This is a dream.

  The warrior from before had grown even older, now sporting a scruffy beard and a mane of hair, though his eyes had yet to have any wrinkles around them like the knight around him.

  Standing next to him in the balcony overlooking the castle town was a young woman of equal age, a giggling toddler sharing both their features in her arms.

  In the time since then, more and more nd had been recimed from the endless monster horde, which expanded the walls ever further out and allowed the creation of a town which drew more people seeking safety and refuge within their walls.

  The woman that became his wife was one such person, someone who came here to escape the wrath of the monsters and ended up meeting him; and a whirlwind of romance swept them both off their feet and they were married in no time at all.

  In no time, it had turned from a town to a bustling hub of commerce and industry, with smoke stacks rising from the various smithies across town all working hard to forge weapons and armor for the warriors and mercenaries responsible for keeping the monsters at bay.

  Bards soon spread word of the new safe haven, of the second coming of the legendary city of Lakrios, and more people came flooding into the town seeking protection.

  It became a new beacon of hope for all in these dark days, a chance for humanity to once again turn things around and triumph over the monsters and the Hole that spawn them like the Heroes had once done centuries ago.

  But those hopeful days wouldn’t st much longer.

  For a new monster would arise from their birthing pce, and would bring an end to this Era of Heroes.

  In the foggy forest of the Dungeon’s tenth floors, Tris led the newbie party onward as they tackled the pack of monsters coming their way; it consisted of a pack of Imps and half a dozen Orcs.

  “Emma, take point!”

  “Got it!”

  “I’ll assist you!”

  Dashing at speeds that was too fast for her actual Level, the rookie adventurer sped towards the pack as she swung her two swords at them. As swift as the wind, the bdes sliced through the pack one Imp after another.

  Charging after her was the hume bunny swordswoman Kaede, who swung her katana in steady practiced motions and sshed through more of them; together, they quickly took down about a pack of a dozen of them in no time.

  Next up were the Orcs, the massive pig-headed humanoids were quickly marching up to them with a few of them wielding stone clubs.

  “BUHIII!!”

  One of them ran up to them and swung down its club at the two girls, Emma and Kaede quickly dashed away as the stone smmed down onto the ground hard.

  The hume bunny took this chance to use the stone weapon as a stepping stone and got up close to the monster’s face; she then swung her sword and sshed opened the Orc’s neck, forcing it to choke on its own blood as it fell to the ground dead.

  Another Orc came rushing at them a stone axe in hand, but Emma dived by its legs and sliced the tendons, causing it to dropped to its knees and allowing her to jump and stab her sword into its chest, breaking its magic stone and turning it into ash.

  The sight had Tris looking in awe, ‘To think that Emma can now take on Orcs without using her Skill… she really have improved… even Kaede was holding her own…”

  She had recalled that the three supporters had recently returned to the Soma Familia’s Home days before with the money they had earned so far, it was just barely enough to get their patron god to update their Falna.

  And judging by the result, the amount of Excelia gained must have been quite significant.

  Still, it was not yet the time to celebrate, as the remaining Orcs charged at them with great ferocity, with one of them grabbing and throwing one of the many barren trees littered across the floor.

  Emma and Kaede dodged the rge projectile, while Tris stood in front of the party’s current supporter Momiji and braced behind her shield; the log broke into splitters against the protective pte of metal and charging up her Skill in the process.

  Then as the two sword girls took on an Orc each, Tris charged forward at the remaining two Orcs and bashed her glowing shield into the one that had decided to swing down its fist at her in response.

  “Counter!”

  “Buhi!?”

  Her glowing shield met its fist and forced the monster to reel its arm back from the bst that came afterward, leaving it wide-opened, which Tris was quick to take advantage of.

  Swinging her mace into the orc’s knees, Tris broke its kneecaps with a loud crack and forced it down onto its knees. Then with a twist of her torso, she spun around and swung her weapon into its neck, breaking its spine with sickening snap.

  With one dead, she turned her attention to the remaining Orc as it charged right at her before swinging down its stone axe down on her. Tris raised her shield and blocked the strike, allowing the attack to charge her Skill back up.

