PROLOGUE

[41ST DAY]

A corridor twisted through the dim dungeon before opening into a cavernous chamber. Rows of enormous columns stood throughout, and a grotesque, deformed king’s throne hewn from a mass of metal sat deep in the back, both relics of a lost civilization.

The clamorous clashing of swords spilled out from within. Armor jostled, the living panted, and the bones of the repulsive walking dead crunched. A party of adventurers fought in a circle, hemmed in by a gang of bones, humanoid skeletons whose flesh and other organs had long ago decomposed and sloughed off. Green light smoldered in their sunken eye sockets. How they managed to move without any brains or muscles was a mystery. They assaulted the living with beaten, busted old weapons they’d held on to from their own runs at life. Nobody knew where the throne, or these skeletons who protected it, came from. All we adventurers could say for sure was that we couldn’t delve any deeper into the dungeon without defeating them.

A youthful knight cleaved one of the undead in two with a single slash of his sword while keeping his companions protected behind his shield. A lightly armored girl whirled her spear around, smashing bones on impact. Then a voluptuous mage raised up her prayers in praise of the gods with whom she’d consecrated her covenant and put the shattered ghoul back together. Eyes gleaming blue under her spell, the reconstructed soldier went berserk and set to violently attacking its bony brethren.

My eyes focused on a young boy wielding a longsword. Circling around the rest of the party, he flailed his sword wildly, cutting all it touched to ribbons. In that manner, he single-handedly chipped away at the enemies closing in all around them. Forty-two skeletal soldiers remained. The boy’s breathing grew labored; even if he took out all of them, the battle would be far from over.

“Éa, cover Shuna.”

“You got it—!”

At my command, my younger sister-in-law released an arrow. It flew straight through the forehead of a cadaver poised to hurl a spear at the young boy, Shuna, shattering its skull and sending the fragments flying. An impressive show of skill.

“Darling, I’m just about ready.”

“Okay, do your worst.”

My wife—in name only—thrust her staff into the ground, then spread her arms out wide. The light flickered from her eyes as she entered a trance. I sensed a torrent of unseen power rush to her.

“Arvin, we’re gonna clean the rest up in one go,” I informed him. “On my signal, activate your defense.”

“Aye,” Arvin, the former knight, responded through my receiver. Beside me, I heard tender, enchanting exaltations rise up to the gods.

“My lord Ezeus, grant thy lowly servant a drop of thy primordial might, a blaze burning a crimson deeper than my blood,” chanted Lana. “Holy fire, emerge as a devastating inferno. Hallowed flame, swallow the masses before thee and, as would a dragon’s breath, like a purifying force from the heavens, devour this world ruled by fate. Show yourselves, O mirrors of destruction and calamity, redder than red. Through these primeval tenets of the world, I decimate thee to the last!”

A small flame burst to life before her but quickly flared into a roaring conflagration—a massive ball of fire. Deep within, a terrifying shadow flexed its powerful back muscles.

“Arvin, shields up! Put all you’ve got into it!”

“Everyone, behind me!” he called out, and the party drew close to him. Éa cast a protective light over Shuna as he caught up to the group a bit late.

“Magnificent Lillideas, grant us your mercy, your devotion, and your divine protection. Let my prayers and my shield deny all conceivable suffering and pain. Zammonglace Romea Teiring!” chanted Arvin. He raised his shield, and a dome of light cascaded down around us.

Then the mage beside him lifted her cane and prayed, “O holy fire, conjoin with these elements and become a light to shine tranquility upon us, sustain our spirits, and protect us from all flames!” At that, a geometric pattern branched out over the dome; it began to revolve like a mechanical cog, strengthening the defensive barrier.

Hearing a low chuckle at my side, I turned to find Lana, completely different from her usual self. A crazed look had come over her. “Hoense Romea Dragbane!” she bellowed, conjuring a burning orb that shot out directly above Arvin and the rest of the party, then ruptured. Then a napalm-like inferno engulfed every last skeleton. One by one they dropped, writhing as they disintegrated. For a moment, I hallucinated and heard shrieking, strangled death cries emanating from within the blaze.

