Elysia in Another World

Chapter 2 - First Dungeon Dive P3

"Would anyone like to hazard a guess?"

The girls exchanged glances and shrugged, except Kye. "The mistake was intentional. Had you not pointed it out, I would have."

"Good. Explain it."

"What is the mistake, Shi-chan?" Alethea asked, all five of them giving Kye their full attention.

"Never rush ahead of the party like I just did," Kye said, matter-of-factly.

"That's right," Ginchiyo said. "Rushing ahead like that is very risky. Here, it's not a big deal. You outlevel this floor by a long shot, but on the higher floors when you're pushing floors appropriate for your level... what Kye just did could be deadly for most people."

Kye smirked at that. "Most people?"

The elder shrugged. "You could probably do that even on floors above your level, Miss B Rank."

"B Rank?" Rika asked. "But she's Level 58, that's C Rank."

"Ranks are determined by either level or mana. Her MP is over 100k, so she qualifies for the lower end of B Rank. The same applies to Alethea. That and their experience."

"Because they have a lot of past lives," Liliana added.

Ginchiyo eyed Kye in particular, "You have more combat experience than me, and you know the dungeons better than anyone, Miss Creator."

Kye nodded, then shook her head. "You are right. The standard party rules apply much more loosely when I am involved, or Alethea. I can run ahead precisely because of my experience, because the chances that anything in the dungeon will catch me by surprise is nill. But for anyone without such an advantage, which is pretty much everyone, my stunt is a no-no. I did that both to show you that you must be decisive without hesitation, and to tell you that it is not a good idea to rush ahead without your party. Be the former without the latter. A good party does what I did together, coordinated."

"That's right," the elder confirmed. "Together."

Kye glanced at Alethea, "I'm surprised you didn't point that out when you had the chance."

The pink-haired girl shrugged. "I'm used to you doing that, and I know you'll be fine, so I didn't think anything of it."

The blonde smiled at her girlfriend. "Fair enough." She glanced around at the stones on the ground where each goblin was eliminated. "Now to collect the mana stones."

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Ten floors later, the group of six was standing over the corpse of a large ogre, the boss of floor 30, just before it burst into a huge cloud of white dust. A large mana stone appeared on the ground alongside several chunks of mana ore.

Alethea picked up one of the ore chunks and examined it. "This could make a few ingots. Not bad, considering how many dropped."

"So that's upwards of a couple dozen manasteel ingots?" Alaira said, doing some quick math in her head. She exchanged glances with Rika, who had the same idea.

""More material to practice with!""

Alethea turned toward the group with a warm smile. "It feels different, being here with a team," she said quietly, closing her eyes and recalling a distant memory. "Last time, I was alone."

"And now, we have quite a group," Kye said as she took her partner's hand. "Right?"

"Yeah. It's a nice feeling having a group of friends that care."

Alaira shrugged with a light smirk. "I dunno what you're talking about. I'd drop you both off a cliff."

"Pfft."