  Only this time, she stored the impact into her mace as its fnged head glowed brightly. She then shifted her shield and allowed the axe to slide down to the side before smming her weapon into its wrist.

  “Counter!”

  “BUHIIII!!!!”

  A pained cry left the Orc’s mouth as its hand was bsted off its joint from Tris’s strike, leaving it with nothing but a bloody stump of broken bone and gore.

  Seizing the moment, Emma and Kaede leaped right at it and sshed opened its chest in one swift coordinated strike, blood spraying out of the massive wound before it turned to a pile of ash like its brethren.

  “Oh! That was sick!” Kaede ughed as she sheathed her katana, “We need do that more!”

  “Hehe, it is kind of cool.” Emma nodded with a smile.

  “Come on now, let’s us all take a breather.” Tris told them, “Get some rest when you still can; before you-know-who starts getting any funny ideas.”

  ““Okay!””

  “Momiji, if it is not too much trouble…”

  “I’m on the case.” The renard nodded as she put on some gloves, “Though it is tough doing this by myself.”

  “Want me to help?” Her hume bunny friend asked, “More hands make light work, and all that.”

  “Nah, it’s fine. You guys just finished taking down like a dozen monsters; I have to pull my own weight here, otherwise I would feel like a freeloader.”

  “If you say so… hah, Coco sure got lucky getting picked for grocery duty today…”

  It had been a couple of days since the Hecate Familia’s High-Css Adventurers had finally left for the expedition to the Lower Floors after the previous one was deyed due to Tetra’s little night excursion a month ago.

  This particur expedition was particurly dangerous, so they had only took the Familia’s High-Css Adventurers on it, leaving the Low-Css Adventurers to look after their Home while they were gone.

  Before leaving, Jeanne had taken to scheduling daily duties for them to take up though out the days they weren’t here; which also included the three supporters still staying with them.

  They were simple housekeeping tasks, like shopping for groceries, cleaning the bathrooms, stuff like that; there were even some leftovers in the fridge for them to heat up for dinner and so on.

  Though, there was also a note that urged them to not let Hecate cook any of their meals, unless they wished to forfeit their need to taste anything.

  “…do you think they’ve reached the Lower Floors yet?” Emma asked.

  “Probably.” Tris noted, “They were pnning on blitzing straight for it, so they probably reached the twenty-fourth floor by now.”

  “I couldn’t even imagine how tough it must be beyond the eighteenth floor.” Kaede stated, “Hey, Tris; you been past that before, right? What was it like?”

  “You mean the Great Tree Labyrinth? How do I expin it…” She thought about it for a moment before replying, “It’s like the entire floor is inside a tree, with some of the paths are like its branches. And the monsters there are almost as big and tough as Minotaurs.”

  “Really!? Aren’t Minotaurs like super tough?” The hume bunny noted, “If we have to deal with them all the time…”

  “And those aren’t the real threat; the ones we have to look out are the insect type monsters. They are way more terrifying… and disgusting to look at…”

  “Urgh, more bug monsters… couldn’t even imagine those…”

  The topic brought up memories of the previous expedition to those depths, and the catastrophic series of events that came from it.

  She could still recall vividly that Irregur Troll that killed her senior Leos with a simple smack, the desperate struggle against the hordes of monsters, the sight of the Deadly Hornet’s massive stinger piercing through the great shield and Drake’s chest…

  “…Tris, are you okay?” Emma suddenly asked.

  “Huh? Why do you ask?” Tris asked back.

  “Well… it’s just that your hands are shaking really bad.”

  She looked down and saw her own hands trembling uncontrolbly and clenched her fists in an attempt to quell it to little success.

  “I’m fine.” Tris assured Emma, “I just… recalled some bad memories…”

  “Ah, I’m really sorry…!” Kaede apologised, “I shouldn’t have asked…!”

  “No, no, it’s okay. You don’t have to apologise. You didn’t know.”

  “Even so…”

  Tris let out a small sigh, “…The st expedition down there… it has gone really badly; Drake nearly died, and we also lost a good friend.”

  “Oh, gods above…” Emma gasped, “What happened…?”

  “We encountered an Irregur.”

  “Irregur… that’s a monster that is different than the usual kind, right?”

