Isagi and the girls reached Lv.6 before the Harvest Festival.
Late autumn had turned cold.
Paradoxically, as winter drew near, the city only grew more lively. On top of the usual residents and adventurers, tourists had poured in from every corner of the world. Word had it that for the Harvest Festival, the Guild had extended invitations to nobility and distinguished families from nurous nations — the result being that every inn in the city was bursting at the seams, with not a single room to be had.
As for why Isagi knew all this in such detail.
It was, of course, because Deter and Goddess Astrea had taken to sneaking away from their duties every now and then, showing up at his door in the evenings, and then—
For whatever reason, the goddesses were absolutely set on dragging him out to get a room at one of the hotels in town.
As if they were trying to experience so grand "slice of human life" or sothing.
Isagi found the whole thing rather baffling — though the inconvenient truth was that finding a hotel room these days was next to impossible anyway.
But never mind all that "complicated" business. In the harvest season just before winter's arrival, the party had, one by one, all leveled up to Lv.6.
That included himself, Lefiya, Ryuu-senpai, Ais, and Tiona.
Everyone in the party had now leveled up — Heith being the sole exception. Worth noting, however, was that little jellyfish Saika had already hit Lv.3, and was racing toward Lv.4 at a startling pace. Haruhi, naturally, was still Lv.2.
The girl's leveling speed was downright absurd. At this rate, it wouldn't be long before she caught up to the rest of them.
Without quite realizing it, he had been in the city for nearly two years.
If you'd told him a year ago that he'd reach Lv.6 this quickly, he wouldn't have believed you for a second.
It ant that, in a very real sense, he had now joined the apex of what it ant to be an adventurer.
In the city of old.
Lv.6 adventurers could be counted on one hand. Setting aside the most powerful mbers of the Loki Familia and the Freya Familia — Finn, Gareth, Riveria, Hedin, Hogni, and Allen — and the retired Mama Mia, the grand total ca to seven.
Oh, and two more Lv.6 from the Kali Familia.
And that was it. No one else.
Top-tier adventurers were rare to begin with, and Lv.6 was sothing else entirely — a one-in-a-million… no, perhaps a one-in-ten-million, one-in-a-hundred-million existence.
If he were being honest, counting Ais, the Astrea Familia could now be called the "strongest" Familia in the city.
Five Lv.6 mbers in total — more than both the Loki and Freya Familias combined.
The only one who could still hold them down was the captain of the Goddess of Beauty's Familia — the city's mightiest [King], Ottar, the sole Lv.7 in the world.
Though whether it would actually co to a fight was another matter entirely.
Isagi wasn't sure how much of Zard's true "Lv.7" strength had actually been on display when they fought — and how Ottar now compared to that.
Speaking of which, because of the shift in the tiline.
Not only had Zard never co to the city — he'd also been defeated by Isagi himself. That had naturally had so effect on Ottar as well. In the old tiline, the city's forr strongest had earned the [Excelia] needed to advance to Lv.7 during the [Great Conflict], by defeating Zard in single combat.
And yet, it seed the tiline had undergone a certain degree of "self-correction."
Ottar had since reached Lv.7 all the sa — but the [Excelia] that got him there had changed. It was now attributed to his single-handed defeat of a rare dragon-species monster that had escaped from Dragon Valley, estimated to be around Lv.8.
Its power was said to rival that of Balor, the Monster Rex of the 49th floor — and defeating such a creature had long been Ottar's ultimate goal: to slay the strongest known Monster Rex alone, and claim the [Excelia] needed to reach Lv.8.
That said.
If this dragon-species monster was supposed to be on par with Balor, that comparison probably didn't quite hold up. Perhaps it simply lacked Balor's extraordinary endurance.
Isagi had heard all of this from Heith. Since Ottar had fought alone, no one knew the details of how the battle had actually gone.
But that was neither here nor there.
What Isagi did take from it was a theory — perhaps because of so kind of "world-line correction," Alfia had still ended up appearing in the Dungeon.
Why had she co to the city in the first place?
And why had she died in the Dungeon?
He and Ryuu-senpai and the others had been searching for answers lately, but had found nothing.
It seed Alfia had co to the city entirely on her own, without anyone's knowledge.
