I Became a Slave Collector in the Labyrinth City

“The Guardian is vibrating. They should be around here.”

“Just a moment. I’ll activate map creation.”

The Guardian of Fate is pointing in the direction of its other half.
I immediately activated my mapping ability to start tracking the Morning Sunshine team that entered first.

“Seven Laplercorns coming from the front.”

Walking plant-type monsters, Laplercorns, commonly known as Gardeners.

Hachi immediately detected the monsters’ presence as soon as we entered the labyrinth.
The warrior Rohan and earth mage Louis easily dealt with the approaching Gardeners.

‘It’s certainly relaxed.’

Maybe because everyone except me is a silver badge adventurer, the monsters on the 1st floor of the upper levels were a piece of cake.
Especially since only one type of monster appears on the 1st floor, there was no need to worry about other monsters.

Yuria didn’t even draw her sword.

“Isn’t Yuria fighting?”

“Huh? Yeah. I have to escort you.”

“I see.”

Yuria seemed to have no intention of leaving my side at all.
Her attitude showed that she was interested in nothing but escorting me.

‘She’s not even playing around.’

Outside the labyrinth, she would play pranks and be annoying whenever she got the chance.
But as soon as we entered the labyrinth, Yuria became drastically quiet.

She’s constantly looking around to see if anything is approaching me, and completely blocking monsters from even getting close to me.

“Why are you staring? What? Bored? Want me to entertain you?”

“Ah, no. Just surprised.”

“Huh? By what?”

“Ah, I was just thinking that you become serious during labyrinth excursions.”

“Hey. Isn’t that obvious? If you play around in the labyrinth, the Labyrinth Lord will get angry.”

“Labyrinth Lord?”

“Yeah. Don’t you know about the Labyrinth Lord?”

“I’m from the East, so I don’t really…”

“This foreigner. You don’t even know our local fairy tales.”

What’s this Labyrinth Lord fairy tale?
I’ve collected information about the labyrinth for the past 6 months, but I haven’t heard much about the Labyrinth Lord.

Did the Labyrinth Lord actually exist in the first place?

“Are you asking if the Labyrinth Lord actually exists?”

“Yeah. I was suddenly curious.”

“Hmm. Well, I don’t know either. No one has gone to the end of the labyrinth yet. In the end, isn’t it just a story made up to make kids behave?”

As expected, there’s no proper information about the master of the labyrinth.
Listening to Yuria’s words, it seems the Labyrinth Lord is something like the bogeyman in this world.

If you make noise and play around too much in the labyrinth, the Labyrinth Lord will take you away.
Well, it was that kind of story.

“More monsters. Five in front.”

“They keep coming endlessly.”

Maybe because the number of monsters had increased dramatically, they kept crawling out.
Rohan grumbled that this was already the 3rd encounter, and the expression of the healer Yata, who was quietly following behind, was becoming increasingly sour.

He seemed flustered by the sheer number of monsters appearing.

“Phew.”

“I’ll take care of the corpses.”

Of course, no particular crisis situation occurred.
It’s not like we’re a beginner F-rank party. It would be funny if a party composed of silver badges struggled on the 1st floor of the upper levels.
Yata was just the type of person whose expression naturally worsens when he sees monsters.

We continued to deal with the Gardeners and moved forward like that.
How long did we walk?

“The Guardian is vibrating. They should be around here.”

“I sense presences ahead.”

Soon we were able to encounter the Morning Sunshine team.
We found the conquest team leader team 30 minutes after entering the labyrinth.

This was quite a fast pace.
As a result of the combination of the Guardian, Hachi’s presence detection, and my mapping, we found them before the advance team could find us.

Our detection abilities were somewhat superior to those of the gold badge adventurers.

“Finally found you.”

Solar smiled and extended his hand to Rohan, our team leader.

“I’m glad we could meet up so quickly.”

Rohan calmly grasped Solar’s hand.

Although most gold badge adventurers are eccentrics or have a screw loose somewhere, making them difficult to approach, Solar was a bit different from the others.
You could say he seemed normal.

‘As for the rest of Solar’s people..’

They all looked strange in their own way.