“You outdid yourself, Lana. You can stop now,” I told her, calling my wife by name. The inferno’s wrath was bearing down on Arvin and the others. Although the bulwark of light protected them from the blaze, it couldn’t completely stave off the heat, which was clearly suffocating them. We were standing a decent way from the conflagration, but the scorching blasts of hot air reached us even there. Such an intense blaze could quickly eat through all the oxygen in an enclosed area like a dungeon, including the large chamber we were in.

---

---

“Lana?” The undead showed no more signs of stirring, but the fire would not abate.

“Lana! Stop! It’s over!” Éa cried, shaking her sister by the shoulders. She got no response.

“Éa, do something,” I urged. “They’re gonna cook to death!”

“All right. Time for the last resort.”

She moved directly behind her sister and suddenly took both of Lana’s bountiful breasts in her hands. Then she squeezed them, deftly wiggling all ten fingers to lift, lower, separate, and join Lana’s boobs. My head bobbed with her every motion, bewitched.

Could I get in on this?

“Huh?”

Éa tilted her head quizzically. “That’s so weird… This always brings her back.”

The trance refused to relinquish its iron hold on Lana even as Éa kept her grip on the woman’s chest. Talk about an unbelievably surreal scene. It captivated me for a moment, but my friends were still neck deep in fire. With not a moment to lose, I fell back on my last resort, drawing near my wife and whispering in her ear.

“Umm, so…” Emergency or not, it still embarrassed me to continue. “You look as cute as ever,” I murmured.

“………”

Gradually, the trance receded, allowing her usual innocent and self-conscious expression to return. She flushed red all the way to the tips of her ears and let out a strange “Eeyaaah!” sort of squeal.

“Come onnnnn! At least wait until you’re outside to get all lovey-doveyyyy!” Beltriche, the young girl, screamed—not through a transmitter, but directly from her mouth. She must have really had some ears on her to overhear us talking all the way out in the corridor.

After wriggling free from her sister’s embrace, Lana shrank into a crouch in a corner of the passageway, cradling her head in her hands and quietly moaning, “Aaaaaaaah!”

“Good work,” I told her, then casually stole a glance at her ryvius. Of the two test tubes lined up next to each other on the device, the one that displayed Lana’s blue external magic reserves for spell concoction had been drained of every last drop.

“Éa, get those arrows out.”

“You got it, Yaya,” she responded, using the nickname she’d given me after I became her older brother. We both nocked the special arrows we’d been saving.

“Souya, here it comes—the main event.”

At Arvin’s warning, we trained our bows on the king’s throne. Ashes from the bones rose and fluttered through the air, then began to swirl around the royal seat.

“Isolla, display each party member’s ryvius status. Just give me their internal magic reserves,” I bade the artificial intelligence robot hanging from Arvin’s waist. Internal magic referred to the capacity one had to recover from wounds. As long as you had some of this chaotic mana left, you could lose an arm or a leg, or have your organs collapse, and they’d regenerate as if nothing had ever happened.

(Arvin: 40/120; Shuna 10/75; Bel 30/90; Zenobia 40/50) read the data displayed on my glasses. Shuna had fallen into more perilous territory than I’d expected.

What should we do? If we go the cautious route, our best bet is to retreat. As a famous general once said, “Let’s turn back. If we make it home, we can come back and try again.” And yet.

“Yo, Souya,” Shuna called out to me. “Don’t even try tellin’ us to retreat again. We got this.”

“Yeah, we do.”

He spoke fiercely, completely fired up. There was no escaping this. He’d hit the middle of a growth spurt, so one or two fierce battles could tremendously influence his potential. This was a crucible; if he made it through, he’d gain invaluable experience he couldn’t obtain easily otherwise.

“Arvin, cover Shuna. Bel, Zenobia, fall back to me,” I ordered.

