Chapter 1

“Be back soon, master!”

“Okay, I’ll be heading out soon myself.”

“Big Sis Hikari, take care,” Norman said.

“Sure, I’ll bring lots of gifts,” Hikari declared confidently in response.

Hikari and the others were going to start at the first floor of the dungeon on their way to the fifth. Rurika and Chris weren’t registered there yet, so the five girls—Hikari, Mia, Sera, Rurika, and Chris—would start from the beginning and make their way there together.

Meanwhile, my own plan was to wait for two days, then go straight to the fifth floor, where we’d meet up and head for the sixth. But if any of them looked too tired at that point, of course, we’d turn back.

“By the way, Chris. Why do you always wear your adventuring outfit?” It was something I’d been wondering for a while. She was currently dressed in the adventuring outfit she’d worn when we first met, while the rest of the girls were in their Magius uniforms for the dungeon dive.

“You never know what might happen in a dungeon. In case my transformation ends up dropping... I want to be in my adventurer’s outfit with its hooded robe.”

“Yeah, and the uniforms are a little tight around the shoulders. That’s why I’m wearing my usual clothes too,” Rurika chimed in.

Rurika’s adventuring outfit was indeed quite revealing in that area—other than a pauldron on her right shoulder, which she seemed used to. Still, I’d seen her move quite comfortably in the school uniform, and she’d expressed fondness for it in the past, calling it cute.

“Rurika’s wearing her adventuring outfit because of me. She didn’t want me drawing attention by being the odd one out,” Chris confided in me after Rurika walked away.

She might have denied it i