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Volume 2 Chapter 15 - Lionel

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Hiding behind a rock, Allen was watching the battle of [Lionel], a gold class party made up of people of the same generation as him from Lilac.

“Aa─h, it's been a while since I last saw them, but they’re as stable as ever.” (Allen)

As Allen had commented, [Lionel] progressed through the 20th floor without any danger.

[Lionel] was a party of five adventurers centered around Lionel, the leader. In terms of composition, it was a very well-balanced party with two swordsmen, one scout/archer, one magician, and one priest.

Their strong point was that they had a magician who could use intermediate level magic, so they could aim for big games, and they also had a priest who could use healing miracles, so they could expect a stable battle.

Currently, perhaps because they were on their way to lower floors, they only stopped for defeating alarm birds with the male scout/archer firing his bow without ever missing, and others were not just walking around either, they were relaxed but still alert to their surroundings.

The high level of their ability was evident from the way they were having a conversation with a slight smile on their faces.

‘Haah,’ Allen let out a breath and lightly moved his body to loosen up.

In truth, everyone recognized [Lionel]'s ability, and even Allen himself recognized it. As the same local, Allen knew enough about [Lionel]. He even partied with them once.

A certain incident caused their relationship to deteriorate, and they become nothing but a pain in the ass though.

“Could you please stop walking around? I want to go home quickly.” (Allen)

While complaining about such a thing, Allen leaned his back against the large boulder he was hiding behind. This was the only place in the area to hide, so Allen couldn’t even take a detour to avoid being seen.

Allen continued to monitor the situation with some irritation, but after a while he heard a faint noise and looked in that direction and realized that something was wrong.

To the right of [Lionel], a large number of alarm birds were flying in the sky a little away, and they were raising their voices.

And the members of [Lionel] seemed to notice as well, and their movements suddenly became hurried.

Confirming that all of [Lionel]'s eyes were directed towards it, Allen ran up the large rock he was hiding in, crouched down on top of it, and looked in that direction.

“Are you for real?” (Allen)

Directly below the alarm birds, a party of six adventurers was running frantically. Their equipment was in tatters, and no one was unhurt. The worst of them were bleeding from the head and half their faces were stained in blood, but they kept moving their legs.

That's no wonder, after all, they all knew that if they stopped, they would be swallowed up by the black mass that was moving behind them.

That black mass was a herd of monsters that appeared on this floor; bullfangs.

Bullfang was a bull-shaped monster that boasts a huge body of nearly 3 meters long and over 1 ton heavy. It attacks adventurers using two sharp horns on its head and long, sharp fangs that give it a part of its name.

Even just one of them is a threat, but they often move in groups, so if you fight one of them, you have to deal with their whole herd, they are that troublesome monsters.

However, what was reflected in Allen’s eyes was a number so large that it could no longer be described as a herd.

If one were to use the word herd, it would probably be a large herd. But even that may not be enough to represent the current situation.

Allen turned his gaze to [Lionel]. It's clear that the party currently running away had messed up somehow.

Adventurers are supposed to help each other as much as possible, but only to the extent that their own safety can be ensured.

It was no fault of their own, and in the current situation, even [Lionel] would die if they faced this large herd, so the best thing for them to do was to run away.

It may seem cold-hearted, but it would be the right decision for someone who lives as an adventurer.

But [Lionel] didn't do that. They ran to a large boulder nearby, called out loudly to the fleeing adventurers, and began preparing for battle.

Allen gritted his teeth at the sight.

“Tch, he did that after all. That idiot. He hasn't changed at all since the old days.” (Allen)

The fleeing adventurers changed their running direction towards [Lionel] with a face that seemed to say ‘We’re saved’, and the herd of bullfangs also changed direction to pursue them.

There were only a few tens of seconds left until that black mass swallowed [Lionel].

Allen stood up and jumped off the boulder. It was clear that the members of [Lionel] no longer had the luxury of worrying about Allen's unrelated direction, so there was no longer any need for him to hide there.

Allen let out a single big breath as he landed on the ground, and then smiled a little when he saw Lionel standing in the lead and giving instructions.

“I needed some meat for Rebecca's welcome anyway, so this is just perfect. While I’m at it, I’ll be repaying my old debt, Rai.” (Allen)

Mouthing the name he had once called him, Allen took a sharp detour so that he was out of sight of every [Lionel] member, and plunged towards the large herd of bullfangs.

.

.

.

Time goes back a little to when [Lionel] reached the 20th floor of Lilac Dungeon.

As a party was made up only of adventurers from Lilac, what’s more, as the only gold class among them, [Lionel] was very familiar with Lilac Dungeon.

In the first place, most of the requests from the Adventurers’ Guild were related to this Lilac Dungeon, and the same was true even when clients made nominated requests to [Lionel], who had a proven track record locally.

Of course, that didn't mean they never left the city for escort requests and the like.

