25 Lower Floors [Part 1 of ?]

[AN: sorry for the delay in chaps! By the way, I've noticed some people asking me if I'm okay, I assume it's due to me being in quarantine. I'm happy to say that both I and my father are doing fine and I'm honestly thinking that the test was a false positive. Anyway, here's the next Chappppy!]

[3rd POV]

The Lower Floors are regarded as the first true challenge for adventurers. While most adventurers are levels 1 and 2, only those that put in hard work break through to level three and above. In fact, that hard work usually takes around five years, so if an adventurer is level 3, it's safe to say he knows what he's doing.

The 25-27th floors are tricky when it comes to an expedition, due to the small area that can be used for walking. With large pools of water, teeming with aquatic monsters, and flying monsters like harpies, keeping a good and organized movement is hard. Due to the constant harassment, the Loki Familia expedition was having this exact problem currently.

Ais quickly dispatched a Merman, a humanoid monster covered in blue scales with webbed hands. The rest of the Merman party grouped up, showing once again, the increase of intelligence of the dungeon's monsters. The larger Merman colored red, the leader, was the first to rush towards the Sword Princess. Its charge was however interrupted when a Bete-shaped bullet dropkicked the Merman, ripping the monster in half thanks to the sharp custom boots he wore. The werewolf gave a smug smirk before doing a backflip to dodge a Merman's spear thrust.

Ais flawlessly avoided acknowledging Bete by quickly lunging into the group of Mermen and with a flurry of slashes, the monsters slowly fell to pieces before bursting into black ash, leaving behind a handful of cores.

On the opposite side of the expedition, Alastair could be seen using a crossbow to shoot down a flock of Iguazu, they are referred to as an invisible monster because of their astounding speed, but despite this, Al was shooting them down as if he could see into the future. The ones that got past him were skewered by the spear of Finn, who was having a conversation with our armored warrior.

"That is the problem with Adventerus, they don't work well with rigid rules or leadership. I wouldn't have to scream all my orders if they would just read the tactics book I wrote and hand out, for free, at the beginning of each expedition."

Al couldn't help but chuckle at the Pallums words, "I must agree with you, Braver, in all my years as a member of the Warriors of Sunlight, we were drilled to the bone on things like pike squares, shield walls, and maneuvers. They never had to scream orders either, they used drummer boys, when the beat changed, we shifted to a new maneuver."

Finn barked out a laugh before commenting, "So you were like an armed marching band. How did you hear the drums over the sounds of battle?" The Pallum asked after skewering another Crimson Swallow.

"At the back of the army, there were large war drums, the drummers used those large drums to relay orders to the individual units drummers, which in turn, relayed it to us. A truly ingenious way of ordering if I must say. Though it caused many boys to be targeted by our enemies in their hopes to interrupt our chain of command."

An explosion of water interrupted the two's conversation as a group of Aqua Serpents' rose above the surface of the water and threw themselves at the Expedition that was walking along the small path of dry ground. Al drew out a spear from the cart nearest to him and prepared to launch it like a javelin at one of the 10 feet long serpents when the one he was looking at was hit by a moderate-sized fireball. Glancing at the origin of the fireball, he saw Ais with her left hand engulfed in a Pyromancy flame. Mentally congratulating her for her aim, he launched his spear at the next closest serpent, piercing the skull of the beast through its open maw.

Before long, the serpents were dispatched and the expedition continued onward, Al took this chance to link up with Tsubaki, who was at the vanguard.

[Al POV]

I looked on impressed as Tsubaki used her Naginata to disarm -literally- one of the Merman variants before stabbing it in the throat. She was fast and efficient, and I could tell she had plenty of experience with it. "I wonder, would you or Ornstein be better with a spear?" I spoke up once I was within earshot of her. She didn't turn to look at me but stayed on alert and spoke up when I reached her side, "Ornstein? Never heard of em', he that good with a spear?" She questioned me, perhaps a bit upset I compared her skills to someone else.

"Extremely, he once took down two Drakes with a single thrust of his spear. He was an Idol for many within the order." I saw Tsubaki quirk an eye at this before saying, "He's killed drakes, Ive killed dragons with one attack before." I couldn't help but shake my head at her words, "Perhaps, but you do not know of the Drakes from my homeland, even a Wyvern from there could easily outclass a Dragon from the dungeon. The Dragons nearly wiped out our entire country at one point."

Tsubaki looked very dubious of my words, I didn't hold it against her, after all, in this world, the dungeon holds the strongest of all creatures unless you count the Calamity Beasts[AN: I FORGOT WHAT THEY ARE CALLED, блядь!]

"When you put it like that you seem to already know who's better, eh?" She said with a poorly disguised (slight) anger. "You misunderstand what I meant, I know for a fact he is stronger than you, he is much stronger than me, I meant the skill with a spear, not raw strength. He beat me completely the first time I fought him and his compatriot, Smough." I placated her while explaining.

Tsubaki perked up at this and said in disbelief, "You? Lose? I'm having a hard time imagining anyone capable of beating you." I gave a wry smile, not that she could see it, and explained. "They had a strange way of fighting, Smough was slow and used a large hammer while Ornstein was Fast and used a long spear. If I fought Smough, Ornstein would harass me, If I tried to fight Ornstein, Smough tried to flatten me to paste."

"Urk, that sounds like a hard fight to win, did you win?" She asked, taking advantage of the lull in combat to walk closer to me, "I did, though it was a hard-fought victory. I won against Smough, but that just made Ornstein mad, he fought much harder after that, I have a few scars from where he stabbed me through." Tsubaki tilted her head to the side and asked, "Why were you even fighting them in the first place?"

I physically recoiled from that before quickly composing myself and explaining, "They were stubborn, they were ordered to block the way to where I had to go through by the same person that ordered me to go past them. No matter how many times I explained I just needed to pass, they attacked and didn't listen, so I was forced to fight, and kill them."

Around this time, we reached the way down to the 26th floor, so we stobbed our conversation to help rearrange the carts to fit down the circular ramp to the next floor.