Nine floors down, Yuuvia and Inkaro reached the bottom of the staircase connecting the ninth to the tenth. Riddled with hidden pitfalls leading into the gelatin version of a bouncy castle, the noble girl was mentally jumping for joy that she was finally out of that insufferable staircase and that Inkaro could finally put her down, having stepped on every brittle brick step when her feet were grounded. Only once the relief of her situation wore off did Yuuvia notice something about the way she had been carried since her thirteenth misstep: she was being held in a bonified princess carry. Inkaro's form was impeccable, much to her pouty respect. It could only mean Lizu unquestionably had him carry out rigorous hours of practice just to get it right. The intensity of his grip on her made it apparent he'd grown accustomed to loftier cargo. Yuuvia frowned.

  As much as she'd fawn over being carried in such a way, Yuuvia wouldn't sully her image by letting Inkaro of all people know she liked it. But she did allow herself to bask in the feeling for a moment longer; she knew Lizu took it for granted, and it frustrated her, a silent victory over the refractive-skinned girl once again: making the score Lizurant 1(Princess Carry Privileges), Yuuvia 1(Handstand Challenge)

  "You can put me down now, not that I should have to ask," Yuuvia murmured in a whiny tone, still semi-embarassed by how unlucky her choice in steps was and how she adored how firm the guy's grip on her was to no end. But a part of her was somewhat amused by the scenario; she could easily spin a truthful tale about Inkaro carrying her like a princess to annoy Lizu, knowing it would get under Lizu's skin to no end and put her back in the lead of their rivalry tally.

  However, the fact Inkaro so readily carried her without a second thought, followed by him not triggering a single trap the whole way down the staircase, got her wondering: how did he manage to do it? It felt like such a mind-boggling question; although she hadn't seen him activating any spells, how else could Yuuvia explain him avoiding all those pitfall traps so easily, while she'd practically trigger all the traps on her path when she was grounded.

  Just to scratch the mental itch growing in her mind, Yuuvia reluctantly murmured, "I must ask, do you have some sort of trap locating spell?"

  Inkaro shook his head in a minor way, displaying a sense of unintentional smugness that ticked Yuuvia off to no end, mainly because of his lack of intent at trying to.

  "Making a locating spell just for a single thing sounds rather tedious, don't you think?" Inkaro asked as he manoeuvred around the last few obstacles of the staircase before finally touching down on the tenth floor's floor. A short huff, one oh so noble in nature, fluttered swiftly through the immediate area of the tenth floor.

  Yuuvia rolled her eyes, having grown a little accustomed to the guy's nonsensical logic during the dungeon dive, and already anticipating what the guy was going to say next: "Let me guess, you have a locator spell that you can input whatever you want into and find said search on a whim."

  Inkaro unabashedly nodded his head, much to Yuuvia's pride-conflicting dismay; proud she was right on the money, equally mad for that very same reason: "How astute. But I haven't had a reason to use it to locate any traps yet, not when I can use my eyes to spot ones of this calibre."

  The girl, metaphorically trapped in the arms of her teammate, turned a faint red, not from embarrassment but from the force she applied to her cheeks from pouting: "Shut it, Sweet Tongue."

  "So, should I put you down?"

  "Hmph, at this point I might as well just stay like this since you seem so inclined to keep carrying me," Yuuvia announced obnoxiously, speaking with such bratty verbose it should've been unmistakable how sarcastic she was being. Not to Inkaro, he thought it was a genuine proposal.

  "Well, I can certainly get to our destination significantly faster if I carried you there," Inkaro responded pragmatically, only for Yuuvia to dismissively roll her eyes with enough vigour to make her entire body roll off the guy's arms. She tumbled out of the guy's arms, who made no effort to keep her from falling, other than lowering his arm under her legs first to aid her from falling on her face.

  With a dainty spin, Yuvvia effortlessly landed on her feet, doing so without any hint of wasted movement, before ornately turning her nose up at Inkaro: "And let people see me in such an intimate set. Hardly."

  After a dismissive flick of her hair, Yuuvia resummoned her staff, the Crescent of the Waxing Moon, from her thigh band, eyes narrowed and scowling with fierce self-preservation. As she reached for her thigh band with her free hand, Yuuvia pulled out some mini pyramid-shaped crystaline trinkets that came in a variety of colours: the ones in her hand currently being three light blue, two light grey, and one light green cartridge. Once the mana cartridges were all socketed into her staff's groove-like sockets, she lightly stopped her foot against the ground in a bossy manner before strutting her stuff once again, practically storming off in hopes of getting away from Inkaro.

