Wing Break 4
The confirmation that Team Wings of Dragon had defeated the 97th floor’s floor master was made official.
When I reported this, the table erupted.
“Obviously. It took way too long…”
“We’ll be safe for a while now.”
“Yeah! Oh good!”
It was more a sense of relief than joy. We hadn’t had any genuinely bright news lately, and a worrisome issue weighing everyone down had been resolved.
The atmosphere really had been heavy recently.
Night Dragonfly, and Vim Strauss.
Not a day went by without hearing those two words since Mr. Vim defeated the 98th floor’s master.
Villebron overflowed with talk of Mr. Vim, seething with the excitement he brought about.
With the early subjugation of the floor master, the 98th floor had become a gold mine where anyone could try and strike it rich safely.
Even without searching it out, Mr. Vim’s exploits reached my ears.
They said with his enhancement magic any adventurer became a one-man army, and that his own combat ability was undisputedly the greatest in Villebron, regardless of favoritism.
Then naturally, various suspicions about the related issues started emerging.
It was common knowledge that Mr. Vim had been expelled from Team Wings of Dragon, so dark rumors started dogging us.
The fact that Team Wings of Dragon’s subjugation of the 97th floor’s master hadn’t been confirmed yet, and that we had been struggling lately, it all seemed to fit together.
To be honest, I had started having doubts myself.
Chronos, Ms. Nicola, and Ms. Maris are all top-notch adventurers.
But they don’t have the ability expected of an A-rank party that could defeat a floor master.
That I can state definitively now after being with this party a while.
In that case…
I don’t know the extent, but they must have greatly relied on Mr. Vim’s power when it came to defeating floor masters. At least so much so they couldn’t claim the whole of Team Wings of Dragon accomplished it.
“Here is the subjugation reward check. It’s for 500,000 merks.”
When I placed the check on the table, the three gathered around to peer at it.
“Oh, amazing.”
“So many zeros!”
“…Seriously.”
The unrestrained curiosity of Chronos and Ms. Maris. And Ms. Nicola pretending to stay composed but unable to hide the gleam in her eyes.
“Um, Chronos, to cash the check you need the leader’s magical crest…”
“Oh, take care of it! The key is in the right drawer, let’s see…”
” ……yes ”
Chronos entrusts me with important documents and legally significant items like this.
I can’t say I’m unhappy he trusts me, but it worries me with a newcomer like me. Well it does make things easier for me so I won’t complain, but it’d be worrying if he was like this with everyone else too.
“…Okay.”
And Chronos steeled himself.
“Now we’re officially an A-rank party in name and fact.”
I swallowed.
It seems he has no intention of stopping.
“Um, Chronos.”
“What is it, Sophia?”
Feeling a sense of duty, at least I should resist.
“Now that we have some leeway, wouldn’t it be a good idea to dive into the 98th floor first? We can guarantee a profit at the very least.”
I said.
Chronos looks at me, covering his mouth with his hand.
Honestly, it’s a bit scary.
“No, we’re going to tackle the 99th floor.”
However, my resistance falls on deaf ears.
Chronos’ gaze has already hardened.
I look to Ms. Nicola and Ms. Maris.
They’re the same. Some shared mindset had already formed between the three, and they seemed impatient as if driven by something.
“We’re an A-rank party. We have to be on the frontier. So this is our chance! While everyone gets bogged down by greed for what’s in front of them, we’ll press ahead of everyone! That’s Team Wings of Dragon!”
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Yes, it would be strange if it didn’t turn out like this.
We’re fine up to here, going as planned.
We’re an A-rank party worthy of acclaim at the Breakthrough Festival. We just got the title to match the facts.
Everyone’s so annoying about Vim this and Night Dragonfly that. Those were coincidences.
He was only able to do that because he has a huge party and abundant fighting strength. There’s no reason we can’t do what he can.
We already gathered people.
They’re temporary members for now, but once we officially become an A-rank party they’ll undoubtedly join for real. Then we’ll buy a mansion and form the greatest party that’ll leave Night Dragonfly in the dust.
You guys just stay there.