  Yeah, that monster was massive with skin so thick almost nothing could hurt it. It took Jirou and Jeanne everything they had just to take it down.”

  “The Dungeon really is a dangerous pce…” Kaede gulped, “…Say, do you think that they would be—”

  “No, no! Don’t say that out loud!” Tris cried out, “If you say anything like that, you will only provoke you-know-who!”

  “A-Ah… right…”

  “I’ve gotten all the magic stones.” Momiji interjected as she returned to party, and immediately noticed the somber mood, “Um… is-is everything alright?”

  “Ah, Momiji, you’re finally back!!” Kaede cried as she hugged her best friend, “Things has gotten really awkward and I’m not sure if it is my fault…!!”

  “Knowing your motor mouth, it most likely is.”

  “Rude!!”

  “W-Well then!” Emma cpped her hands to get their attention, “Since Momiji has returned, shall we carry on?”

  “…yeah.” Tris nodded with a small smile, “Let’s go. We still have a whole day ahead of us.”

  The solemn mood quickly dissipated as they headed deeper into the fog, the thoughts of their wayward comrades on their mind.

  ‘I sure hope they are alright down there…’

  “Another one on your right!!”

  “Urgh, I hate dealing with Moss Huge!!”

  It was pure chaos in the Dungeon as always, especially when the Great Tree Labyrinth had decided to welcome the end of our trip through it with a Monster Party.

  First a rare Moss Huge was spawned in front of us, a giant humanoid of moss that had the tendency to duplicate itself in order to evade its attackers; making it probably the most annoying monster we had to deal with.

  While we were dealing with it, a pack of Lizardmen and Hobgoblins had also joined from behind us, pinning us in a spincer attack, forcing us to split up our formation between the two ends.

  Then, as if we didn’t have our hands full with them already, a swarm of Deadly Hornets suddenly came at us from out of nowhere. Me and Garos immediately put up a defense line as we blocked or swatted away the swarm.

  Not a single Deadly Hornets would dare reach Drake, not after what happened on my st expedition down here; just the thought of it made me push myself to kill all of them as fast as I could.

  That allowed Drake to safely and swiftly deal with them one arrow at a time, while Tetra used her spells to support Kyumaru and Lisa with dealing with the Lizardmen and Hobgoblins; the both of them swiftly sughtering them like a whirlwind of steel and blood.

  They weren’t alone in their endeavor as they were also joined by the tag along who had been invited by Jirou for this expedition, Otto easily took down monster after monster with each swing of his extremely unique weapon.

  It was quite a spectacle to see his custom-made greatsword as its lengthy hilt knocked away a flower shield before its hefty cleaver bde cleaved into the lizardman wielding it like a hot knife through butter.

  “We’ve got more Deadly Hornets inbound!”

  “Seriously!? We just gotten through a whole swarm of them!!”

  Just as we were about done with the swarm of Deadly Hornets, another swarm of them immediately showed up and replenished their forces, sending us back to where we first started with them.

  The Dungeon must have the worst sense of humour to throw all of this on us just as we were about to reach the Lower Floors.

  “There has to be a Bloody Hive nearby…” Drake noted, “Has anyone seen one?”

  “Nothing from my end.”

  “Same.”

  “A bit busy with these hobgoblins here…!”

  “Grah!! Another duplicate!?”

  As I sshed my lightning charged hand and killed another Deadly Hornet, I noticed the appearance of what I could describe as a rge crimson hive on the trunk of a tree branch nearby.

  There was a dozen or so of those monster hornets openly standing guarding in front of it, and several of such monsters were also crawling out from its many holes. It was clear that it was the very monster we were searching for.

  “I’ve found the Bloody Hive! Over there!”

  “Great! Take it down, quick! Tetra, help her out!”

  ““Got it!””

  The little amazon mage ran out from behind Garos and joined me as we weaved through the many Deadly Hornets, sshing away at those that I could not avoid as we swiftly made my way towards the hornet-spawning monster.

  As we got close, its guards quickly noticed us and moved to intercept. But I wasn’t going to let that stop us from taking it down and ending this endless battle with the Deadly Hornets.

  “Tetra, prepare your spell! I’ll create an opening for you!”

  “You’ve got it!”

