Beginning of the Descent

(General POV)

As far as the expedition was going, Lyze would suppose that it was going as well as it could. As per Finn's plan of procedure, the vanguard had held back and allowed the second string group to move forward as well as the newbies to engage them and build their experience.

After all, any adventurer of Bara's calibre and above would gain no Excelia from these monsters because they were small fry for them. So it was better that the weaker adventurers took them on instead so they could reap the available benefits for themselves.

The only small issue was that when Lyze had moved to engage, Finn held him back saying that he would be deployed at the allotted time. Lyze understood this to a degree as he would easily just wipe off each and every one of these goblins and kobolds with perhaps a sneeze (a little exaggeration maybe but Lyze wanted to see if it remained so when he channelled a little Darkness into his breath.)

It would certainly be the most time efficient method but it would also be depriving the newbies the Excelia they could gain. The point of this was not time but efficiency and experience. There was no point in bringing those groups of people if all they were going to do was tag along.

Still, Lyze was a bit put off as his hand was aching to quick draw Excalibur and begin a bloodbath. But Finn was Captain and Lyze would listen to orders. The Pallum did seem to see through him though and said that any monster that spawned on top of him was his to deal with.

There was no absolutely determined place for monsters to spawn, obviously. While it was guaranteed that a large group would spawn ahead to confront such a large group, at times there would also be some surprise spawns. Apparently, during one of the Familia's first expeditions (their numbers had obviously been much fewer back then), monsters had spawned on top off the supply carts and so the whole thing had to be cut off due to a lack of sustenance.

So it was not uncommon that monsters would spawn right out of the blue in the middle of the group to bite the head off of an unsuspecting adventurer.

It had only happened to Lyze once though, as right above his head, a dungeon Lizard jumped out from the ceiling with its jaw wide open to snap off his skull. Many of the adventurers called out to him in alarm and the executives were made to look back at him to see what the commotion was about.

However, Lyze had already detected it and decided that it perhaps it was a good chance to show off in front of the weaklings. The executives didn't seem unconcerned either as all had experienced the brunt of his strength first hand. Which added further to their lack of surprise when he sidestepped the Lizard's trajectory and punched it so hard that not only did its body immediately bend at an awkward angle and the sound of it's spine snapping reverberate around the tunnels, but as it flew over the heads of adventurers, the draught of wind whipping up some of their hair, the Lizard smashed against a wall, exploding in a shower of blood and guts as it's body's inside became its outside.

Nobody spoke for a moment as they looked at the nasty mess which evaporated into monster ash, dropping behind a core and a Lizard Fang. Ais looked at him with little stars in her eyes as he dealt with it so easily. Obviously she did not have the raw physical strength to perform something like that even if her level made the Lizard easy work for her. But the effort had been so menial for him, he was thinking that her admiration was a tad bit far fetched.

He drank in the sight of the newbie's faces though. Their jaws were hanging open at such an effortless attack. After all, he had been in the Familia for much less time than they had been yet he was already, clearly leagues ahead of them in power. It was one thing seeing him spar in battle, but in the Dungeon where he was full of killing intent and he was cutting loose, it was another sight to behold.

Gareth urged them to pick up their jaws and carry on as more monsters spawned ahead. Even if time efficiency was not the main goal, it did not mean that wasted time was appreciated.

Lyze chose this moment to fall back to the carriers who were dragging along the supplies and converse with Tsubaki who was also stationed there as that was where her smiths were.

"Hey teach." He greeted her as he, unbeknownst to them, moonwalked to her position. It was so subtle though that it only made them think he dropped his pace a little.

"Hey squirt." The half-dwarf ruffled his hair in return, her other hand gripping her naginata.

"You didn't tell me you would be taking this dive with us. Why didn't you say anything when we were together the other day?"

"Well I hadn't actually decided. Hephy agreed to send a contingent of smiths but somebody else was going to be their representative. Eventually I guess I just wanted to see what my student does with the weapons that he makes." She then glanced back a little to the sixth floor they'd left behind. "But judging by that punch earlier, it seems that I won't be able to see any of that until sometime yet."