This time, as usual, the job that [Lionel] received was to subjugate the monsters that appear on the 25th floor of Lilac and collect their materials.

The difficulty level of this request was quite high, and even gold class adventurers might not be able to complete it unless they were familiar with this Lilac Dungeon, but accordingly, the reward was much better than the average request.

Currently, the upper limit of the requests that [Lionel] could complete while ensuring their own safety was the 25th floor, the same one as this request.

That was because the atmosphere clearly changes from the 26th floor onwards, and the monsters also become much stronger.

Even on the 26th floor or beyond, it was possible to fight a few monsters if you fight as a party, but if you ask whether you could fight stably, that was not the case, and for [Lionel], this had been their worries for many years.

“Hey, Rai. When we get our reward this time, are we going to update our equipment and try again?” (Party Member 1)

“Yeah, because, even if you can stably hunt on the 25th floor, it's more efficient to fight strong monsters in order to level up. Are you dissatisfied?” (Lionel)

“No, you're the leader of this party. I'll follow your ass wherever you go.” (Party Member 1)

“Quit that phrasing. There are seriously people who’ll take it in a different meaning.” (Lionel)

The sight of Lionel covering his butt with his hands and making a disgusted face elicited laughter not only from Naseem, the swordsman who spoke to him, but also from his friends around him.

In fact, everyone had witnessed Lionel being hit on by a man at a bar before, so they couldn't resist.

Lionel also laughed softly as he watched the reactions of his friends.

After laughing for a while and calming down, the male magician walking in the middle of the party called out to Lionel with a serious expression on his face.

“I'm all for going further down the floor, but in addition to improving the equipment, won’t you also consider the other proposal I made?” (Percy)

“Percy.” (Lionel)

Sensing his determination from the calm tone of his voice, Lionel frowned for a moment as he thought about it. Percy's proposal benefited Lionel personally, so it would be a lie to say that he wasn’t swayed by it at all.

But Lionel quickly pushed that thought out of his head and shook his head.

“There's no point in just me being special. We're [Lionel]. We're all [Lionel].” (Lionel)

“I see.” (Percy)

“As expected from the leader, oops!” (Pete)

Percy silently replied to Lionel's words, followed by the scout/archer Pete, who agreed as he fired an arrow at an alarm bird in the sky.

The arrow accurately pierced the alarm bird's torso, robbing it of its life.

‘Great skill as always,’ Lionel was feeling impressed when Torin, the male priest who was keeping an eye on the surroundings, called out in a panic.

“Lionel, it's strange. The alarm birds are so crowded together...” (Torin)

“What?” (Lionel)

Everyone looked in the direction that Torin was pointing, and some clicking of tongue could be heard coming out of some people's mouths.

Lionel, Naseem, and Pete, who had good eyesight, could clearly see what was moving on the ground. The other two also knew what it was from experience though.

“Pete?” (Lionel)

“Un, a lot of a lot. It's like a bullfang carpet spread all over. And unfortunately, the fools are still alive. The direction’s a bit different, but they’re running this way.” (Pete)

“They’re alive?” (Naseem?)

Naseem frowned upon hearing Pete's report and looked at Lionel. After confirming that his eyes didn’t waver in the slightest, he took a deep breath and prepared himself for what was to come.

“We will get the running adventurers in front of a boulder and make our defense there. As soon as Torin recovers them, we will look for an opening and withdraw by going over the boulder. Pete will take out the alarm birds as the top priority while considering those. Better time it well when we go over the boulder. Those guys will be quiet as long as we’re on the ground after all.” (Lionel)

“As usual, you don’t give an option to abandon them and run away.” (Percy)

“That's the good thing about Lionel, and the bad thing about him.” (Torin)

“Shut up, let's go.” (Lionel)

Face twisting slightly at Percy and Torin's words, Lionel ran in the lead. Naturally, the other four followed after him.

Even though all four of them knew that the battle that was about to begin could be their last, they had no shred of intention of betraying the back of the man who was running in the lead.

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Author’s Note:

Thank you very much for reading.

Just a little announcement.

I wrote this story quite a long time ago, and I started posting it thinking ‘Might as well get it out into the world,’ but thanks to all of you, I was able to receive this much unexpected positive reviews.

Once again, thank you very much.

However, I have been told again and again in the comment section that there were contradictions or insufficient explanations, so I've been correcting them as they come but, I'm planning a full-scale revision.

That the crucial mechanism of leveling down and leveling up was difficult to understand was fatal. I've already supplemented it now.

I plan to continue with the daily update, and the general outline will not change, so there is no need to reread it.

Well then, I suppose we will begin with excel management. We will notify you once the correction is complete.

That is all for the announcement.

(Currently revised up to Volume 1 Chapter 9)

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(T/N: Lionel → Raioneru → Rai. I thought about using ‘Li’, but that’ll sound like ‘Lee’, so I just use Rai.)

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