Were dungeon lizards strong?
Not really.
It was just that the first time one came bursting out at you, a giant lizard like that was bound to throw you off.
It gave the feeling of running straight into something enormous.
By the time Renn actually started fighting, though, it felt about as threatening as a stray animal on the roadside.
The adventurer dagger Hestia had given him punched straight through those scales that looked so hard to deal with.
And the magic stones they dropped after they died were noticeably bigger too.
That was all there was to it.
The exploration went smoothly overall.
Renn didn’t rush to push deeper and focused more on getting familiar with the floors.
Mostly because later on, he probably wouldn’t have a free supporter like Lili.
After all that hard fighting, Renn felt his stamina getting close to its limit.
He glanced back at the girl still working diligently behind him.
He rolled his shoulders and felt the ache spreading through his muscles.
“How about…”
“We call it here for today.
If we keep going, I think my condition will drop and we might run into trouble.”
“…”
That was probably the most human thing Lili had heard him say all day.
Especially after watching this guy hunt down monsters on purpose from start to finish, fighting at that intensity without a single break.
So he does get tired after all?
Forget Renn.
As the supporter, just watching him had left her feeling drained.
“Then let’s head back.
Um, here’s today’s haul.”
She had no thought of skimming from it.
Out of every adventurer Lili knew, this guy’s personality was, without question, the extremely rare kind.
She’d been able to talk to him a little, which had eased some of the feelings bottled up inside her.
Lili figured she hadn’t come out of this badly.
And without his help, she had no idea when that bullying would have ended.
“Thanks for your help today.”
Renn took the cloth bag and weighed it in his hand.
Just from the weight, it was clearly a much better haul than yesterday’s.
Probably worth four or five thousand valis.
“…”
She really wanted to tell him he could stand to talk like a normal person a bit more often, but then she heard how sincere that thanks was.
Lili turned her head aside and huffed.
“You helped me first.”
“Let’s go back!”
The trip back to Orario went smoothly.
Saving his stamina in advance was absolutely the best decision Renn had made.
Because…
As they walked up through the floor passages, after all that clawing and biting from the monsters, he really did feel like there was something like an energy bar inside him.
Once it hit its limit, the exhaustion just kept piling up.
Dusk was coming on, and the evening sun spilled across the Labyrinth City.
Renn finally let out a full breath of relief.
He looked at the small supporter beside him, whose face showed the same tiredness.
“Thanks for the hard work today.”
“That thing this morning about you buying me a meal, I was just joking.”
“Hm?”
“The exploration went this well and the haul’s a lot better than yesterday’s, so making you pay for the meal would feel wrong.”
“?”
The girl lifted her head.
She clearly hadn’t expected words like that to come out of Renn’s mouth.
But before Lili could happily accept the invitation, she heard what he added next.
“So let’s just split it.”
“!”
Were there any actual humans left in this world?
Her mouth twitched, and she was about to say something when she caught a very familiar figure in the distance ahead out of the corner of her eye.
More precisely, it was an adventurer Lili could never possibly forget, the one responsible for the miserable state she was in now.
Let me buy you dinner after all.
That line…
The girl didn’t say it out loud.
She just looked away, her tone turning distant.
“Forget the meal, I’ve got something to take care of.”
“…”
But when Lili raised her head, she noticed the cloth bag Renn was handing back to her wasn’t empty.
She could hear coins clinking inside.
Just as she was starting to feel confused, she looked up.
The evening sun fell across the black-haired boy’s handsome face, edging it in gold.
His smile was very gentle.
Lili stared for a moment without thinking.
“So my advice is, find a more experienced adventurer party.
There’s over a thousand valis in there, think of it as…”
“Today’s pay.
It’s definitely enough to buy you a meal.”
“And another thing.”
Turning it over in his head, Renn thought about the root of the chaos in the Soma Familia and decided he really did need to warn her.
Doing this would shatter the thing keeping her going, no question.
But either way, it was easier to accept than letting Lili hold onto hope and then discover in the end that the whole thing was a lie.
“I don’t think…”
“A captain who’d let his Familia fall into that kind of chaos is going to honor a contract.
I don’t think he’ll let you leave the way he promised.”
“So be careful.”
“…”
Then Renn noticed the beautiful loli goddess coming down the street to meet him, while Lili stood there lost in thought.
He said goodbye.
“My goddess is here to pick me up.
Stay safe.”
“…”
If she paid Zanis the full breach-of-contract sum, would he really let her leave the Soma Familia the way she wanted?
Renn’s words left the girl thinking for a moment.
She wanted to keep convincing herself it would work out, but once she thought about it calmly, she already had her answer.
If it were her…
She’d never let a quality blood bag like that go.
Someone who could save up that much money even while being bullied.
After this, the pressure waiting for her would only get worse.
“So…”
“What am I supposed to do?”
Lili lifted her head and looked toward where Renn had gone, and saw the beautiful goddess greeting him warmly.
She felt a sudden stab of envy.
She finally understood why this guy could keep that much enthusiasm for exploring.
Maybe that was the reason.
The girl didn’t think Renn had done anything wrong by breaking her illusion.
Just the opposite.
Lili knew he’d been thinking of her.
She simply hadn’t figured out yet how to guard against a problem like that.
“…”
Except, as the supporter girl turned to head back to the single room she rented, she noticed someone she knew coming toward her.
Compared to a pallum, a grown male beastman adventurer was enormously tall and broad, and just standing in front of her he was overwhelmingly intimidating.
What Lili truly hated, though, was the calculating, vicious look in Enman’s eyes, even now, with them narrowed into a gentle-looking smile.
“Lili.”
“Come with me.
There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”
“…”
The girl said nothing.
But she understood clearly that the emotional support she’d finally managed to find was about to be shattered again, by her Familia senior…