An outing by the city's strongest Familia, its elite core members at that, was a sight that, even if it didn't draw as much attention as a full Loki Familia expedition force, was still far more eye-catching than an ordinary adventurer party.
Especially with Leo's party, where apart from their astonishing strength, everyone was so striking in looks too, particularly Ais, said to have beauty rivaling a goddess, and Lefiya, from a race famous throughout for its beauty. The sight of those two walking together made it impossible not to draw the attention of passersby.
So when Leo and the others appeared in the Central Plaza and walked toward Babel, they immediately drew the attention and chatter of the surrounding crowd.
"Aren't those a few of Loki Familia's people?"
"The Sword Princess, the Thousand Elf, the Amazon, Jörmungand... these few are planning to enter the Dungeon together?"
"Who's that man next to them?"
"No idea. From his build, he doesn't look like Vanargand, and he's definitely not Braver or Elgarm."
"To be able to team up with these four, he can't be an ordinary person, right?"
"Could it be..."
That sort of chatter spread through the crowd, making Leo's party the focus of the whole place.
Leo had long anticipated things would turn out this way, so before entering the Central Plaza he'd pulled up the hooded cloak that came as a set with his Giant's Battle Garb and put the hood on, covering most of his face, so that not a single one of the people present recognized him.
Otherwise, with his current popularity and the buzz around him, he'd have become the target most people fixed their attention on in an instant, possibly even stealing Ais's thunder.
It couldn't be helped. The news of him becoming Lv.4 was still being hotly discussed throughout the city, the center of countless people's conversation, and once he himself appeared in public, it was impossible for him not to draw notice.
To avoid trouble, Leo just put on the hood, concealing his identity so no one would find him out.
Still, seeing some people fix their eyes on him and whisper, they'd probably guessed at his identity somewhat.
After all, there weren't many men in Loki Familia who could join a party like this in the first place.
So along the way, plenty of people kept their eyes fixed on Leo, all sorts of emotions showing in them.
"So now you're a celebrity too. How does it feel?"
Tiona nudged Leo with her elbow, her voice teasing.
Compared to Leo, Tiona and the others had clearly long since gotten used to drawing this kind of attention, paying the eyes of passersby no mind at all, just walking on ahead as if no one else were there.
"As if I'm more famous than you lot?"
Leo said it to Tiona without much grace.
"That's not necessarily true." Tione said from the side, in that snide, needling tone. "Before, sure, but now we really might not be as famous as you."
Just look at what Leo had done over these past two-plus months.
Ranking Up in a row, jumping three Levels in one go, from Lv.1 all the way up to Lv.4, and then soloing the Floor Boss Goliath, subjugating it smoothly, achieving a record no one could match. All these deeds added together had already built Leo an enormous reputation and popularity, making his renown now greater than that of many first-class adventurers.
Though Tiona and Tione were also first-class adventurers of no small fame, possessing both strength and beauty, and twins on top of that, with no shortage of everyday buzz around them, compared to the deeds Leo had achieved these recent days, they really did come off as the weaker side.
The same went for Lefiya. Though the great name of the Thousand Elf was widely known, in the end she was only a Lv.3 rearguard Mage, and compared to Leo, who'd set so many incredible records, she still fell quite a bit short in battle record and fame.
Of everyone, only Ais's popularity and fame weren't inferior to Leo's, but at this stage, with the news of him reaching Lv.4 still spreading hotly, even her level of attention couldn't match his.
So Tione really wasn't talking nonsense.
"I never wanted to be famous." Leo said, unmoved. "If I could, I'd much rather grow stronger quietly, unknown to all."
Hearing this, Ais nodded silently in deep agreement.
She didn't much like being famous either. The feeling of always being watched wasn't good at all.
If she could, she too wished she could find some corner no one knew of and grow stronger quietly.
Even Lefiya agreed with Leo's remark in her heart. She got socially anxious sometimes too, and really didn't want to be stared at constantly.
Unfortunately, their way of thinking wasn't most people's way of thinking.
"What adventurers crave most is fame, fortune, and glory, and yet here you are saying you don't want to be famous. That really doesn't sound like something an adventurer would say."