"Yep." He replied. "Finn plans to send me ahead once we reach the middle floors."

"Why?" She asked, a little surprise across her face.

"Because my job is to clear it out for our procession to move forwards quickly, and it saves the executives more energy. When you look at it, it's just another little errand boy task."

"You call clearing the middle floors by yourself an errand?" She gave him a skeptical look, her disbelief somewhat apparent but not enough for him to bother picking up on it.

"Yeah." He replied. "I guess when you're the brass, you can make decisions like that."

"But you'd be by yourself though." Tsubaki said before she muttered something else. "...maybe the rumours are true then."

"What?"

"Nothing. Anyway, are you carrying Grigor with you?"

"Right here." He said as the red sword popped out of his hammer-space into his hand. "Obviously I'm bringing the real thing and not my replica."

"You did good though in your latest attempt."

"I don't trust my creations as much as yours though."

"...I guess I'll take that as a compliment then." She smiled before slapping him lightly on the back. "Run ahead now. Not a good idea for a second liner lingering at the back like this."

"Sure, Catch you later." He said before he walked back to his previous position behind Riveria.

"Honestly, he doesn't like or trust a magic sword that he's created." Tsubaki said in a bit of exasperation. The Grigor replica he'd made had actually been even better than the one she'd made for him. It appeared that he didn't exactly know how magic weapons were made either. Usually, a weapon is enchanted after the blade has been forged. But to her complete surprise, he had actually been pouring magic into the blade DURING the forging process, unaware of how slack jawed she'd been because of how much focus he'd put into it.

She'd taken this news to Hephaestus over a cup of tea, and immediately the smithing goddess had been hooked on, eager to know how this was done as it was an entirely new method. Yet again, a foreign aspect that the boy had brought to the smithing industry alongside that Moonlight metal. It had only been due to Hephy being bogged down by her work that she'd not found the chance to come and speak to him about it.

It was also because of the Goddess's continuous experimentation with the new metal as well. Each and every time Tsubaki checked up on her, the goddess was hammering away at the new metal with a glint in her single visible eye that slightly unnerved her. Unbeknownst to the boy, among the many who looked up to him in awe, there was also a goddess that had a steadily growing obsession with him as Hephaestus constantly demanded an update on Lyze's progress from Tsubaki.

And the boy saw her every other day, so the reports were quite a lot. Hephy would say that it was all for the sake of learning new things about smithing with Lyze and trying to partner with him on a special project in the future when he'd learnt how to properly shape high quality materials (and also because Hephaestus also had a nagging sensation that was lingering on her conscience ever since she inspected Excalibur), but Tsubaki, although she did believe her, did not trust that statement fully. It seemed to the half-dwarf that there was something else going on as the brightness in Hephy's eye was a little too luminous.

Thinking of the smithing Goddess though, Tsubaki patted her pocket as she remembered another thing that Hephaestus had tasked her with, and something she'd forgotten even though the boy had just spoke with her. She tutted at her lack of attention but ultimately decided she'd give the item to him once they were on the 18th floor for their break. They spend the night there in camp before moving on next day, so she had ample opportunity.

Although Tsubaki was still of the opinion that it was too extravagant of a gift for the boy who already had too many weapons on hand.

---

Eventually, the diving company stepped down on the ground of the 11th floor, upon which the first truly dangerous monsters began appearing. By this time Finn had ordered the second group and the newbies to fall back and the vanguard took the front lines with Lyze amongst them. They were anticipating to deploy him on his solo mission soon, and the excitement began to bubble within him as the opportunity grew nearer.

To begin with were the presences of dangerous airborne monsters, provided in the form of a cluster of Bad Bats. As soon as the winged monsters caught sight of the large group of adventurers headed their way, they began screeching and Lyze could see the aid being distorted as sonic waves began floating nearer and nearer to them. 