Perhaps.
The next ti he traveled back, he could ask her directly.
There was one other matter worth ntioning — the situation involving the Dionysus Familia and the Artificial Labyrinth.
When he and Ryuu-senpai had gone back to the past, they had shared that intelligence with Goddess Astrea and the others of that era.
The result:
The Artificial Labyrinth had been cleared by adventurers several years ahead of schedule, and was now firmly under the Guild's control. The elevator project was still going ahead at full steam — and because they had seized the Artificial Labyrinth years earlier than originally planned, the construction had been accelerated dramatically.
It could already reach all the way down to the 18th floor. The Guild was even organizing teams to continue digging deeper.
The plan, apparently, was to eventually use the Artificial Labyrinth to establish another adventurer town in the safe zone around the 28th floor — though it was plain to see that this would be an undertaking spanning years, decades, possibly even centuries.
The Guild's ultimate goal was to construct an elevator that went straight to the deep levels. Not only would this dramatically improve the convenience of Dungeon exploration, it would also go a long way toward keeping adventurers alive.
In the deep levels, the most common cause of death for adventuring parties wasn't being overwheld in combat — it was being trapped in the Dungeon without supplies, unable to make the grueling trek back up through monster-infested floors to a safe zone or the surface.
If there were designated safe areas and resupply points at each level, parties running on empty would have a far better chance of making it out alive.
In practice, the Artificial Labyrinth side of things hadn't changed all that much from the "original" tiline — it had simply been fast-forwarded considerably.
The Dionysus situation, however, was a different story.
First, thanks to the combined efforts of himself, Ryuu-senpai, and Adi, they had successfully prevented the [Nightmare of the 27th Floor] from ever occurring. Not only had they dealt with [White-Haired Demon] Olivas in advance — the man who had orchestrated and led the whole affair — they had also swept up every last mber of the Dark Familia who had been involved.
And yet the outco was this:
Olivas and Filvis had still died in the Dungeon — and had still been parasitized and puppeteered by the Impurity Spirit.
Because each trip back to the past could only last a single day.
So.
All of this had been confird after returning to the present, through the "fixed history" that had already co to pass.
Several years ago, as the Dark Familias of the city gradually faded into extinction, Dionysus had "vanished" — reportedly retreating into the Dungeon sowhere.
And Filvis had been spotted by witnesses in the deep levels — people who claid to have seen [a beautiful dark-haired elven girl] down there.
What exactly was going on, no one could say.
All in all, the current situation seed to differ quite significantly from how things had looked after Isagi had cleared the Artificial Labyrinth in the old tiline.
And while part of the original plan had been to strike early and destroy the [Impurity Spirit] while it was still undeveloped in the deep levels, the Loki and Freya Familias had still failed to accomplish that — even in this tiline.
It wasn't that they hadn't tried. They had. They simply hadn't won.
Isagi had heard this directly from Riveria. On the 60th floor of the Dungeon's deep levels.
They had co face to face with the Impurity Spirit's true body — and the expedition had ended in total collapse. It was all they could do to get everyone out alive. They managed it in part thanks to the Xenos, and in part because the Impurity Spirit was still immature enough that it had let them go.
"Its estimated level might be Lv.9," Riveria had said.
Far beyond even Balor, the Monster Rex of the 49th floor. The Guild had assembled an extraordinary coalition — Lv.5 and above instructors from the Academic District, the Lv.7 [Finest of Knights] Leon, and [King] Ottar — arguably the most elite adventuring expedition ever assembled at that point in ti.
And they had been routed.
"We were lucky to co back with our lives," was Riveria's exact phrasing.
For now, the Guild had decided to wait — at minimum until every top-ranking officer across the strongest Familias had reached Lv.7, and until the current Astrea Familia could be added to the strike force, before attempting to subjugate the Impurity Spirit.
[That thing is really that powerful?]
An estimated Lv.9 — that was already approaching the tier of the "Three Great Quests."
Behemoth.
Leviathan.
The once-fad [Lord of Land] and [Sovereign of the Sea] were only around that level themselves.
Then what about the [Black Dragon]?
The thought ca to Isagi suddenly, with genuine curiosity. The [Black Dragon] — was it possibly Lv.10?
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