For the naive, carefree Tiona to come out with words like that showed that the way Leo and the other two thought really was an oddity among adventurers.
"Even the captain isn't above all that, so don't go acting like you don't know what's good for you, kid."
Tione went further and jabbed at Leo.
Don't look at Finn's usual calm, steady manner and assume he didn't care about such external things and empty fame. In fact, at the very start Finn had become an adventurer precisely to make a name for himself.
Of course, he wanted fame not for his own sake, but to revive his race.
The Pallums, being a naturally weak and small race, were a people of low standing all over the world. Even the relatively mediocre Humans ranked above them, let alone races that produced strong warriors in abundance, like Elves, Dwarves, and Amazonesses.
Finn couldn't accept this state of affairs, and even less could he accept the way his people wholly resigned themselves to it, which was why he'd decided to become an adventurer, come to Orario, the most watched center of the world, and resolved to make a name for himself here, to awaken the courage in his people's hearts and let the Pallums truly stand up.
For that reason, Finn was actually the person in all of Loki Familia who cared most about fame and gain, but everyone knew he did it not for himself but for his race, so they still greatly respected him.
Given all this, Leo's remark about being indifferent to fame and gain naturally left the Amazoness shrew who was utterly infatuated with the Pallum captain feeling dissatisfied.
"I'm only speaking for myself, I'm not saying doing it this way is the right way." Leo shot Tione a glance. "The captain is more or less my teaching mentor now, so how could I have any complaints about him?"
Hearing this, Tione, far from feeling satisfied, instead clenched her fists tight.
"Damn it! I want the captain to be my teaching mentor too! Teaching me all sorts of things!"
The Amazoness shrew's jealous flames inexplicably blazed up.
"...What this dumb sister means by 'teaching' is absolutely not the same thing Leo's talking about."
"Ahaha..."
Tiona muttered her quiet aside, making Lefiya, who was carrying the huge cylindrical backpack, laugh sheepishly.
"We're here."
Ais had actually been paying attention to Leo and the others' conversation the whole time, seeming a little bothered by the fact that they could talk together so harmoniously, but in the end she was clumsy with words and had no way to join in, so she could only speak up to alert them once Babel's great gate came into view.
The group then entered Babel along with the surrounding stream of adventurers, passed through the great hole into the Dungeon, and hurried down toward the lower floors.
The five of them didn't raise their guard especially, only picking up their travel pace.
With their strength, the Upper Floor region was basically no different from stepping into the courtyard at home. The monsters here couldn't possibly pose a threat to them, so there was no need at all to get serious here, not even any need to draw their weapons. They could just head straight down toward the lower floors.
Their goal today was to reach Floor 18, take a brief rest there, then move around a bit on the floors after that, and continue on the next day, hurrying all the way down to the Labyrinth Garden on Floor 28. Only after setting up there as a safe house would they begin tackling the Dungeon in earnest.
Everyone's final goal was Floor 37.
There, whether for the sake of practical honing, for subjugating monsters, or for making money, it was the most efficient.
Going any deeper was unnecessary. The risk at that point might well outweigh the reward, especially now, with the Floor Boss Udaeus liable to revive at any time. The consequences of recklessly charging around could be something no one could bear.
The group hadn't forgotten Finn's instructions, setting their final destination for this trip at Floor 37, exploring at most one or two floors deeper, and having to return before the Floor Boss Udaeus revived.
Until then, Leo and the others' main itinerary was simply travel. There was no need to waste time on these earlier floors.
With that idea in mind, the group barreled straight through. Unless they ran into an unavoidable monster attack along the way, they wouldn't strike at one. Otherwise they wouldn't lift a hand lightly.
Their pace was fast too. The Upper Floor region, Floors 1 through 12, they passed practically lying down, getting through in just two or three hours. Only upon entering the Middle Floor region starting from Floor 13 did the sharply increased number of monsters slow their feet a little, but because vertical shafts started appearing from this floor on, the group's travel speed stayed quick all the same.
Sometimes they dropped straight down through a vertical shaft to the next floor, sometimes they crossed two floors in one go to reach a deeper floor. With this way of traveling, even when monsters blocked the path along the way, they wouldn't be held up for too long.
