I Became a Slave Collector in the Labyrinth City

“We’ve come down incredibly fast.”

“We reached it in just about 3 hours.”

We reached the 4th floor of the labyrinth in 3 hours.
Is this what it means to be a gold badge adventurer?

The time spent in combat with monsters was very short, between 1 to 2 minutes, and since they just broke through most traps with their bodies, a rapid conquest was possible.

For gold badge adventurers, the upper levels of the labyrinth must be that low in difficulty and easy.
It felt like once they figured out where the transfer stones were located, they just broke through everything in a straight line.

“Multiple Seed Shooters ahead.”

“Fucking bastards. These weak shits keep crawling out, it’s annoying.”

Lightning Stein threw his spear towards where the Seed Shooters were.

Seed Shooters are annoying monsters that attack adventurers by shooting seeds, and if the seeds get stuck in your body, they take root and bind you.

Since they’re bothersome to encounter, Stein didn’t even get close to them.
When Hachi detected the monsters’ locations, he just threw his spear wrapped in lightning towards them.

Crackle!!!

The lightning-wrapped spear stuck into the wall and instantly fried the Seed Shooters.

When they end up like that, even if you recover the corpses, they’re of no value.
There’s nothing to salvage from a thoroughly cooked Seed Shooter.

‘I guess they don’t even care.’

They didn’t even think about picking up Seed Shooters in the first place.
From a gold badge’s perspective, upper-level monsters are no different from worthless waste paper.

“Retrieve.”

As I was looking at the dead Seed Shooters with regretful eyes, Stein waved his hand and retrieved the spear stuck in the wall.

The thrown spear returned to Stein’s hand.
It’s said to be his weapon retrieval ability.

‘It’s not even telekinesis.’

To be able to remotely retrieve thrown weapons.
I guess you need to have an ability of that level to become a gold badge.

I understood anew how high the wall of gold badges is.
Gold badge adventurer literally meant ‘superhuman’.

They appropriately combine their abilities to exterminate monsters like bugs.
Due to physical enhancement through mana adaptation, they can just tear apart upper-level monsters with their bare hands.

I have a feeling that to catch up to their strength, I’ll really have to struggle like a dog.

“Wow.”

“Hey, Sion. You’re about to drool.”

“Ssup. No, does this even make sense.”

“What?”

“The spear just came back to his hand.”

“Are you envious of Stein’s ability?”

“Huh? Well… I am envious of their strength. Because I’m weak.”

“Hmm. Is that so? From what I see, you’re plenty strong too.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. Abilities and physical capabilities aren’t everything when it comes to strength.”

“Is that so?”

“And abilities are ultimately just tools, right? How to use them is up to the owner’s mind. Don’t confine your abilities too much to the frame of being a porter. And above all, it’s a bit irritating to hear someone with a spatial pocket say they’re envious of others?”

“Haha..”

Yuria giving serious advice for a change.
Is she also an adventurer close to gold badge level?
Certainly, her words might be right.

I had been recognizing my spatial pocket only as a support ability.
I might have limited the ability to just storing and taking out items.

‘Come to think of it, I don’t really know the exact specifications of the spatial pocket.’

This seems like an issue worth pondering.
I don’t even know the effective range for taking out items, or how much I can put in and take out at once.

If I delve into this aspect a bit more.
Perhaps my spatial pocket might enter a new phase.

“Thanks for the advice?”

“If you’re thankful, give me a leg massage later. My calves hurt.”

“What are you saying? No way.”

“Oh, come on, just do it.”

“No. It smells. You’ve been wearing boots all day.”

“Hey..! I don’t smell of sweat, you know?”

Is that so?
Certainly, Yuria did smell nice.

No, wait. No matter what, there’s no way she wouldn’t smell at all after walking in boots all day.

“Don’t you know I have an ability to remove body odor?”

“How am I supposed to know all the abilities you have?”

“No, this bastard really forgot? I told you last time!”

“Uh. Did, did you?”

“Wow.”

Yuria looked at me with an expression of disbelief.
Come on, how am I supposed to remember all that?

I might not remember well about an ability to remove body odor.

“You, smell it yourself.”

“What?”

“So you can remember it clearly. I’m telling you to smell me.”

Yuria grabbed the back of my head with a dangerous expression.
She was about to bury my face in her chest.

This is dangerous.
If I stay like this, my face will end up buried in Yuria’s chest.

No, is that actually good?
It’s a chance to bury my nose in Yuria’s chest.

“Hey. You two. Not concentrating?”

“Ah, sorry.”

“Hmph. Be careful from now on. We’ve found the stairs, it’s the 4th floor division.”

As Yuria and I were making a fuss, the female thief Karan cautioned us.
Solar, who was at the front, had found the stairs leading down to the 4th floor division.

The 4th floor division phenomenon that appeared after the Great Shift.
From my experience with the breeding grounds and sewer areas so far, there was almost always an upper-level elite monster below the 4th floor division.

There was a Bunny Man in the breeding grounds.
A White Evil crawled out in the sewers.

Then surely here too…

“Dryad detected. Silver badges and below, hold your breath.”

As expected, it appeared.
The master monster of the botanical garden.

Flower Keeper, Dryad.
A female-type monster with green skin.
And it sprinkles sleep powder from the flower on its head to trick adventurers.
If you inhale the powder sprinkled by the Dryad, your body becomes languid, and you get caught and have your life force sucked out.

‘A Dryad that has increased its victims is a disaster.’

