nodded and stepped back a few paces. He raised his free hand, and a shimmering blue barrier materialized cleanly between them without a chant or a single spoken word. Hogni had long since stopped being startled by that particular habit.
"Watch the barrier," Max said simply. He raised his right hand, pointed the engraved face of the ring toward it, and pushed a pulse of magic into the band.
A sharp crack of yellow lightning erupted from the ring, tore across the training ground with the force of a thunderbolt, and detonated squarely against the barrier, scattering it in a shower of dissipating blue light.
Hogni took a measured step back, his eyes moving slowly from the lingering smoke to the small, unassuming ring still sitting on Max's finger.
"It's a prototype," Max explained, examining it with quiet satisfaction. "I'm working on a way to store complex magic inside a metallic conduit. One high-tier spell, accessible to anyone wearing it, no magical aptitude required." He looked up. "Eventually I want to put them on the market. Make the dungeon a little safer for people who can't naturally cast."
Hogni stared at him for a long moment. The scale of what the boy was casually describing—mass-producing high-tier magic for the public—took genuine time to process. He wasn't entirely certain of the feasibility, but he found himself, with a quiet and slightly unexpected warmth, wanting to help his friend find out regardless.
For the rest of the day, the training shifted from pure swordplay into integrated combat experimentation. Hogni taught, Max drilled, and the sessions blurred organically into genuine, competitive exchanges that pushed them both harder than either had initially anticipated.
Max practiced firing the rings mid-swing, learning to use the concussive recoil to adjust his footwork, while Hogni pushed the boy's newly sharpened reflexes to their limits. Max's leveled body made him fast and demanding to work against, his responses tightening visibly with each exchange, and Hogni found himself genuinely engaged rather than simply instructing.
By the time night arrived, both men were sweating and covered in dust, the particular settled satisfaction of a grueling, productive day hanging warmly in the air between them.
"I think that's enough for today," Max panted, tossing his training rapier back onto the rack. "Thanks, Hogni. I actually feel like I know what I'm doing with my feet now."
Hogni sheathed Victim Abyss with a sharp click, a rare, genuine smile touching his lips. "You adapt swiftly, Maximus. You will be a terror in the deep."
As they began making their way toward the exit doors, Max reached into his pocket one last time and placed a second red-enameled ring into Hogni's hand without ceremony.
Hogni slowed, looking down at it, then up at Max with quiet confusion. "For... me?"
"Take it," Max said simply, a warm, easy grin settling on his face. "You earned it today."
Before Hogni could respond, Max pulled out his own matching ring, pointed it toward the far wall without breaking stride, and fired. The yellow bolt cracked sharply against the stone, leaving a fresh scorch mark directly beside the morning's existing crater. He pocketed the ring and glanced back at Hogni, his expression carrying a distinctly conspiratorial light.
"Besides," Max added, his voice dropping into something almost theatrical, "lightning shouldn't be something only Hedin gets to flex. And once I perfect this—" he tapped the ring on his own finger, "—Maiden's Lament will overthrow Caelus Hildr as the most well-known lightning spell in Orario. Guaranteed."
Hogni went still.
He looked at the smoking wall. Then at the ring sitting quietly in his dark palm. An image surfaced without invitation — Hedin adjusting his glasses with that expression of effortless superiority, right up until the moment a bolt of yellow lightning bearing a name that was not his split the air between them. Hogni could only imagine the recalibration that would follow behind those calm eyes. The thought was deeply, privately satisfying.
He slipped the ring carefully onto his finger.
"S-saying the attack name aloud may take some practice," he admitted quietly, the stutter surfacing for just a moment as the genuine feeling slipped through. "But for this... I will absolutely make the effort."
Max laughed, and together they walked out into the corridor toward dinner.
-◈ -
Max
The night passed without further incident, but morning arrived with a frantic, rhythmic bouncing.
Max blinked awake to find Kairu aggressively squishing around his bedroom desk. The slime had halted at the edge of a massive, scorched part in the plush carpet, staring at the blackened marble with what could only be described as gelatinous horror.
Max rubbed the back of his neck, sitting up with a sheepish sigh. "Look, I know what you're thinking, but it actually wasn't my recklessness this time."
Through their familiar bond, Max distinctly felt the slime project an aura of pure, unimpressed skepticism. Kairu didn't have a head, but the way his semi-translucent body shifted side-to-side perfectly conveyed the universal gesture of someone shaking their head in profound, judgmental disappointment.
