The gear on Xien's body ensured he wouldn't get "first-encounter" one-shot—so as long as he didn't leave the team's line of sight, nothing was likely to go wrong.
From the simplest slimes and goblins, to later imps, Xien went from clumsy discomfort to growing familiarity.
After Ryuu's training, he realized just how fragile the upper-floor trash mobs really were. Their speed, strength, and reactions all felt slow to him now—almost laughably so.
A quick lift of the blade, a clean drop.
He didn't even need a breathing technique. Just relying on the weapon's sharpness, he cut them down with a crisp, fruit-slicing feel—two or three monsters on the path, erased in an instant.
There was none of the nausea he'd expected, either. The moment a monster was slain, it turned into black ash and vanished within a second—never giving him time to see anything grisly.
No wonder the upper floors were considered "newbie-friendly." As long as you could overcome the fear in your head, killing monsters here was honestly simple. A slime down here didn't hit harder than a wild pheasant.
As practice targets, the first and second floors were more than qualified. A sturdy normal person, properly equipped, could probably fight their way through a bit.
It felt like grinding mobs in a game—and before he knew it, he was getting into it.
For someone who used to only read about adventures, the real, hands-on experience was exhilarating. And the best part was the concrete sense of growth he could feel in his own body.
Fighting monsters was completely different from training.
The sensation of stripping away life—of ending something—was quietly hardening him, maturing him. The timid caution he'd carried when stepping into the Dungeon for the first time began to fade.
His movements grew smoother, more connected. He started to read the monsters' attack patterns naturally.
Behind him, the group advanced at a steady pace, watching his active silhouette—and nodding without thinking.
He's not just a backline healer… Even among Level 1s, he could be a vanguard without any problem.
And seeing the faint smile on the captain's face, the sharp-minded Lyla began to suspect something.
They weren't planning to raise him as only a healer.
That pace held until the fifth floor—where the situation finally changed.
Xien's performance began to look strained.
It wasn't stamina. Ryuu had personally certified his endurance. There was no way he'd be spent this early.
The problem was twofold.
First: the monsters changed. They got tougher. Harder to kill.
Second: the numbers.
The deeper they went, the more the monster count grew in what felt like geometric escalation—or more accurately, the Dungeon was producing them even as he killed.
The walls writhed like living tissue—compressing, splitting, reforming. Then, accompanied by slick mucus, fresh monsters were "produced" as if the Dungeon were excreting them, dropping them onto the ground.
Within seconds, they were moving like normal monsters.
And this was still the upper floors.
Xien couldn't even imagine what it would look like deeper down.
Staring at the endless stream of monsters ahead, he finally tasted a slice of the Dungeon's true danger.
This place was malicious.
It never hesitated to kick you while you were down. That suffocating sense of "never-ending" could corrode an adventurer's mind. Once your mental defenses collapsed and you lost rational control, death wouldn't be far behind.
All the knowledge and techniques he'd learned were, in the end, just tools to delay that collapse.
That was why people said adventurers must never be reckless. One wrong move, and you'd be swallowed by this bottomless darkness.
The monsters had already closed in.
Hobgoblins. Unicorn Rabbits.
More than ten of them—enough that, in a Soulslike game, they'd pin the protagonist down and hammer them into paste.
But even with danger thick in the air, Xien didn't retreat.
Instead, he cooled down—thinking calmly about how to break the situation.
Not because he had the team behind him and felt safe.
Because he believed, absolutely, that his limit wasn't something this pathetic.
He'd trained too hard. Taken too many beatings. Sweated too much. And he even had the system as a cheat.
How could he fold at this level?
That would disgrace every bruise and every drop of sweat.
His speed wasn't only for rolling and dodging.
It could be used to kill.
He adjusted his breathing. Flames wrapped the blade again. And this time, he began fine-tuning his output—aiming to solve the enemies ahead with the smallest possible cost.