The swordsman was muttering pessimistic words.
The spearman was yawning widely, looking extremely bored.
Also, the archer carrying a bow as tall as a person was, for some reason, reading a book.
The female thief standing behind him stuck out her tongue and grinned when our eyes met.

‘What’s with that woman.’

I quickly averted my eyes.
I didn’t want to stare at the gold badge adventurers for too long and risk getting into trouble.

‘Except for Solar, they all look a bit strange somewhere.’

Solar’s party “Morning Sunshine” is an adventurer team composed of five members.

Warrior of Light Solar, Storm Archer Gou, Lightning Spearman Stein, Dark Flame Swordsman Torius, and Dark Moon Thief Karan.

From gold badge, you can have a title, and the title represents their skills or abilities.
It’s so you can tell what kind of ability they use just by looking.

Anyway, the other four people besides Solar generally looked very bored and tedious.
It’s understandable since those with the skills to go down to the underground city have to escort a porter in the upper levels.

“Well then, let’s go down now.”

Solar took the lead with a bright smile, not caring whether his team members were bored or not.
The Morning Sunshine team took on the structure of breaking through all the monsters and advancing.

Thanks to this, our party had a chance to catch our breath.
Also, all team members changed to a position of surrounding and protecting me.

Currently, I’m the most important person in the conquest team.
That’s why everyone was focused on protecting me.

Because I’m carrying all the supplies for 72 people.
If I die or become unable to continue the labyrinth excursion, the conquest team would collapse right there.

“By the way, Yuria. I’m curious about something.”

“Hm? What is it?”

“That team doesn’t have a healer or a magician?”

“That’s what you’re curious about? I thought you were going to ask about our mom.”

“Ugh. I told you I don’t like your mom.”

“Heheh.”

Yuria grinned and nodded, saying it’s understandable to be curious.

Long-term exploration going down to the underground city could take an unknown number of days.
Therefore, the presence of a supporter or magician could be seen as practically essential.

However, Morning Sunshine had no supporter, let alone a healer or magician.
It was a party composed entirely of combat roles.

“That team doesn’t need to bring a healer. They all have healing-type abilities.”

“I see.”

“Not just anyone can get a gold badge. It means they have that much ability.”

Surprisingly, most of Solar’s party members have healing-type abilities.
That’s why they didn’t need a healer in the party.

“Having a healer increases the stability of the party, but. To be honest, a healer with no combat ability becomes nothing but a burden in the deep levels. They can just use potions even if they’re expensive and go down, that’s the idea.”

“That’s certainly true.”

Yuria’s position was that healers are ultimately just auxiliary roles like porters.
Her thinking is probably that unless it’s a healer with truly legendary holy power, they become someone to protect when going down to the deep levels.

I’m of the opinion that there should be a healer, of course.
But everyone has different thoughts.

“Well, the real problem is that there aren’t many priests willing to go down to the deep levels.”

“Well, there’s no particular reason for them to go down, I guess.”

Rohan, who had been listening to my conversation with Yuria, offered a new perspective.
Certainly, as he said, the small talent pool is probably a problem in the first place.

If you’re a priest of the Goddess Church, it would be safer and more profitable to just work in the cathedral.
Even priests of other religions didn’t have much reason to go down to the deep levels for exploration.

“Of course, there are some weirdos.”

“People addicted to the labyrinth?”

“That’s right. Those addicted to ability acquisition or mana adaptation. Or those who like to stand on the brink of life and death. Such people keep going down. Until they die.”

There must be various types.
It’s a story that you can’t generalize or determine based on just one aspect.

In the end, those who will go down will go all the way down.
And those who stop might just taste the upper levels and stop.

“Hey, Sion.”

“Hm? What?”

“You should stop at an appropriate level too. If you don’t want to be consumed by the labyrinth.”

“Of course. I’m planning to quit the labyrinth once I secure funds for retirement.”

“Retirement funds? Hmm. Then what about marriage? Are you going to get married too?”

“Marriage?”

Why is Yuria suddenly asking about marriage?

“I guess I’ll get married too. Why?”

“Do you have a woman in mind?”

“What? No. Not particularly yet.”

“Hmm. You don’t have someone you like? I heard rumors. That you got involved with a noble young lady.”

