Closure

We struggled a bit against the Angel.

It was a light-aspected monster, of course, so I was both the party member who did the most damage and the one who took the most damage. The Angel seemed to recognize that. It focused its attacks on me, leaving me unable to get close enough to attack. Still, so long as it was focused on me, the others were able to attack it without issue, so we steadily chipped away at its health until, at last, it raised the shield we’d read about. We all huddled behind Justice, and Fay and I took turns healing him until the two minutes passed and we could resume attacking. Only a short while later, light sparkled around its body, and it disappeared, leaving behind nothing except a dozen or so feathers and its golden spear.

We gathered up the feathers and gave the spear to Heather, as she and Justice were the only ones tall enough to wield it reasonably. She looked very cool with it, I admit. I hoped I'd get a cool weapon when I got my definitely awesome and definitely tall human form.

The slide down was actually the most nerve-wracking part of the dungeon. You had to ride it. If you attempted to fly, you would disappear and end up who-knew-where. There weren't any records of the disappeared people coming back alive, so no one knew what happened to them. Maybe they ended up in some remote wilderness, or maybe they just disintegrated.

None of us wanted to find out firsthand, so we each carefully sat down on the slide. It glowed as we pushed ourselves forward, and then we were rushing through a tunnel so bright we couldn't see anything but light.

I'd been expecting something more like a normal Earth slide or maybe a water slide. This was nothing like either. It felt more like we were going through a wormhole in some old sci-fi movie than anything else. It took several minutes to reach the end, enough time for me to stop feeling nervous and get bored and start sending Nero pew pew sounds that only confused him. My explanation that I was thinking about shooting lasers in outer space didn't help his confusion in the slightest.

When we at last reached the end, we found ourselves at the gate to Flint City. "Just as advertised!" Alicia decided happily. She looked over us. "How're you doing?"

Nero glanced at Justice. "Justice is thirty-eight."

"Nice! Fay's only thirty-six, but she's just barely short of leveling." Alicia grinned. "And Heather just needs a Demon Bull horn to evolve now that we got the Angel feathers."

We started walking toward the Adventurer's Guild. Even if we planned on going through the dungeon again, we needed a break between attempts. Heather and Justice walked beside me, a few steps behind Alicia and Nero, while Fay fluttered about randomly. Heather looked down at me. “Are you disappointed?"

Yeah, but I'm going to search the markets tonight, I told her. We've got enough saved up that we should be able to buy it outright if we have to.

Heather pursed her lips and glanced at Justice. "Will you accompany her?"

"Yes."

Heather smiled and slipped her hand into Justice's, squeezing gently. "Thank you."

I looked away. I wasn't sure what the rules on interspecies relationships were, but it was none of my business either way. I bounded ahead and jumped onto Nero's shoulder. He automatically reached up to pet me while he kept talking to Alicia.

"-should look up the drop rate and decide from there," Alicia was saying.

"We don’t have to get it right away," Nero said. "We're in no hurry."

"Yeah, but if we're already here..." Alicia glanced at me, smiling. "I want to see Luna's evolution too, you know."

"Pfft, she's still gonna be a cat, I bet," Nero said, smirking. “Probably just get a new eye color or something.”

Alicia grabbed my paw before I could scratch him and gently pulled me into her arms. "Don't listen to that guy," she told me. "You're going to be a person. Like Fay, maybe."

I growled. I am not going to be like Fay.

"Sure, you will. You'll be small and cute."

Alicia didn't understand how creepy Fay was; Nero and I shared an exasperated glance. He took me back. They tended to play this game of musical cat with me, like only the one holding the cat was allowed to speak. I wouldn't say I appreciated it, but they were gentle, so I didn't complain. "No offense, but I'd rather Luna stay a cat than turn into something like Fay."

I nodded vigorously.

Alicia pouted at us. "I don't understand what you have against her. She's so adorable!"

Yes, well, a party only needs one Fairy in it, I said rather than argue with her over aesthetics. If she couldn't see the uncanny valley Fay represented, there was nothing anyone could do for her poor taste. I'd rather we expand our collection of abilities.

Once a party had enough summons, it was common to split up for gathering purposes. They'd come together for leveling, then go to collect common evolution materials separately.

Nero's hands around me tightened briefly. "You think you're gonna lead the second team?" he asked wryly.

Are you saying you wouldn't prefer to stay with Alicia? I teased, ensuring the telepathy only reached Nero.

He reddened and looked away from the girl in question. "Whatever. It's not like Justice or Heather couldn't do it, though."

And either one would still leave you with Alicia.

"You're too cheeky to be a cat," Nero muttered. He set me on the ground. "Hey, take one of them and go search for a halo."

Now?

He nodded. "I heard something when we first got here. There've been rumors of someone wandering the streets at night. I don't want you out late."

I was sure he was being overprotective. It was probably because he saw me as something like his child, even though I was old enough to be his mother, so I allowed it. (It did raise the question of 'would I look like my past self once I had a human form' though. That could be awkward.) Alright, Master, I said. Come on, Justice.

We hurried off while the others continued to the Guild to report that we’d cleared Rainbow Sky Slide and returned.

Unfortunately, we didn't manage to find an Angel's halo that afternoon. The merchants Justice spoke to on my behalf said they rarely appeared outside of auctions because most people here did just skip the guardian unless they needed its materials. Ask them how much one would go for, I recommended. When Justice did, we were both shocked by the number. Our entire party could get by for a month on that much.

As evening fell, Justice and I headed back to the Adventurer’s Guild. Do you mind running it some more? I asked him as he walked. I was sitting on his shoulder and looking about curiously.

