The following journey of Riezel and his party was undertaken with a policy of avoiding battles as much as possible.
Their sole objective was Cadmus's Spring where they had to face off against a Level 6 dragon species. At this point, saving energy as much as possible was crucial to concentrate all their energies against the strong dragon.
Even Lefiya was urged by Riezel not to use magic unless absolutely necessary, to prevent wasting mind.
Although she had plenty of mind recovery potions, considering they still had to reach the 59th Floor and face multiple battles along the way, it was best to minimize the usage of supplies.
Finn also supported this approach.
After two weeks of the expedition, the familia's supplies were running low. To ensure they had supplies for the return journey and to avoid unnecessary consumption of items and medicine, conservation became a top priority.
In this situation, even Ais, who usually charged toward monsters without hesitation, dashed without waiting to see the monster, ignoring them. Tiona followed suit, stashing away her large double-bladed sword and following behind. Tione, without saying a word, was determined not to waste anything unnecessarily and followed Finn's instructions.
Among all of them, only Riezel was somewhat carefree. Although he didn't go too wild, he still charged at monsters when he saw them, while maintaining the effect of 'Raumure', enhancing everyone with his protection magic.
"You're wasting too much mind." Tione complained about his extravagance.
His nonchalant answer left Tione speechless.
"Freak..." Tiona muttered in frustration.
Ais and Lefiya, on the other hand, felt a bit conflicted.
Riezel's high-ranked 'Spirit Healing', which was an outstanding development ability for any mage, probably recovered a massive amount of mind every second, right?
With 'Spirit Healing' on that kind of rank, even if Riezel continued to use magic without stopping, it seemed unlikely that he would run out of mind.
How could Ais who frequently used mind-consuming magic and Lefiya who relied on magic as her primary combat method not feel conflicted?
'I really want it.'
Ais and Lefiya thought the same thing at the same time. But unfortunately, it was just a wish.
Thus, the entire group faced only a few unavoidable battles, and otherwise, their journey proceeded smoothly.
Due to having a map, even with poor terrain and complex roads resembling a maze, they continued moving toward their destination without trouble. As they progressed, the group suddenly felt that the number of monsters seemed to be decreasing.
"How come it feels like there are fewer monsters around?" Tiona was the first to express confusion about this.
"Is it because we've deviated from the main route?" Lefiya, looking at the map, voiced her confusion as well.
Cadmus's Spring was located deep in the 51st Floor, just slightly off the main route leading to the 52nd Floor.
"But last time we went to find Cadmus's Spring, there seemed to be quite a few monsters around here..." Tiona expressed her confusion again, causing Tione to furrow her brows.
Ais also lowered her gaze, pondering.
Riezel appeared thoughtful but couldn't help but feel a flutter in his heart.
'I can't help but feel like this situation was mentioned in the original work?'
As soon as he had this thought, Riezel's exceptional memory came into play. He carefully recalled the plot of the original work, and a lightning bolt suddenly flashed in the back of his mind.
"Could it be that thing...?" Riezel couldn't help but whisper.
""What?""
Including Ais, all the girls heard his murmur and stood there confused.
At this moment, Riezel suddenly turned to Lefiya.
"Lefiya, how far is the spring from here?"
His sudden question left Lefiya at a loss.
"It... It should be not far from the cavern at the end of this road."
Although somewhat bewildered, she quickly answered his question. But almost as soon as she finished speaking, Riezel rushed out.
"Mr. Riezel?!" Lefiya cried out in surprise.
""Riezel!""
Tiona and Tione were also momentarily stunned.
Only Ais, seeing him dash out all of a sudden, transformed into a gust of wind without hesitation and followed suit.
"Wait!"
"What are you doing?!"
"Miss Ais!"
Tiona, Tione, and Lefiya finally couldn't stand still and quickly started running, charging ahead.
At this moment, Riezel had already rushed into the cavern at the end of the road, and upon entering the cavern, he immediately stopped in his tracks.
"Riezel."
Ais followed closely, standing by his side, but shortly afterward, her eyes opened wide.
"What happened to you?!"
"Why are you running!"
"Huff... Huff..."
Tiona, Tione, and Lefiya also arrived, the first two complaining, while the last caught her breath. But the next moment, the scene that caught the three's eyes made them, like Ais, widen their eyes.