While the White Evil of the sewers or the Bunny Man of the breeding grounds tear apart adventurers with pure force, the Dryad is optimized for creating strongholds.

It puts adventurers to sleep with sleep powder and consumes them alive to make a nest on the 4th floor.
If not dealt with in time, a monster on the level of an underground city field boss is born.

Of course, it has no answer to flame throwers.
Plant-type monsters have fire as their worst natural enemy.
Most of them burn to death with 3rd circle or higher fire magic.

“Gou. Kill it.”

“Confirmed.”

At Solar’s words, Storm Gou, who hadn’t participated in battles until now, took out his great bow and nocked an arrow.

A great bow about the size of an adult male.
And an arrow that looks more like a javelin.

Whoosh!!!

As Gou shot the bow, a sound that shook the eardrums occurred.

The arrow pierces through the sleep powder and advances.

Boom-!!!

The yellow sleep powder that was hazily spread in front got blown away by the wind in an instant, and it pierced right through the Dryad’s chest.

The arrow stuck in the wall, shaking.
The Dryad, with most of its upper body blown away, lost strength and fell forward.

“Hunt successful.”

“…”

“Wow.”

Isn’t that basically a siege weapon?

“Um.. It seems the recoil is severe.. Should I cast a healing spell…?”

“Hm? Thanks.”

Our team’s healer Yata approached Gou and cast a healing spell.
Only then did I notice that Gou’s hands were trembling slightly.

Yata, being a healer, is quick to assess conditions, I see.

‘The recoil on the body is as great as its destructive power.’

Well, it would be strange if there was no recoil from shooting such an absurd bow.
It seemed like the destructive power was almost on the level of a ballista.

“Transfer stone found. Watch out for Nepenthes, let’s rest.”

Solar found the transfer stone.
Now we just need to wait here until the hourglass runs out.

It took about 3 hours to get here, so we should wait about 4 more hours before going down.
The condition was to gather in front of the 4th floor transfer stone within 7 hours.

“It’s a Nepenthes.”

“Aah!”

Nepenthes, a plant-type monster that appears in the botanical garden. It approaches quietly and swallows adventurers. Also called the Pitcher Plant, its gastric acid is strong, so if swallowed, you can get chemical burns.

“Be careful.”

“Thanks.”

Yuria, who sliced the Nepenthes in half with one stroke, grinned.
I almost got swallowed by a Nepenthes that was hiding while trying to pick up the Dryad’s corpse.

“Your team can distribute and keep the sale proceeds from the upper-level monsters, including the Dryad.”

“Huh? Is that okay?”

“I don’t mind?”

“I don’t care.”

“Do as you like.”

The Morning Sunshine team handed over the corpses of the Dryad and other miscellaneous monsters to our team.
They don’t seem to have any interest in upper-level monster corpses.

What exactly are gold badges doing?
They have no interest even in the Dryad, which is one of the upper-level bosses, let alone other monsters.

‘It’s good for me.’

I shouldn’t refuse if they’re giving it for free.
I decided to accept it gladly.

“You were already here.”

“We thought we’d be first.”

As we were waiting in front of the 4th floor transfer stone, adventurers started gathering soon.

A team including a hunter arrived after us, and after waiting about 3 more hours, most teams succeeded in reaching the 4th floor transfer stone.

“12 teams have gathered?”

“Two teams have fallen behind.”

A total of 14 parties belonging to the conquest team entered the labyrinth.

Among them, 2 teams failed to reach the 4th floor transfer stone before 7 hours passed.
They must have had an accident or gotten lost along the way.

“We can’t wait any longer. We’ll go down by ourselves.”

“Total of 63 members. Entering the underground city.”

72 people entered, but 9 fell behind.
The remaining members will enter the underground city.

We can’t wait for those who may or may not come.
They probably just went back up after confirming their hourglass had run out.

Or they might be dead somewhere.

“Well then, shall we go down?”

Solar took the lead and entered.
The gate stays open as long as you keep your hand on the transfer stone, so once opened, it sends everyone to the same place until it closes again.

‘Finally, the underground city…’

This was my first time in the underground city except for a brief accidental visit before.
It could be considered essentially my first experience in the underground city.

Moreover, there was a high possibility that the scenery had changed a lot from before due to the Great Shift.

“It would be nice if we land directly in the plaza district.”

“Yeah.”

As Yuria said, it would be really nice if we land in the plaza district.
If so, we could quickly find the corpses of Rohan’s companions that he hid and go back up quickly.

“Next, porter party enter.”

After the Morning Sunshine team entered, it was soon our turn.
Now, once we enter and unload the supplies, our real underground city exploration begins.

The gold badge adventurers won’t protect us anymore.
We had to set out to search for corpses with just our party members composed of silver badges.

“Are you nervous?”

“What? No. Just. A bit excited.”

“Liar. Your hands are shaking.”

“Ah, hey..!”

Yuria suddenly grasped my hand tightly.

“Big sis will protect you. So don’t be nervous. Heheh.”

“I’m actually older than you, you know?”

“But my experience is overwhelmingly greater.”

“You.. Don’t tell me you’re not a virgin?”

“What? You bastard! What are you saying! I meant my labyrinth experience, not that kind of experience!”

“Hey! You there, hurry up and enter!”

“Ah, yes.”

“Sigh. Damn Sion..”

I crossed the gate while hearing Yuria’s lament.
We entered the 5th floor, the underground city, the graveyard of veterans.