Even by strength alone, Noah could handle Goliath.
But it had to be emphasized again: this was the Dungeon! The unknown was the most dangerous thing of all!
The Floor Boss might appear earlier than expected, or an unexpected enhanced Goliath might show up. Either was possible.
Even if the odds were only one in ten thousand, should something go wrong now, Riveria—whose only means of attack was long-range magic—would have no way to rescue him in time.
So she would not allow it!
Her sharp reprimand echoed through the cavern and lingered for a long time.
Even though she was only caught on the edge of it, Ais trembled all over.
She couldn't imagine what it would feel like to be the one directly bearing the brunt of Riveria's fury.
But when Ais quietly turned her head and looked at Noah, her eyes immediately widened.
Compared with the furious Riveria, Noah seemed remarkably calm. Even the bloodlust he'd built up while fighting his way here seemed to have completely faded.
"Riveria, I think I can beat it!"
His deep blue eyes were like a still pool beneath the moon, calm and undisturbed, yet shining with a fierce will.
That wasn't all. Ais saw a smile on Noah's face.
Yes, a smile.
It was an expression she had never seen on Noah's face in the half month since they'd met.
The smile on Noah's handsome, delicate face was captivating, yet it made Ais feel as if an icy current had passed through her entire body.
As though she were standing in a bitter winter wind, Ais couldn't help shivering.
Because Ais understood what that smile meant. Perhaps she was the only one who could.
It was the excited smile of someone who had encountered a powerful enemy, anticipating a fierce battle.
To others, Noah and Ais were both battle fanatics.
Ais knew that as well as anyone.
But, as some painter had once said, horses were the hardest thing to paint, and ghosts the easiest.
People could hardly ever see a real ghost, but they saw horses all the time, so they could spot the difference between a painting of a horse and the real thing.
To Ais, the difference between herself and Noah was just like the difference between a painted horse and a real one.
They might look very similar, but in truth, they were fundamentally different in a way that could never be ignored.
The smile on Noah's face now was the clearest proof—
Unlike Ais, who was driven by hatred and forced herself to fight while suppressing her fear of monsters and pain, Noah enjoyed battle. He relished the clash, immersing his body, mind, and soul in it.
He yearned for battle so deeply that throughout the more than ten days he'd been unable to fight, he hadn't smiled once...
Why?
Why could you be so happy because of battle?
Battle meant facing terrifying monsters, suffering painful injuries, and possibly dying forever, didn't it?
Why would you ever come to like fighting?!
Having keenly sensed the gap between them, Ais could no longer suppress the weakness she had always kept hidden.
The swordswoman's mask she had built over the past year shattered, and she realized once more that she was nothing but a weak, powerless little girl.
The shock left her dizzy. It felt as though her consciousness and body were about to separate.
To fight the suffocating agitation, Ais had to bite down hard on her lip, until the sweet, metallic taste of blood spread through her mouth.
Ais wasn't the only one shaken by Noah's smile. Riveria was, too.
"Noah, you..."
Though she couldn't quite grasp the fleeting shiver she'd felt in her heart, Riveria knew she probably wouldn't be able to stop Noah from going forward.
"Riveria, if I don't fight it, I'm afraid I won't be able to sleep even after we get back... I'll definitely win!"
This guy really was completely different from Ais. He had always known exactly what he needed.
His will and decisions probably wouldn't be swayed by anyone.
Taking care of him as a junior was the biggest mistake of my life.
"...Honestly, you're always finding ways to cause me trouble!"
Riveria took off her backpack and tossed it aside. Gripping her staff, she rolled her shoulders and glared at Noah in annoyance.
"Fine. Whether you win or lose, I'm doubling your lessons when we get back! Complain, and I'll beat you to a pulp! Got it?"
Looking at the green-haired Elf, who still wore a stern expression but had already decided to support him, Noah smiled from the bottom of his heart.
He pulled out the potion Riveria had given him earlier, frowned, and gulped it down.
Unaware of Ais's strange gaze, he turned and stepped into the Seventeenth Floor's hall.
They had entered a vast, open hall from a narrow cave, yet Noah felt the air grow heavy.
A powerful sense of wrongness welled up inside him, as if he were an unwelcome guest who had trespassed somewhere he didn't belong.
Noah had experienced this feeling before—during a campaign to hunt a monster lurking in a deep lake.
Compared with the lively, surging ocean, entering a silent lake always brought the chilling sensation of countless creatures watching you.
So, more than the battle that followed, what had etched itself most deeply in his memory was the oppression that flooded his heart the moment he entered that dead, silent lake.
Fortunately, this time, the "master" didn't keep Noah waiting for long.
A sigh-like "crack" echoed through the long hall. Lightning-shaped fissures appeared across the enormous white crystal wall.
The cracking grew faster and faster, becoming as urgent as the roar of a storm about to break. At last, it erupted into a thunderous rumble that made the walls tremble and set people's eardrums crying out in pain.
"GRAAAH!!!"
Along with its mighty roar, a gigantic giant looked down at Noah with blood-red eyes.
"...You're loud."
Though a faint smile still lingered on his face, Noah's deep blue eyes had become as clear as the winter sky.
All personal feelings, whether excitement or fear, had completely vanished from them.
Only a pure, lucid killing intent remained. Its very purity made it seem almost holy.
"—So I'm going to kill you!"
As a clear sword song pierced through all the noise, a gleaming flash of cold light appeared in the hall.
At the same time, in the long, deep cave connecting the Eighteenth Floor to the Seventeenth, a party of eleven girls was slowly making its way upward.
At the head of the group, a masked, blonde Elf was locked in a heated argument with one of her companions.
