When they returned to the surface, Evan felt the lazy warmth of a spring sunrise spilling across his face.
Without realizing it, the whole night had passed.
When they'd gone into the Dungeon yesterday, it must've been after dusk—around seven or eight in the evening.
For adventurers, that was normal. Only low-level adventurers who hovered around the upper floors went in every morning and came back in the afternoon or evening.
Once you reached the middle floors, making a round trip in a single day became difficult. And if you went down to the lower floors—or deeper still—you measured the trip in "weeks" or even "months."
Like the Loki Familia's deep-floor expeditions, which usually lasted several months.
That was also why there was an adventurer town on the 18th floor—Rivira—a place for adventurers heading beyond the middle floors to resupply and rest.
Evan inexplicably felt like he'd just stumbled out of an internet café after pulling an all-nighter…
Anya, on the other hand, still seemed full of energy. She even asked if he wanted to go to the tavern for breakfast. But Evan remembered how Cecil once took a single bite of the catgirl's lunch box and immediately collapsed from poisoning—she only woke up after downing two bottles of antidote.
The food at the Hostess of Fertility was famously delicious, but the waitresses' staff meals seemed to have some… suspicious ingredients mixed in. For safety's sake, Evan decided to pass.
So Anya escorted Evan and Lefiya back to Daedalus Street, even helping carry the faintly glowing greatsword the whole way.
Only at the end did she wave them off noisily.
"Super fun, nya! Next time I'm off, let's play again, nya!!"
She looked completely unsatisfied, like she hadn't had nearly enough yet.
Anya hummed to herself, already imagining how she'd grab breakfast, then sleep like a baby all day, then go back to work at night—nya!
Watching the girl's energetic figure disappear into the distance…
Evan and Lefiya returned to their familia's base. After setting down their gear, the elf girl flopped onto her bed and fell asleep instantly. Evan ate breakfast, heard from the goddess that Cecil had already gone out to work, and decided the fried potato-ball stall would take the day off. After that, he went back to his room as well…
…
When he woke again, it was already evening.
Warm amber light filtered through the slanted window on one side of the attic, pouring into the tiny room. Evan stretched, climbed out of bed, and looked at the sun sinking toward the horizon—and at the city below, where magic stone lamps were beginning to glow one by one.
After staring blankly for a while, he rubbed his face, opened the attic "door" in the floor, and climbed down the vertical ladder.
He headed to Cecil's room.
Her bed was under the window with a curtain hanging over it. On the other side was another door—what used to be an empty room, but Lefiya was living there now.
At the moment, the Astraea Familia's temporary base was a narrow, old, roughly four-story house tucked inside Daedalus Street.
It was tall, but not spacious.
Its only real advantage was a fairly decent workshop out back. That was why Evan had chosen to rent this place in the first place—because Cecil had said that borrowing the forges of the city's smithing familias was absurdly expensive.
He lived in the small attic on the fourth floor—there was only that one attic room.
The third floor had two rooms, where Cecil and Lefiya stayed. Lefiya was here as a trainee, so her food, lodging, and daily life were all handled here too.
The second floor was where the goddess stayed. It also had the bathroom, and a storage room piled with miscellaneous clutter.
The first floor was the living room, kitchen, and toilet, and it connected to the backyard—where there was a small open space and a smithy built from red bricks.
Small as a sparrow, but with all the organs intact.
Astraea had even planted some flowers in the backyard. Demeter had sent seeds too, and taught the goddess how to grow radishes and leafy greens—but for now, it would still be a while before anything was ready to eat.
Evan washed up in the second-floor bathroom.
Only then did he find Lefiya and Cecil in the living room. Cecil had already returned from work—and earlier in the afternoon, she and the elf girl had even taken the magic stones and materials Evan brought back from the Dungeon to the Guild and exchanged them for cash.
"It's two hundred thousand valis, Evan!!"
Cecil was stunned.
A normal adventurer party scraping by on the upper floors would only make a few thousand valis each per day—maybe ten thousand if they were lucky.
The gap was ridiculous!
But it made sense. The monsters Evan had encountered—even the weakest-looking goblin soldiers—were probably on par with mid-floor monsters (floors 13–24), weren't they?
Which meant, in practice, Evan had been adventuring in the middle floors, not the upper floors.
And the magic stones weren't even the main point—what really sold were the materials. A lot of them were things the Guild, and many production or merchant familias that bought monster parts, had never seen before.
So the appraisal value was higher.
It wasn't like he'd sold anything truly rare, though. Most of it was armor plates dropped by goblin knights or soldiers, or claws and teeth from those shaggy kobolds.
As for the faintly glowing greatsword he'd brought back, Cecil obviously hadn't sold it. She wasn't stupid.