Before them, the cavern, for some unknown reason, had suffered brutal and inhumane devastation. Whether it was the walls, the floor, or even the ceiling, everything seemed to have been damaged. Either filled with cracks or completely shattered, it was in a complete mess.
Many trees that grew here were either snapped or flattened.
That was not all.
What truly surprised everyone was the signs of corrosion everywhere, causing some parts of the trees to turn deep purple, emitting black smoke, and giving off an indescribable stench.
"What's going on?"
"How did it become like this here?"
Tiona and Tione looked at each other in bewilderment.
"..." Ais stayed silent and deeply furrowed her brows.
"Ahh, the spring!"
Unconsciously stepping back, Lefiya's peripheral vision caught a glimpse of a corner of the cavern. There, a pool of spring water sat, radiating a mysterious dark blue brilliance, extremely dazzling.
It was Cadmus's Spring, and it seemed like there was still a lot of water inside, as if it hadn't been swallowed by the dragon guarding this place.
"Wait, where's the dragon?" Tione immediately noticed the abnormality.
Indeed, the strong dragon that should have been guarding this area was surprisingly absent—or rather, it was no longer here.
Everyone involuntarily shifted their gaze to the front of the spring. There, a large amount of dust was piled up.
"...Could that be the corpse of Cadmus?" Tiona's unintentional murmur silenced everyone.
All eyes were fixed on the remains of the monster, now reduced to a pile of dust, clearly disintegrated after losing its core.
"..."
A prolonged silence hung in the air.
There was no doubt that the monster guarding this area was now dead. But the question remained—who had killed a Level 6 Cadmus?
"It couldn't have been the work of adventurers, right?" Tione whispered. "It seems like we're the only familia undertaking an expedition during this period..."
Familias with the ability to venture to this floor were already scarce in Orario and only a handful of them. As far as she knew, only Loki Familia had been actively exploring the dungeon recently.
Therefore, it was highly unlikely that another familia had ventured to this place recently.
In other words...
"Did the monsters fight each other...?" Tiona murmured to herself.
Hearing that, a chill ran through everyone's hearts. It was not without reason since they were well aware that if monsters were killing each other, things were about to get complicated.
Monsters generally did not attack other monsters. If monsters did attack each other, there were usually only two possibilities.
The first was a sudden, accidental event.
A monster could lose its sanity due to some accident, making it attack indiscriminately until one side was completely defeated.
The second possibility was an irregular.
In the dungeon, some monsters enhanced their strength by consuming the magic stones of others, voraciously devouring the cores of their kin to continuously get stronger.
These monsters, known as strengthened species, gained immense power by consuming the magic stones of other monsters, surpassing their original classification levels.
These monsters were rarer than rare, and their ability to continuously get stronger by feeding on magic stones could even make them a greater threat than floor bosses.
Such monsters pose a significant danger, as they might attack adventurers for their magic stones by crossing into other floors and creating havoc. If discovered, the Guild would immediately issue a bounty and might even assign adventurers to hunt them down.
Now, the question was, which category did the current situation fall into?
"Did you see any magic stones, Ais?" Tione asked with calm emotion.
"No." Ais responded briefly.
"There's a drop item!" Lefiya, sharp-eyed, spotted a pair of wings amidst the dust and picked them up.
"Isn't it weird that there's no magic stone but there's a drop item?" Tiona pressed her forehead. "I've got a bad feeling about this, seriously."
"A strengthened species that can devour a strong dragon, Cadmus?" Tione's expression twisted slightly. "This joke is not funny at all, y'know..."
At her words, before anyone could react, Riezel, who had been staring at the entire cavern, turned and walked away.
"Riezel!"
"Oh, c'mon, what now?!"
Seeing Riezel's behavior, everyone turned like startled birds.
"Let's head back to the camp." Riezel said briefly without looking back.
If his memory wasn't wrong, this expedition was the same as the one in the original work where Loki Familia encountered those 'creatures' for the first time, then the situation at the camp was probably not going well.
'Seriously...' Riezel sighed. 'Of all times, why do I run into them on my first expedition?'
This luck, not sure if it was good or bad.
"Let's go!" Riezel took a step forward, picking up his pace toward the direction of the 50th Floor.
The girls exchanged confused glances and, one after another, followed him.
The entire group rushed out of the pathway and entered the main route of the 51st Floor, heading into the spacious terrain.
Suddenly—
"AAAAAAHHH—!"
A sudden piercing scream echoed through the air.