Chapter 71 - Voyage to the center of the earth?
The team took a 2 days break before heading back into the dungeon to clean up the deep floors. During the break, Bell and Ais had some rest & relaxation time with their familia. The familia sort of joined in the overall euphoria in Orario due to the booming economy. This included cooking and going out to eat. They also attended a couple meetings, where the labyrinth floors were opened up again to level 5 and above.
To add to everyone's entertainment, Tione and Tiona happily spilling the beans on their visit. Thus the embarrassing kissing/wrestling in-the-tent scene had become common knowledge. Afterwards, all sorts of humiliation was forced upon Ais and Bell. Their familia even made them reenact the scene inside their tent because it would not be fair for Tione to get the exclusive viewing pleasure. In self-defense, Ais started to activate Ariel but was 'suppressed' by Tione and Tiona, with help from everyone else except Bell...
After 2 days of silliness, it was time to handle business. The gods went back to the secret headquarters to command and control the entire operation. Haruhime's group boosted everyone. The ground and air team met up and headed down the dungeon. With not much resistance, the air team quickly made it to the 33rd floor. After another round of Wynn Fimbulvetr and Fusillade Fallarica for the central cavern, the air team of Ais, Bell, Wiene, Riveria, Lefiya, Bete and Ottar would quickly reach the 50th floor, and wait for the ground team, which would require more than 1 day to reach there. While on the 50th floor, Bell and Ais conducted additional reconnaissance using their Hades Hat. They confirmed that the number of dragons was stable with a total of ~20 for all the labyrinth floors. They also confirmed that the deeper floors were still completely packed with monsters...
The next morning, the air team did some bug control in the morning with Wynn Fimbulvetr and Fusillade Fallarica. Later in the morning, the ground team got there and then there was a call with Freya, Hermes, Takemikazuchi, Ganesha, Loki and Hestia. After the quick update, the plan to was clear out as much of the 58th and 59th floor as possible and use those as a temporary base for the deeper floors. This was preferable because it would not require passing through the labyrinth floors where dragons may happen to use their breathe on you if you fly by the cavern. Thus, Bell and Ais flew first pass the labyrinth floors with their Hades Hats. When the coast was clear, they called Wiene to ferry over Riveria, Lefiya, Bete and Ottar. They then cleared out the 2 largest rooms on the 58th floor with Wynn Fimbulvetr and Fusillade Fallarica, after which Riveria and Lefiya were dropped off and Wiene went to pick up the ground team. Afterwards, Riveria and Lefiya took a 30 minute break before the teams headed off to clear the rest of the floor. With the enormous number of higher level monsters from the dungeon's reaction to the gods, it took an entire day and 5 rounds of magic attack to thoroughly clear the floor.
The next day, the same attacks were used to clear the 59th floor after the insects were cleared from the cavern. After that, the abyss-like floor was next, but it was a huge challenge if it was full of monsters as it is very difficult to see. Thus, Finn suggested sealing the floor instead at least for a few months, which the gods all agreed with. Thus Bell charged argonaut with no limit and then fire off with Ais the argonaut Ariel/firebolt at the passageway to the abyss-like 60th floor, while Gareth applied earth raid at the same time. That successfully collapsed part of the passageway. Afterwards, Gareth used additional rounds of earth raid to collapse as much of the remaining areas as possible while the vertical holes were sealed with metal mesh and boulders.
The next day, Bell, Ais, Wiene, Riveria and Lefiya attacked the largest rooms on he 61st floor after bug control was performed again. After the initial set of spells were used, Riveria, Lefiya, Ottar and Bete were dropped off while Wiene carried over the ground team. The rest of the day was again needed to clear the floor. Afterwards, the passageway to the abyss-like 60th floor was also sealed from 61st floor side with a fully-charge argonaut Aerial-firebolt and earth raid, though the vertical holes could not be sealed from below...
For the next week, it was one floor per day of magic attacks and then land assault. While there were no significant difficulties or big injuries, it was very slow going getting to the 67th floor. In the call with the gods, it was agreed to pick up the pace by being less thorough. Starting with the 68th floor, they would no longer try to hold up the air assault waiting for the time consuming land assault. Instead, they would just focus on using Wynn Fimbulvetr and Fusillade Fallarica 4 times on each floor. Thus Riveria and Lefiya were able to attack 3 floors per day. After 5 more days, they were done attack all the way to the 82nd floor. The land assault did continue, but could not keep up with the air assault. After 5 more days, the air attack finished with the 82nd floor while the land assault only reached the 70th floor.
At that point, the party had not returned to the surface for 2 weeks. Thus, they decided they could finish up the rest on the next trip. One achievement was the amount of insects had been greatly decreased, as they no longer need to do pest control in the mornings. After spending a couple hours collecting a few thousand magic stones, the team headed back up the dungeon. After everyone was airlifted to the 34th floor, they walked back together. On the way, they stopped by Rivira and also checked in with Asterius. It appeared life was back to normal. In fact, with the blocking off of the 19th floor passageway and strict control of the vertical hole entrance, the situation was more secure.
After they got back to Orario, the first stop was trading in the thousands of magic stones. Other adventurers profited from their previous loads of magic stones, and it was quite an experience trading for the huge amount of valors. There would be quite a party to celebrate. After banking in the money, Bell and Ais returned home. There would be a 2 day break before a meeting on the next stage of the dungeon cleanup. After a familia lunch, they had some free time. So they decided to fly off to their log cabin by the sea for dinner and stay overnight. With their wrestling becoming common knowledge/gossip in their circle of adventurers, they were too embarrassed to enjoy themselves in the dungeon...
It was a beautiful day at the ocean. After spearing some fish, they went swimming at their private beach. After another round of the predetermined wrestling match, Bell was quite happy again with a blushing Ais. Barbarcued fish was quite tasty and lap pillowing by the campfire under the stars was so relaxing. When it came time to their wrestling for the evening, Ais decided to give Bell a better battle. Taking initiative, she jumped on Bell and attacked with all her strength. Surprised by the attack, Bell took a while to recover but eventually got the upperhand after a good 5 minutes of struggling. With the extra work, he decided more reward had to be extracted. As he collected his reward, they both heard someone gasping. Jumping to their attention, they investigated. Turned out Wiene had flown the entire familia to spy on them! Now everyone had a courtside view of their wrestling. Absolutely infuriated, Bell and Ais exercised their full abilities to tie up Lili, Haruhime, Welf, Mikoto and Wiene. As they were hung upside down and feather tickled, they desperately begged for mercy. After one hour of tickle torture, the group was finally released. The next day, the entire familia had fun in the ocean, but no one dared to request a repeat performance of the wrestling match...
It was finally the day of the meeting. The air team and the land team both met with the gods at the secret headquarters. First order of business for the team would be to finish cleaning up, as floors 83 to 88 were still full of monsters and some of those must have diffused into the higher floors. Then it was the matter of inspecting the destroyed floors. The gods also told them there was a passage on the 99th floor to somewhere else. The question was what was beyond the 99th floor and whether that passageway was now buried deep under the rumble. Was there a more powerful enemy even deeper in the dungeon closer to the center of the earth?