"Hey, I'm serious," Max protested, pointing toward the nightstand where a single, cracked dark gem rested harmlessly on the wood. "It was the loot."
Kairu's attention snapped to the stone.
"Those gems we pulled from the dragon hoard? They're engineered traps," Max explained, his tone dropping its usual levity. "The second I tried to probe that one with a sliver of magic to see what it did, a magical parasite inside woke up. It tried to latch onto my mana and hollow me out from the inside. I had to hit it with a point-blank burst of Destruction to purge the seed before it could root. Hence, the carpet."
Ki...
Kairu's annoyed posture vanished instantly. The slime slumped, his core dimming as he fell into a slow, contemplative silence. He had been the one eagerly carrying a hundred of those things in his stomach during the dive. The realization that he had been casually hauling a payload of live, parasitic bombs around his master clearly unsettled the intelligent familiar.
"Don't worry about it, buddy," Max said, quickly leaning over the bed to give the slime a reassuring pat. "We caught the trap in time, and the Guild already paid us an absolute fortune to take the rest of them off our hands."
Ki? Kairu asked, surprised.
Max's lips curved into a bright, wicked grin. "Plus, I discovered something useful. Once the biological parasite is erased, the stone itself remains perfectly intact as a high-density, hollow mana battery. Which means we can repurpose it!"
Kairu perked up slightly, his core glowing a warmer blue at the prospect of new experiments.
"Exactly," Max nodded. "We'll wire the neutralized gems into our projects. It's free real estate."
With the crisis averted and the slime's spirits lifted, Max smoothly pivoted to the rest of his updates. He recounted the previous day's events—the tense plotting and eventual shakedown of Hermes, the grueling spar with Hogni, and the successful combat debut of their rings.
"I'm calling the lightning spell Maiden's Lament," Max said, a cheeky smirk spreading across his face. "Hogni loved it. I genuinely can't wait to see Hedin's face when he realizes someone is mass-producing a spell to rival his signature."
Kairu rippled in amusement, fully recovering his cheerful demeanor. In return, the slime eagerly shared his own progress. Bounding onto the intact portion of the desk, Kairu began to recount his solo dive. This time, their communication wasn't just a vague exchange of emotions through the familiar bond. Drawing on what Max had been teaching him, Kairu extended a pseudopod and rapidly traced crude letters and numbers into the thin layer of ash on the desk.
23, the slime wrote, puffing his chest out. He had reached the twenty-third floor, hunting monsters using the new magic and Kidō spells his master had drilled into him.
"Twenty-three floors? That's incredible work, buddy," Max praised, watching the slime practically vibrate with pride. He tapped Kairu's translucent surface, and the slime obligingly shifted his internal density, emitting a heavy, muffled clinking sound. His stomach was absolutely packed with magic stones and drop items.
While Kairu unloaded the spoils into the storage bag, Max shifted his focus inward, checking the sensory feedback from his clone. Gojo was currently closing in on Floor 21. It was good, steady progress for an old-fashioned, floor-by-floor dungeon dive, even if it couldn't compare to Kairu utilizing the teleportation network to cheat the travel time.
As Max sorted the loot, he relayed his new theories to Kairu regarding Gojo's structural weaknesses.
"The magical output is bottlenecking," Max muttered, sketching a diagram in the air. "Because the drone was built entirely from physical monsters like Silverbacks and Minotaurs, it has no natural affinity for spellcasting. But if you integrate Hellhound parts into his core matrix when we do repairs, the natural fire affinity should overcompensate for the mana deficiency."
He also reviewed the combat data on Bloodprice, the menacing, cursed greatsword Gojo was currently wielding in the dungeon. It was a weapon designed to drain the wielder's vitality to fuel its power. But their workaround was performing flawlessly.
Aside from the blood splashed on him from the monsters, Gojo was taking no actual physiological damage. Because the clone's internal organs were entirely fabricated from monster parts and bound together by slime gel, Bloodprice's life-drain simply fed on the raw biomatter, which Kairu's regenerative properties immediately replaced. It was a perfect, self-sustaining loop of infinite health and infinite damage.
Energized by the flawless incoming data, the duo spent the rest of the day locked inside the suite, turning the lavish room into a full-scale magical workshop.
They worked tirelessly into the late afternoon. Max pushed his mana to the limit, mass-producing a fresh armory of rings pre-loaded with different Kidō spells and magic. Beside him, Kairu operated as the ultimate biological forge, molding the metal casings with Mystery. Together, they finally nailed down the mechanics of the new communication bracelets they were designing, ensuring the magical matrices would remain stable enough to punch signals through the dungeon's natural interference.
