Sofie and I were sitting in the living room when...
“Help! Someone! Anyone!”
There came a furious banging at the front door. We exchanged questioning glances when we heard it.
“Who’s that?” she asked.
“Dunno,” I replied. “I don’t recognize their presence.”
“That voice sounds familiar to me.”
“Let’s go take a look.”
There was no way we could ignore the hysterical commotion, so we approached the door cautiously. I pulled it open to discover a wounded girl on our doorstep.
“Please, come quickly! We need help!” she begged.
“Wait, who’s ‘we’?” I asked in confusion. I looked to Sofie to exchange another glance, but her reaction was completely different.
“Limuna...” she muttered.
“You know her?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Of course. She’s the Mapping navigator Princess Leyfa had on standby in the event you couldn’t be recruited.”
This was the first I’d ever heard of her, but those weren’t the important details right now. Had Limuna been attacked by someone? She was covered in injuries and clearly in need of healing.
“Neme!”
I called over our priestess, who’d already come running at the commotion. She either immediately knew what to do, or her natural instincts as a priestess were just kicking in upon seeing an injured person.
“Forget about me!” the hysterical girl cried as a magical light washed over her. “My party needs help in the dungeon!”
Hold on. Her party needs help?
“They’re in the dungeon?” I asked warily.
“Yes! So don’t worry about me! Please save Princess Leyfa!”
“Say, would they happen to be on floor...”
When I saw how Limuna’s wounds refused to heal, it dawned on me. I knew exactly where her party was.
“Floor 21!” Limuna confirmed.
No way. They seriously went for floor 21?
“What happened?” I asked urgently. “Give me the details!”
“Gilbert’s arts wouldn’t work! Princess Leyfa got attacked! And Mille’s dying! They told me to run!”
Her frantic speech told me how dire the situation truly was. It seemed like Leyfa’s party had properly been introduced to floor 21.
“Obviously! You should’ve known holy arts are sealed there!” I shouted.
We’d gone through the same terrible initiation before. The gimmick of the floor had cost us a comrade, and Leyfa’s party had apparently waltzed into the same trap unprepared. What was her dumb ass thinking? Unlike the Arrivers, who’d been front-runners in unexplored territory at the time, she had every leisure of figuring that much out with a little research. I wanted to curse her idiocy, but it wouldn’t help anything. In truth, I could’ve given her a warning myself. We were rivals, but it wasn’t like I wanted her dead. Blaming her entirely was misguided.
“Princess Leyfa is...” Sofie muttered beside me, pale as a sheet.
Unlike Leyfa, she understood just how fearsome floor 21 was. She’d been living with us for a month now, after all. She’d heard our stories about the grief and dread it filled us with. But even that didn’t shake her. She’d already made up her mind.
“I have to save her immediately!” she shouted.
I grabbed her by the arm. “Wait.”
“Don’t get in my way! Princess Leyfa is...!”
I knew how Sofie felt. I wanted to go save Miya immediately myself. “I understand. You’re going to help her, right?”
“If you understand, then don’t try to stop me! I’m going no matter what! No matter what!”
“I know. I’m not trying to stop you—I’m saying we should go together,” I explained, glancing back inside the house. The other Arrivers had already assembled. “Did you guys hear—”
Erin answered my unfinished question. “Sofie says she’s going, so we have to go too. We’re her party members, after all.”
Roslia spoke up next. “Guess we’ve gotta. After living with her all this time, I know how important the princess is to Sofie.”
Despite the bitter smile on her face, the fact that she immediately began getting ready to leave showed how much she cared. Even if she still tried to weasel her way out of her chores all the time, at the end of the day, she was fond of Sofie. Neme felt similarly.
“Neme hasn’t thanked Sofie for all the sweet treats yet! I want to help Sofie too!”
“We were going to clear floor 21 anyway. What difference does it make if we go for it now?” Force added awkwardly.
Truth be told, we weren’t exactly ready for it. We’d only just cleared floor 20 the other day, and we’d yet to have a strategy meeting about how to tackle 21. I would’ve preferred to challenge it only under ideal circumstances, and I was sure Force felt the same way. We’d already lost one comrade there because we were underprepared. Yet here he was saying we should go for it—his way of saying we were ready.
“Everyone...”
Sofie seemed surprised by this show of support. But she was one of us now, and the Arrivers would risk it all for one of their own.
“Thank you,” she said, lowering her head with teary eyes. “I’ll definitely repay this debt!”
“Don’t worry about that.” Erin lightly dismissed her emotional words. “Forget about trivial things like debt. There’s no such thing between party members.”
Though she’d just casually called the one thing that mattered most to Sofie trivial, Erin wasn’t trying to put her down. She was simply saying that there were relationships that weren’t hung on obligation. Mutual relationships between people who cared for one another—be it friends, family, or lovers. Humans form such bonds in lots of different ways, and being fellow party members was one of them.
“You’re right...” Sofie said, sniffling. She then bowed deeply. “Then, please, help me save Princess Leyfa!”
Everyone already had their answer. We were prepared to go to floor 21.
“I’m asking for the same favor,” I piped up. “My childhood friend needs our help too.”
“Come to think of it, Miya is in the princess’s party, isn’t she? What a pain...” Roslia sighed. “Oh well. She’s kinda-sorta my friend too, so I can’t just let her die.”
“This Miya girl again, huh...?” Erin had a dubious look on her face, but I decided to ignore that.
Once everyone was ready to go, our party leader gave the order: “All right, let’s move out! We sortie to floor 21!”