Meeting the Expedition Team

Kuroka eyed the newcomers and concluded that they wouldn't be making any moves. After becoming sure of this, she came to Yoruichi's side while taking back her flames and sword.

She then carefully checked Yoruichi's condition, who was currently sitting on the ground with a slightly hurried breath. "Are you okay?", asked Kuroka after seeing her mangled right arm.

"Yeah... I just severely underestimated the damage I could do and the consumption it would take.", answered Yoruichi while looking at the deep and wide cut that she made on the wall and floor with her first cut.

"I never thought you could do something like that, nyaa... But considering the aftereffects, I can understand why you never showed something like that.", Kuroka then took out an Elixir and poured it on Yoruichi's right arm before helping her stand up, "Can you walk on your own?"

"Yeah... I'll be fine after a bit of rest. You should first take care of our loot and our guests.", told Yoruichi and sat down crossed-legged and closed her eyes to meditate. Although she could support the consumption of using her Bankai with her enormous capacity, that didn't mean that her pathways supported it. Her energy pathways became so strained that another use of her Bankai may break them and she might not be able to fight for quite some time in such a case.

Using her Kidou, Yoruichi slowly nursed her body and soul as first aid and planned to ask Kisuke for a full treatment later.

After making sure that Yoruichi was doing fine, Kuroka first lifted the two horns and the split Magic Stone with her magic before approaching the people of the Astarte Familia. But despite approaching with a smile, Carys, Tenestra, Fenia and Dulran couldn't help but take their weapons out.

Kuroka stopped not far from them, "Please be at ease, nyaa. I have no hostile intentions."

Carys stared at Kuroka for a short while before turning her sights at the floating horns. She then sighed and put down her weapon and those around her followed her actions, "We didn't mean to point our weapons to you. Excuse us with our actions."

Kuroka's smile grew lighter and replied, "It's fine, nyaa. This is the Dungeon and your actions to defend your safety are very understandable. Though I could only say that your trip down here might have been for naught, nyaa. But since we're not part of your agreement, we don't really have to follow your cycle."

Carys only smiled wryly and shook her head, "We can't really complain as you're indeed not part of our agreement. We didn't think about the possibility that someone other than the four Factions could defeat Surtr. And even if I do complain, I'll just be putting my comrades in danger by unnecessarily and unreasonably confronting the two people who could not just defeat the Surtr head-on but also cut its horns off, an achievement never seen before."

Kuroka didn't comment on it and instead asked, "Where's the rest of you? I presumed you're not the only ones that are not going to face the Surtr, nyaa."

"I asked them to retreat due to... uhmm... abnormalities way beyond our understanding."

Kuroka thought for a short moment before realizing, "Oh! The pressure! It's way worse than killing intent and it's really hard to get used to it. But don't worry about it, nyaa. The source of that was Yoruichi over there, nyaa. It comes whenever she releases most of her power."

"I-It's just a side-effect!?", stuttered Carys in clear disarray, but immediately cleared her throat and didn't inquire about it further, "Ehem... But what about the unusually low number of monsters?"

"That? Prior to the Surtr's respawn, we've been hunting them almost nonstop so you should have encountered less monsters than usual, nyaa."

The four of them thought about her words but they still couldn't understand how the two of them managed to hunt monsters to the point of a noticeable decrease. However, Carys didn't really have the guts to ask their methods and just said, "I suppose we can only complete the small quests that we took from the Guild."

Carys then faced the Dark Elf and said, "Dulran, meet the others and ask them to proceed to the 48th floor. It's already safe here."

Dulran nodded at her and immediately ran towards the path leading to the 46th floor. As she left, Carys carefully observed any changes from Kuroka's reaction and sighed in relief when it seemed that she didn't particularly mind it.

She wanted to ask if they could proceed to the 48th floor, but then recalled that even if Kuroka and Yoruichi were way stronger than them, the Dungeon was not theirs and they had no right to bar someone from exploring it further.

On top of that, they also had their own pride and dignity. It wouldn't be right to just take a step back on everything whenever they were threatened by a stronger force.

Kuroka knew what she was thinking and was glad that she didn't back down, "Since you want to go down to the 48th floor, Would you mind waiting for us here until Yoruichi recovered some of her strength, nyaa? If you do, then we have an offer that you might like. Consider that as the exchange for 'stealing' your prey, nyaa."

Carys immediately became intrigued at her potential offer and after thinking for a short while, she nodded, "Understood. We'll also wait for the others to arrive here first."

Since the tension had already disappeared, the first one to 'confront' Kuroka was Tenestra as she immediately went in front of her with shining eyes. "Kuroka-san! How are you doing that!?", asked the enthusiastic magic researcher while pointing towards the floating horns and Magic Stones.

Kuroka started walking towards Yoruichi and answered her, "It's an application of Flight Magic."

Tenestra immediately followed her while eyeing the objects that were silently following Kuroka's footsteps, "Flight Magic? But I can't feel any wind that is used to propel them. How are you doing this?"

"It's true that you can fly using Wind Magic. In fact, you can also fly using various Elemental Magic. However, doing so just to lift yourself up is incredibly inefficient when you could just manipulate your momentum with Magic Power directly, nyaa."

Tenestra's eyes widened and shone brighter, "Directly manipulating momentum!? But how!? Without manifesting the Magic Power into something, I don't have any idea how you could influence anything physically!"

Carys and Fenia were gobsmacked on how Tenestra was able to barrage Kuroka with questions as if nothing special had just happened. Carys looked towards Fenia but before she could say anything, Fenia beat her to it, "I still don't like people calling my little sister an oddball no matter how true it is... So please save it."

"Well, thanks to your sister's strangeness, all the tension has disappeared."

"Calling her strange isn't any better!"