And by the judgment of a professional smith like her, it was an excellent third-class weapon—on the market, it might be worth around a million valis.
Of course.
That was how adventuring worked: you earned a lot, and you spent a lot. Never mind the mental stamina potions Lefiya drank and the like.
And then there was the worst of it—Evan had taken one look through the fog gate on the third floor, and it had destroyed all his armor. The brass greatshield and spear were also damaged beyond repair.
The armor itself was fine—standard issue gear for ordinary adventurers, only a few tens of thousands of valis.
But the shield and spear were both third-class weapons Cecil had made. They were early works—"good enough" for their tier—but together they still cost two or three hundred thousand valis.
Evan didn't think it was a loss.
It was a boss he needed to clear. Trading blows with it and getting a sense of its strength was valuable. No matter how expensive your equipment was, it wasn't more important than your life. At least now he was certain: without reaching Lv.2, that boss would be extremely hard to beat—the raw stat gap was too big.
This was the first time he'd broken weapons Cecil had forged for him. Evan had expected her to be angry, but she didn't say a word.
Instead, she asked him seriously—almost solemnly.
The "Goblin Guard" bone plate they'd brought back last time had been enough to make a full suit of armor. (If they didn't make a shield, it would be just enough for heavy armor.) But now, it looked like they needed to make a shield after all—meaning the armor would have to be light or medium instead.
Evan thought about it and agreed: a shield was essential. As for armor, standard gear was fine for now. If it was too expensive, he'd feel sick every time it got ruined.
With that settled—
Cecil immediately pulled out her little notebook, as if sketching designs. Not long after, she went thump-thump-thump running to the workshop in the backyard—she didn't even eat dinner.
Evan figured fine, he'd bring her food later. When Cecil got into smithing mode, she forgot to eat and sleep.
Lefiya was in a great mood too.
The elf girl wasn't short on money, but a mage's equipment was usually much more expensive than a normal adventurer's.
It required specialist witches or magic craftsmen to enchant and process it with magic, and it also needed precious magic gemstones for inlay. (How much a staff cost mainly depended on how rare the gemstone was.)
So even though Lefiya's mage dress and staff were also third-class gear, their value was jaw-dropping.
Still—earning money for the first time just made you happy.
She was in such a good mood she even volunteered to cook dinner, saying she wanted everyone to taste her hometown food.
And there was more.
That afternoon, Lefiya had already asked Lady Astraea to update her status. Her abilities had improved dramatically, and she'd gained several [Feats]. According to the goddess, if she kept adventuring like she had today, then before long—maybe within three or four months at most—she could level up to Lv.3 and enter the ranks of second-tier adventurers.
That reminded Evan, too.
So after dinner, as usual, Evan asked the goddess to update his status in the living room.
And sure enough—
"You can level up now, Evan."
The [Feat] requirement had been met. Even though Astraea had no idea what the boy had experienced in the Dungeon overnight, her words were still filled with warmth and pride—as if she were simply happy for her child.
Leveling up. Becoming stronger.
For adventurers, there were few things more worth celebrating.
Even so, the goddess had been awake all night worrying, because Evan and Lefiya hadn't returned from the Dungeon. At one point, she'd even recalled that nightmare-like night she couldn't forget.
But a god could feel whether the blessing on their children still existed. That small warmth burning in her heart never vanished, and it reassured her.
And she knew she couldn't show how worried she was. If she did, Cecil would start worrying too.
That child hadn't slept last night either.
Honestly…
"Do you want to level up now? Your ability values haven't reached their limit yet—you can still raise them."
The goddess asked.
At the moment, Evan's abilities—aside from [Magic]—had all already reached the "A" tier, above 800, in [Strength], [Endurance], [Dexterity], and [Agility].
If he kept pushing, he'd enter the "S" stage.
Generally, the highest limit was S, at 999. But there were extremely rare geniuses who could break past that boundary and reach even higher values.
As far as Astraea knew, there had only ever been one such person: in the once-strongest Hera Familia, a "monster" so talented that even the heavens envied her—
[Silent] Alfia.
"Then I'll keep raising my stats first."
Evan answered without hesitation.
After leveling up, all ability values reset to zero and must be raised again. The previous values were the foundation you'd already laid—and once laid, they could never be changed.
That was why truly powerful adventurers always waited until their ability values could no longer increase before leveling up. Even if one expedition only gave ten points—or even just a few—it was still worth it.
If you were going to build a foundation, you built the best one. If you were going to form your "core," you formed the finest one.
Evan understood that logic.
So—
Back to the Dungeon. Keep adventuring!
And so, another half month quietly slipped by. By the time Evan had been in Orario for a total of twenty-three days, he finally leveled up to Lv.2, becoming an upper-class adventurer.
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