Content warning:

  None.

  Lauren sat at the edge of the crevice, gazing at the forest below while the entire group took another break before the final stretch.

  Heather reminded, “Be ready for powerful animals at any moment after leaving the tunnel. Make any final preparations with that in mind.”

  As they saw, a low rumbling reverberated through the tunnel.

  Oh! Today’s a dessert day!

  “What was that?” Savannah asked.

  Lauren smiled. “Tyche.”

  “The crocodile? Quite impressive for her bellow to reach us all the way here.”

  “Mhmm. She’s as loud as she is large.”

  Andrew laughed. “That’s a good way to be.”

  Heather rolled her eyes. “Dad…” She looked at Lauren. “So, why did you name her Tyche?”

  Lauren smiled. “On rare occasions, she makes this big, deep, bellowing noise, and you can hear it no matter where you are in the jungle. Since it wasn’t hurting me, I decided to take it as a sign of good luck on days that I heard it. Hence, Tyche, after the Greek goddess of good fortune.”

  Heather put an arm around Lauren. “That’s cool. I’m kind of afraid to ever run into her, though.”

  “You’ll be fine. She doesn’t wander near this area.”

  The bee girl nodded and gazed at the forest below. “I kind of can’t believe the bottom was finally found. Some people wondered if it went on forever.”

  Lauren tilted her head.

  Heather continued, “Every Floor of a Dungeon is a little bigger than the one above it, and the last Floor is always twice as big as the previous one. The animals are always bigger, too, and a lot more powerful.”

  Once everyone was ready, the groups arranged themselves as they had discussed before even entering the dungeon.

  Heather, Harley of Wine Witches, and a bat-kin member of Dad Joke named Noah each had wings, and would carry multiple people as they glided down. As only gliding was required right now, this meant Dion, as a flying squirrel-kin, would also carry people. And lastly was Lauren, who, because she could fly using magic, would carry the rest.

  Like the other transitions between Floors, this one was simply a rocky tunnel. Though unlike most others, it ended in a narrow crevice. Lauren manipulated the crevice so that it became a large hole with plenty of space. Though it would gradually regenerate into its previous shape, the group had plenty of time to jump through it.

  Her mom, aunt, and sisters each attached themselves to one of her limbs, she wreathed herself in wind, and leaped. Lucia tapped on her shoulder twice—the wind was too loud to talk—meaning Heather’s group was safely out. The pattern of two taps happened three more times, indicating that everyone else had leaped as well.

  Three taps.

  Lauren whipped her body around and saw an eagle approaching Dion high above. She pushed her spell to move upward. Heather couldn’t do the same, but was able to at least slow her descent to move closer. Those above Dion did what they could to descend faster to catch up. Lauren didn’t move in to intercept the bird just yet, however. The others didn’t want to rely on her for every single thing they might encounter.

  One of Dion’s group shot a fireball at the eagle, it was far larger than the group was, but still far smaller than the bird. With all the noise from the wind, they had to shout directly into their System Bands for the voice commands to go through. The eagle juked out of the fireball’s path—and directly into another fireball from Andrew’s team. The creature screeched and, with a strong flap of its wings, shot forward with its talons poised to pluck them out of the air.

  A torrent of water formed around the eagle and blasted at Dion, but the ones they were carrying redirected it with water attacks of their own. As the group had been tumbling through the air, Heather had finally caught up with them, and used the opportunity to hit the bird with a blast of water from beneath it. The eagle attempted to dodge, but one of its wings was grazed by the attack. But that was enough. For a moment, the eagle simply stared at the fifteen people falling from the sky, then flew away.

  Good! I wasn’t even necessary.

  Their minutes-long trip to the group went relatively smoothly from there. The fifteen people all landed relatively close to each other and quickly gathered, leaping over massive tree roots to land in a clearing.

  Noah heaved with his hands on his knees. Theo—the badger-kin member of Dad Joke—went to massage Noah’s shoulders.

  “Do you know where we are?” Maeve asked, a hand resting on her sword’s pommel.

  “My house is that way,” Lauren said, pointing. “We already got a chunk of the traveling done during our descent, so unless something slows us down, we should be there around sunset.”

  “And if we don’t make it there by then?” Jacinta asked, her squirrel standing alert.

  “We’re close enough to the house that I’m really familiar with the area, so I know some decent places to camp. I don’t have any hideouts this close, unfortunately. I would stay awake all night if it came to camping, though.”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Lauren gazed around her. The trees, the flowers, the fungi; nearly all of them were drastically larger than herself. Birds chirped in branches high enough, insects skittered about, and the rushing water of the nearby river could faintly be heard in the distance. The humid, earthy air filled her nose. She smiled and sighed contentedly.

  Everyone was ready to go, so Lauren started running in the direction of her house, and gradually made her way up and into the branches as she moved, with the others following behind her. She glanced at them, making sure they were keeping up. They were, but were incredibly tense and twitchy about every single noise.

  They’ll have to learn which noises filter out.

  Keeping as close to each other as they could and moving swiftly, they traveled at a blistering pace, several drones flying alongside them. Whenever Lauren encountered an animal that might cause a problem, she grabbed it with water or vines to move it out of the way. After several hours of this, she stopped at a familiar fruit tree and smelled something acrid.

  “What is that?” Emma asked, frowning as she sniffed.

  “Lemur vomit,” Lauren said, pointing at a dark stain on the tree bark. “Sorry for stopping. Let’s go, we’re nearly there.”