But Max couldn't resist dedicating an hour to something a bit more mischievous.
He engineered one final, highly specialized prototype—a "special gift" meant specifically for the Astrea Familia girls and little Lili down in the Middle Floors. It was an over-the-top, flashy experiment befitting Gojo's signature flair for dramatics. Max packaged the instructions into Gojo's Complex Protocol, a wicked smirk stretching across his face as he gave the final execution command.
I just hope Gojo's Agility is good enough, Max chuckled to himself. If he doesn't sprint out of sight the exact second the trick goes off, Ryuu and Alise are absolutely going to try and murder him for it.
As the sun began to set over Orario, casting long golden shadows across the room, Max's focus shifted away from crafting and squarely onto the true objective of the week.
It had been almost two weeks since the Loki Familia had cleared out Floor 17 on their way down. According to intel, that meant the Goliath's respawn window was wide open. The colossal Monster Rex was scheduled to drop at any moment now.
Max had absolutely no intention of missing it.
He was going to call dibs on the Goliath the exact second it pulled itself from the Wall of Grief. Slaying a Level 4 Monster Rex solo was the capstone of his entire week's planning. It was the explosive feat required to flood his Falna with enough high-quality Excelia to trigger his next Level Up.
He went down to the mess hall, consumed a massive, calorie-dense dinner to top off his stamina, packed enough dry rations to last a prolonged siege, and returned to his suite to gear up.
But as Max reached into his wardrobe to strap on his hard-scaled slime armor, his familiar intercepted him.
SQUELCH.
Kairu bounded off the desk and completely absorbed the armor right out of Max's hands.
"Hey! I was about to—"
Before Max could finish his protest, the slime's core flared with a blinding light. Devourer and Mystery whirred into overdrive. In a matter of seconds, Kairu spat out an entirely new, flawless suit of armor, neatly arranging the pieces on the foot of the bed.
Max stared at it, his jaw dropping slightly.
He picked up a greave. He didn't know the exact metallurgical or biological specifications of how his familiar had done it, but holding the gear, Max could feel the dense, overwhelming power packed into the material.
Max ran his thumb over the sleek, dark plating, admiring the faint, iridescent hexagonal patterns etched into the surface. It didn't feel like traditional forged metal. It felt like the crystallized carapace of some hyper-lethal insect Kairu had harvested in his latest dive, seamlessly fused over a dense, shock-absorbing leathery underlayer built to disperse raw kinetic impact.
The segmented architecture specifically suited the arm, leg, and shoulder armor where articulation was critical, ensuring Max wouldn't lose a fraction of his high-speed mobility. Looking at the glossy, bio-metallic sheen and feeling its near-weightless durability, Max's inner weeb immediately lit up. It felt exactly like he was wearing Zegion and Apito's ridiculously overpowered, custom-forged exoskeletons from Tensura. He was sure this thing is strong as hell.
With giddy, he strapped the new armor on. It fit like a second skin, light as a feather but solid as a vault door.
He looked down at the smiling blue puddle on the floor and gave him a deeply appreciative, respectful nod. "You're a genius, buddy. Thank you."
Ki!! Kairu beamed, hopping up to take his usual place, blending seamlessly into the sleek new shoulder plating.
With everything prepared, in a flash of red light, he bypassed the Upper Floors and Rivira entirely. The opulent luxury of Folkvangr vanished, instantly replaced by the humid, oppressive atmosphere of Floor 22.
It had only been a handful of days since his first chaotic sprint through here with Hogni, but stepping back into the dungeon felt like a jarring homecoming. The Large Tree Labyrinth was a complete departure from the dungeon's usual architecture; the bedrock and crystal of the upper floors were entirely gone.
Instead, the walls, ground, and ceiling were composed of solid, ancient wood, making it feel as though he were standing deep inside the hollowed-out veins of a colossal, subterranean tree. Rather than the standard phosphorescent dungeon crystals, thick carpets of radiating moss clung to the timber floor, casting the twisting, largely unexplored corridors in an eerie, pale blue glow.
As the heavy, damp air pressed against his new armor, a sharp, electric tingle washed over his skin, settling deep into his spine. It wasn't the agonizing burn of crossing a new depth threshold—it was an eager, pulsing heat. Max grinned as his body instantly acclimatized to the crushing density of the middle floors. Lux Tenebris was active, stretching its metaphysical jaws, perfectly priming his body to turn the hostile environment into raw, accelerated growth.
