I think I was falling in love with Alfia... Dragon materials rained down on the ground as Alfie's sound magic which was a rip-off of Black Bolt's nonsense just vibrated all the monsters on the floor into piles of broken-down flesh literally just vibrating them so fucking hard that the monster stones just fell out of their bodies making their bodies disappear.
The pure magical strength to do so to all those monsters wasn't the mind-boggling aspect, despite how her actions should have been damn near impossible due to the dragon's inherent magic resistance and thick hide and scales. No, the mind-boggling thing was how she could control her sound waves to not only, not hurt me or my summons at all, while I casually mined materials. But the fact that her sound waves didn't even fucking break the monster stones or materials of the Valgang Dragons and other monsters she killed allowing my summons to collect them for me.
"A small flying pig thing to collect monster stones and drops... You are weak but your ingenuity and the casual ways you break the ways and needs of an adventure never cease to bring surprises to me." Alfia said wryly as she took in the football-sized flying piggy bank that was sucking all the drops from my summons collecting them into its own inventory that both I and Alfia could access.
"Hmm, can you make this thing into a cat instead of a pig?" She asked smiling softly as she scratched the miniature flying pig under the chin making it chuff in obvious joy.
"Do you want a flying pet or do you want the pocket dimension Alfia I cannot tell?" I joked as I wiped off some sweat and stretched from my hunched-over position from mining a bunch of materials out of one of the ridges on a hill.
Alfia snorted and then shrugged. "A little flying pig is cute and all... But I prefer cats who are more independent." She said not answering my question about the inventory so I just shrugged.
"Nope, it needs the sympathetic connection to a pig that devours all." I made up, making Alfia roll her eyes as she gently pushed the flying pig that wanted scratches away.
"Is that enough materials? Either way, we will need to move as the dungeon isn't happy with our actions of killing its monsters with impunity along with mining its resources and dealing with the traps that spawned as a result." Alfia stated and I grunted in acceptance and as we walked back towards our tunnel a large pillar of ice magic shot across the dungeon's surface making me blink as I recognized the spell.
"Holy shit... We literally did beat the Loki Familia down here Hahaha!" I said chuckling as I recognized that pillar of ice magic as Riveria's spell.
"That tunnel you created is just another reason I call you an aberration to adventurers." Alfia snorted looking at me with pride. "Not only the Loki Familia but even the Hera and Zeus Familia's working together would take on average a week to get down to these floors, the fact that your tunnel can take us to these levels and to the surface within three hours in one trip is just mind-boggling." Alfia groused with a wry smile as she was ruminating on the time her Familia spent just getting down to these floors.
"Should we go say hello or something?" I asked and she paused before snorting with a soft smile.
"Oh... Such a reunion shouldn't be missed I suppose." She said elegantly and then she took my arm into the crook of her own as she continued to speak. "Well, Jake Barriss lead on, while I rest my eyes." She said with that same soft smile that gave me chills down my spine as I already knew that closed-eye smile meant someone or something was going to get blasted across the world by a sound wave.
We quickly made our way across the surface of the Dragon Vase floor and in minutes we reached the horde of monsters that were attacking the Loki Familia group of elite adventurers.
Then Alfia whispered her short chant spell and a haze of green light flowed around her for a moment as an invisible shock wave of power, of the sound wave, rushed through the air, and with a harsh cracking noise all the Valgang Dragons and the other monsters exploded by Alfia's sound waves.
As we walked down the small hill towards the Loki adventures they were all in shock at seeing us down here with Riveria frowning especially seeing Alfia. "You are supposed to be dead... I heard from eyewitness accounts of you falling into the dungeon." Riveria said holding her staff tightly and Alfia merely sniffed.
"Yes, I did die, but staying dead is for the weak, so I grabbed my sister's soul in Tenkai and came back down to torment the living into actually amounting to something... And just like Ottar, you all except for Ais have disappointed me." Alfia said bluntly making me smile wryly as the Loki adventures bristled at the accusation.
"Hmm? Am I wrong? The Zeus and Hera families both had more than fifty level fives each. There aren't that many in Orario at all in this era under Loki and Freya's Familia's... Only Poseidon and his Familia seem to still be pushing themselves and they don't even have the dungeon to sharpen their teeth on." Alfia mocked before she looked towards Ais who stilled under the weight of Alfia's closed-eyed gaze.
"Aiz Wallenstein, you are a broken doll who has lost the fire you had when you were a child and settled into mediocrity in the name of calming down." Alfia said honestly disappointed before she nudged her head at me. "Look at Jake Barriss, only spent a month as an adventure and he has leveled up... Sure the mass production of high-level Excellia has done a good deal for his growth. But Ais I have a question." Alfia said smiling pointedly as she whispered towards Ais from across a half dozen meters that separated our parties.
"For all your skill, for all your talent, and even your heritage as half a spirit. Why do you only have a single skill, and magic spell? And before you bother, I know how to read a locked Falna and you run around in a backless dress." Alfia bluntly said and Aiz's handle on her sword that I made from the Brain of Chuthlu staggered in place.
"You rushed to level up, so all your stats except for your magic and agility were fucking D rank at each level, and combined with you being an unfeeling doll you literally only got a single skill that is an expression of your single-minded hate towards dragons and your wind spell was literally given to you from your mother a wind spirit. No, differently from a beastkin getting the bestial transformation spell at birth." Alfia said with disappointment clear in her voice.
At her explanation, even I myself looked at Aiz with a few different thoughts, as I realized literally every other person in the Loki Familia even lower leveled ones had more skills and often magic than her.
"Get better or die Aiz. You are wasting Jake's time asking for his weapons and accessories to fix the gaping holes in your potential that you wasted." Alfia bluntly said before looking to the rest of the Loki Familia. "If you value, your lives don't bother going ahead to the next floor as its a trap. Now, Jake, I am done with this conversation let's get back to Orario." Alfia finished and then turned around with her long dress swishing and exposing her heeled feet as turned her back to the Loki Familia.
I could only wryly smile at the group before waving to Riveria. "Yeah... Anyway, Riveria, we built a tunnel down here using the same tunnel method as before to Rivira. So you can use the key I gave you to get back up to Rivira and then take the other tunnel that's attached to this one." I quickly explained hearing the stomping of another Valgang dragon coming this way so I quickly turned around and ran to catch back up with Alfia as there was no way in hell for me to deal with it and with Loki's adventures obviously going to be pissed I wasn't going to rely on them to bail my ass out.
The sooner we got back to Orario, the sooner I could revamp my whole kit to become stronger and not need Alfia's dommy 'big sister' energy smothering me.