His mind entered a focused state. All the monster knowledge the half-elf girl had drilled into him sparked to life in his head. The moment he locked onto a target, its weaknesses might as well have been highlighted.
"—Hah."
He exhaled, purged the tension, and tuned his body to its best condition.
Then he pushed off the ground and charged again.
This time, his attacks were cleaner—no wasted motion, no dragging, no hesitation—every strike aimed at a decisive kill.
His blade passed through monster flesh, and they burned down into nothing with baffled confusion.
They didn't understand why the prey that had seemed to weaken just moments ago had suddenly erupted with such power.
With the flow-state assistance guiding his evasions, his kill efficiency spiked sharply.
Brilliant firelight illuminated the path ahead. Wherever the flames reached, monsters turned to ash—leaving behind only magic stones and dropped materials scattered across the floor.
Seeing that, even the Familia members who were about to step in froze in place.
Honestly, if you ignored raw stats and judged only by spectacle… it was impactful.
Like a blazing sun cutting a road through darkness.
For a second, it felt as if they were witnessing the birth of a legendary new star.
That day, across Floors 1 through 10, other adventurers saw something bizarre.
A young male adventurer—cleanly dressed, strikingly handsome—moved as if he held a personal grudge against every monster in existence.
He slaughtered nonstop.
Where he passed, nothing survived.
With occasional flares of fire bursting along his blade, he looked like a god of slaughter, carving straight down floor after floor.
And after he cleared an area, the entire Astraea Familia would appear along the path he'd opened—cleaning up the "aftermath," or rather, picking up the drops he didn't have time to collect.
Several passing parties crossed his route and witnessed the scene with their own eyes.
And they remembered the rumor from a few days ago: Astraea Familia had recruited a human man.
So this was him.
But… was he really a newbie?
Even setting everything else aside—his stamina alone was inhuman. Clearing an entire floor without rest was something only high-level adventurers could do.
If they'd known it wasn't just one floor, they'd have been even more horrified.
Elsewhere.
In some unseen, shadowed corner of the Dungeon, a conversation was taking place.
"How is it?"
"No mistake. It's those bitches. They finally brought that burden with them."
They had waited for this moment for far too long.
A perfect chance for revenge.
This era—the era where Zeus and Hera were silent—was supposed to belong to them.
But because of those bitches…
"Heh. Good. This is the best opportunity. They've hunted us for so long—now it's our turn."
"Understood. We're gathering people already. Judging by their pace, they look like they're heading for the middle floors."
"Then we set it at Floor 17. The Floor Boss has respawned. We'll strike when they fail… or, if they don't challenge it, we hit them on the way back—"
"Got it…"
Even with skill boosts, Xien's stamina wasn't infinite.
He still couldn't make his expenditure and recovery balance cleanly.
As the floors piled up, fatigue began to show. Finally, on Floor 10, he ran into a major difficulty spike—giant beastmen far stronger than the monsters before.
After barely defeating a few, he was completely drained.
It was a little disappointing.
He hadn't even laid eyes on the famous Minotaur—the "legendary" species—before he ran out of gas.
Looking at the longsword in his hand, now slightly dulled, Xien sighed. Heaven knew how many monsters he'd killed on this run.
And just before he collapsed, his teammates surrounded him.
"Not bad at all, Xien," Captain Alise said, genuinely surprised. "I didn't expect you to reach Floor 10 in one go."
Up to the Floor Boss at 17, even many Level 2 adventurers could generally handle the monsters.
But for a Level 1—especially a complete newcomer—the deeper floors were no joke. The threat curve rose fast.
First time entering the Dungeon and cutting alone all the way to Floor 10?
Frankly, it was absurd.
"It's fine, Captain," Xien said. "I can't fight anymore, but I'm not so exhausted that I can't walk. I'll rely on everyone for the next part."
Reality was reality. What mattered now wasn't pride—it was continuing forward.
"Good. Knowing your limits is important. Then keep up."
"Yes."
Alise nodded quietly at his self-discipline.