Ready to grind, Max rolled his shoulders and drew his new rapier. The dense, diverse plant life down here drew a massive variety of insect-type monsters, and a local welcoming committee—a pack of heavily armored Mad Beetles and a roaming Gun Libellula—had already turned their hostile, compound eyes toward the sudden intruder.
He wanted to get his blood pumping. This is the perfect place to warm up and hoard some high-value materials while waiting for the Goliath to spawn.
But as he casually side-stepped a high-pressure bullet from the Libellula and sliced the hovering insect cleanly in half, a massive logistical headache intruded on his battle high.
I promised Freya I'd take Hogni with me when I fight the Goliath, Max realized, driving his rapier through the carapace of a charging Mad Beetle...
If Gojo's alarm went off right now, how the hell was he supposed to get the Dark Elf down to Floor 18 in time to catch the spawn?
He briefly entertained the idea of just teleporting back, grabbing Hogni by the collar, and dragging him through the circle. It would be instantaneous. But he immediately scrapped the thought. Hogni's fragile, anxiety-ridden psyche barely survived normal social interactions. Suddenly ripping the Dark Elf through the fabric of space without warning, bypassing his unwritten reservations, and dropping him unceremoniously into the middle of the dungeon would almost certainly trigger a full-blown panic attack.
Or worse, Max winced, remembering the cratered training arena. I'd trigger a traumatic Dainsleif activation right in the middle of my bedroom.
No, ambushing the paranoid executive with a forced teleport was out of the question. He simply couldn't bear to subject the poor guy to that level of heart-stopping terror.
"I am paying a very high price for friendship," Max grumbled, channeling a burst of Destruction into his fist to erase a charging Lizardman. He checked his mental link, confirming Gojo was still holding position quietly on Floor 18
"Kairu, keep an eye out," Max sighed, preparing to blitz deeper into the cavern. "I'm going to need to figure out a very fast, very polite way to summon a Level 5 executive the moment that giant rock monkey wakes up."
-◈ -
Alise
In the middle floors, she flicked the dark blood from her rapier and let out a satisfied breath.
If asked, the Captain of the Astrea Familia would comfortably call their current expedition a resounding success. Once they had crossed the threshold into the Middle Floors, their descent had naturally slowed as the monster spawn rates spiked. Yet, strangely, the swarms weren't quite at the oppressive levels Alise was accustomed to dealing with. It made the grueling trek down to Floor 23 surprisingly manageable.
A significant part of that efficiency came down to their temporary vanguard.
When they had reached Rivira on Floor 18, Gojo had made the unilateral decision to drop Lili off at the town's only inn. It was an excellent tactical call—the environment below the safety point was entirely too hostile for a Level 1 supporter, no matter how clever she was, and forcing her down there just to watch from her perch would have been a massive liability.
With their vulnerable flank secured, Gojo had suddenly drawn a deeply menacing, jagged crimson greatsword from seemingly nowhere. Stepping up, he had effortlessly slotted into the frontline alongside Alise and Ryuu.
As a primary shield, he was an absolute wall. Alise found herself genuinely impressed by his swordsmanship. He possessed a fluid, unbothered rhythm that easily deflected crushing blows, shrugging off hits that should have staggered him and creating massive openings for her and Ryuu to exploit.
Beyond Gojo's raw frontline presence, however, was the absurd effectiveness of his "merchandise."
On their way down, they were compelled to use most of their gifted rings. The results had completely upended their standard tactical procedures. The offensive lightning rings fired with surgical precision, utterly destroying their targets while—miraculously—leaving the magic stones perfectly intact. Lyra and Lili had been positively ecstatic, sweeping up a small fortune in high-quality drops without having to dig through charred meat.
While other members had utilized the binding spells to isolate high-threat targets, freezing Minotaurs mid-swing for her and Ryuu to finish effortlessly. But the true lifesaver had been the barriers. When a massive horde of Battle Boars tried to flank their rearguard on Floor 21, Maryuu and Lyra had triggered their protective rings. The shimmering blue shields had easily absorbed the kinetic impact of the middle-floor monsters, giving Celty the precious seconds she needed to finish her concurrent chant and clear the cavern.