“Got it,” my party answered. In that same second, a light flashed before us to reveal an enormous crown. It settled atop the head of an equally colossal skeleton towering five meters tall. The behemoth wielded a massive sword befitting its stature; though rusted, chipped, and half-broken, it would surely send us minuscule adventurers to our deaths with a single blow. A bright green flame smoldering in its eye sockets, the undead giant unleashed a deafening roar. I flinched—no, it was more than that. My very soul seemed ready to shrink until it disappeared.

“Ugh—,” Shuna grunted, assaulted up close by the earsplitting howl. Then, with a “Raaaaaaaaah!” he let out an indomitable battlecry that shook off all his fear. Though he was as exhausted as he was fired up, neither his stance nor his blade betrayed the slightest sign of wavering.

“Shuna, just make us an opening. Don’t go too crazy,” I warned him.

“Won’t need to. We’re takin’ this bag of bones down.”

“Arvin, step in if Shuna goes too far.”

“I’m on it,” he replied before racing toward the colossus with the boy. The massive skeleton sluggishly lifted its mighty sword, then slammed it down with terrifying speed. The entire dungeon shook from the thundering boom, crash, and impact. As it rose once more, two shadows darted through the ashes the blade had stirred up.

First, Shuna sprinted toward the ghoul, dodging its strikes, and landed a blow. With a knee now sliced in half, the giant skeleton lost its balance and braced itself with a hand against the ground. Next, Arvin slammed his shield into its jaw in a brutal uppercut, the metal clanging like a bell. Had their foe been a living thing, the knight’s wallop might have concussed the creature’s brain enough to kill it. But we were dealing with the dead. Undeterred, the hulking revenant turned and thrust its sword at Arvin.

Violent sparks leaped through the air. Shuna had parried the giant’s blade with his longsword. I almost couldn’t believe the fantastical spectacle unfolding before my eyes. A brief beat later, their weapons began a frenzied dance—a sword fight pitting boy against colossus, blades clashing furiously.

“Yaya!” My little sister’s voice shook me back to reality. I’d lost myself for a second, completely mesmerized.

“Éa, we’re aiming for its neck. Think you can do it?” I asked her.

“In my sleep.”

Shuna brandished his steel with perfect precision, pushing his skills past their limits to new extremes. He’d tapped into the strength of someone shoved up against the brink of life, essentially dangling from that cliff with nothing but his pinkie. As if to prove the point, his ryvius was being depleted drastically by the second. His sword radiated heat from the collisions and intensity of the battle. An even match would’ve shocked anyone, but Shuna was dominating.

The skeleton keened in frustration, slashing its blade in a mighty swing. Ducking under the horizontal swipe, Shuna scraped his weapon against the ground, then hacked one of the giant’s thick arms in half. A second later, he grimaced, shaken by tremors the limb caused as it smashed into the ground.

“Mr. Shuna’s ryvius has fallen to zero.”

Isolla’s warning sent a chill slithering down my spine. A tense moment later, the colossus’s blade flew toward Shuna—but Arvin cut in, delivering a devastating strike with a ferocious cry. The Skeleton King’s sword flew straight into a nearby column—still attached to the hand that gripped it.

“Aaaaaaaah!” the two men shouted as one. Their swords zigged and zagged, hacking off the thing’s legs to send it toppling. Although its severed arm stuck to the column and the legs strewn about began squirming in an attempt to return to their master, the main body could move no longer.

“Now!” Éa and I released our bolts at almost the exact same instant. The two projectiles, a little too aberrant to call true arrows, traced slight arcs through the air and drove into the giant’s neck simultaneously.

“Arvin! Get Shuna behind your shield!” I yelled. “And don’t forget to cover yourself, too!”

The man grabbed Shuna by the head and pushed him under cover.

“…?” The behemoth appeared confused as it felt for the arrows lodged in its neck. Then they exploded, beheading it. The crown fell off the severed skull, tumbled, and rolled to a stop against Arvin’s shield. Both he and Shuna brought their swords down on it in unison to shatter it. With a dying wail, the bones and blade of the fallen Skeleton King dissolved to dust and were swept off by the wind.

