Hero Chapter 40: A Swarm of Blue Papilios (Patreon)

Yes.

From the moment she went to captain Zanis to “verify,” got tailed by adventurers, and chose to trust Keyaru—choosing his way out of the Familia—Lili understood there was no turning back.

As for…

Paying “everything” as the price—no matter what that meant, it had to be better than staying in the Soma Familia.

“Um…”

“What exactly does ‘paying everything’ mean?”

She lifted her head, timid. If all he wanted was money, he could have leveraged her Cinder Ella weakness and taken every coin she had.

But Keyaru hadn’t.

Which meant he wanted more than that.

“It’s really not as complicated as you think.”

So long as she didn’t stab him in the back, Lili would be the perfect housekeeper/supporter for a Familia.

Keyaru chose his words carefully. “My Familia is badly understaffed. I need a reliable supporter. It’ll help me with the Dungeon.”

“Mm.” Lili nodded seriously, but her eyes stayed puzzled.

“You’ve mentioned the upside. What’s the downside?”

He hadn’t even started bargaining yet!

Faced with her surprise, Keyaru felt like his demand was too modest. He added, “Mm… the downside is this.”

“When this storm is over—you have to seize your future.”

“Huh?”

She tried her best, but still couldn’t parse him. She didn’t press, though. First came leaving the Familia and ending the current mess. And after these days together, she had a feel for him.

He wasn’t like the other adventurers she’d met.

Even if he asked for too much, it would still be better than being crushed by Soma’s adventurers every day. This solution was kinder.

“What are you going to do next?”

“Keep delving—but I need a short rest first.”

Back to the point. After the Soma tailing incident, it was only mid-morning. Leaving the Dungeon now would be a waste of time.

As for those “leads” to topple Zanis?

Pure bait to hook Drake—though in the original, Zanis was tied to Xenos trafficking. No hard proof, though.

Reporting him to the Ganesha Familia would do nothing.

What Keyaru needed now was to raise his stats as much as possible. If other adventurers showed up again, he’d handle them the same way.

In a sense—

They were just bringing him free stats to skim.

“At least you’re relatively safe while we’re in the Dungeon. And you should move—don’t let anyone find where you live.”

—

After a brief breather, Keyaru and supporter Lili dove back in.

They ran into plenty of Killer Ants, but the earlier fight had taught him the groove: strike the weak points, keep the short sword sharp, save stamina.

Bad news:

Killer Ants barely drop anything—just the magic stones for baseline income.

He didn’t count the kills. Dungeon training is high-intensity fights that pry open your inner potential—nothing more, nothing less.

Along the way he even tried Looting on monsters; the results were disappointing. It didn’t work on creatures like these.

Which, thinking about it, made sense.

They’re born of the Dungeon itself—and the Redo of Healer never looted monsters’ stats either.

“Even without the rabbit’s ‘Liaris Freese’, with Looting I can still break into SS territory… I just don’t know what the cap is.”

Trade a flashy fastest-level-up for an SSS-rated all-stats monster? Worth it, in his book. Big trees catch the wind, after all.

“Slow, steady foundation.”

“In my Redo of Healer New Game+, I could stomach dungeon play—no reason I can’t be patient about growth here in DanMachi, too.”

…

Time doesn’t exist in the Dungeon.

Relentless exploration, relentless fighting—numbing in its own way. Having Lili along helped; a bit of chatter eased the mind.

When stamina ran dry and hunger hit, they rested in the safe corridor between floors.

Soon Keyaru reached the day’s target—the limit of his current stats: Floor 9. The environment was the same deep black tunnels, but the space was broader. Lantern fruit alone couldn’t light much anymore; finding hidden monsters relied more on instinct.

And—

The number of monsters he ran into kept falling.

In a place that constantly births new monsters, that was a bad sign. It wasn’t like another party had just cleared everything.

Most likely, there was a stronger monster nearby.

“Up ahead…”

“Mr. Keyaru.”

Lili’s small cry drew all his attention. Following her finger, he saw, in the dark ahead, powder gleaming like fungus buds, reflecting the lamplight—

A blanket of scales drifting down in a wide, indiscriminate sheet. A new species he hadn’t met down here yet. He tensed.

“Purple Moth?”

“Or…”

As they got closer he finally saw the monsters clearly: translucent blue wings rippling, shedding faintly glowing scale dust—gorgeous butterflies.

Beautiful, even here in the Dungeon.

Blue Papilio, rare variant.

They don’t create scenes like this alone. In the dim light he realized there were far more than he’d thought—

A massive cloud of Blue Papilio.

“Did I… just find a gold bar lying around down here?”

Rare monsters are usually dangerous—but Blue Papilio are an exception. Their dust only causes a poison/debuff.

And Keyaru’s Heal could ignore that.

“So…”

“I don’t have aoe. How am I supposed to deal with swarms of flying small-types?”

The Redo of Healer had been right: mastering multiple weapon types matters. If he’d had ranged options, this would be easy pickings.

“Lili. Do you have enough bolts?”

“It’s not every day you see this many rares. I don’t even want to think how much those drops will fetch at market!”

“Enough—more than enough.”

She wanted to say, You can even have all the money I’ve saved.

But seeing the boy flex his fingers with bright eyes, she swallowed it. And from another angle—Keyaru wasn’t as…

cold as she’d imagined, was he?