It was about twenty minutes after Byune had disarmed a thread trap set inside the cavern that Rei mentioned there was a useful spell for disarming traps — one called Pale Flame.
The reason was that Byune, having disarmed several traps, was showing signs of slight fatigue.
Naturally, this didn't mean physical fatigue, but rather mental fatigue.
Disarming traps required intense concentration, making it mentally taxing.
That was precisely why Rei asked Byune whether she wanted him to use magic to handle it instead...
"Nn!"
Surprisingly, the first to reject Rei's offer was Byune herself.
What does that mean? Rei asked Vihera with his gaze.
At Rei's look, Vihera opened her mouth with a smile.
"You hear that saying a lot, right? 'A single real battle is worth months of training.' Though, of course, the exact number of days varies greatly from person to person."
"Right. ...So you're saying what Byune is doing is the same thing?"
"That's right. Byune has considerable combat ability for a thief. But when it comes to the actual thief skills themselves, she's not bad, but she's not particularly good either. ...Average, you could say."
At present, Byune would appear to an observer as a combat-specialized thief.
That wasn't necessarily a bad thing, and there were many other thieves with a similar style.
However, Byune didn't think of herself as a combat-specialized thief.
No — she understood that she was perceived that way, and that it was unavoidable given the current situation, but even so, Byune didn't see herself as exclusively combat-focused. She wanted to be a normal thief who also properly possessed thief skills.
For a Byune like that, experiences like discovering and disarming traps in this kind of setting would become a treasure beyond anything else.
That was exactly why she refused Rei's offer to clear all the traps with magic at once.
"What are you going to do? You're the party leader, so you decide."
"Even if you say that..."
Told by Marina to decide what to do, Rei looked at Byune, who was staring at him expressionlessly, and eventually nodded.
"Got it. It's not like we're in a hurry to conquer this dungeon. I'll leave it to Byune for a while. But only for a while."
Setting aside Rei personally, when considering the interests of the party as a whole — the Crimson Lotus Wings — Byune improving her thief skills was nothing but a benefit.
...Though, for Reliu, who was hoping to conquer the dungeon as quickly as possible and return to his wife in Gilm, there seemed to be some slight dissatisfaction.
Even so, given that his role this time was strictly that of a helper, he didn't raise any objection to Rei's words.
(Schmine... I'm sorry, it looks like I'll be late coming home. Still, I'll manage to return before winter at least.)
So lamented Reliu, but when he would realize that wasting an hour or two here today would be nothing more than a margin of error was anyone's guess.
Given that Reliu lost all composure in more ways than one when it came to his wife, the odds were higher that he would never realize it at all.
"Nn!"
Byune, for her part, let the corners of her mouth curve ever so slightly in a happy atmosphere at Rei's words, delivered her usual single-word response, and then began searching the surroundings for possible traps.
The others, having decided to go along with Byune's approach, offered no complaints and followed behind her as she advanced slowly, probing the area around her.
They continued onward for about an hour.
Disarming several traps along the way, Rei and the group were still inside the cavern.
Since it was about Gamelion season, Rei took out Gamelion skewers from his Misty Ring and ate them.
Naturally, when Rei was eating Gamelion skewers, Set purred wanting some too, and the others also took interest.
"This is last year's Gamelion, so that's something," Reliu muttered.
The skewers had an extremely simple seasoning of just salt, but in terms of drawing out the flavor of the Gamelion meat, their simplicity made them exceptionally delicious.
The fat of the meat and the salt.
As those two combined in the mouth, one bite wasn't enough — just one more, still not enough, just one more. Still not enough, just one more.
Before they knew it, all the meat on the skewers had vanished, leaving only the skewers behind.
"An Item Box, huh. I'm jealous. With that, food doesn't spoil, right? And considering everything you've used it for with food so far, it's only natural everyone wants one."
Reliu, also eating a Gamelion skewer, murmured this.
For Reliu, who operated solo, an Item Box would be an incredibly enviable possession.
Rei looked at him with a puzzled expression.
"You're an alias holder and a high-rank adventurer, Reliu. You should be able to afford a Magic Bag or a Magic Pouch, right?"
Magic Items that could be considered simplified mass-produced versions of the Item Box were extremely expensive, but for an alias-holding adventurer, purchasing one wasn't difficult.
An alias holder possessed exactly that level of ability.
But to Rei's words, Reliu shook his head.
"I thought about it a little, but even when you store things inside, time still passes. If I stored Schmine's freshly cooked meals inside like you do, they'd get cold right away, wouldn't they? That would be way too wasteful. I want to eat Schmine's cooking while it's still delicious."
"So that's your standard, huh?"
Rei blurted out that retort before he could stop himself, but no one could blame him for it.
"You don't have to be so particular about warm meals. Wouldn't sandwiches work fine?"
"I thought about that too. I did think about it, but... no matter what, eating only sandwiches gets boring, doesn't it?"
"Hmm. Your beloved wife's cooking, and you'd get bored of it. So that's the extent of Reliu's love, huh."
"?!"
At Vihera's words, Reliu froze.
"My... my love is only that much? No, no way. I love Schmine more than anyone else in the world. So... I should find any of Schmine's cooking delicious. That's certain."