  Finally, Lauren landed on the ground near a stone staircase, with everyone else landing shortly thereafter, panting.

  Hm? That wasn’t there before.

  Lauren created a ball of light and crouched to inspect the ground. “There’s a purple mushroom here… I’ve never seen one like this before.”

  Heather leaned in to look. “It’s one of Marama’s. She didn’t leave it last time I was here, so Abyssal Seekers must’ve come here again.”

  “So she wanted us to know they came here again?”

  Heather nodded. “Seems that way, yeah.”

  Lucia glared at the mushroom. “They didn’t announce another expedition for Adam, meaning he was sent here in secret.”

  “Let’s help Marama, then,” Lauren said. “Any word from Sean on getting her off that team yet?”

  “The updates he’s been giving me indicate progress is quite slow,” Lucia said. “We might be able to use this incident, though it would mean trouble for her.”

  Heather stood up. “I’ll send her a message to see what she wants to do. For now, let’s check on your house, Lauren.”

  The group went up the stairs, and when they reached the part where the effect of Lauren’s ward crystal began, she was close enough that she could revert it to its previous setting. She then created a sphere of raw mana—it was completely invisible—and spread and wrapped it around everyone behind her.

  “What did you just do?” Heather asked.

  Lauren paused, having just started up the stairs again. “I wrapped a layer of mana around you so you can walk through the ward without any problems?”

  Heather hesitantly stepped forward, but didn’t experience any strange sensations. “Why didn’t you do that last time?”

  “…Ah.” She blinked. She tried to scratch her head, but her helmet was in the way. “Honestly, I just didn’t think to do it. I’d never had guests before.”

  Reaching the top of the stairs, Lauren led the group through another pathway near the garden, leading into a large, open room. It had tables, tools, her loom, and miscellaneous items along one wall, but the rest was otherwise empty.

  Lauren gestured to the room. “This is sort of a training area, I guess you could say? It’s mostly empty because I practice spells here. It should be enough space for everyone to sleep while I get more spaces set up.”

  After everyone dropped off their gear, Lauren’s family followed her back to her house, while Heather stayed behind. They stepped through her garden, which had grown during the month she’d been away. Most of the plants were still fine, though some were spilling onto the floor quite a bit. With the sun setting, Lauren activated small crystals around her garden, filling the garden with warm light.

  “This is amazing,” Maeve said, examining the statue of Tyche. "You really branched out your art.”

  Lauren smiled. “Thanks. I put a lot of work into it.”

  Stepping into the house, Lauren turned on the lights and looked around.

  “Anything missing?” Savannah asked.

  “No,” Lauren said, putting her armor and weapons away. “Changing the setting on my ward crystal before I left turned out to be a good call. It’s a bit dusty now, though.”

  Speaking of the ward crystal, it’s time to recharge it.

  She put her hand to it and the color changed from translucent to purple again, while Emma turned off the drones.

  Her sisters went to look at her bookshelf, while her mom and aunt looked at the paintings on the walls, especially the portraits done in relief.

  Lauren stood next to her mom. “It’s surreal seeing you next to your portrait.” She chuckled. “Guess I’ll have to add wolf ears to everyone.”

  “Put yourself in there with us,” Maeve said shakily, putting an arm around Lauren.

  “Y-Yeah…” she got out. “I’ll get dinner started.”

  Not having enough dishes and cutlery for fifteen people, Lauren picked a wall near her kitchen to pull stone from. Large chunks of rock broke free, and after some manipulation, they were turned into trays. She pulled open a drawer full of small crystals, imbued each crystal with a spell to make sure the Dungeon wouldn’t make them vanish back into the wall, and embedded one into each tray. Then, after a quick clean, the trays were done.

  “Why didn’t you tear apart a different wall?” Emma asked.

  Lauren shrugged. “I need to create bedrooms for all of you anyway, and this wall was the best place to start. I might need to make a second bathroom, too. And expand all the rooms in general. Plus I need to make places for Wine Witches and Dad Joke.”

  “Where do you sleep, by the way? I don’t see a bedroom.”

  “In a hammock.” Lauren pointed to hooks on either side of the living room. “I didn’t feel like I needed a bedroom, though with this being a shared space now, I guess I should make one for myself, too.”

  The five of them got to work making food for the entire group, with Lauren giving instructions on where to find certain things. With the kitchen being made for her size, they couldn’t quite reach some of the higher items. She made a mental note to make adjustments to the layout for them.

  Her overgrown garden turned out to be a good thing, as it meant they had plenty of fruits and vegetables ready for everyone, but she would either need to expand the garden or make another one. She decided on both.

  “Don’t bring the food to the others just yet,” Lauren said.

  “You want to make something to go with this?” Maeve asked, gesturing at the cooked food.

  Lauren made some ice, then began crushing it. “I’m making smoothies, too.”

  “Oh? What kind?”

  “Uh… I don’t know the names of all the ingredients, but the taste is kind of chocolatey, but also a little spicy. I only make them on days when Tyche bellows.”

  Emma examined the large, green fruits Lauren was using. “So it’s like an unpredictable holiday, then?”

  Lauren nodded. “Exactly. Tyche bellowing is rare and I never know when it’s going to happen, so it’s a pleasant surprise every time, and this is how I celebrate it.”

  “Cute.”

  With everything prepared, the family returned to the others in the training area. They were either resting after their long day or looking around the place, and were surprised when Lauren turned the lights on.

  Tomorrow, they would set up the telepad, and the jungle would officially be connected with the surface.