They were nearing Floor 13—the boundary of the middle floors. The enemies there weren't something Xien could deal with right now.
The fact that he'd stopped at this point made her feel relieved.
And so, the Astraea Familia's Dungeon mission truly began.
They shifted into the formation they'd practiced, advancing with Xien at the center.
This expedition-ready lineup immediately accelerated their progress—and Xien's role began to show its real value.
The members realized they didn't need to fear injuries anymore.
Whenever someone was hurt, a green light of life would flare from their body, and within three seconds the wound would mend.
It was an experience none of them had ever had before.
And the officers noticed something else:
As a healer, Xien's battlefield awareness was exceptional.
When his gaze tracked over his teammates, he cleanly sorted urgency and severity. In limited time, he always landed healing exactly when it was needed most.
It changed everything.
Bold maneuvers became easy to execute. The gain from fighting monsters increased, while the risk of injury dropped.
Later on, even the Amazons and werewolves among them seemed to find some echo of racial instinct—like they were being carried by divine favor.
If someone asked why Xien could perform at this level, there were only two answers.
First: in his previous life, the role he played most in games was support. He'd fed victories to every kind of carry imaginable. To get "the food into the carry's mouth," he'd trained his macro-awareness until it was muscle memory.
Now that he had a team of absurdly strong "carries," supporting them felt effortless.
Second: the system's Orange Cat helped.
It marked everyone's injury status clearly. Xien only needed to keep them all in the "green" light-injury range—and on the upper floors, only a few Level 2 members were getting hurt anyway, so it was easy to manage.
Xien finally lived the true healer lifestyle.
He formed a new rear-guard unit with the two spellcasters, Leanna and Celti, and enjoyed the luxury of being protected as they moved.
So this was what it felt like to be a "mage" in a team.
In Orario, adventurers didn't have rigid class divisions. Only certain roles had specialized terms.
Magic-focused damage dealers were called mages, sages, or spellcasters.
Healers were called healers.
Those who supported the team in the Dungeon were called supporters.
And the rest of the melee fighters were simply "adventurers."
This was reality, not a game—you couldn't expect people to be perfectly specialized. If opportunity and effort aligned, cross-training into another role was always possible. The lines weren't absolute; the emphasis just differed.
Even so, Xien didn't slack off.
While monitoring the team's condition, he kept observing every monster they met—its habits, its tells, its weaknesses—building a foundation for the day he faced them alone.
Some special monsters, if you met them without any intel, could destroy you with pure information gap.
Like one kind of magic wolf:
It would leap at you with bared fangs, looking like it was going for a bite—
—and then, midair, it would suddenly spit a fireball from its mouth, fast enough to punish anyone who wasn't ready.
Without precautions, who could take that?
The more he thought about it, the more the Dungeon felt like a game:
Information was everything.
With enough intel, you could hunt even powerful monsters like a predator—step by step, setting them up, calculating them to death.
But without intel, even a weaker monster could pull off a first-encounter kill.
With the system advantage, Xien felt that if he had time, he could become an encyclopedia of the Dungeon.
Looking at the teammates shielding him at the center, he quietly recorded that thought—making it a goal for the future.
And finally, on Floor 16, he saw the monster that had left a deep impression on him:
The Minotaur.
In the original story, it was the protagonist's first major wall—
—but in the hands of their high-level captain, it was toyed with like a joke.
That didn't mean it was weak.
Xien could tell: if he fought one right now, he could probably manage it.
But doing what the captain did—handling multiple at once, casually, with complete control—
That was still far beyond him.
When they finished advancing through Floor 16, Alise ordered a rest—just to be safe.
....
My Patreon : patreon/RuneA
If you want to read the novel in advance, you can subscribe for early access. I also have many more novels in my collection that you might be interested in
I upload ten novels a day, with 3 to 4 chapters per title depending on the length. If you're following a particular series, please wait your turn a little
If there's a particular novel you're enjoying on Patron, please give it a 'like' so I know to focus on it