Chapter 458 - 458 - Whatever Comes, We'll Deal With It!

After a good meal, everyone had just settled into a brief moment of warmth.

But this unknown disturbance shattered the calm, and the minds they had finally managed to relax were left hanging again.

"All right, rest if you need to rest, do what you were doing. There's nothing to worry about."

Leon's voice carried its usual ease, as if he were bringing up something trivial.

"As the saying goes, whatever comes, we'll deal with it."

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

"Besides, isn't there still me here, the one Aura calls a Great Mage, a First-Class Adventurer at Lv.5? Just put your minds at ease. Even if we do run into trouble, I'm the tall one who takes the hit first, so what are you all fretting about?"

"And anyway, we're nowhere near the point of having nowhere left to retreat, right?"

"It's just a little noise."

Looking at Leon's untroubled, relaxed expression, the worry on Margaret's, Laurier's and Aura's faces gradually faded, and something settled back into their eyes.

Compared with them, the faint smile at the corner of Irisviel's lips had never once disappeared.

Her trust in Leon was absolute. That solid, steady feeling he brought was something nobody without Iri's kind of background could possibly understand.

This is the power of pure love!

...

Leon's group had sensed the disturbance and, after some analysis, judged that it came from the 36th floor.

And a bunch of shifty types on the 37th floor, the next floor down, naturally noticed the anomaly too. Since the tremors came straight down from the ceiling, the shaking was actually clearer here than the swirling sand up on the 35th.

The huge commotion threw the mysterious ritual site into chaos, and two poor bastards were even crushed into serious injuries by rocks falling from the ceiling. They had no slack to begin with, and were already short on hands for a ritual they were trying to speed up, so this only made things worse.

"Fuck!"

"What the hell's gone wrong now? Can't it wait until I finish this job in peace and get paid before it starts acting up?"

"There's no living like this!"

In the darkness a cup was hurled hard against the ground, smashing the skull of a Spartoi that had just been born.

"You, you, you, and you."

"Go. Take a Magic Sword, head down to the 36th floor, and investigate what happened!"

"Huh? Me?"

"Yes, you!"

"B-but... boss, I'm only Lv.3!"

"The monsters here are all Lv.4. I'm no match for them at all!"

"No match?"

The Evilus boss shot back in a sneering tone:

"You're no match, and that's my fault? If you're no match, why don't you reflect on yourself?"

"How many years have you been with me?"

"E-eight years..."

"Right, eight years. All those years gone by, has your strength improved at all? Have you been doing your jobs properly?"

"Heh, if you won't do it, plenty of others will!"

"Figure out the road yourself!"

...

...

Half a day later.

The Deep Floors, 37th floor, the White Palace.

"Are the scouts back yet? Why is it taking so long?"

The man in the wide black robe and hood let a rare edge of impatience slip into his voice.

The ritual was about to succeed. He had no desire for anything to go wrong at this critical stage, ruining everything they had built, falling short at the last step.

They had no time, no manpower and no resources to start over.

Above all, judging by the timing of the last wave sent to harass Demeter's party, those people should already be working on the trap mechanism of Sand Land. Once they found a countermeasure, with their strength there would be nothing left to stop them before the 37th floor.

Time was running out!

Just as he was pacing back and forth beside the bonfire with his hands behind his back, inwardly frantic, one of his underling's underlings murmured something in the underling's ear, and the underling's face lit up. He hurried over to the black-robed man and bowed respectfully:

"Boss, the investigation team is back!"

At that, a flicker of delight crossed the arrogant eyes beneath the hood:

"Good!"

"Bring them here at once!"

The underling bobbed his head:

"Yes!"

Before long, a squad of soldiers in the uniform black robes of Evilus came trudging over, travel-worn.

Except that, compared with the fully armed group that had set out half a day earlier, the investigation team's present state was hard to put into words.

Their clothes were in tatters, bloodstained bandages showing between steps. And the number who came back was only three and a half, when the squad had been a full eight at departure. Clearly... the trip from the 37th floor down to the 36th had not gone smoothly. Quite the opposite, it had been nothing but thorns, one brutal fight after another, and they had escaped with their lives by luck alone.

"You've done well."

The boss kept his hands behind his back and praised them in a low voice:

"Worthy of being my god's faithful believers. Once our great work is complete, I'm sure your long-cherished wishes will be fulfilled!"

The few of them raised their heads, fanatical faces showing beneath their hoods.

In perfect unison they laced their fingers together, bowed their heads and prayed with fervor:

"Praise Chaos!"

The captain nodded in satisfaction:

"All right, now tell me what happened on that floor!"

At that, one of them with a severed arm stepped forward:

"According to our investigation, something did happen on the 36th floor..."

"The hidden Monster Rex of the Sand Land, the Mirage Sand Dragon, has been born."

"Huh?"

...

...

Sand Land, the 36th floor.

After a night's rest, the group set out once again in high spirits.

Before them lay the same endless yellow sand and the same curtain of dust blotting out the sun, but unlike the previous floors, the environment of Sand Land was growing harsher the deeper they went. The 32nd floor had wind and sand, yet visibility was still fairly clear, and standing on a dune you could still see the rolling sea of sand. From the 33rd floor onward, though, the strength of the sandstorms climbed with every level.

By this 36th floor, the terrifying sandstorm had dropped visibility to less than ten meters. Look in any direction and there was nothing but an apocalyptic landscape the color of dusk, and an endless shrieking.

"This environment really is the last trial of the Lower Floors."

...

...