In one particularly chaotic choke point, little Lili had panicked and fired an offensive ring at a surging pack of Hellhounds. The resulting yellow blast had vaporized the entire pack in a single, deafening stroke.
Watching the ashes settle, Alise's tactical mind had immediately zeroed in on a fundamental question regarding the Falna system. If a Level 1 obliterates a middle-floor pack using a pre-loaded item, who receives the Excelia? The creator of the spell, or the one pulling the trigger?
She had asked Gojo right then and there.
For the first time all day, the white-haired man's carefree smile had faltered into a genuine, thoughtful frown. "It should conceptually belong to the person acting as the catalyst," Gojo had mused, rubbing his chin. "But since the magical blueprint and the raw power were manufactured externally... I'm honestly not certain. Keep track of any abnormal growth jumps when you get your statuses updated. The data would help us figure this out."
By the time they reached Floor 23, they had carved their way through the dungeon with minimal fatigue. Bracing herself for a brutal hive-clearing operation, Alise was stunned to find the quest zone populated by surprisingly few Deadly Hornets. They dispatched the remaining insects with clinical precision, completed the objective, and immediately began the long trek back up to Rivira.
Once they crossed back into the safety of the 18th floor, Alise made absolutely certain Gojo wasn't lingering behind them. Satisfied that the blindfolded swordsman had gone his own way to explore the market, she led her Familia away from the bustling wooden town.
They found a secluded, crystal-clear lake sheltered by the massive glowing quartz of the cavern ceiling. Away from the noise of the town, the women of Astrea Familia finally stripped off their heavy armor and waded into the cool water. They spent all the early evening allowing themselves to relax, though Alise never completely let her guard down.
As the Captain of Justice, she couldn't afford to be blind to the shadows. Evilus attacks on the surface were growing bolder, more desperate, and their dark alliance frequently utilized the dungeon's anonymity to plot. Vigilance wasn't a choice; it was a baseline requirement.
After washing the dungeon grime away, they donned their casual gear and made their way back to the settlement for dinner.
They found Gojo and Lili at one of Rivira's makeshift open-air restaurants. The tiny Pallum was poking miserably at a bowl of the town's infamous, unidentifiable meat stew, looking like she was debating whether starvation was preferable.
I can completely relate, Alise thought with a sympathetic grimace, remembering her own tragic first encounter with Rivira's culinary scene.
"Mind if we join you?" Alise called out, pulling out a chair without waiting for an answer. The rest of the Familia crowded around the adjoining tables, ordering their own bowls of the dubious stew and passing around loaves of hard bread.
As they ate, the conversation drifted to logistics. "We're resting here for the night," Alise shared, wiping her mouth with a napkin. "The climb back up is a long one, so we'll set out for the surface at first light."
Gojo smiled, nodding over his own untouched bowl. "A sensible plan. I think Lili and I will do the same. This 'field test' has been incredibly productive."
Alise was just about to ask if he had any more of those rings to sell when the floor shook.
RUMBLE.
It wasn't a small tremor. The bedrock beneath their feet vibrated with a deep, violent, structural groan. The dishes on the table clattered loudly. Dust rained down from the timber beams of the tavern.
Around them, the bustling noise of Rivira evaporated into a sudden, tense silence. Adventurers stopped drinking. Weapons were drawn.
Alise shot to her feet, her hand dropping to the hilt of her rapier. Her heart skipped a beat as her internal clock calculated the date. It had been nearly two weeks since the Loki Familia expedition had passed through here.
"The two-week timer is up," Lyra cursed, grabbing her goggles. "The wall is giving birth."
The Goliath.
Within moments, the de facto "representatives" of Rivira—a handful of grizzled, mid-level veteran adventurers who unofficially kept the peace in the black-market town—pushed through the crowd toward their table. They didn't beat around the bush.
"Astrea Familia," the lead dwarf grunted, looking at Alise. "You have the highest concentration of Level 3s in the town right now. Will you take the vanguard? We'll coordinate the town's defenders to handle any mob spillover."
As a beacon of order, there was only one answer Alise could give.
"We'll handle the Monster Rex," Alise declared, her voice ringing out with absolute, unshakable authority. "Astrea Familia, armor up! We march to the Wall of Grief!"
Her familia moved flawlessly, discipline instantly overriding their exhaustion. Though their evening rest had been pleasant, they still hadn't fully recovered from the grueling, high-alert trek down to Floor 23 and back. But duty didn't wait for optimal conditions. They grabbed their gear, tightening leather straps and double-checking half-empty potion pouches as they swiftly made their way through the chaotic streets and out of the wooden gates of the town.
