Chapter 443 - 443 - What a Coincidence, Captain Leon!

Margaret nodded hard. She had spent a few days over there before.

She had seen plenty of Lv.3, Lv.4, even Lv.5 Adventurers going in for treatment, and, well... they were Lv.5 powerhouses, yet in front of a Lv.1 healer they got chewed out like scolded children, never talking back, even putting on a smile and apologizing.

"Healers really are terrifying."

...

On the little rise a short distance away.

Leon quietly took all of this in.

Then he shifted his gaze and looked toward the edge of the Winter Wonderland.

His eyes lingered on a certain spot for a moment, a glint of amusement surfacing in them, but he still said nothing, just watched in silence.

Except that this behavior of his, in certain people's eyes, immediately got filled in as: three parts cold, three parts mocking, three parts careless, and one part quiet contempt.

...

"Hey, Asfi."

The young weretiger Falgar Batros was tensed from head to toe, pressed hard against the wall, not daring to move a muscle. Especially now that he remembered watching that man's outrageous fighting from start to finish, the cold sweat on his forehead just kept streaming down.

"I don't know if I'm imagining it..."

He pitched his voice as low as it would go, his throat dry.

"I keep feeling like that, that man... has been looking over this way the whole time?"

His Adam's apple bobbed hard as he kept swallowing.

"What do you think, is there, is there any chance? Could he... already have spotted us?"

Before he finished, Muddle, beside him, cut in.

"Impossible, absolutely impossible!"

"You idiot! We're carrying the Hades Head that Asfi made! Top-tier concealment gear handcrafted by dear Lady Asfi herself, the Master Item Maker, who has mysterious power at her command! How could anybody see through that at a glance?"

"What's he going to see through it with?"

"I bet you jerked off too much last night and now you're seeing things!"

"At most he's... just looking in this direction for no reason, pure, pure coincidence!"

Falgar said nothing.

You're the one who's been jerking off too damn much!

And where the hell does this blind faith in Asfi come from? Are you actually blind, or what? Did you not see how terrifying that man's power is? No, forget the man, not one of those women is harmless either, especially that shield bearer...

That was a damn Monster Party on Floor 28, and they cleared it with fewer than ten people. Especially that shield bearer's flying shield. As a vanguard himself, he knew exactly how much that one trick was worth. Absolutely terrifying!

Doesn't all that tell you something?

You really believed the "public level" registered with the Guild, didn't you?

Shadow of Sorcery, Lv.2?

Lv.2, my ass...

I'd sooner believe I'm Lv.7 than believe that!

Falgar shot Muddle a pitying glance. This one really wasn't all there upstairs.

Why do you think we come down into the Dungeon wearing the Hades Head instead of walking down openly? Because we don't want to? It's because we can't win!

No wonder Asfi yells at him every day.

Up at the front, Asfi herself was frozen in place.

She glanced back at her Familia companions, all stiff where they stood, hands and feet cold, every one of them about to be turned into an icicle in this frozen wasteland, and fell into a rare silence.

Ask her if she dared move right now? Absolutely not, not a chance...

Caught spying red-handed, how would they ever live it down? And even if they didn't care about face, if Goddess Demeter found out once they got back to the surface, she would definitely go make trouble for Hermes. It would cost them dearly.

Of course, that matter could be big or small. At worst they'd sacrifice Hermes, that god who lived for entertainment, and let Goddess Demeter pound him flat.

The real problem was... they had seen the true strength of Leon and his group.

How were they supposed to walk that back?

What if the other side decided to silence them?

At that thought, Asfi couldn't hold out any longer.

She let out a long sigh, cursed her luck under her breath, then steadied herself and reached up to take off the mask.

Then, forcing out the most natural smile she could manage, she raised her voice toward the distance.

"Ha, hahaha... if it isn't Captain Leon! What, what a coincidence!"

Before the startled eyes of Jeanne, Rose and the others, an unfamiliar voice rang out, and the next second a string of figures appeared out of the empty "corridor" where there had been nothing at all. Among them, a woman with long sea-blue hair and a white cloak spoke with resignation.

Leon looked at the Hermes Familia members who had revealed themselves, the corners of his mouth lifting until his smile was downright bright.

"Well, well, if it isn't Miss Asfi, Mr. Falgar... and all our colleagues from the Hermes Familia," he said, his tone teasing. "To run into each other this deep underground on Floor 28, it seems fate has quite a bit in store for us!"

Listening to Leon's pointed remarks, Asfi and the others cringed so hard their toes could have dug a whole house out of their boots.

Fate?

Fate, hell!

Floor 28 was enormous, so how could they possibly have bumped into each other by chance?

Obviously their Familia's old habit of gathering intelligence had flared up again. They heard the fighting over here, relied on the Hades Head's invisibility, and came running to watch the show and collect information while they were at it.

And then, to nobody's surprise, an accident happened...

They never imagined that this Shadow of Sorcery wasn't only absurdly strong, he was a sneakier old fox than the Hermes Familia itself. His public level registered with the Guild was Lv.2, and after what they had just seen... holy shit, that magic range, that effect, that power, and you're telling us that's Lv.2?

What do you get out of lying to us?

He's terrifyingly strong, and he has to go around Orario hiding his power level as a Lv.2?

Where's the dignity of a strong man?

While they were ranting internally, Leon sprang lightly down from the rise, landed on the snow, and then activated Secret Art: Ice Floe, gliding over to them smoothly and fast. He watched Asfi with a look that was almost but not quite a smile, and when her awkward expression couldn't hold up any longer, his eyes dropped to the mask in her hand and he drawled.

"Just what you'd expect from the princess of Disara, that great nation of magic item making... well, well. If I'm not mistaken, this mask's effect lets its holder turn invisible, and it erases their presence too."

"So this is what you used to get all the way down to Floor 28?"

"Am I right?"

Asfi's expression stiffened, and under the pressure of Leon's gaze she could only nod in resignation.

"That's right. This is the Hades Head, though... you could just as well call it a mask. It does conceal the body and erase presence, and it carries a faint cognitive interference effect as well."

[Read 50+ chapters ahead on Patreon: patreon.com/NiaXD]