"Then there shouldn't be any problem even without an Item Box, right? Sandwiches might take up more space, but they're not that heavy."
"No, but... if you're going to eat Schmine's cooking, it's only natural to want warm soup too, isn't it?"
"That's just how it is. If you really, truly want to eat warm meals no matter what, then you'd just have to make Schmine — your wife, right? — an adventurer and form a party with her."
"There's no way I could do something like that."
Without even a moment's consideration, Reliu instantly rejected Vihera's suggestion.
Naturally. Reliu's wife, Schmine, was not a former adventurer, but an entirely ordinary resident of Gilm.
...Though, to people from other towns and villages, being a resident of Gilm alone could make them subject to a kind of special treatment in a sense.
After all, Gilm existed in a location about as remote as could be, and for those who didn't know Gilm well, it wasn't uncommon for the people living there to be regarded as special beings.
But in reality, even those who lived in Gilm were no different from ordinary people living in any other town.
Because Gilm was on the frontier, it had the breadth of spirit to accept a being like Set without hesitation, though.
"Then give up. Even sandwiches alone should be enough to make you happy, right?"
"I won't deny that. ...Hm?"
Reliu, who had been conversing with Vihera, suddenly turned his gaze toward Byune and spoke in surprise.
"Heh... look at that. Your thief is disarming a trap like that too."
At the end of Reliu's gaze, Byune was disarming a trap where a sharp blade — a longsword blade with no handle — would drop from above, and she was collecting the blade.
Where the collected blades would go required no thought at all.
"Nn!"
Careful not to cut her hands on the blades, Byune handed the collected blades to Rei.
Rei accepted them without any particular concern and stored them in his Misty Ring.
Since these were blades obtained from traps Byune had disarmed herself, they belonged to Byune.
Though it was a brief exchange, that was the underlying premise.
...Though, for Rei, there was a slight curiosity about how Byune planned to use those blades.
Byune's combat was fundamentally speed-oriented fighting.
Short swords and long needles, and though she no longer used one, she had formerly used a crossbow as well.
Given that, how she would use a longsword blade by itself was a question that others besides Rei shared as well.
"Hey, Byune. How do you plan to use those blades? If you don't mind, could you tell us?"
"Nn-... nn!"
Byune replied to Vihera immediately, but Rei, watching the exchange, couldn't understand what Byune was saying.
But Vihera, as if it were the most natural thing, understood the content.
"Apparently she's going to sell them when we get back to Gilm."
"...That's the answer, huh."
How that exchange led to this conclusion was something Rei couldn't fathom, but at any rate, he understood how the blades would be used.
(I mean, ever since she started traveling with us, she shouldn't have been struggling for money or anything...)
Even so, selling the blades — could it be that Byune was having money trouble?
So Rei thought, but he also felt that asking about it in this situation might not be appropriate.
Without pressing the matter any further, Rei and the group started moving again.
"Doesn't it seem like Byune's speed at finding and disarming traps has improved?"
Looking at Byune as she moved along the cavern floor, Marina said this.
Told that, Rei looked at Byune and felt that her movements had become slightly faster — only slightly, to the extent that it was apparent only when pointed out.
While Byune's thief skills hadn't improved dramatically through this expedition, it was still proof that her skills were indeed rising, albeit gradually.
(As expected, real combat experience has the biggest impact on everything. ...Not that it means training should be neglected, though.)
Thinking this, Rei glanced toward Vihera.
Vihera enjoyed mock battles with Rei and the others, and he thought that could also count as training.
However, in Vihera's case, it was more accurate to say she conducted mock battles not as training but to satisfy her craving for combat.
Hearing stories about someone's hobby becoming their job was common, and Rei wondered if it was something similar to that.
In reality, Rei's thinking was by no means wrong.
At the very least, Rei himself thought so.
"What? Did something happen?"
Vihera naturally noticed Rei's gaze.
Since it was a gaze from the person she longed for, there was no way that Vihera — who was already sensitive to others' stares — would fail to notice it.
However, it was easy to predict that there was nothing in the dungeon that Vihera could be hoping for.
And in fact, Rei didn't speak the kind of words Vihera was hoping for.
"No, it's nothing. I was just thinking, watching Byune, that maybe we should have her do not just combat training but also thief training from now on."
It was something he blurted out on the spot, but it turned out to be a surprisingly apt expression.
Byune's combat training involved Rei, Elena, and others participating, but the one who trained with her the most was Vihera.
This was partly because she had known Byune the longest, and it also suited Vihera's temperament — or perhaps "proclivity" would be the better word — as someone who loved combat.
"You're right. ...Combat training alone is fine for now, but it's plain to see that she'll eventually hit a wall as a thief. We should probably have her study under someone. ...Someone skilled. Do you know anyone?"
"...Are you saying that knowing what my social circle looks like?"
Rei, who was fundamentally poor at socializing, preferred narrow but deep relationships.
As a result, many people knew of Rei through reputation, but the number of people Rei actually knew wasn't that large.
In the end, Vihera cast a look of exasperation at Rei, and they fretted over how to find someone to teach Byune thief skills.