We’ll be the ones to defeat the 99th floor’s master first.
I cursed myself for being unable to stop Chronos.
Making excuses like Chronos must have something in mind, or that I’m a newcomer to Team Wings of Dragon so I shouldn’t overstep, I couldn’t press him at the crucial point.
Reaching the frontier would be more difficult than conquering the 99th floor itself.
This time, the large group hindered us. The dozens Chronos gathered were all women, and while some were experienced top adventurers, the overall level wasn’t that high.
What I had feared from the start became reality. When challenging with a large group, Chronos disregarded the proper preparations.
The biggest issue was the lack of transfer circle information. Moving between floors in a labyrinth dive is entirely done via transfer circles, so having information to reduce travel by finding optimal routes is essential for efficient conquests.
That’s even more vital when the number increases and mobility suffers.
I heard parties Night Dragonfly’s size have mapped and prepared all the transfer circles and paths, giving them an advantage in dives by concealing some of them, but Team Wings of Dragon lacks that edge. So we still had to plod along the most well-known, inefficient path to the 98th floor, then head for the transfer circles.
In other words, without information, our large, uncoordinated, unplanned group would face the areas only those with information could break through.
Like the 65th floor’s constantly rolling boulders down a steep slope, the 87th floor’s river teeming with aquatic monsters, and the 90th floor’s scorching cavern.
Only focused on conquering the 99th floor, Chronos was useless, so I had no choice but to consult with the other experienced adventurer members to somehow progress.
After some difficulty, we managed to reach the frontier somehow.
That fella always whined about heat resistance and detour routes but it turned out we didn’t need any of that after all.
With our hearts united, we could reach the frontier. We proved that.
About half deserted though.
Well, we can have the girls who couldn’t keep up train and challenge again next time.
I should pay their medical expenses if they got injured. A generous leader should be like that.
The 99th floor.
We only had the basic information the guild’s advance team brought back.
In other words, beyond here is the first time any of us will set foot.
“We’re back…! This is the edge!”
Good.
This exhilaration at traversing an unknown floor from here on! The frontier has to be like this.
As far as the eye can see is an endless forest, and the night sky stretched wide.
Rather than the usual passages or caves, it’s like the forest is directly on the surface, in a wide open space.
I can’t see the edge, and if I were brought here blindfolded, I might not even realize it’s the labyrinth.
The humidity and temperature are very high too. It makes me want to take off my armor.
Everyone is completely beat. Their leader me has to rouse them here.
“Everyone!”
I clap loudly.
“This is where it really starts! What we need is trust! Call out to each other, coordinate closely!”
There.
Then Sophia raised her hand.
“Um, Chronos?”
“Oh, what is it?”
“Everyone is tired, shouldn’t we rest a bit?”
“Hmm, you think? …Everyone! Tired!?”
I look around.
No one nods.
“Sophia’s worrying too much.”
“Chronos has a lot of stamina…so I think it’d be hard for them to speak up in this case.”
Hmm.
Sophia speaks plainly when she needs to so she’s easy to work with, but her worrying side stands out.
I leave her in charge of accounting and various procedures too, and being cautious isn’t bad, but…
“It’s fine. We’ll cover with coordination! If need be, I’ll protect everyone!”
“Hold on a sec, chief.”
The female warrior beside Sophia raised her hand.
I think her name was Rebecca. A tall girl with a good figure, giving a big sister vibe.
Since she looked like she’d fight alongside me with a sword, I hired her for close combat.
“What’s up, Rebecca?”
“What’s that coordination you mentioned? We’re on the edge, shouldn’t we be using communication magic properly? Avoiding fights to get this far but in this state…”
“We don’t use stuff like that. We made it this far calling out to each other.”
“…Huh?”
Hm?
No need for communication magic or anything. We did fine without it so far.
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POV was jumping like crazy… Well, yeah… You can recognize Chronos from overconfidence and Sofia from worries but it was just too frequent. Unless, intension was to confuse the reader, to convey group’s(except three fools) disarray.
wordpress somehow fucked up the formatting. it’s fixed now, hopefully it’ll be easier to read
Got it.