Chapter 181 - Reunions

'It's strange to just sit around and do nothing,' Tom thought as he relaxed on the floor of the sixtieth-level boss room. With nothing but his backpack to make his situation a bit comfortable, Tom attempted to get some rest. 

With the exception of the ars flagranti with Cleo, he was on the constant move ever since he entered the dungeon from its other side. 

Starting with the rushed travel from the other side all the way back to the earth-end of the dungeon, then through all the organization of the migration and now up to the sixty floors back, Tom didn't have even a single second of rest. 

The thing closest to a break that he had was the time where he sat down in a chair while convincing his friends that migration was the best option for their family. 

'That's not bad, though,' Tom thought, stretching his legs as he rested his head against his backpack and closed his eyes. 

In this place, there was nothing that he could do. With no one to talk to nor anything to do, Tom could only enter a state close to napping.

His senses would heighten even further than usual, making him even more alert when fully awake. Yet, despite being on his edge, Tom could still fall asleep in this state, allowing his body to regenerate a bit while keeping himself wary enough to wake up the moment his brain would pick any hint of danger or change in general. 

Sadly, this much-needed rest didn't last long, as, in just a fewteen minutes, Tom opened his eyes. 

His ears alerted him to the sound of someone's footsteps, forcing him back awake. 

"What are you doing, sleepyhead?" Cleo asked as soon as she passed through the barrier. 

Right now, the girl was slightly different from who Tom saw less than two hours before. While not injured per se, her entire attire was covered in blood, a testimony that Tom failed to get rid of all the monsters.

"Are you guys okay?" Tom asked, raising from his makeshift bed and looking at the rest of his group with worry. 

Thankfully, no matter how closely he looked, he could see a single open wound on them.

"We encountered some strong monsters on our way here but managed to push them back for the most part," Marvin replied, slumping down on his bottom. 

"You are tired," Tom muttered, squinting his eyes. "How many times did you need to use your heal?" he asked, quickly figuring out the reason, or rather, the connection between the things he saw. 

"A few times more than I would like," Marvin admitted without any additional push. "To be honest, I would love if you could help us raise our levels," he added, looking down at his hands. "I didn't expect it, but the monsters are getting more and more powerful, making it hard for us to deal with them," he added. 

"It's only natural," Tom shook his head, aware of what his friend was talking about. "Just like the monsters are getting stronger, so is the rate of your growth increasing with every level," Tom explained the situation. "Just think about it. If your strength continued to increase in the same way it did back when you gained your first few levels, then reaching the hundredth level would hardly make you any stronger."

After Tom's explanation, silence filled the room. 

That information was so simple and obvious that people would likely omit it, ignore it. Without someone pointing this obvious fact out, both Marvin and Cleo simply moved over it, unbothered to actually analyze it. 

On his own, Tom only thought about it when encountering the party from the other side. Only seeing people on the low levels struggling with monsters that Tom considered as nothing more but an interactive background of the dungeon, he was forced to realize that the dungeon wasn't as simple as it appeared to be. 

After all, how else people from the world where sword and magic fighting was actually relevant would struggle to achieve the levels within the dungeon that Tom and his friends could reach without any help from modern tech?

How could the people on the other end be stuck at low thirty and forty levels when Tom's friends could reach that level of strength within a single week of an effort?

"You do realize how... problematic that is?" Tom asked, more to remind rather than to actually ask. Given how Marvin was the one who kind of pushed him into Cleo's arms, it would be weird if he already forgot how problematic the matter of his sister leveling up was. 

"Isn't this the best time to do so?" Marvin asked, rolling his eyes. "Right now, we can still stand guard and keep others away if they come. But if our group grows even a little, it might no longer be possible," Marvin pointed out. 

"I guess we should give all the stones to Cleo, then?" Tom asked in return, too tired to actually bother arguing about the option. 

Right now, all Tom wanted was to get some proper rest. While he managed to ward off his exhaustion for a long while already, now that he had taken a short nap, his body quickly reached the verge of collapsing. 

It seemed that rather than helping him out, Tom's nap only made him realize just how exhausted he was. 

"That's right," Marvin nodded his head. "I can somehow handle the process, so it's better to..." his words stopped when a sudden noise announced the end to all of their plans. 

This distant noise quickly grew in volume only to turn into the sound of footsteps a few moments later. 

"I guess we are too late for that already," Tom muttered, raising up and looking towards the gate. 

And surely enough, in just a few moments, another group entered the boss-room. 

They were led by a young girl in tattered clothes at the front, followed by a group of two women and two men behind. 

"Are we the first group to make it?" the girl asked, her previously tense face relaxing at the sight of other people. 

"Seems like it," Tom replied, nodding his head and slumping down on the floor. 

'If I recall correctly, she is one of the cousins, from the fourth line?' he guessed, unable to recall the details of the girl. 

Outside of the family of the first line, that only Cleo, Marvin, and the descendants of Tom's father's direct subordinates belonged to, Tom barely had direct contact with anyone else. 

By a stretch, the second line was still within the group of operatives, people that actively cooperated in the family's paramilitary affairs. 

The third line consisted of people that only belonged to the family because of the blood ties, while the fourth stretched to everyone who simply lived within their village or had close business ties with them. 

In other words, the girl that took the brunt of leading her group to the other side had no real obligations to the family at large. 

'On its own, that makes her worthy of my respect,' Tom thought, looking at the girl with a hint of admiration. 'For a civilian like her...' he thought, only to bite his lip. 'No, the moment she decided to follow with the migration, she can no longer be considered a civilian,' Tom changed his mind pretty quickly. 

"Still, it's a relief," the girl released a deep sigh, falling down on her ass to the floor. She then looked up at Tom's face only to scan the rest of his group. "Do you..." she hesitated, only to shake her head and continue with more confidence in her voice, "do you have some bandages?" she asked before averting her eyes. "We ran out of them a long time ago," she added, her face filling with shame. 

"Marvin?" Tom moved his eyes towards his friend. 

"On it, brother," Tom's friend replied, standing up even before Tom could call him out. "Let me take a look," he said as he approached the girl. 

Before Marvin could finish healing the brave girl, another group entered the boss-room. This time, however, there was a bit more drama to it.

"RUFUS!" a middle-aged woman shouted the second their group entered. She then rushed towards Kira, who still fulfilled her duty of keeping the kid safe. 

"Mother!" the kid shouted back, clearly overjoyed at the sight. 

Watching the reunion, Tom could feel a warm feeling spreading through his abdomen. Even though it wasn't his family getting back together, it was still a tiny ersatz of it.

"Right, where is dad?" Rufus asked after he hugged his mother for long enough. 

"Your dad..." the woman hesitated and averted her eyes. "He wasn't in my group," she added a moment later, clearly unwilling to tackle this topic any deeper. 

'I wonder if that's true,' Tom thought, his heart turning heavy. 'Was his father one of the casualties, or was she telling the truth instead?'