Month Two Part one.

Hello and welcome to chapter 10. If you made it this far, congratulations. For reasons I have decided to tactically skip the majority of the third book from the Aiz pov. (also irl sucks…)

I woke up strangely tired. I had missed both of the sentient monster events, however I had been told of them by Fin and Riviera of the confrontation on the 24th floor as well as the fight on the 18th. Although it sounded crazy I accepted it, there was no reason to disbelieve them. I walked down the manor The city was asleep, Not a single light flickered within the whole of Twilight Manor. The residential building and its surroundings ran thick with shadow.

Members of the familia stood watch at the main gate in sets of two despite assurances from their patron deity that "'S all good, don't worry 'bout it." Even now, guards were changing shifts—from a mixed set of humans to a female elf and animal-person pair. Within the manor itself, magic-stone lamps flickered unsteadily throughout the hallways like candlesticks. It had been 4 days since the 24th floor incident had occurred. Lefiya had been out for over 3 days, Although I was used to the feeling of mind down for the less experienced mage the experience was overwhelming. I saw her as I walked down to the training yard. She looked glum even from a distance. It was at this point that we both noticed the sword princess herself, but not in her usual training spot. We both watched, her from relatively close, and me from a balcony as Aiz cleared the wall with a casual bound, bypassing the loki familia security. My curiosity peaked as I deftly launched myself to follow her. Although my glaive was not with me I did purchase a sword for personal defense even when I was too rushed to grab the 9 foot long weapon. I followed Aiz deftly, briefly seeing a white haired boy running but not taking the time to say hello as I was busy following the sword princess. I followed her to the northwest wall, making sure to not stare at her to prevent her from noticing me, to my shock she did not immediately start training but just waited. I watched for several minutes, so focused on her I missed the white haired boy climbing up onto the wall through the adjacent tower. Once he was up the conversation between Bell and Aiz was easy to hear in the quiet morning.

"Good…morning?" Aiz stated, clearly surprised at his tired fearful status

"Haah, haah, haah…! G-good morning!" Bell replied, his innocence, perversions, and terror blended as one

"…Is everything all right?" She asked oblivious

"Oh, sure…I'm fine! Just had a…a bit of a run-in…with a forest fairy…" Could this be our thousand elf? Shard mused

"A forest…fairy?"

"So beautiful but so terrifying…!"

"Are you…sure you're all right?"

"If I could…sit down for a little bit…"

"Right, of course…"

And then the training began. I left after this, they would be here for at least one hour so I could quickly pick up a breakfast at mama mia's place. As I dropped to the ground I saw lefiya looking for Aiz… precisely in the wrong direction. I deftly avoided her as I went to mama mia's.

I arrived at the hostess of fertility just as it opened, I spoke to the elf as she opened the door. "Hello Ryu." She was terrifying when I was still at a low level but she is at least calm and reasonable, someone I can deal with.

"Hello Shard." Contrary to my everprent smile, her face was perpetually expressionless. "Out for famila business this morning?" She looked up and down at me, clearly looking for signs of lies.

"Something like that!" I cheerily stated, giving no sign to my tracking of the sword princess. Her face was unmoved but I could perceive she was not convinced. Fortunately it wasn't worth it to her to press the issue and she moved away as I entered the tavern. As soon as I arrived I took a seat at the corner booth, a habit leftover from my first socially awkward youth. I sat at the table and waited for my order to arrive. As I ate I watched the tavern slowly fill, eventually I saw Bell appear, apparently the girl syr enjoyed giving him free food… bad business practice but whatever. Looking at my plate I decided that it was close enough to being done I walked by the counter tossing mama mia my payment. Catching up with bell in but a moment I tapped his shoulder. His expression went from terrified to relieve… then back to terrified on realizing what familia I was in.

"How are you doing Bell?" I calmly asked giving no hint about what I knew.

I watched as he panicked, he stopped before running accepting that a level 1 had no way of outrunning a level 5, especially after being pursued by a level 3 and an exhausting training session with aiz, who hits harder than a truck when holding back.

He composed himself and stated "fine!" before slowly walking towards the dungeon. It would be tough for him in there after aiz's "training" but it should work out fine. I let him walk away… I had an elf to find.

After hours of searching I found leyfia hiding on the west wall. Her eyes were teary and her face was red.

"Whats wrong?" I asked fairly certain I already knew.

She sat silently refusing to say… this might be annoying.

"Come on, you can tell me… I promise I won't tell anyone else."

She finaly looked up "It's… its.."

I nod waiting for her to spit it out.

"It's Aiz, she was with a kid from another familia. And… and… she was hugging him!"

"Huh, thats not like Aiz, are you certain that's what happened?"

"Um… I… Im not sure." Her brow furrowed

"Ok, If you want I can talk to her about it!" I stated in a chipper tone.

"Thank you Shard." She was clearly still uncomfortable about it. I chuckled

"Trust me, aiz doesn't do silly things, she's not a goof like me."

"Ok, cya later."