“Éa, Isolla, scour the area for enemies.”

“Copy.”

“Got it.”

I did my part, too, and took stock. No apparent threats. The bones now reduced to ashes showed…no signs of regenerating. A hush descended on the chamber.

Bel and Zenobia ran over to me.

“No remaining foes detected,” reported Isolla.

“Same here,” added Éa.

Checking one last time for myself, I found nothing that moved but my party members. I examined every corner, even inspected the ceiling. Then I took a deep breath in and let a looooong one out.

“Mission complete,” I announced. “Great work, everybody.”

They hollered and cheered, “We did iiiiiiiiit!”

Shuna whooped louder than anyone before instantly passing out with a smile on his face. Bel and Éa took each other’s hands and jumped for joy; even Zenobia raised a grin. Lana glanced over at us, clearly feeling a little left out.

And so, on our third attempt, our combined party finally made it past the ninth floor.

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The Tower of Legions—this was the dungeon against which we tested our skills and luck. It had a few unique quirks, the first being the teleportation devices called portals found every five floors. Despite all the advancements I’d lived with back in the modern world, the technology behind these things completely baffled me. To be fair, though, nobody here really knew how they worked, either.

The portals dated back at least three civilizations, or so they said. But nothing “they said” in this world could ever be taken at face value. Orally transmitted legends of famous heroes would often attribute the feats of two people to a single figure; they would also fuse two separate foes into one, presumably to keep things balanced. You couldn’t trust these tales at all. Point was, the portals were technological mysteries.

This “Other Dimension” had three continents. If you went back through their shared histories, you’d find a story detailing the collapse and rebirth of civilizations. The dungeons found on each continent were essentially remnants of those ruined societies.

The Tower of Legions was apparently the oldest of the surviving relics. Some said it was a horn that had once belonged to the giant who created the world, a glimpse into an ancient culture, or a tower the Legion Gods had deserted.

But I digress. In any event, every fifth floor had a portal, and a guard stood watch at each level just before them. These relics of long-lost civilizations blocked adventurers’ paths, as if to test them. The humongous skeleton we’d just defeated had been one of those guardians.

On our first attempt, the skeletal soldiers had mobbed and driven us off. On our second, the Skeleton King had hit a home run using one of our vanguards as a ball, forcing us to retreat. This third time had proved to be the charm; using all the strongest weapons we currently had at our disposal, we’d eked out a win. And so we at last made it to the tenth level. I was truly grateful to everyone in my party. My wallet felt too light for comfort, but I could always save up again with my side hustle.

The truth was, I had come to this floor before with a particular goal in mind and had shrewdly taken advantage of the moment to make a map of its layout. Now my party and I ventured not for the exit portal but for a spot where we could take a break. After making sure no monsters had set up camp there, we made our way inside the nook. Around twenty people could sit comfortably in the space, which was constructed of stone like every other area of the dungeon. It had an ancient fountain in one corner. Luckily, we had the place to ourselves. Since we weren’t officially working together as a party, we tried to avoid prying eyes.

“Shuna, you okay?” I asked.

“Never better,” he replied from where he dangled, pinned under Arvin’s arm.

“Are we not going to the portal?” inquired the former knight, to which I answered, “The danger isn’t over until we’re home. If a monster came for us now, we wouldn’t stand a chance. We need to take a break.”

“Fair point.”

I signaled to the others, urging them to rest. They all laid down their packs and took seats on the ground. I also slung off my backpack and started pulling out its contents.

Now then, time to get ready to eat.

But first, I went over and rinsed my hands in the fountain, lathered them with soap, scrubbed under my nails, and rolled up my sleeves to wash all the way to my elbows. Then I filled a pot with water and got the portable burner going. The next things I got out were pieces of bread I’d wrapped in preservative leaves. A popular street food, the flatbread was made with whole-wheat flour and fried in oil. We were going to eat these loaded with the fillings I’d packed in jars and brought with me to complete our dungeon meal for the day: wraps.