  “RRRRAAAHHHH!!!”

  As Tetra began chanting, I increased the output of my magic to its maximum capacity and raised both my arms in front of me before rushing towards the Bloody Hive as fast as I could, knocking away its protectors as I blitzed right through them like a giant battering ram.

  Gncing back at the young amazon girl, I saw her easily dodging and ducking under the Deadly Hornets that came after her, her lips never stopping moving as her magic circle remained despite all the movements.

  Concurrent chanting sure was useful in such a situation as this… maybe I should learn it too if I’d got the time?

  “Ngh!?”

  All of a sudden, the Deadly Hornets moved out of the way as the Bloodt Hive spewed out some reddish brown goo at me; but thankfully, my electric aura burnt it all away before it could make bodily contact with me.

  It would have been over for me if I get entangled in that sticky, and quite disgusting looking substance; the Deadly Hornets would have been on me to moment I’d gotten trapped by it.

  I then directed most of the lightning aura around my body towards my hands and sharpened it to a point, then I swung about and cleaved into the many Deadly Hornets surrounding it.

  That created an opening big enough for Tetra’s magic to hit it, just as I heard her finished her final verse.

  “Tetra!”

  “Ignitis Lumine!!”

  After rolling under another Deadly Hornet’s attack, she aimed her staff and unleashed her spell; balls of fire unched out from from its tip and flew past me towards the Bloody Hive, bsting it and any Deadly Hornets surrounding it in a massive bze.

  Within moments, they were rendered into nothing but smothering ash and burnt insect corpses.

  That immediately had the remaining Deadly Hornets around us direct all their malice towards us as a whole swarm of them had their massive stingers ready to stab into us.

  Both me and Tetra quickly dodged the initial attack before I swiftly repositioned myself to a wider clearing where I could maneuver more freely; the swarm quickly followed after me with a vengeance, like flies to honey as the gods like to call it.

  “Dae!!”

  “Don’t worry! I’ve got this!”

  After redirecting some of my enchantment to my other hand, I leaped at them and swung my hands like bdes as I sliced and diced up the Deadly Hornets in a whirlwind of lightning, killing one after another all the while dodging any stingers that came my way.

  It didn’t take long for me to go through the entire swarm till its st insect, leaving nothing but pieces of their dead bodies littering around me with few piles of ashes of those whose magic stones I had destroyed.

  “Wow…”

  “Alright, let’s head back.”

  “Ye-Yeah!”

  We quickly ran to rejoin the party in their defense, just as they were almost dealing with the pack Lizardmen and Hobgoblins as well as thinning out the st of the swarm of Deadly Hornets.

  “We’ve dealt with the Bloody Hive!”

  “Good job!”

  “Yes! Finally got the real one!!”

  “Alright, people! Let’s push on through!!”

  Once the Moss Huge was finally taken care of, it only took moments for us to finish up with the remaining monsters.

  Once that was settled, we quickly collect as many of the magic stones and the Drop Items as we were able to; monsters were known to turned into Irregurs if they devoured magic stones or Drop Items, so this was necessary measure to prevent another Bloodstained Troll from appearing.

  Once our pouches were full, we swiftly rushed into the corridor leading to the next floor below and taking a break within it; Otto helping to break the walls to prevent any more Monster Party from spawning on top of us.

  Lisa let out a loud sigh as she plopped down on the ground, “Oh, that was rough… never though we have to deal with all of those Deadly Hornets once we reached here…”

  “Yeah, it is crazy.” I nodded in agreement, “The Dungeon must have quite the mean streak to drop all of that on us.”

  “You guys really have the weirdest luck.” Otto pointed out as he checked his weapon’s bde, “First the Goliath spawned the instant we reached the end of the floor, and now this?”

  “It might be its way to bancing our luck out…” Kyumaru noted.

  “Well, it wouldn’t be the Dungeon if it was smooth sailing all the time.” Jirou pointed out, “On the bright side, we have earned quite a bit from all of that.”

  “Not that it would do us any good down here…” Drake groaned.

  Jeanne loudly cpped her hands to get our attention, “Alright, everyone; do a quick check of your equipment make sure it is in working order. We will be heading into the Lower Floors soon, so try to rest up as much as you can.”

