"Listen, Fuuka? We're meeting people from other groups today, so behave yourself. No binge-eating like you usually do, okay? Absolutely not."
"...? I don't binge-eat."
"Do you really understand...?"
On our way to the invited restaurant, Fuuka and Katina—who was scolding her—appeared from a side alley, along with Hart and Huey trailing behind with wry smiles.
"Oh, it's "Twilight Moonbow of Copper"."
Will noticed the four of them and called out.
"Hey, long time no see, Wilkes! And everyone else too! Oh, right—congrats on reaching the ninety-fourth floor."
Hart responded quickest to Will's voice, greeting us and congratulating us on conquering the ninety-third floor.
"Thanks, Hart-san. You guys heading to "Jade Gale"'s place too?"
"Yeah. Looks like we're all going the same way, so let's walk together."
With Hart's suggestion, the nine of us headed to our destination as a group.
As we walked together, Fuuka came straight toward me.
"Orun, long time no see."
"Long time no see, Fuuka."
I haven't met Fuuka face-to-face that many times, and she doesn't seem like the type to initiate conversations much, so I was a little surprised when she spoke to me, but I replied anyway.
"Anything changed for you lately?"
Fuuka stared intently at my face as she asked.
Her expression was as unchanging as ever, making it hard to read her emotions, but her eyes felt serious.
At the very least, she didn't look like she was just making small talk.
"Hmm... If anything's changed, it'd have to be stuff related to the empire, right? There's the summit between the king and the emperor coming up soon, after all."
"Empire stuff doesn't matter right now... I mean changes for you personally, Orun."
It's probably the biggest recent event, and she calls it "doesn't matter"...
Well, Fuuka doesn't seem like the type to care much about that kind of thing anyway.
"For me personally, huh. In that case, that thing... has improved quite a bit."
"That thing—you mean ki?"
Hart had forbidden me from talking about ki to others, but since Fuuka knows Hart taught it to me, it's fine.
I'd avoided saying the word outright, but Fuuka brought it up easily.
"Yeah, but is it okay to talk about it?"
When I asked, Fuuka nodded once and then spoke.
"Just hearing the word doesn't mean anything, so it's fine. Anything else?"
She seemed like she wanted to hear something from me.
But I had no idea what that "something" was.
"Sorry, nothing else comes to mind."
When I said I had nothing, Fuuka murmured "...I see" and fell silent.
The conversation paused there, but she showed no sign of moving away to talk to someone else, so I decided to take the initiative and bring up a topic.
(When it comes to Fuuka, it's gotta be food.)
"Have you ever been to the place we're heading to, 'Soyokaze-tei'?"
When I asked Fuuka, she shook her head firmly.
"That place targets explorers even among general restaurants. I've been there a few times in the past, and the food was really good. The restaurant itself isn't that big, but since it's aimed at explorers, the portions are generous, and a lot of the dishes use ingredients that help with fatigue recovery."
When I gave her a brief rundown of Soyokaze-tei, Fuuka latched on immediately.
Her expression stayed the same as always, but her eyes sparkled with obvious interest.
Seeing that look on her face, I found it endearing and spent the rest of the walk to Soyokaze-tei telling her about other hidden gem restaurants that I personally like.
◇
When we arrived at our destination, Soyokaze-tei, and stepped inside, the members of "Jade Gale" were already all there.
"Hey, we've been waiting! Welcome to Soyokaze-tei!"
As soon as they noticed our arrival, a boyish woman with short emerald-green hair spoke up on behalf of the group.
Her name is Loretta Waver.
She's the ace of "Jade Gale" and the one I fought in the first round of the martial arts tournament the other day.
By the way, the "Jade Gale" party that reached the deep layers is composed entirely of women.
In a world where physical abilities inevitably differ between genders, reaching the deep layers with an all-female party.
That couldn't have been achieved with ordinary effort.
...That said, nowadays with support magic being standard, the combat gap between men and women has been gradually closing.
In fact, among active S-rank explorers in the southern great labyrinth right now, women outnumber men.
In "Silver Moon Rabbit of the Night Sky", three out of five; in "Twilight Moonbow of Copper", two out of four; and in "Jade Gale", all five out of five are women.
Plus, even though she's not here, Luna is another female S-rank explorer.