Useless Elf and the Sharp-Tongued Swordswoman
"Stupid Elf! Useless Elf! Idiotic Elf! Are you even good for anything? I swear, you could grab some random passerby and they'd do a better job than you!"
As they climbed the long, steep slope, a black-haired girl in a kimono, her hair hanging straight down her back, kept verbally beating up her companion with a rudeness completely at odds with her lovely appearance and elegant demeanor.
The blonde Elf being attacked had initially kept her head down and silently endured it.
But when Kaguya's verbal assault not only failed to stop but seemed to grow more and more vicious, Ryu finally couldn't take it anymore.
She raised her brows, and her sky-blue eyes shone with the dazzling light of her fierce will.
"Kaguya! That's enough! What do you mean, some random passerby could do a better job than me? Why don't you say some random passerby could take on a Floor Boss?!"
Kaguya fell silent. Glancing sidelong at Ryu, she slowly revealed a smile that would make any man's imagination run wild.
But it wasn't a gentle, conciliatory smile. It was a dangerous prelude to an attack, like the breath of a venomous snake.
"Oh, I'd sooner believe some random passerby could take on a Floor Boss than believe you, Useless Elf, could get anything done. Guess whose fault it is that, after the expedition ended, we couldn't even rest in Rivira for a day? We had to keep going back, worn out just like this, and even pay them with the precious materials we found in the Deep Levels?"
The kimono-clad beauty from the Far East, Mikoto Yamato, was known throughout Orario for her exquisite swordsmanship, which had earned her the title Yamato Gentian from the gods.
But only those close to her knew that the sharpness of her tongue, the cutting edge of her words, and the accuracy of her attacks were every bit as fearsome as her swordsmanship.
Even Ryu, a Level 3 adventurer herself, could barely withstand a few short verbal blows from her.
Her earlier confidence vanished completely, and Ryu stiffly lowered her head.
Though her mask hid her expression, one could easily imagine her pouting with her face flushed red.
"W-well, they were trying to touch my hand..."
"Yes, yes, the hand of our noble Elf really is precious. They only nearly touched it, and you beat five or six adventurers until they were covered in blood! We almost ended up at war with the Rivira adventurer group!"
Even as tears threatened to spill from the blonde Elf's sky-blue eyes, Kaguya showed no sign of stopping her verbal assault.
"My noble Elf, I wonder if you'd deign to lower yourself and offer paid handshakes. The Astraea Familia's assets would surpass the Hephaestus Familia's in no time! Then we wouldn't have to work so hard!"
Seeing the two foremost fighters in their group locked in a one-sided bout of bullying, the other girls finally couldn't help speaking up to defend Ryu.
"Um, Kaguya, don't blame Ryu. It was my fault for carelessly getting hit by the Venom Maggots' attack. We had to buy a terribly expensive antidote in Rivira, and that's why they were able to extort us."
The speaker was an Elf mage with glasses and a staff in hand. She had a delicate, youthful face, even younger-looking than Ryu's.
With her short green hair and unisex shirt, it was easy to mistake her for a handsome young man at first glance.
The bandages wrapped around much of her right arm explained why her face was so pale.
Among all the monsters that used poison as a weapon, Venom Maggots were one of the most dangerous species.
The poison secreted from their mouths or skin could easily pierce the Abnormal Resistance of high-level adventurers.
Venom Maggots were poor fighters individually, but they tended to appear in enormous swarms of hundreds, enough to make any adventurer group blanch.
More importantly, their poison could only be completely cured with a special medicine made from items they dropped.
As far as anyone knew, no healer's magic could completely remove it. At best, it could only alleviate the effects.
On their way back from the lower levels, the Astraea Familia had been attacked by Venom Maggots. Celty, their mage, who still hadn't fully recovered from her mental exhaustion, had been unfortunate enough to get hit.
The adventurer town of Rivira on the Eighteenth Floor naturally sold that kind of antidote, but, as expected, the price was exorbitant. The girls had been forced to sign a massive debt note.
And when they tried to sell some materials in exchange for a chance to spend the night at an inn in Rivira, they were swarmed and eyed greedily by a horde of unscrupulous merchants, like flies drawn to the scent of blood.
Rivira Town was a black-market group that didn't even care about the Guild. Its merchants dared to extort members of the Loki Familia and Freya Familia, so why would they fear earning the resentment of the Astraea Familia?
If anything, the Astraea Familia, as the city's law enforcers, had often arrested and punished them on the surface. They certainly weren't going to pass up an opportunity to feel superior.
When a few lustful men, emboldened by their advantage, reached out to Ryu with greedy looks, everything had been settled.
"That's enough! None of this is really anyone's fault! Those merchants are the ones to blame. Why are all of you so quick to attack your own teammates or take the blame?"
The Pink-haired Dwarf, with her sweet and adorable face, spoke up, putting a stop to the Familia's infighting.
"And Celty, don't go saying someone's at fault. Without your and Lyra's magic, we wouldn't have finished this expedition anytime soon. Your mental exhaustion was for everyone's sake, understand?"
Though Laila looked young, she often got right to the heart of the matter when problems came up.
In the Astraea Familia, whose captain often acted without thinking, she was frequently the one who took on the role of commander.
After Laila's reprimand, the party fell silent.
What broke the silence was a red-haired girl, bright and warm as the sun.
As though nothing had happened, she let out a hearty laugh that echoed through the Long Slope Cave, dispelling even the Dungeon's ever-present sense of gloom and danger.
"Exactly! Kaguya, you can't always show you care by verbally attacking people. When are you going to learn to speak honestly? If you want Ryu to learn how to get along with people, you should start by saying what you mean!"
As if she'd been ambushed by the captain's fire magic, the Eastern Female Swordsman's expression changed dramatically.
"Hah? Who cares about this useless Elf?!"
Before you continue