  “I have some rations for anyone that need it.” Garos called out while holding up some jerky, “And we still have some Honey Clouds we’ve gathered yesterday—”

  “Gimme!”

  “Oh no, you don’t!”

  Drake grabbed onto Tetra before she could leap at Garos for the sickeningly sweet Dungeon fruit, the older male holding onto her waist tightly as she struggled to try and get out of his tight grasp.

  Our vice-captain rolled his eyes before tossing the fluffy fruit to her, which she quickly snapped her hands around it before her captor could and shoved it into her mouth, a happy squeal left her lips seconds ter.

  “Right, anyone else want one?”

  A couple of hands raised and a few more of them were tossed to the awaiting hands. That was quickly followed by the distribution of other rations and potions for those in need of a quick heal.

  As I chewed on a biscuit, I gnced around at the impromptu rest site as the expedition party took to sitting on the floor with Jirou even taking a nap at the corner away from us.

  Kyumaru was doing the same, though the way he had his legs were crossed up and with his katana resting on his knees, it was likely the renard was doing something else entirely.

  At the same time, Garos and Jeanne had taken out some parchment from the massive bag containing our supplies and were discussing amongst themselves with it, probably about our pns for the twenty-fifth floor onwards.

  Meanwhile, Otto had taken out a portable forge and sharpening stone as he started performing maintenance on our party’s weapons; he let out a series of grumble when he got to Garo’s shield and slowly began to hammer out all the dents on it.

  Opposite from him was Drake checking the arrows in one of the many quivers we had taken down with us, all the while Tetra helped him with fixing the arrowheads; though it was with mixed results seeing as she broke one off the shaft from squeezing too hard.

  As I finished my biscuit, Lisa sat down next to me and handed me a canteen, “Some water to wash it down with?”

  “Ah, thanks.”

  As I downed some needed water, the pallum sat down next to me as she got to checking the pouch on her hips.

  “Are you nervous?” She asked me.

  “Yeah, a little.” I told her as I looked down the corridor towards the opening leading to the Lower Floors, the deepest floor the Familia would soon venture into, and the destination for this expedition.

  From what I had learnt from Misha, reaching the Lower Floors and beyond were often seen as a sign that the Adventurer was among the upper echelons in Orario, with many of the known elite Adventurers being known frequent these floors on a daily basis.

  And I was about to enter that pce like many before, taking another step closer to my goal.

  “Ha, gd I’m not the only one.” Lisa chuckled, “It took some time, but we are finally entering the Lower Floors… when I first joined, I didn’t think we would ever make it this far.”

  “But we did make it here.” I noted.

  “Indeed, we did. Thanks to you, Dae.”

  “Me?”

  The pallum nodded, “Yup, you. Seeing how fast you are growing; I think it lit something in all of us, that we all had to get stronger as well, to try and match your pace. Even Jirou had cut down on his drinking to train.”

  I did notice that he had been drinking less since my Level-Up; though there were still times he stumbled back into Arcane Manor in a drunken mess which had Jeanne and Garos loudly lecturing him the day after.

  “Still, I don’t think that’s all my doing…” I pointed out.

  “Perhaps not.” Lisa said with a grin, “But it is your newfound drive that has inspired all of us to push forward ever harder. After all, we can’t exactly let some rookie beat us so easily.”

  “Haha, I guess so…”

  “Alright! Break time is over! Form up, and let’s head for the Lower Floors!”

  At Jeanne’s call, everyone packed up their stuff and got together, our respective weapons at the ready as we make our way down the corridor towards our destination.

  With each step closer to it, I could hear the thumping of my rapidly beating heart echoing in my ears, the hands slightly shaking with anticipation for what awaits everyone at the end of this corridor.

  Then, after what felt like agonizing hours of walking, we stepped out of the corridor…

  Into the sounds of the roaring waterfall to the Water Capital.

  …To be continued…

  Hey, hey, hey! How is everybody doing?

  So yeah, this chapter is more of a prologue chapter to the upcoming arc, so there is more set up than anything else.

  Be forewarned, most of the upcoming chapters will mostly be fight scenes, so don’t expect much talking for this part.

  With that, I thank you all for reading this!