We had three fillings to choose from: meat simmered in oil, cheese, and fresh tomatoes. Personally, I had my eye on the meat. I’d seasoned some pork and patiently cooked it in oil over a low heat for hours. As long as you completely doused it in more oil after it cooled, you could prevent the meat from oxidizing. This was a well-known French technique, and the resulting dish would be known as confit. It was the latest preserved meal for adventurers I’d developed. I used to think all the food in this realm tasted like dirt, but once I started actively looking, I came across loads of delicious recipes. The only thing that sucked was that the tastiest gems were usually the most hidden.

Lately, I’d taken to going around asking more experienced senior adventurers for (paid) advice. One of the most valuable tips I’d gathered came from the so-called Father of Adventurers, who’d told me to “do whatever [I] need to do to get medicinal shoots in [my] vanguards.” A medicinal shoot was a kind of herb found here. Honestly, it looked exactly like basil, but further analysis confirmed it was an entirely different plant. It still tasted the same, though.

Medicinal shoots slowed down the internal magic consumption measured on our ryviuses. Basically, it was up to me to get Arvin, Shuna, and Bel, our three vanguards, to take them, even if I had to shove them down their throats. I’d tried tossing the herbs in salads, sautéing them, mixing them in with butter or flour, and grinding them down into a paste to lather on a whole range of dishes. In the end, after much trial and error, I’d found salting the herbs before drying and crushing them into powder worked best.

Adventuring severely taxed the body, especially for those who fought on the front lines. Vanguards needed plenty of salt and fat to keep them going. By ensuring they got herbs into their systems every time they salted anything with the powder, I could kill two birds with one stone.

Using tongs, I pulled the pieces of meat out of the jar and laid them on the slices of bread before grating cheese over them and placing some roughly sliced tomatoes on top. Next I smeared on some mayonnaise to add extra calories and sprinkled the herbal salt over everything. I gave them a quick, light wrap with the preserving leaves to shape them into crepes, and they were complete. I made quick work of preparing enough for everyone, then plated all the wraps on a frying pan. Once I got some water boiling, I shook black soybean tea into the pot and called it a meal.

“It’s ready,” I announced. “Shuna, think you can eat?”

“Yeah.”

Arvin helped the limp boy up. Everyone except for the elven sisters said a brief prayer to their respective gods before digging in.

“St. Lillideas, we thank thee for our daily bread, our prey, and your holy graces,” went Arvin’s prayer.

“O Lord Ukhazol who raised me, and Lady Gladwein who steeled my blade, I have lived another day and had another delicious meal placed before me. Thank you, thank you,” went Shuna’s.

“Holy Flames, ancestor to all, turn thy grace into my sustenance and bless this body,” prayed Zenobia.

“O Lord Ukhazol who raised me, and all you other gods who have anything to do with the heavens and food, I thank you very much.” Bel didn’t mince words.

They all dug into their wraps.

“Mmm, so good!” exclaimed Shuna, still beat but already looking a bit brighter.

“This meat is sooo tasty!” squealed Bel. This was looking like a winner so far.

“But wait, Souya.”

“Hmm?”

Arvin, enjoying his meal with great refinement, called out to me. I was honestly more concerned about bringing Lana and Éa their wraps than sitting down to chat. “What was that arrow you used? Was it enchanted?”

“Oh, I was curious about that, too,” Zenobia chimed in, seizing on the question. I’d never intended to keep it a secret from them, so I decided to lay it all out. I pulled one of the used arrows out of my pocket, or one of the attachments for the arrows, to be precise. It was a long, thin metal tube.

“We packed these to the brim with water and metal pellets,” I explained. “When they exploded, they blew the giant’s head off.”

Zenobia took the tube from me and quizzically put it up to her ear. “I can sense a little magic in here,” she noted.

