End of the expedition(corrected)

"Okay everyone, we are starting our descent. In case the monsters come, you are allowed to use the magic swords, I wish everyone good luck."

"Yes, captain!"

When the group felt ready, they began to prepare to descend the 51st floor.

"Mark! I-I'm going!" -Tiona said, trying to force herself to maintain eye contact.

"...Good luck." -Mark replied with a stiff smile.

"Yes!" -More charged up than ever, Tiona happily ran towards the downstairs entrance.

'Haaaa, is it eviler to ignore a person's feelings or to reject them before they are expressed?' -With that doubt in mind, he headed towards the remaining group.

Under Finn's command, Anakitty Autumn would be in charge of their group. She was a level 4 adventurer who had spent a lot of time in the Loki Familia, so Finn trusted her. Mark found it quite amusing that her name, reflected her race, belonging to the cat people race.

"Now that the others aren't here, we need to make sure we stay alert. Two groups of two will check the entrance to the upper and lower floors respectively, we will take hour shifts. As soon as you see monsters, report it immediately and as the captain said, you can use magic swords."

After explaining, the various pairs were formed and Mark ended up being put together with Elfy. Perhaps Anakitty knew that Mark didn't have many connections with the others, so she preferred to pair him with someone he already knew.

"Looks like we'll be together Mark."

"It seems so."

They were the first pair to have to guard the entrance to the upper floor, which could be called the safest one since monsters rarely descended to the lower floors where they were born. For this reason, Elfy was peacefully sitting on a boulder, while swinging her legs and humming something, instead Mark was sitting on the floor while thinking deeply about something.

'My mastery with the sword has increased thanks to the clash with the spartoi, but I'm still not satisfied. If my magic was more sophisticated, it would have been easier to handle that monster, haaa looks like I'll be even busier once this exploration is over.' -Thought Mark with a sigh.

He had seen Riveria's and Lefiya's magics able to follow targets or change position making them unpredictable, while his magic could be fast casting, but they were straight attacks easy to dodge, so he was thinking of various alternatives. The first would be to create multiple magic circles at once, while the second would be to create magic far away from his body, to catch his opponent by surprise.

'Those are two feasible ideas, but it will take me at least another week, before my magic circuits will allow it, in the meantime, I will practice on the aura.' -Although magic was a good means of attack, he preferred to focus on the aura, as it would protect him in dangerous situations.

So time began to pass, during which time Mark would concentrate on covering his hands with the aura, his goal was to be able to cover both arms at the same time. At the moment he was only able to cover up to the elbow of one arm and that alone required a lot of his concentration.

Even when his watch was over he continued to practice, as soon as the aura disappeared he would reactivate it in a cycle that would be endless, if it were not for the fact that he began to sweat and his breathing became heavy.

'Heavy breathing'

"Why I'm so exhausted?" -Said Mark as he grabbed a canteen to drink some water.

[It's normal host. Everything present in all universes can't be infinite, the same goes for the aura, which can be considered a form of energy, that's why sooner or later it runs out if it's used interrupted].

"That makes sense, I guess I overestimated the aura since it's so mysterious." -Said Mark wearily.

The aura had a strong connection to the body, so the more it was used interrupted, the greater the consumption of the resistance would be. In this aspect, it was not much different from magic, which instead of consuming physical stamina, consumed mental energy.

"They're back!"

Hearing the screams of the others, Mark quickly stood up as well. It had already been several hours since their departure, so it was time for them to arrive and he was curious about how it had gone. When he arrived, there were already many people, so he had to make room among them and was speechless when he saw the state they were in.

All of them were in a pitiful state, holding themselves up only because they were supporting each other, otherwise, it wouldn't be strange for them to collapse at any moment, but even in that condition, they had a satisfied smile.

"Captain, how did it go?" -Anakitty asked worriedly.

"It was difficult, but we reached the 59th floor and defeated the monster that was there." -Finn said smiling.

"That means..." -Anakitty said as her tail rose excitedly.

"That's right, this exploration was a success."

"WOOOOOOO!"

When Finn gave the words of confirmation, everyone burst into a victorious shout, after many years, another Familia had reached the 59th floor. In this air of mirth and joy, Mark was more focused on the injuries they had sustained. If a group like theirs suffered such injuries against a monster, it meant that they must have faced something that was at least level 8.

'The Guide indeed told me that after the 50th floor, the dungeon would become much more difficult, but encountering a monster with such strength on the 59th floor is frightening. Could it be a boss?' -Although his head had several doubts, he had to wait before he could get any information since they had to be healed quickly.

After a night's rest, the group that had been fighting looked much better, so Finn explained what happened on the lower floors. When they reached the 52nd floor, they were forced to separate and one of the groups had to face the masked figure together with the new species. After a hard fight, they managed to exterminate them, unfortunately, the masked figure managed to escape without them noticing.

Following the battle, they continued to descend and when they reached the 59th floor, what greeted them was not a completely frozen floor, but rather a jungle, and it was there that they encountered the monster. Apparently, the jewel of evolution had fused with a monster, turning it into a corrupted spirit, so the battle pushed them to the limit.

From what Mark has studied, spirits were the gods' beloved race. They had magical abilities that surpassed all races and during the Age of Heroes, the spirits helped the heroes on their journey, though many ended up being eaten.

"Many things are happening to both the dungeon and Orario and in the future things may even get worse. With the Evilus more active we'll have to be more careful, but for now, we've done enough, it's time to go home." -Finn said, smiling at the end of his speech.

"YES!"

With that, everyone was looking forward to climbing back up and resting after the long exploration. The ascent unlike the descent was much faster because most of the equipment had been used, so the group was traveling light. The ascent was going on smoothly, they encountered a few monsters that were handled with ease, but on the 25th a problem occurred.

"!" -While they were walking over a stone bridge, Mark detected a large number of monsters, so he quickly shifted his gaze to the ceiling, thinking they were flying monsters, but he saw nothing.

'Wait, if they aren't above then...' -When he realized where the monsters were, it was too late, because some screams were starting to be heard towards the back of the formation.

"They are poison vermis! Those who don't have good resistance to poison face them from a distance!" -Finn shouted.

The poison vermis were caterpillar-like monsters about the size of a newborn baby, spitting out a purple poison that could rot the skin, and normal antidotes didn't have much effect on that kind of poison.

Fortunately, they didn't have a good defense, so one 'electric dart' was enough to kill them, the only problem was that there were many of them and their venomous sprays, covered a large area and when he realized that some splashes, were about to touch his face, he protected himself with his hand covered with the aura and to his delight, it seemed that the venom a couldn't penetrate his skin.

'It's confirmed, I need to improve the use of the aura' -With that thought in mind, he continued to kill the monsters.

After the fight against the poison vermis horde, many members of both the Loki and Hephaestus Familia ended up being poisoned and the antidotes they had were only able to slow down the decay.

"With the antidotes we have, there is nothing we can do. Bete, you are the fastest among us, go above and ask Airmid for help, also report to Loki about the situation." -Finn told him.

"Tch, a bunch of weaklings who can't even face some worms, how pathetic." -Even with his derisive comment, he began to run at full power.

"Finn we need to hurry, we don't have enough antidotes." -Riveria told him quickly.

"I know, luckily, we left some supplies on the 18th floor." -Finn replied and then shifted his gaze to the others.

"Help those in need, we'll run flat out to the 18th floor!"

(author: as you read, the chapter was very rushed, but I wanted to finish as soon as possible with the exploration. I promise something interesting will happen in the next one).