Chapter 089

Reaching his destination, albeit after a quick stop at the bathroom, Leon found the core members of the CVS and several other FES Captains in a war room, gathered around a rough map to discuss their plans to conquer the Thirteenth Floor. Its theme was evidently based on Starship Troopers, but while the individual Arachnids weren't very powerful, their functionally infinite numbers were proving to be an issue.

Noticing Leon enter the room with his usual entourage, Kisara snapped to attention, shouting, "Prince Leon presiding...!"

As everyone in the war room snapped to attention and offered salutes, Leon maintained a neutral expression, gesturing for the group to stand at ease as he remarked, "I heard there were several people that needed to be resurrected and that one of our members went missing. What the hell happened...?"

"We severely misjudged our enemies' intelligence..." replied Mordred, frowning and briefly clenching her teeth before explaining, "They first drew us out by initiating a long-range bombardment on the barrier we erected. We had to dispatch and split our forces to stop it. During that period, they set off a large explosion beneath the outpost, crumpling its foundation and disabling the barrier. Our reserve forces managed to kill thousands of them during the resulting evacuation, but their numbers greatly exceeded that. It was a carefully planned and executed attack..."

"I plan to travel to the Thirteenth Floor to recover our comrade," stated Leon. "It hasn't been twenty-four hours yet, so even if they've perished, there's a chance they can be resurrected at the Church. Who will attend me...?"

Though everyone present wanted to argue that it was too dangerous for Leon to enter the Tower in his current condition, Eris kicked things off by shouting, "There's no way I'm letting you go alone! Count me in...!"

"E-Eris is right...!" added Millie, pumping her fists and going from looking sullen, as she blamed herself for the barrier's collapse, to pumped at the thought of recovering their fallen comrade. After all, while there was no guarantee they were dead, the person that had gone missing was Presea.

As no one had the authority to overwrite Leon's decision, nor could they stop him from entering the Tower if he really wanted to, nearly everyone in the war room volunteered to attend him. Thus, after a quick discussion to decide who would stay back to guard the palace, Leon dispatched Rem and Ram to retrieve Archpriest Ion and have them wait at the entrance of the Tower while the rest of them entered the Thirteenth Floor to teach the Arachnids never to fuck with them...

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'Annoying...'

Feeling something incessantly tapping her head, causing a sharp pain to radiate through her scalp, Presea opened her eyes to discover she was in a large, well-lit chamber illuminated by a shaft of light from overhead and dozens of insectoid creatures resembling fireflies but more than a meter long and with scythe-like forelimbs. There were also a bunch of crimson-shelled quadrupeds with pincer-like jaws, two scythe-like limbs, and two scorpion-like pincers, which Presea recognized as Warrior Bugs but larger and with more limbs...

As another sharp pain radiated through her skull, Presea tilted her head slightly to see that something massive was looming behind her, trying to probe her skull using a spear-like proboscis. Fortunately, while it was able to pierce her scalp, causing her head to bleed rather profusely, it failed to penetrate her thick skull no matter how many times it tried.

Ignoring the larger insect, Presea looked down to find her body entangled in a thick, rubbery, off-white mass. More troublingly, there was a strange, six-limbed insect attached to the lower half of her face, its six-jointed legs constricted tightly around her head and neck, forcing her to respire with a hose-like appendage that fed directly into her trachea, pumping her lungs full of something that made her brain and body feel numb.

Though her movements caused a loud, warning hiss to echo throughout the chamber, Presea ignored them and attempted to wriggle free. Her first instinct was to bite down on the thing shoved into her throat, but as there was a chance she would asphyxiate if she couldn't remove it, she needed to free at least one of her hands.

In response to Presea's struggles, the insect attached to her face inflated the sacs on its body before pumping her lungs full of an anesthetic agent, causing her to feel a wave of muddleheadedness and fatigue. However, thanks to her unique Skills, [Self Cure(B)] and [Survivor(A)], she managed to remain conscious while slowly building a tolerance against it.

Seemingly realizing it wasn't going to be able to pierce Presea's head with its proboscis, the colossal insect behind her, resembling the bloated ass of a termite queen with eight front-facing eyes and a mouth resembling a woman's genitalia, issued a shrill cry. One of the larger Warriors, known as Royal Guard Bugs, immediately came forward, but before it could attempt to pierce her skull using its exceptionally sharp and powerful mandibles, a golden ring abruptly appeared overhead, producing a powerful suction as its interior swirled with blue energy...

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Anticipating an ambush, Mordred entered the Thirteenth Floor ahead of Leon and the rest of the recovery team. The moment she emerged from the entry portal, a swarm of softball-sized insects resembling armored pill bugs rushed toward her, crackling with electricity and promptly exploding, but Mordred emerged from the detonations entirely unscathed, protected by a suit of full plate armor and a protective veil of Mana.

Immediately following the kamikaze attacks, several colossal beetles, each more than 30m long if measured from mandible to the tip of their bulbous abdomens, unleashed giant globules of blue plasma from their rears. In the Starship Troopers universe, these globules were powerful enough to destroy starships, so even Mordred couldn't simply tank them, her greatsword leaving behind multiple afterimages as she unleashed a flurry of crescent energy slashes, slicing apart and scattering the plasma before creating a sonic boom as she bounded toward the nearest beetle, known as a Plasma Bug.