After exchanging light greetings with everyone, we each took our seats.
"Now then, once again—thank you all for coming despite the sudden invitation."
Once everyone was seated, Loretta moved to a prominent spot and began her greeting.
"About the exchange meeting—it seems our sponsors put some pressure on things, and I'm sorry about that. It ended up being half-forced, but I promise here and now that we won't use our sponsors as leverage to forcibly extract information. Still, opportunities for deep-layer explorers to exchange information are valuable, so I want this meeting to be meaningful not just for us, but for "Silver Moon Rabbit of the Night Sky" and "Twilight Moonbow of Copper" as well."
Loretta spoke to us with straightforward eyes.
It's true that this exchange meeting has elements that benefit us too.
That said, the downsides outweigh them by a lot.
Personally, I do feel annoyed, but I don't have any intention of blaming "Jade Gale".
They haven't done anything evil in this matter.
It just shows how seriously they're aiming to conquer the great labyrinth.
They simply have the power to call us here, and they exercised it.
"I'd like to keep things casual today—no formalities. Partly to prepare for tomorrow's exchange meeting, but also because I want to set aside our usual positions and just get to know everyone better. That okay with you, Selma?"
As a noble's daughter, Loretta checked with Selma, who is also a noble's daughter.
Loretta spoke to Selma in a friendly way—they're classmates from the noble academy, and since both are explorers, they've stayed close even after graduation, as Selma told me before.
It's not unusual in this country for nobles to become explorers.
S-rank explorers are rare to begin with, so there are very few nobles who reach S-rank.
Right now, it's just Selma and Loretta, and as far as I know, the number of nobles who've been S-rank explorers in the past can be counted on one hand.
"Yeah, no problem. I'm a noble's daughter, but I'm here today as an explorer of "Silver Moon Rabbit of the Night Sky"."
Loretta nodded in satisfaction at Selma's reply and picked up a glass filled with a drink.
"Then let's get right to a toast. Has the food and drinks reached everyone?"
The food and drinks had been brought out right around the time Loretta started speaking.
We each picked up the glasses placed in front of us to follow her lead.
"Then, to celebrate this gathering of all the S-rank parties! —Cheers!"
"Cheers!!"
With Loretta's toast, the friendly gathering began.
Since the restaurant isn't that spacious, the participants split across two tables.
My table has six people seated around it.
Fuuka is to my right, Will to my left, Loretta across from me, with Hart to her right and "Jade Gale"'s defender Mariah to her left.
"By the way, I had something I wanted to ask the Rabbit and Copper folks."
Once the safe, casual conversation hit a natural pause, Loretta spoke up.
"Something to ask?"
"Yeah! It's about that time last February when the three S-rank parties back then—Dawnlight, Rabbit, and Copper—joined forces to subjugate the dragon that appeared on the surface."
"Oh... yeah, that happened. Come to think of it, it's not even been a full year since then. Feels like ancient history, though."
Hart muttered with distant eyes in response to Loretta's words.
(Joint subjugation, huh. Nostalgic.)
The joint subjugation is one of the direct reasons I was kicked out of "Golden Dawnlight".
I've already come to terms with being kicked out, and now it's no longer a bad memory.
Still, thinking back to how Philly Carpenter joined Dawnlight right after the joint subjugation, or how people from the Cyclamen Order were controlling magical beasts—it makes it hard not to suspect the Order was pulling strings behind that incident.
"Yeah. Feels like a long time ago to me too. Probably because things were pretty chaotic internally in "Silver Moon Rabbit of the Night Sky" back then."
"True. After that, Orun-kun soloed a deep-layer floor boss, the [Hero] went berserk, the empire invaded—really, a lot happened."
Will agreed with Hart's murmur, and Loretta listed off last year's major events.
"So, what exactly about the joint subjugation do you want to know, Loretta-san?"
When I turned the question back to her about the joint subjugation, she opened her mouth with a serious expression.
"Yeah. Information about the joint subjugation is tightly controlled, right? The Explorers' Guild is independent from the country, so even using sponsor connections, I couldn't look into it. There are a lot of things I want to ask, but my biggest question is—why go to the trouble of mobilizing three full parties? Feel free to answer only what you can, but... was the dragon that appeared on the surface actually stronger than deep-layer magical beasts or something?"