“Yeah, it’s got a Mythlanic gold piece imbued with some flamecraft sealed inside.” We’d happened to hit upon these attachments as a by-product of trying to develop another item still in the works. That one was just a step away from completion.

“Mythlanic gold!” Zenobia gasped. “Hang on… Just how many gold pieces did you drop on this one day of exploration? How much is it going for now?”

“At the time, it went for twenty-two gold.”

“Wha—?” she spluttered, astonished. “Souya, you mean you spent forty-four gold today alone? Y-you didn’t take out a loan for this or anything, did you?”

“Heh-heh-heh, Zeno,” chuckled Bel. “Not to brag, but I know exactly how Sou brings in so much gold!”

“What?! Tell me!” Zenobia demanded. “I’ve got to know!”

Bel stuck her chin out proudly. How terribly modest. The mage hung on her every word. This was hard to watch. Apparently uninterested, the two boys kept munching away at their wraps.

“The answer…is this!” Bel proclaimed, lifting up an almost-empty jar of mayonnaise. She’d hit the nail on the head. “Zeno, the meal Sou made for us has some of this manuyaise in it.”

“Mayonnaise,” I corrected.

“How much would you say this goes for?” Bel put to Zenobia.

“Huh? I mean, I’ve never seen it before, but I doubt it’d cost more than honey, so maybe three silver pieces at most?” she guessed.

“They’re five gold pieces each.”

“Whaaaaat?!” Zenobia’s eyes almost popped out of her head.

“I noticed some of Lady Gladwein’s disciples putting it on their meat jerky the other day. I hadn’t seen it in the archipelago or in this area, either, and when I found out the Zavah Night Owl Trade Group were the ones selling it, I remembered they work super closely with Sou and connected the dots right away. I just knew he must’ve whipped it up.”

“Nevertheless, that’s quite a sum. Much too expensive.” Arvin couldn’t have been more correct.

“Wait, hear me out. When I first started, I charged one gold piece per jar to try to appeal to more affluent customers. We talked it up, saying it’s great on raw or steamed vegetables.”

You could get cuts of meat almost anywhere in the city. The upper classes had grown tired of such easily obtainable foodstuffs and instead preferred to dine on sumptuous seafood or uncommon vegetables. Excuse my language, but the common fare here sucked, despite the high-quality ingredients that went into it. Call it another pitfall of the previous civilization collapsing, maybe. Although people here lived in relative comfort, all that went out the window when it came to food. And nowhere did that hold truer than with their seasonings. Mostly imported from the Central Continent or the islands that lay between here and there, their spices had flavor profiles that couldn’t have clashed worse with the cuisine here if they’d tried.

Cooks here would take an absolutely gorgeous, two-day-aged tenderloin fillet, then scorch it until it was a crispy, crunchy mess utterly devoid of fat or flavor. After that, they doused it in this vinegar that tasted like fermented fish, rubbed tons of salt all over it, and, to add insult to injury, drizzled on a chili oil that was almost too spicy to consume. Once, I’d splurged to sample this dish at a high-end restaurant, only to end up nearly murdering the chef.

“But then,” I continued, “the second day, we sold way more than we expected. By the third day, people were lining up in the morning to get it and we completely ran out. On the fourth day, we found out another merchant was selling jars of mayonnaise at two gold pieces.” Reselling, that is. “After we came back from our second unsuccessful trek through the dungeon, they were going for five gold pieces a pop. So multiply that by eight, and altogether we made about ninety-six gold in profit. But we barely just broke even with that after factoring in all the production costs.” If you added in all the start-up fees and the expense of the jars, we’d actually dipped into the red.

“Then why don’t you make more of this ‘mayonnaise’ right away? You could make a fortune.”

“I will, but I’m not gonna brand it as a luxury product anymore. It only takes a few simple ingredients to make, so I’ve asked the trade group to get those for me wholesale.”