They had just breached the tree line leading toward the boss chamber when a familiar voice called out from behind them.
"Wait!"
Alise paused, looking over her shoulder. Gojo was jogging to catch up with them, waving his hands urgently.
"Before you go charging in there, gather around for a second!" he called out, closing the distance.
He stepped into the center of their formation and reached deep into his dark coat. Alise watched in genuine bewilderment as he produced yet another bizarre, highly decorative item. Seriously, how much storage capacity does this guy actually have in those pockets? she wondered.
It was a strange, ornate glass bottle, intricately carved with silver filigree. Inside the glass, a dense, ethereal blue mist swirled with a life of its own.
"What is that?" Celty asked, narrowing her eyes.
"It's a top-tier atmospheric restorative," Gojo explained rapidly, holding it up like a priceless artifact. "An AOE buff. You break the glass, and the mist removes muscular fatigue, tops up your Mind reserves, and accelerates stamina regeneration. Since I know you girls haven't fully recovered from our deep dive, and participated in these experiments, consider his a thank-you gift."
Alise hesitated. Normally, accepting strange alchemical mixtures from a blindfolded merchant moments before a boss fight was terrible policy. But the man hadn't lied about the rings. The Mind Potions he had handed out earlier were the best they had ever consumed.
"Gather round quickly, it dissipates fast!" Gojo ushered.
Trusting his merchandise, the Astrea Familia circled up tightly, stepping close to ensure they caught the mist. Lili, looking anxious but eager for the buff, crowded in next to Maryuu.
"Here we go!" Gojo announced cheerfully. He happily dropped the bottle on the floor in anticipation.
VWOOM.
There was a blinding flash of crimson-tinted light, followed by a massive, violent puff of white smoke that smelled distinctly of ozone and static.
Alise blinked, her vision momentarily washed out by the glare. The feeling of weightlessness seized her stomach for a fraction of a second, leaving her violently dizzy.
Wait. That isn't how healing mist is supposed to feel, her tactical instincts screamed.
As the smoke began to clear, Lyra let out a sharp, stunned gasp.
"Uh, Captain?" Lyra's voice was remarkably thin.
Alise blinked away the afterimage, looking around. The ambient blue light of the crystal ceiling was gone. The sprawling forest of Floor 18 was gone. The noise of Rivira was gone.
Instead, they were standing in a narrow, damp corridor lined with phosphorescent green moss. The walls were rough-hewn stone, crude and unmistakable. The air smelled of fresh dirt and low-level monster ash.
"Oh no!" Gojo cried out from the edge of the group, his voice pitching into a dramatic, exaggerated shriek. "Its a trap! Must be a prank from the merchant! Save yourselves!!"
Alise whipped her head around just in time to see the towering white-haired man turn on his heel. With a sharp, cracking sound that displaced the air, his body blurred with impossible speed, and he literally sprinted away down the dark corridor, abandoning them in the blink of an eye.
It took Alise exactly three seconds to process the environmental cues, cross-reference her internal map, and realize the sheer, staggering magnitude of the deception.
They weren't just in a different cavern. They were in the transition corridor linking Floor 1 to the surface.
He had teleported them to the top of the Dungeon.
Which meant they were now eighteen floors away from the Boss Room.
Which meant the entire town of Rivira and the innocent adventurers who dive were currently undefended against a Level 4 Monster Rex.
Her face turned bright red. She gripped the hilt of her rapier so hard her gauntlet creaked, her unwavering composure finally shattering into pure, unadulterated outrage.
"GOJOOOOO!!!"
--> Devil in a Dungeon <--
AN:
I love Gojo. He is the perfect addition to Danmachi in my honest, unbiased opinion and I hope he survives the next chapter to continue his brand of entertainment!
This chapter is jam packed with info dump and dense scenes and I honestly wanted to end it when Max began his dive, but felt I should add Alise's pov as well to show how they were doing and the final scene was just a spur of a moment thing, which I feel came out very well.
And the next chapter will be the battle with Goliath and I had this idea cooked up to teleport the damn thing to Floor 22 to get a bigger boost for Max but I felt he might get too overwhelmed with the stronger monsters there, though I'm still on the fence.
So share your thoughts/suggestions on it. If you like the idea or not as big things were planned for the monster rex and I will do my best to fit it in 1 chapter.
And 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 Tuesday.
Ben, Out.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.