Though the Plasma Bug was covered in thick chitinous plating that made steel seem like styrofoam, its abdomen was a fairly massive weak point. A single decisive blow would cause it to explode, but as she didn't want to shower the area with 5,000°C plasma, Mordred stabbed it directly in the head, unleashing a powerful burst of Mana that caused it to explode from the inside. Then, as she only had ten minutes before the others were set to begin entering, she prioritized eliminating the remaining Plasma Bugs while the lesser Arachnids could do little more than hiss, cry, and skitter about erratically as they had no way of keeping up with her superhuman strength and speed.

Giving the Arachnids something to focus on, the members of the Crimson Valkyrie Squad began surging into the Thirteenth Floor precisely after ten minutes had passed. The first wave consisted of Eris, Daetta, and Razia, a golden-haired Draph who wielded a massive tower shield and a Gunlance. They quickly cleared the area surrounding the entry portal, allowing Millie, Felix, and Erys to appear and erect a magic barrier, ensuring Leon and the rest of the recovery team could enter safely.

'So this is the Thirteenth Floor...'

Entering the Thirteenth Floor atop Latia, acting as his mount and bending light around them to prevent enemy detection, Leon looked around at the wasteland-like terrain littered with plasma and insectoid hemolymph. The Arachnids dissolved like other monsters when defeated by summons, but as there were hundreds, if not tens of thousands, who died from collateral damage caused by their allies, the area was marred by the remains of the outpost and countless corpses.

As time was of the essence, Leon left clearing the area around the portal to the CVS and the Captains of the FES. His goal was to recover Presea and, once the remaining members of the FES arrived, demonstrate what he could do and 'why' he was in charge.

With such thoughts in mind, Leon created a portal large enough for Latia to pass through using his [Hoop Control]. He opened it with the notion of bringing Presea to him, but as the suction either wasn't powerful enough to pull her through or something was obstructing it, he eventually entered it directly, stumbling onto the scene of the Royal Guard Bug preparing to act. The sight of Presea's usually pink hair dyed crimson and what he recognized as a Brain Bug looming over her caused Leon to, quite literally, see red, but his expression remained calm as he extended his right hand, causing a very large ring to appear beneath the offensive-looking insect, its exit point tens of thousands of meters in the sky.

Seeing the insect that controlled them abruptly fall through the ground, the Arachnids within the chamber entered a frenzy. As they couldn't see Leon and Latia, however, they directed their fury toward Presea. At least, that was their intention before a total of eight portals opened, unleashing an irresistible torrent of seawater that kept them at bay and flooded their tunnels while Leon focused on freeing Presea and carefully removing the aspirating insect from her face...

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As Arachnids were telepathically linked to their controlling Brain Bug, forming a literal hive mind, Leon sending the latter skydiving without a parachute resulted in the entire colony dropping like marionettes with their strings cut, alive but unresponsive to stimuli. This left the members of the FES confused, but when Leon returned with Presea and explained the situation, Mordred made the atmosphere go from awkward to festive by getting the group to cheer triumphantly and hurrah while praising his name and the burgeoning Asheford Kingdom...

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With a little more than eight months passing since he acquired his body, placing him at approximately 4.5 years old, Leon was nearing the age at which he could begin training his physique. Before that, however, he had something far more important to address as, on the eve of his 700th day in Purgatoria, interrupting his sleep, the sound of fireworks awoke him and his sleeping companions to inform him of the forthcoming Grand Banquet.

"What the hell is a Grand Banquet...?" asked Almeida, wearing little more than a transparent nightgown as she served as one of Leon's hug pillows.

"It's an important event that occurs at the end of every year, evaluating those charged with overseeing the Towers..." explained Narmaya, lying on the opposite side of Leon. The latter had developed a fondness for being embraced by buxom women as a result of his relatively recent infancy, so he often slept snuggled between Almeida and a rotating group of Draph. Not just because it was comforting but because he required a substantial quantity of nutrients to sustain his rampant growth...

Reading the notification to the end, Almeida grinned, poked Leon's cheek, and remarked, "It says you need to bring the person you cherish the most and the person you believe to be the strongest. Captain Mordred and that Tatsumaki woman are shoo-ins for the latter, but I'm curious to know who the person you cherish the most is..."

Though she wasn't infatuated with him like many of the other women he was involved with, Almeida had developed a bit of a soft spot for Leon after breastfeeding and helping to look after him for the better part of a year. She would never think of him as her child, but it was difficult not to feel at least some tenderness toward someone she had watched develop from a tiny infant to an adorable youth with a round face, wild golden hair, and large green eyes.

"I'm taking Mordred and Betty," answered Leon, taking the wind out of Almeida's sails. Unfortunately for her, while she was definitely one of the most important people to him, Leon had already promised Betty he would take her with him after the previous Grand Banquet. The latter had started roaming the castle and spending time in the Menagerie after he acquired a body, but if he failed to keep his promise, Leon had no doubt she would hole herself up in her Library until he or Puck fulfilled various demands to soothe and improve her mood.

"Are you sure~?" asked Almeida, freeing her chocolatey, melon-sized breasts and exposing her comparably pale pink nipples. Leon offered no resistance as she guided his mouth to her left teet, but while he greatly appreciated everything she had done for him over the past eight months, it would take more than a midnight snack to change his mind...

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