"The mid floors are starting to get stronger. The numbers aren't as high as when I came with Finn last time. So that really was the Dungeon's 'abnormality' acting up before."
Severing the link with the puppet, Sawada Tsunayoshi stood in the extradimensional space and steadied his breathing. The flush on his face and the sweat on his brow were proof of how he'd just synchronized with the puppet to slaughter monsters below. Even so, he felt surprisingly good.
"I wonder if syncing with the puppet like this still earns me training ability points."
He hadn't just 'controlled' the puppet—he'd fully synchronized body and senses. Through the puppet's eyes, and inside the extradimensional zone created by the "Space Rabbit," he was cutting down monsters in the Dungeon while remaining here—like playing an athletic VR game.
Physically, it fit the Falna system perfectly. He just didn't know whether growth depended on other conditions. Tsuna jotted that thought down.
He stood quietly, watching the extradimensional space drift.
Outside, they had reached the 15th floor.
"Orra!"
Tiona snapped Urga in a violent sweep, cleaving the seven monsters before her in a single stroke. But the instant they died, a mass of new monsters surged out. Tione immediately stepped up, her twin blades flashing across vital points. In a breath, the ground before the sisters was painted red.
"Tiona, keep your head. This floor is weirder than it should be."
Tione wasn't holding back anymore. By rights, this layer shouldn't be spawning this many. Yet today was nothing short of abnormal.
"I feel it too. There are several times the usual number. It's not dangerous, but the stamina drain is huge."
Tiona glanced toward the puppet. It had lost the heavy breathing from moments ago and stood like a mindless doll. She knew that was Tsuna's power-saving mode. They'd culled so many on the way up that he'd pushed his physical limits.
"Finn, this is the 'abnormality' you mentioned?"
"Yeah. The number and spawn rate are beyond what Tsuna and I expected. But it's strange."
Strange. Very strange. Finn couldn't shake the feeling that something about today was off.
"Back then, Tsuna and I both sensed an 'abnormality' in the Dungeon. I gathered intel afterwards and confirmed a spike in upper-floor spawns—but only on the day we went down. By the next day, numbers dropped again. Until the fourth day."
"This sort of fluctuation isn't unheard of among adventurers. Most write it off as normal variance and don't think twice. I suspect the key reason lies elsewhere."
"No adventurers hit a true 'abnormal incident'?"
Riveria took the thread and sank into thought. Her eyes swept over the corpses littering the floor; she also found the numbers grotesquely abnormal. It was practically a variant "Monster Feria." Still, with a proper party, even a tide like this shouldn't mean casualties.
The walls of the floor were stained as if splashed with paint, a chaotic canvas—the Dungeon's malice bleeding through.
Once monsters reached a certain count, the floor stopped its out-of-control mass spawning.
"That alone is plenty 'abnormal.' I'd wager Rivira was pounded by a surge like this—that's why it collapsed and needs rebuilding. For the Guild to demand a 'expedition' under conditions like this… is something wrong with them?"
Gareth didn't hesitate to throw suspicion at the Guild.
"No. The Guild asked us to 'expedition' six months ago. The Dungeon was stable then. If it had been like this at that time, they wouldn't have made that call."
The Guild wasn't that stupid. Finn's conclusion was simple and clear: they weren't targeting Loki Familia. The Dungeon had truly entered an 'abnormal state.'
"Looks like preparing under the assumption we might face an abnormality was the right call. But if this is how it is, we can't wait until the second safe floor to stash supplies. We start in Rivira."
"Dumping a large volume in Rivira will draw too much attention."
Riveria still had concerns. Moving massive stores into the 'Rest Space' on Floor 18 would catch the wrong eyes and increase the risk of exposing Tsuna.
Finn understood, and he had an idea.
"Then we don't enter on 18. After we clear everything on the next floor, we transfer all cargo. We destroy part of the pushcarts and wagons on 17 after we face Goliath. Only empty transports go forward to Rivira."
"On the surface, we don't stop—just head deeper. The moment we leave Rivira, we destroy the transports and enter the 'Rest Space' for a full-party reset. Next day, we launch a comprehensive push. We hunt down the root cause of this Dungeon 'abnormality.'"
In a normal 'expedition' you'd never do this. With transportation and resupply so hard, changing objectives on the fly meant the expedition was effectively scrapped. But now that they had the means, Finn chose—without hesitation—to 'break' the expedition to pursue the anomaly.
"Oh? Unexpected. I didn't think you'd make that call."
Riveria eyed Finn with a hint of surprise. In her mind, Finn wasn't likely to pivot from 'expedition' to 'abnormality.' Even if he chose to abandon the expedition, she hadn't expected him to set the anomaly as the new goal.
Because now I know. Finn smiled faintly. He'd figured out how to make the Pallum rise. It wasn't something one person could do alone—he needed to give his people a pillar of hope. With bigger wants and bolder ambition, he'd never trade away the greater prize for scraps at his feet.
"Given a real choice, I'll always take the better one."
(End of Chapter)
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