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  Not that her efforts amounted to much of a lead on Inkaro when the guy easily caught up using his superior stride, which only served to make the girl speed up, leading to an endless cycle of the duo increasing their respective speeds.

  They both fell short of a full sprint, but an outside observer would be hard-pressed to tell the difference given how fast they were moving: the two would've appeared like blurs, after all.

  Aided in most part by their non-sprinting jogs, the duo made impeccable progress through the dungeon's tenth floor, along with making quick work of any slimes along the way, no matter the size. Yuuvia, despite having agreed to it from the start, couldn't believe she was really going through with such an unorthodox plan to complete at least two of their tasks in one go: collect eight thousand watts worth of slime mana cores, find a D-Ranked treasure, and obtain one of the dungeon's achievement tokens.

  What was Inkaro's suggestion to her?

  It was simple. Going down to the tenth floor and taking the mana core from the dungeon's first boss, since Morilore calculated that the boss's mana core would be worth a hundred normal slimes and defeating a boss monster for the first time rewards individuals with a dungeon token.

  As the two ran, Yuuvia allowed her mind to wander just a little, mainly out of boredom.

  Having taken a few secretive side glances and observations of Inkaro, Yuuvia noted Inkaro's distinct lack of external magic during any of the two's run-ins against any slimes on their path, choosing instead to simply use his chain to slice the slimes into pieces before Morilore briefly manifested to pluck their mana cores from their bodies. So, having that thought in mind, the moment she and he arrived at the slightly large grey marble door that served as the entrance into the first boss's boss room, she decided to ask a question before Inkaro charged headfirst into the room.

  "Aren't you going to use any attack magic?" Yuuvia asked, practically putting out a verbal command in the form of an innocuous question, with how bossy her tone unintentionally came out as. Inkaro lightly shook his head in carefree lustre as he grabbed his tapestry chain and increased the speed at which he twirled it between his fingers.

  :Tapesty:

  [Coupling Binding Mana-Crystal Metal and Dragonbone Steel Chain Type-29][Type: Utility/Combat Hybrid][Rank: S]

  -A very long alternating pale purple and white metal chain.

  :Curio:

  [Storage Golden Agate Type-41][Type: Storage][Rank: S]

  -An opaque golden gem sphere filled with very unique runes

  "It's best to conserve our mana for more pressing matters, after all, the upper ten floors' monsters are what Nuenala would call: Small-Fries."

  "Small-Fries?"

  "She refers to phrases like that as 'Gaming terms'."

  Yuuvia just stood there with her arms slumped fairly strongly, doing so so aggressively that she felt her arms might fall off: "Must be a brutal game if you have to manage resources so tightly... tightly... hmm. Gotta avoid getting caught by the boss, can never be too careful...that's what I mean by that."

  Hearing the girl's self-directed grumbling, functionally ignoring his presence in favour of focusing on herself, Inkaro flipped his head from side to side, having a somewhat fierce debate with himself over whether he should at least have one grimoire on stand-by, just to be safe, like Yuuvia suggested. Inkaro sighed rather heavily, struggling to will himself to make a decision on whether he should, let alone which grimoire he'd actually use.

  Luckily for him, a certain sentient grimoire took the burden of choice out of his hands; doing so not for Yuuvia's sake, but for her own, as it meant she'd get to fight alongside Inkaro before he decided to use his Sky-Style Syntax: Air Writing.

  "Mori-G.G. suggests this one," G.Galore readily announced boldly in excitement, carrying a grimoire, from which she plucked out from Inkaro's chain-bound storage curio, in her conjured mana ribbons like a happy puppy bringing back a thrown ball. All it took was once look at the grimoire of G.Galore's choosing for Inkaro to find himself weakly chuckling, to which G.Galore emulated to a feminine tee.

  [Shadeful Tribute][Type: Alteration(Modified Version Manipulation)][Rank: SS]

  -A royal blue scale-covered book with a triquetra made from a gold, a silver, and a bronze segment on the front and back[the one on the front is pointed upwards and the one on the back is pointed downwards]. The grimoire has sapphire semi-circles on the cover of its four outer corners.

  "And what happened to the whole saving mana for conserving stamina's sake?" Inkaro asked with playful tact.

  As if to tease her further, he affectionally booped the sentient grimoire's crystaline spine, treating it like it were her nose, causing her to let out a sharp beep of embarrassed giddiness. Taking her grimoire sibling with her and nestling into the guy's hood, G.Galore made a shaky old-fashioned computer jingle, reminiscent of someone humming in frustration as they were storming off after being reprimanded.