Those that were armed with bows began raising them and drawing the strings. They were forced to stop though as Finn raised his hand in motion for them to not proceed and the Pallum directed his gaze towards Lyze.

"I guess I've kept you waiting long enough Lyze. Mind taking care of those for us?"

"Say no more." Lyze said as he drew out Excalibur, a grin adorning his face. He'd overestimated the limits of his patience. Not being able to kill monsters as frequently as he would have liked turned out to be quite an annoyance. His hand had been itching just to slice some of these creatures apart but he'd had to leave them to the weaklings so they could gain Excelia.

Usually when dealing with airborne monsters, Finn would have the archers group shoot them down, leaving the monsters at the mercy of the vanguard. But he surmised that Lyze, having been down here by himself over and over again and going further beyond this point, as well as possessing the ability to fly, would prove enough to deal with small fry like Bad Bats.

Everyone watched as the boy launched into the air, leaving behind a small crater under his feet as he bulleted towards the bats at speeds even they could not see. Before one of them even knew it, it had been sliced completely in half. The distorting screams had no effect on the boy as Lyze flipped to land on the ceiling.

Using it as a launch pad, he jumped towards he bats again and decapitated three more. One tried to grab him with its claws but he outmanoeuvred behind it and cut it down the middle once again. 

The Loki Familia in their majority watched him do so with great intrigue and awe. They had developed a sense of respect for him, as he was the prodigal pride of their goddess. But most had not really seen him in action much at all, and the few instances he had fought in the dungeon was enough to prove that even amongst other individuals of his 'level', he was leagues above them in raw power.

The vanguard was suddenly disturbed as the ground began to crumble upwards some distance in front of them and a yellow, scaled snout pushed through. Finn levelled his Fortia spear at the Infant Dragon the pulled itself out of the ground and shook the dirt of itself as it fixed them with its murderous gaze.

Infant dragon spawns were a little rarer than other monsters, and encountering one during expeditions were often considered a small omen of good fortune to be expected. But it was dangerous for a reason, enough so that some considered it to be a boss monster of the upper floors. Thus it was the responsibility of the vanguard to dispose of it quickly before it could harm their weaker members.

Ais held Desperate aloft, intending to take a piece of the monster for herself. Some time ago, she'd come down to these floors just so she could find one of these monsters. She had instead ended up fighting a black wyvern for her level up but she would not pass up the opportunity to cut down any type of draconic monster.

But just before any of them could act, a black blur smashed into the dragon's skull and drove it into the ground with such force that the rest of its body was flipped into the air as a dust cloud formed around where it's head had assumedly been buried. The dust cleared to reveal Lyze with both his feet firmly planted into the beast's shattered skull. Blood was splattered on the ground in every direction as no part of the monster's head was any longer distinguishable from any other part.

Lyze rubbed his head and nervously laughed.

"Sorry, got carried away a little bit."

"That's fine." Riveria said as she pulled her staff back. "Have you dealt with the bats?"

"Yep." Lyze pointed to a bunch of bat wings fluttering to the ground around him.

Meanwhile, the adventurers behind the vanguard gawped at what had just happened and how nonchalant the executives were being about the whole thing. Riveria had seen him fight Goliath single-handedly before, so she was not that surprised by what he just did. But the boy had just casually made an infant dragon's head explode just by stomping it with both feet. They'd expected to see their leaders be the one to take it down, yet the little boy had just done it so casually and with seemingly such little effort, it was mind-boggling.

It may seem repetitive at this point, but you must understand that the executives were well used to Lyze and his numerous shenanigans. They were the only ones that had seen his stats sheet after all. But nobody except a couple of individuals had seen Lyze in the dungeon, and the only indication of his strength had been his levels and his spars with the veterans. 

The were caught out of their stupor as the sound of ground being disturbed in multiple places sounded ahead of them. They all looked towards the middle of the floor as multiple imps, orcs, hard armoureds and several other monster types began to burrow their way out of the dungeon floor.

"A monster horde?" Noir questioned as he observed the spectacle. "Do they always just spawn like that?"

