Fifth floor... tenth floor... twentieth floor...
Thirtieth floor... fiftieth floor... eightieth floor...
By the time the blue, transparent, spherical shield forming around Levi had stacked to 100 layers.
Through the perception of his Vision, he knew that he had reached the upper limit of the Icy Paws shield.
Maintaining the shield constantly consumed Cryo energy.
The passive recovery provided by the Vision itself was clearly not enough.
In fact, if not for Hestia's blessing and the set effect of The Exile artifacts, he would likely have run a deficit, needing to constantly drink Mind potions to extend its duration.
A little over three minutes later.
Levi, having advanced a bit further along the main path, encountered the second wave of enemies—six Hellhounds.
Since this wasn't his first time fighting this type of monster, he dispatched five of the Hellhounds with practiced ease.
As for the one he intentionally left alive, it was used as a test subject for his shield.
That said, Levi wasn't foolish enough to take a Hellhound's fire breath straight to the face.
Instead, whenever the opponent's attack was about to hit him, he would use the footwork learned from the 'Stellar Conquest Spear Arts' to dodge, then graze the attack with the edge of his shield.
After repeating this over two hundred and seventy times, the fully-charged shield shattered with a crisp sound.
'It can withstand two hundred attacks from a low-rank Lv. 2 monster?'
As he finished off the opponent—no, the dog—with Icy Paws, Levi thought to himself:
'By that calculation, a shield formed from a single Icy Paw can nullify about two attacks.'
'With five active at once, it should be no problem to block at least one attack from a Lv. 3 monster.'
This result, to be honest, was already quite impressive.
Between adventurers and monsters, as long as one's defense could be breached, a one-hit kill was theoretically possible.
Now, with a shield that could nullify an attack from a monster one level higher than him, combined with his two four-star melee weapons, Levi possessed, in a sense, a relatively safe way to achieve a Feat.
He wasn't the type to take risks anyway, and had never considered challenging a Lv. 4 at Lv. 2, nor targeting the Floor Boss Goliath, mentioned in the main quest, as the target for his Feat.
That wasn't a challenge; it was suicide.
However, in the Dungeon, no matter how cautiously an adventurer acted, they were bound to encounter an accident or two.
Whether it was a Monster Party spontaneously formed by the labyrinth, or various problems caused by other adventurers.
Previously, aside from one trip to the Middle Floors with Tsubaki to obtain a Feat, Levi had spent all his time on the Upper Floors—to be precise, within the first ten floors.
Therefore, since entering Orario, he had yet to experience a truly irregular event.
But today...
Having gradually advanced to the 16th floor, he finally encountered one.
And right off the bat, it was the one thing he least wanted to encounter: a 'pitfall'.
Levi, having just killed a Fanged Tiger with the long spear in his hand, was preparing to step forward and pick up the Magic Stone on the ground.
The next moment, without even giving him time to react, the ground where he stood suddenly collapsed on a massive scale.
The sensation of weightlessness washed over him.
Levi had no time to think about the cause. While in mid-air and falling rapidly, he instinctively cast 'Icy Paws' over and over.
Because he already had over eighty layers of shielding, it only took a little over two seconds for the shield's durability to return to 90+ layers.
At that moment, the light around him suddenly brightened.
Immediately following this, a girl's exclamation reached his ears: 'Miss Ais, someone is falling from up there!'
Another calm female voice followed immediately after: 'Leave it to me. Awaken!'
Levi didn't dare to entrust his life to strangers. After firing two more 'Icy Paws' toward the ground, he pulled a high-grade recovery potion from his inventory and chugged it.
At the same time, he calculated the distance and preemptively cast 'Signature Mix' at his landing spot.
But that wasn't all. Relying on his constitution, which was comparable to a Lv. 3 adventurer's, he adjusted his posture in mid-air.
He flipped upside down, bending his knees slightly and clasping his hands behind his head in a posture designed to absorb the impact.
The magic power within his body also gathered around his heart at this moment, causing the Endurance stat on his Status Sheet to become 'SSS1299+1200'.
And then...
All the aforementioned measures became useless, as Levi found himself held in a princess carry, cradled in the arms of a golden-haired girl.
The girl looked down, her doll-like, exquisite face showing no trace of emotion.
The boy with pale gold short hair looked up, his expression a mixture of surprise and a hint of bewilderment.
If their roles were reversed, the current scene might have been quite pleasing to the eye.
Unfortunately.
As one of the parties involved, Levi was in no mood to immerse himself in the girl's warm embrace.
'Thank you for your help. Also, could you put me down now?'
'Okay.'
The golden-haired girl nodded and did as he asked.
In the distance, the roar of the Floor Boss echoed.
'ROOOOAAAAR!!!!!'
What followed was a roar shockwave, similar to that of a Minotaur or a Fanged Tiger, but many times more powerful.
'Lefiya, get out of the way!'
'Watch out!'
Among the adventurers fighting Goliath, who were most likely from the same Familia as the golden-haired girl, an elf girl with a golden-yellow ponytail was a beat too slow to dodge, having been too focused on the commotion over here.
Just as she was about to be hit by Goliath's attack, a transparent, ice-blue spherical shield suddenly materialized around her.
The roar, powerful enough to crush a Lv. 1 adventurer into pulp and severely injure or knock out a Lv. 2 or Lv. 3 adventurer who took it head-on, shattered the shield which had existed for less than half a second.
Its power was drastically reduced.
Even for the elf girl, who was clearly in a rearguard position, taking the hit only resulted in a cry of pain.
She didn't completely lose her ability to fight.
'!!!!' xN
Seeing this, everyone present revealed shocked expressions.
However, since they were still in the middle of a boss fight, they had to temporarily set aside their questions.
Levi, however, having just cast a round of 'Icy Paws', turned his head to look at the girl beside him.
'Aren't you going to help them?'
He had actually already guessed her identity.
Human, golden hair, uses wind-enchantment magic, and her name is 'Ais'.
In Orario, that could only be the 'Sword Princess' of the Loki Familia, Ais Wallenstein.
Ais might seem like a kuudere, but in reality, she wasn't antisocial or arrogant.
Hearing his question, she replied: 'This is Lefiya's and the others' adventure. Riveria said I can only step in after confirming that they have failed their challenge.'
'I see.'
Levi nodded. As he spoke, he casually added five layers of shields to everyone present except for Ais.
The fact that he could use barrier magic was bound to be exposed as long as he used it in the Dungeon.
He might as well use this opportunity to do the Loki Familia a favor.
Besides...
____
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