“Not… at all,” Justice replied. He was the one who had the most difficulty with the dungeon, since he was fire and earth-aspected, and earth-aspected beings tended to find wind-aspected locations uncomfortable. “It is… a pleasant stroll. It is… very… beautiful.”

True, I agreed.

We didn’t run into any mysterious figures, but we did notice, as the sun sank, that the streets seemed to clear out faster than they did in our home city. By the time we reached the Adventurer’s Guild, there was no one left on the streets save for guards patrolling and the occasional person hurrying from one place to another. All the stalls had already closed down, and the open market was gone.

In the morning, we looked up the drop rate for the Angel’s halo. It was a depressingly low number.

“One in twenty?” Nero asked, giving the book in front of him a disgusted look. “Why?” He jabbed his finger at another book, which had the drop rates of Bull Horns in a nearby dungeon. “Why’s your drop rate one in three?!”

Alicia giggled and took the book away from him. “I guess God likes me better.”

“Pfft, can’t like you that much if he didn’t send a halo. You’re still in the same party, you know!”

“Maybe He likes Heather better then?” Alicia mused.

All of us looked at Heather, who blushed faintly and shook her head. “I very much doubt that this has anything to do with being liked by God. I find it more likely that it is because all Demon Bulls have horns - it is merely an issue of whether enough Magic accumulates within them, whereas not all Angels have halos.”

Nero snorted and grumbled more about deities playing favorites, but none of us paid it any mind. He kept glancing toward Alicia when he thought she wasn’t looking, so it was clear that he was just enjoying her amusement.

We eventually started to discuss how many attempts we were willing to make at obtaining the halo before we moved on to the next dungeon. It was all well and good to say that we’d keep trying until it dropped, but I knew from my past life that was a dangerous mindset to have. One in twenty didn’t mean it would drop after twenty runs. We could, in theory, run the dungeon over and over for the rest of our lives without ever encountering an Angel with a halo.

Was it likely? Not at all. But it was technically possible, and I didn’t want to put us in that position.

How about we agree to run it five times? I suggested. If it drops, we can reconsider, but if it doesn't drop by the fifth run, we'll move on.

Nero nodded. "I guess that's fine. And hey! Five runs should get Fay and Justice to fifty, too."

Naturally, I'd expected that, which was why I'd chosen five. Nero and Alicia could be startlingly responsible teenagers all they wanted. They still hadn't ever had to arrange play dates and school events and doctor's appointments and bills and finances at the level of your average modern-day Earth single mom.

Like that, we started our runs. While our first run had taken us two weeks, that was because we were new to it and being extra cautious as a result. Now that we’d been through it once, we felt more confident. We were still careful on the ninth floor, but so long as the mist didn’t smell sweet, we could run through the rest of the dungeon in only a week.

Other parties accompanied us. They didn't want to fight the guardian, so if we were willing to do that, it became safer for them to run past it. We didn't mind. By the time we hit our fourth run, we had it down so well that we cleared it in only six days. It wasn't the record by a long shot, but considering we were a two-person party, it got us a lot of attention.

And, on our fourth run, the Angel had a halo.

The addition didn't change anything about the guardian's combat. It was just a small variation that occurred sometimes. When we exited, we stopped to discuss whether we wanted to run through once more to get Fay and Justice to level 50.

"It's only one more," Nero said. He paused. "Actually, I'd kind of like to try running it in two parties."

Alicia's eyebrows went high. "Really?"

Nero nodded. "We're getting to that point, right? And I'd rather test it on something like this that we know really well by now. We can escape, if we need to, and it'll be a good test of our abilities." That was true. Even after we started fighting the Angel, we could climb onto the slide at any point and escape without issue. Nothing about a dungeon could ever really be safe, but it was as safe as it could reasonably be.

Alicia bit down on her lip, gnawing at it the way she did when she was thinking deeply. At last, she nodded. "Alright. My team versus yours?"

"Ah, I was thinking, um," Nero stumbled over his words, more attention on trying not to blush than on the reasoning he'd carefully thought out to himself.

I decided to help him out. I want to try leading a team, I said. I'd like to take Justice and Heather through while you two go through with Fay.

Alicia considered that. "The team with the better tank would have you for heals, and the team with the better healer would have me as a tank," she murmured, nodding to herself. "The damage would be relatively even, since Fay’s better at buffs than Heather, but you do more damage against the Angel than anyone else… Okay. We can do that."

Somehow, others heard about our plans. The day I led my team into the dungeon, two days before Alicia and Nero would start their run, there were dozens of adventurers there watching and cheering us on. I suppose they didn't have a lot of entertainment in this world, so seeing a party split up to 'compete' like this was something to do. Certainly, I saw a fair amount of gold changing hands to only a couple of people, who wrote down something immediately after. I wondered what kinds of bets were being made.

Naturally, our run went smoothly. Heather and Justice both had good heads on their shoulders, and with Nero and Alicia's instructions to obey my orders, it was easy. When we entered the seventh floor, we noticed that the mist smelled sweet, but it only meant we had to spend a day and a half being bored inside a cottage. Offsetting that and the fact that it took us longer to kill monsters was the fact that monsters weren’t as aggressive toward summons when we were unaccompanied by a human, meaning we didn’t have to fight as many monsters. In the end, we exited a week and a half after we'd entered to cheers.

As a team comprised entirely of summons, we legally couldn't enter the city alone, so we remained at the exit point, waiting for our Masters.

They should have exited soon after us. Three days passed.

None of us had ever heard of dungeon closures or evolutions, but even if we had, Nero and I would have expected such things to happen while I was in the dungeon, seeing as I was the one with the Hated by God title.

And yet…