The conditions of the challenge between the SD and Orario is probably to help the SD students get better at adventuring in the dungeon.

Perhaps the SD selects a familia to represent them and have their students temporarily go on expeditions to determine their performance with those specific families.

@Hurricane951 Chapter 2 is called "The Lion and the Sword Princess". Whether that's Lion as in "Ryuu Lion" or "Leon the Lion" we don't know for sure yet, but presumably the latter makes the most sense with how much focus Leon sounds to be getting in the book.

The Lion in the chapter title refers to the animal, it’s not a name. So it’s referring to Leon.

“Heroes are ‘shit’”

“Heroes are ‘conquerers’”

“Heroes are gone”

What if these lines aren't from Leon's thoughts but rather how the world views Heroes.

Didn't the world fall into chaos after the Zeus familia and Hera familia were defeated or was it just Orario?

The entire world I believe, but I think it was only because of Evilus.

Evilus is certainly partly responsible, but the fact a Hero fails to kill a legendary monster & is now buried in shame as a result is what happened with Epimeteus.

If you take into account that Zeus & Hera were the gathering of the greatest heroes of the current Era & still hold that title 15 years later, there are objective reasons to despair, a hero failure can be attributed to the individual when it's a gathering it directly damage the concept of Hero.

Seeing the info on SO15, it finally joins with the MS and it involves the 60th floor.

The joint expedition between the HF (with FF members) and LF could happen after all. Perhaps a potential expedition like that will involve the Guild's elevator as well.

I doubt there is a joint expedition in SO15 because DM20 is about the Orariopiad. I think it’s referring to the timeline which the events of every SO volume from now on will happen at the same time as the events of the latest DM volume released.

That could also be a possibility, but there could also be more, perhaps we will even see more Lefiya, since V20 involves the SD and the metal being used to build the elevator that leads to the deep floors, which would make it easier to reach the 60th floor.

I’m pretty sure Lefiya has never actually appeared in a main DM novel, very rarely (like in DM19) she’s referenced but that’s it. So that would be a big shift if she does actively participate in the Orariopiad in DM20.

Also yeah, it’s too early for a team-up expedition, I imagine Loki Familia is going to go there first themselves for effectively reconnaissance, and then we’ll get a much grander expedition that Hestia/Freya Familia take part in. I also would expect that expedition to occur in the main DM novel, so that could also what they mean by the two series more directly connecting to each other.