Chapter 4 - New Plans
On the day of the 2nd practice with the Loki familia, Ais got up early with great anticipation. Riveria and Gareth will be watching their practice, and she has not seen them since they retired. When she checked on Bell, he was still sleeping with a stupid look on his face. Having watched Hestia perform her maternal nurturing of Bell, it was always something she wanted to try. However, as she approached the helpless Bell, she ran away at the last second. After she left, Bell had a silly smirk on his face.
When the 2 teams met at the old castle grounds, Bete commented that the Hestia team would hopefully give them a better practice this time. This made Mikoto eager to get a piece of Bete, even if she was 2 levels lower. Once the practice started, Bell and Ais took on Finn and Tione. The level-boosted Lili went after Leifya who was the physically weakest member of the Loki team. Since Lili's firebolt can be activated faster than Leifya's spells, she was able to disrupt Leifya's chanting. That left Mikoto and Welf against Bete and Tiona. Tiona and Welf squared off while the brazen Bete told Mikoto to take her 'best shot'. Mikoto did take her best shot with Futsunomitama. Though Bete has magic resistance and Hati, they only reduced the amount of damage applied, but did not completely let Bete off the hook. Surprised by the amount of force from Futsunomitama, Bete struggle to get free of the gravity spell. By that time, Tiona had already beaten Welf, but she wanted to see the wolfman getting some punishment. So Tiona and the dazed Welf watched Bete's struggle against the spell. At one point, Tiona actually teased Bete about losing to a level 4. With that teasing, Bete had enough and broke through the spell. Mikoto did fight bravely against Bete, but he was simply too fast and strong, and the battle was over. By then, Leifya's concurrent chanting finally took care of Lili even though Lili did get in many good firebolts at Leifya.
With their fighting done, everyone watched Bell and Ais battle Finn and Tione. It was interesting to see the level 6 Bell fight the level 7 Finn. Bell was slightly rusty in the beginning, but as the fight continued, his skills quickly sharpened up. Ais and Tiona also had a nice fight, but Ais clearly had the advantage with Ariel. At the end, the match between Bell and Finn ended without a clear victor. The 2 teams squared off several more times as Riveria and Gareth watched from the side. After practice, they all enjoyed a cookout lunch and started talking about the dungeon.
Finn mentioned that they have not been able to find any signs of Revis, and that got Ais thinking about her mom. Tiona also asked if Ais and Bell wanted to join in on their next trip to the deep levels. Haruhime and Mikoto immediately agreed that was a good idea. The trip would be the Loki familia's first deep level adventure since the war. It would scout out some of the deep levels to see how it has changed since the defeat of Thanatos. Haruhime suggested that she can level up Bell or Ais, and Lili agreed to support them so that both can be leveled up. Thus they agreed to meet at the dungeon entrance in 2 days' time.