"No they don't." Finn replied. "At least not unless a certain person is in the area." He fixated his gaze on the boy standing on top of the dissipating corpse.

"You actually believed my report?" Lyze said.

"What reason did I not have to?" Finn asked. "But I'll admit I was skeptical. But seeing it happen in real life, I'm forced to accept it."

"What are you talking about?" Bara asked.

Surprisingly it was Ais that answered.

"Every time Lyze is down here, the dungeon spawns a monster horde on top of him." The girl said in her emotionless voice as usual.

The group stared at her in surprise.

"How did you know that?" Lyze questioned her.

"I read the report too." 

"How? Those are kept in my desk." Finn said.

"I asked Loki and she gave it to me." The girl replied.

Riveria face-palmed as she realized what was going on. As always, Ais was looking for an insight on how Lyze became stronger and seeing that Lyze was made to write down reports every time he encountered something bizarre, the girl must have asked Loki to provide it to her. The red-headed goddess did cave into the girl's demands a lot after all.

"I see." Gareth said before he smiled under his horned helmet and gave his comrades a side-eye. Finn had a quite displeased look on his face. "Looks like Loki is going to have quite a talking-to once we get back."

"Let's focus on the monsters for now." Finn said. "Don't let any of them behind us."

The next couple of hours were spent clearing out monsters from the 11th and 12th floors. For the powerful vanguard, it was a breeze ploughing through all of them, leaving showers of monster blood in their wake, but eventually they decided to hold back again once they reached the 13th floor and the shiny bedrock of those floors appeared once again.

One thing Lyze did notice on the way though was that the monster statues Soltra had made disappeared. he summed it up to an effect of the stone charmer being defeated but he kept his guard up.

The first monster to greet them when they reached the middle floors was a good old minotaur that exploded out of a wall and began lumbering towards them, followed by several more as they too emerged from the rock.

"Okay, Lyze. I believe this is where you go on ahead." Finn said.

"At last." Lyze said as he sighed in relief. It had taken hours for the entire company to reach this point and what stamina he'd expended clearing out monsters from the previous floors had already long been reclaimed.

He stalked towards the first minotaur, locking eyes with it as the bovine clearly understood who its determined opponent was. Yet before they could engage, Lyze leaned to the side a little bit as an orange fireball passed by him and slammed into the minotaur, causing the monster to combust into flames as it collapsed to ground screaming while it helplessly burned.

Lyze turned back in the direction of its trajectory and saw Riveria's palm smoking a little. The high elf's furrowed eyebrows relaxed as she gave him a small smile to signify her achievement.

"Riveria..." Lyze breathed in amazement. For a long time now, he'd believed that he would be the only one that would be proficient in silent magic, yet already Riveria had grown strong enough in it to kill a level 2 monster.

"I take magic very seriously you know." She said. "I can't let you be the only one capable of using such a complex yet fascinating magic technique."

Her fellow elves gave her prideful looks as their princess had advanced in the strange new magic. But the elf's intentions had actually been to make sure that Lyze did not feel alone in this subject. Being the only one who could cast silent magic, the elves had looked upon Lyze as some kind of freak. And because there were several scholars with her, they could influence the magical society of Orario altogether.

Such influence could turn them against Lyze instead of being in his favour. Already their obvious dislike of him simply because he was human had created tensions and she didn't want it to end in something negative. She could remember quite well her time in Altena and how they had subtly despised her because she was able to use three iterations each of three different magics she could use.

Her ability to alter them based on her chant and chant time had given her the ability to cast nine spells instead of the usual three spell cap that was forced upon all other mortals. As such, fellow academics were venomously jealous of her and they'd done everything they could to make her feel unwelcome in the city of knowledge. She knew how it felt to be an outcast because she was exceptional.

Her prowess however paled in comparison to what Lyze was and would soon be capable of.  His silent magic granted him access to many several different elements and he had demonstrated the ability to use dozens of silent spells for each element. She dreaded to think what the negative impact of being labelled a freak would do to him mentally.