“Well, that’s. I just went along as a guide and got involved. What does that have to do with romance?”

“That noble young lady. I heard she’s extremely beautiful. Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for her?”

“What are you saying? I moved because of money. Well. She was pretty, but.”

“….”

“Why are you glaring at me?”

“After seducing our mom. You’re looking elsewhere?”

“Oh come on!”

Since gold badge adventurers are protecting us, Yuria is starting to act up again.

“Still, it’s better not to mess with noble young ladies. It’ll become troublesome in many ways.”

“I know that much.”

“Hmph. And an adventurer like you should date a real adventurer. Not someone who enters the labyrinth for fun. Someone like me… a real adventurer like that.”

“I don’t think that’s right.”

“Huh!? Why?”

“I’d be sad if they happened to die. It takes a lot of money to resurrect, you know.”

“…Well, that’s true, but… Hey.”

“Ah, what is it now?”

“I have a lot of money.”

“What? What are you saying all of a sudden?”

“Just. That’s how it is.”

“If you want to brag about money, buy me a meal or something.”

“Even if I offer to buy, you always say you don’t have time.”

“Huh. Did I say that?”

“Sigh.”

Yuria messed up my hair for no reason and then walked ahead.
That girl was sticking close to me saying she’d escort me until just now, but now that there are gold badge adventurers, she’s acting on her own again.

She’s such a troublesome woman.

“Transfer stone found. Let’s all enter the next floor.”

Soon we found the transfer stone.
At this rate, I think we might be able to reach the 4th floor within 4 hours.

‘I think this is the first time I’ve roamed the labyrinth so leisurely.’

It’s certain when I see Yuria playing around.
As expected, gold badge parties are amazing.

They annihilate monsters as soon as they’re discovered.
It feels like they’re sweeping them away before the monsters even recognize us.

Especially Lightning Stein and Dark Flame Torius were unbelievably strong.

“Weak. Too weak. Boring. Tedious!!!”

“Why… is it going so smoothly… Isn’t something going wrong.. It’s too smooth.. I’m going crazy with anxiety.”

Lightning Stein was shouting that he’s dying of boredom.
Dark Flame Torius was expressing anxiety that things are going too smoothly.

“Um.. Mr. Rohan. Is that person really okay?”

“Hm? Ah. You mean Torius.”

“Yes. He’s been muttering constantly.”

“He should be fine. He might have the strongest mental strength of anyone here.”

“Excuse me? That person?”

You’re saying the person who’s been muttering that we’re all going to die has excellent mental strength?
He looks like he’s about to have a mental breakdown at any moment?

When I expressed my doubt, the earth mage Louis explained about Torius’s ability.

“Torius has an ability called Indomitable Will. His mental strength is superior to anyone else’s.”

“But why is he…”

“Why is he muttering like that? It’s because another ability’s penalty is conflicting with Indomitable Will. If it weren’t for Indomitable Will, he would have already gone berserk.”

“Berserk?”

“It’s a side effect of one of Torius’s abilities. Abilities don’t always give only positive effects. There are abilities with penalties.”

“I see.”

An ability that has disadvantages as well as advantages.
I’ve heard about abilities with penalties before.

‘I heard those abilities are particularly strong.’

I heard they’re extremely powerful in exchange for having penalties.
High risk, high return. That kind of feeling.

“So in the end, Torius erased the penalty of another ability with Indomitable Will?”

“That’s right. He’s suppressing the penalty of habitual seizures and going berserk with Indomitable Will. Instead, he’s become pessimistic.”

I don’t know what other ability Torius has.
It must be quite a terrifying ability to change his personality to this extent.

“Um, excuse me.. As far as I know, Torius was pessimistic since he was a novice adventurer.”

“Huh? Is that so? Then he was originally like that.”

As I was arbitrarily understanding, our healer Yata, who had been listening to our conversation, timidly chimed in to correct Louis’s words.

So it wasn’t because of his ability, but he was originally like that.
As expected, it’s true that gold badges are all strange people.

“Transfer stone discovered ahead. Entering the 3rd floor.”

At that moment, we discovered another transfer stone.
We were able to descend the labyrinth very smoothly.