At the familia house I quickly found Aiz

"So, what happened with you and bell today?"

"I am training him." She knew better than to lie to me at this point.

"Ok, I just wanted to confirm, be more careful next time, Lefiya saw you and was sure you were hugging bell."

Aiz blushed "I wasn't though, he was very tired so I just helped him stand."

I smirked. "Why are you training him, its the kind of fool thing I might do."

She did her head tilt before saying "He grows exceptionally quickly and I need to know why."

"Did you try asking him?"

"He said he doesn't know." At this my head tilted

"That's odd, that seems like the type of thing one would know, maybe… nah. Well if you don't mind I would like to help train him. I won't interrupt your training sessions, his motivation will be higher with you, but I can train him in a few areas, and try and help you figure out the mystery of your rabbit boy" I laughed in my head, she had a crush on him and didn't know it,

"Oh you call him that too?"

"I mean he is literally a white rabbit boy." We both chuckled before splitting off, her to deal with lefiya and I went to hang out with Ayda.

The next day I found bell quickly, after his training before he went to the dungeon.

"Hi bell, walk with me. " I said quickly pulling him into an alley. I quickly began speaking before he could psych himself out too much "I know Aiz is training you, I am cool with it and I want to help as well, although she is definitely the best fighter in our familia, she doesn't fight the way you do, or understand how you fight."

"Um, ok Shard." He said still nervously looking for a way to escape.

"Its for the best, I am 100% certain you are already bruised after just 2 days. I can't be at pretty as your crush but I can promise not to beat you unconscious, I will be focusing on low physical pressure training to cover the gaps left by the miracle girl."

"Alright, when do we start?"

"Now."

For the next week I trained him as well as Aiz, I focused on how to close gaps, and how to dodge on the advance, Bell was one of the fastest lvl 1's id ever seen and I helped him focus that speed into a relentless assault, rather than the hit/run he had been doing. After each of our sessions we played a couple games of chess, he was awful but got much better by the end of the week. But now it was time, time to go on our expedition, I got up and joined the high table with the other familia leaders.

"We will be taking two groups down to the 18th floor, when we reach there we will group up and proceed down as quickly as possible, our goal is the 59th floor." Finn droned on, I was a little excited, but it was likely just going to be a light exploration with no intense boss combat.

When we got to the dungeon we linked up with the Hepheasts familia, apparently I was in the first group with ais/fin/riveria/bete/the twins. I met up with Reggie, one of the backline hephastus support crew.

"Hey buddy how's it goin"

"Heard we are gonna breach the 59th floor lad."

I nodded. "Yes we are, its going to be… interesting." I then went to my group, apparently he was in the second party with gareth, I just missed some potion handouts… and they are all gone now, so I get none… GREAT. Perfect. Exactly what I needed… Oh well, at least I brought some of my own stocks. There were so many people, even in just the vanguard group that as we traveled down I needed to keep perceptive off. I focused on the surroundings, nothing here was a threat to me, but I needed to make sure it was safe for the backline. Ignoring the perpetual philosophical argument between Tiona and Bete, I watched Aiz's face, even without my perception I could tell something was bothering her, but her face was too expressionless for me to even get a hint as to what. I was shaken out of my thoughts when 4 beaten adventurers came down the hallway. Tiona and I both walked up to them and asked what happend… as is always the case with guys I was completely ignored as they responded to Tiona.

"W-who are you? wait a minute! The amazon!"

"Is that Tiona Hyrute?"

"That can only mean… The loki familia has begun their expedition!"

Tiona grumbled "why is always me" while I tried not to giggle looking at her outfit which was basically just lingerie.

Bete decided to be tactful "what are you rats doing"

After I gave them a reassuring smile they composed themselves and said "There was a minotaur! A great bull of a monster prowling the upper levels."

I quickly asked "Could you please give us more details, please tell us exactly what you saw to the best of your memory as quickly as possible."

The leader breathed then replied "Sure, We were exploring the dungeon same as always, when we saw him, a Minoraur! In one of the passageways between the rooms!" He continued, face pale "He was attacking some kid with white hair!" I didn't hear the rest because I had already turned on perceptive and started running towards him, he was still a 2 month in lvl 1 and there was no way he would survive a minotaur forever.

Ais soon caught up with me, right as we encountered a tiny prum. She called herself lily and begged us to save bell. As soon as we began to refocus he appeared. A beast of a man Ottar, the only thing he said was "stop". I knew we were in trouble. The difference between levels grows. A max stat lvl 1 is almost as strong as a fresh level 2, by level 3 the difference is almost insurmountable, even Aiz could not stand up to Ottar who had been lvl 7 for years. I would need to cast in full just to keep up with him, and then after my minute he would simply kill me in one hit.

I was shaken out of my thoughts when he said "I challenge you, Sword Princess… and you, Dancing Master."

And i'm back, i'm not making promises about update schedule because I hate lying by accident. Thanks to anyone who reads this and I do appreciate the feedback.