From her observations, it seemed that the more familial treatment he received from those he was surrounded with, the more stable he was. He came off as an affection-starved orphan who sought acceptance even when he didn't realize when he was expecting so.

Her being able to also cast silent magic would make sure that he was not treated badly, or so her motherly intuition told her. Again, complex feelings arose in her in regards to this boy in particular. Something so deep within her soul just involuntarily reached out to him. But as confusing as it was, she trusted her gut and went along with her feelings. Whatever they were regarding Lyze, she knew that his happiness was something she was greatly concerned about.

Even if Lyze did not know her exact motivations, he felt his heart warm up a little as the pure intent behind her actions subconsciously affected him. Yes, these two magical idiots had a deep connection between them, but frustratingly enough, neither actually stopped to think about what it could be. Nevertheless, Lyze knew now that he had a reliable person in the high-elf.

It did not mean however that he was going to accept competition so easily. 

He gave her a small smirk before turning back towards the minotaur horde approaching them. Lifting up a palm, a large blue fireball formed in it before it swirled and shrunk down to the size of a golf ball, the fire having been heavily condensed. Flickers of electricity began to flow around the fireball as he simultaneously summoned lightning magic.

He pulled his arm back and thrust forwards, letting loose what looked to be nothing less than a bright ray of pure energy as a storm of blue fire instantly incinerated the minotaurs it made direct contact with. Those that were out of the way where instead fried to death by currents of lightning that were curling around the beam.

The Loki Familia were forced to squint from the bright light as they felt the pure heat from the magical attack that far outclassed what Riveria had done. After a few seconds, Lyze clenched his hand bringing an abrupt stop to the stream of energy.

Everyone opened their eyes again to observe the damages that had been made. In front of them, they could see that parts of the wall nearby had become slight molten as the sheer heat caused the bedrock to melt. But what was visible to all was a hole in the rock face that allowed them to see through to the other side of the wall where there was yet another hole, leading to another part of the floor and so on.

Lyze dropped his hand and gave Riveria a smile.

"Wanna try that?" He asked cheekily.

Riveria just frowned again as she suddenly felt her previous, noble intentions had just become much harder to achieve all of a sudden.

Finn coughed to break everybody's dumbfoundedness and addressed the boy.

"I do not advise using spells like these all the time Lyze. But, I do hope that you eliminate all monsters ahead with equal efficiency until the 18th floor.

"Leave it to me." Lyze saluted as he took off, leaving his Familia behind as he rounded a corner.

Gareth saw Ais shaking a little bit in longing and he ruffled her hair.

"You can't go with him Ais." The dwarf said.

"Why not? He's fighting strong monsters all by himself." She pouted.

"That is the point. He's been given a job to do. He won't be able to do it if he has to look out for you." Ais pouted even further. But Gareth chose to ignore it as he looked behind at his company of dwarven shielders. He and his men usually acted as the tanks of the Familia by this point, so the vanguard could push forwards.

But by Riveria's insistence, the task of helping the Familia push forwards had been left entirely in Lyze's hands. Although judging by the display of magic he'd just seen as he looked back at the hole, it wouldn't be a surprise if Lyze actually could do it. Anyway, it just meant more rest for him, energy which he could conserve for when he would inevitably have to take the frontlines in the Deep Floors.

He caught sight of a familiar friend of his hastily walking by them and he called out to her in confusion.

"Tsubaki. What are you doing?"

"I'm just going to follow him." She said as she nodded to to Finn who nodded back in understanding. Who wasn't curious? "I want to see exactly what my apprentice is capable of after all, and exactly what he does with his weapons."

"You're free to go ahead." Finn said to her. She was a capable adventurer, so she wouldn't hold the boy back. "If he does find himself in a spot of unprecedented trouble, please do assist him."

"Will do." She nodded as she too took off, tailing the boy as more explosions sounded in the distance. Something told her that this expedition was going to be a little different than the ones she usually accompanied the Loki Familia in.

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