And so, in the span of a single morning, the five of them reached Floor 17.
A chorus of guttural bellows rolled down the huge tunnel through which even large parties could pass smoothly, where Leo and the others ran, unsurprisingly, into the most representative and strongest monster of this floor: the Minotaurs.
They appeared in droves, roaring and stamping the ground as they charged, their blood-red eyes full of ferocity and malice, enough to make even Lefiya, the not-so-brave Elf girl, shrink her neck despite herself.
Leo, Ais, and Tiona, by contrast, met them head-on without hesitation.
Ais was vicious and short on words. The silver saber in her hand, repaired to perfect condition, turned in an instant into countless cold arcs of light in the dim passage, hewing into those Minotaurs, dismembering these bull monsters far larger than herself one by one, cutting them into pieces with an indescribable cruelty and coldness.
Ais's blade was like that, only as cold as her detached expression when fighting monsters. Her figure charging with her golden hair swaying was so very beautiful, yet her methods when cutting down monsters were cruel in a way unbecoming a woman, every stroke lethal, and usually by way of dismemberment at that.
Though Tiona wasn't as cold and cruel as Ais, once the fierce blade in her hands began to dance, the bloody scene it created wasn't the least bit inferior to Ais's side. Every monster that got near her would be cleanly cleaved in two by the huge double blade. She herself was like a meat grinder moving across the battlefield, no living thing able to get within half an inch of her.
In the past, Leo definitely couldn't have done what these two did, hacking down Minotaurs like they were cabbages.
But now, at Lv.4, facing these Minotaurs classified at Lv.2, he could likewise display an overwhelming strength.
Without even needing to use his proudest Magic, the moment Leo charged into the monster horde he began the slaughter, the sword in his hand tracing faint, barely-there arcs as it hewed into the Minotaurs around him.
"Hm?"
Holding a curved blade in hand, serving as the middle guard, Tione didn't charge out like Leo and the others, but stayed beside Lefiya, watching Leo's fighting figure, and suddenly let out a soft sound of doubt.
"Is something wrong, Miss Tione?"
Lefiya, who'd been staring transfixed at Ais's back, turned her head and spoke up, puzzled.
"It's nothing." Tione kept her eyes on Leo's figure, narrowing them. "I just feel like that kid's way of fighting is different from before."
"Different?" Lefiya looked toward Leo too, but couldn't make out anything, and wondered aloud, "Different how?"
Isn't it the same as before, looking a lot like the way Miss Ais fights?
Those words, Lefiya really wasn't willing to say out loud, and could only stand there sulking.
"His swordsmanship is still that same set, you can tell at a glance it was personally taught by Ais herself." Tione paid no mind to Lefiya's mood and went on. "But in the details, compared to before, the change is huge."
The old Leo was like Ais, valuing efficiency above all in battle. If he could finish an opponent in one second he'd never drag it to a second, crisp and clean, straightforward, with astonishing lethality.
But now, there was a sense of rhythm added to Leo's blade, a measure of calculation, and sometimes he'd deliberately leave alive a monster he could have finished off outright, using it as a roadblock to bar the charge and attacks of the monsters following behind, making himself a bit safer.
If you said his old fighting was an all-out, full-firepower offense, then now he was someone who'd consider leaving himself a margin.
Killing enemies this way might be a little less efficient, but the chance of something going wrong had also dropped considerably.
If you had to make a comparison, it was like going from a sharp blade drawn from its sheath with its edge fully bared, to a famed sword that kept its edge restrained, still sheathed.
Though the edge was restrained, the edge was also hidden, and once this famed sword was drawn, the lethality it would bring then would absolutely surpass before.
"As expected of someone who got the captain's personal..."
Thinking of this, Tione couldn't help getting jealous again.
"You only need to be looking at me and me alone, captain..."
The Amazoness shrew's resentment-filled murmur made a certain Pallum captain, who was busy handling documents in his office, suddenly shudder all over.
...Why do I suddenly feel a chill?
The Pallum captain didn't want to look into it too deeply, so he quickly threw it to the back of his mind.
Mm, better not to think too much about it...
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