It really didn’t get simpler: All you needed were egg yolks, vinegar, oil, and salt. We swapped traditional eggs for ones from chochos, avian monsters that lived in the dungeon. Only a single mountain stood between us and the ocean, so we could harvest rock salt along its shores. As for vinegar and oil, we could get them cheaply and reliably from the farming country. Thanks to Machina’s strict instructions, the Zavah Night Owl Trade Group probably already had a large-scale production line up and running in one of its warehouses. Sometimes I wondered whether this was what I should be asking of the AI robot that, setting its status in my home world aside, possessed technologies and wisdom on par with that of the gods in this dimension. Still, Machina did seem pretty into it. Maybe she enjoyed it.

“It’ll probably go on sale either tomorrow or the day after. I’m planning to set the cost at five copper pieces, three if you bring your own bottle.”

“Now that’s much too cheap,” Arvin shot back. Yeah, that’s exactly what both young heads of their respective trade groups had said, too. But you couldn’t change my mind on this. Food is for everyone. I didn’t care if our profits were even lower.

The less altruistic truth was that someone had already stolen the recipe and passed it around. We’d only lose to these imitations if we set the price too steep. I’d been an idiot for taking the merchant game here so lightly. We’d run the shop we pegged as the main perpetrators out of business, but others just kept popping up. I didn’t have the time or patience to deal with proprietary issues, so I’d presented the mayonnaise and its recipe to the king and left it at that. In the end, I learned a good lesson: I have zero talent as a businessman.

“Yaya! I’m starving!” my little sister fumed. I grabbed wraps for her, Lana, and myself and headed over to them.

“Sorry.”

“You took forever! You never stop when you start talking about food!” Éa griped, then promptly took one of the flatbreads.

“Lana?” She seemed a little out of it. I waved my hand in front of her face. No response.

“Éa, what’s wrong with her?” I went pale.

“Hmm, she probably used too much magic. She always tries to look good in front of you and overdoes it. Don’t worry, she’ll snap out of it soon.”

But I do worry. Is this gonna have any long-term effects? I should make some time to study up on mages.

“Heh-heh-heh, those heim fools, losing their minds over mere mayonnaise.” A devilish grin on her face, Éa pulled another jar out of her bag. “It can’t even hold a candle to this tartar sauce!”

“Dude. Stop sneaking our food in your bag without asking. That won’t stay good for long, you know.”

“Oh, come on. Machina said it’d last for at least two days.”

“Next time, ask me first.”

“Okaaay.” Éa dropped a dollop of tartar sauce on her wrap, took a bite, and squirmed in delight. “Mmm, sooo yummy! Ooh, but it’d be better with a little kick to it,” she added, then took yet another jar out of her bag, this one bright red.

“Éa, you brought the sriracha sauce with you, too?”

“Machina said it was fine since it won’t go bad,” she protested.

“Well, I guess that’s okay. But we don’t have too many of those. Don’t go dumping it all over the place.”

“Whaaat?!” She balked. “……Then make more.”

“No waay, I can’t just… Well, maybe I could.” It’d be unreasonable, but I could ask Machina to give it a try.

“Hmm,” murmured Bel, suddenly at my side. She stared at Éa’s grub like a curious cat.

“Crap!” the elf tried to hide the bottles, but it was too late.

“Shunie!” Bel called out. “They’ve got something really tasty-lookin’ over here!”

“Ooh, yeah?” Shuna came over to us, a bit perkier than before.

“No fair! You elves are so sneaky!” Bel pouted. “Share your bounty with us poor, miserable heims, I beg of yooouuuu!”

“Éaaaa, I’m gonna faint from exhaustion. Lemme have sooome!” Shuna begged.

“All right! But only a taste! Just a little bit, okay?! Don’t hang on me like that! I’m gonna drop it!” Éa groaned as the two climbed all over her. Watching these three get along so well warmed my heart. Maybe that was what made seeing Arvin’s face completely devoid of emotion sting so much.

After lunch, we all registered ourselves at the tenth-floor portal and made it back to the top safely. It had taken forty-one days, but we’d made it to the tenth floor. My ultimate goal was still the fifty-sixth. This was going to take quite a while.