I Became a Slave Collector in the Labyrinth City

“You’ve come, porter.”

“This is…”

The first thing that caught my eye when the transfer ended was the female thief Karan waiting for us.
Looking around, Solar and Gou were having a serious conversation.
Stein and Torius were setting up torches, illuminating the dark space.

All members of the Morning Sunshine team had quite serious expressions.
As if something had gone wrong.

“Excuse me, Karan. Where is this?”

“I don’t know either. It’s our first time here too. Probably a newly added district.”

Karan told Rohan that this place was new to them as well.
She says it’s a place that even gold badge adventurers, who could be called veterans among veterans, have never seen before.

That means it’s a new place that appeared after the Great Shift, right?

‘Is it a dome building?’

Inside a stone building that feels like the interior of a dome performance hall. The ceiling was round in shape.
The ceiling is quite higher than ordinary buildings, but certainly lower than the ceiling of the underground city I know.

It looks like the interior of some building.
But since it’s open on all sides, it also feels like the plaza district.

“Hachi, this couldn’t be the plaza district, could it?”

“It wouldn’t be. The plaza district is much brighter than this. And you should be able to see collapsed buildings. Also, the ceiling isn’t this low. The ceiling of the underground city is high.”

“Then as expected…”

“It’s a new district. A new building. I’ve never seen this place either.”

The earth mage Louis also said this was a new place.

“Monsters?”

“None. I’ve checked several times. In this wide space, we’re the only living beings.”

“I don’t sense anything particular either.”

Hachi closed his eyes and spread out his sense, and Horaru the bear beastkin also sniffed with his nose twitching.

“Monsters. None.”

Horaru also says there’s nothing.

“Hey. For now, help us set up torches too. Securing visibility is the priority. Porter, take out some torches.”

“Alright. We’ll help too.”

Stein said to just light the torches.

Now that we knew there was no immediate danger, we needed to secure our vision.
Our team also followed Stein and Torius in setting up torches and lighting up the dome area.

‘There are gates.’

As I set up torches, I noticed several gates that seemed to connect to the outside.
It looked like we could move to different districts by going straight through the open gates.

Does that mean this structure is built in the center of the underground city?
Looking at the shape of the building drawn in my brain through map creation, it does seem to be in the center of the underground city.

No, the center of the underground city?
I had never heard such information before.

The underground city was just divided into 4 districts.
There was no such building in the center.
As Karan and Rohan said, it must be a newly added district after the Great Shift.

It’s a space where a boss monster might appear.
However, according to Karan, Hachi, and Horaru, there’s nothing in this wide space.
Something does feel a bit strange.

“I feel uneasy.”

“You too, Yuria?”

“Yeah. The appearance of a new place means. New monsters will appear. It’s more unsettling because there’s nothing.”

Yuria’s expression also became serious.
New places mean new monsters appear.
And new monsters always bring death to adventurers.

As we were feeling anxious for a while.
Soon, adventurers from the conquest team on the 4th floor came down.

“Advance team, where is this?”

“We don’t know either. Solar says it’s his first time too.”

“What? Even Solar-nim’s first time.. Hey. Don’t let your guard down, everyone. We don’t know what might appear.”

Unknown terror.
As we couldn’t define where this place was, anxiety grew in the adventurers’ hearts.

We need to illuminate this space quickly.
I took out torches in bulk from my inventory, which I had received as supplies, and distributed them to the incoming adventurers.

“Stick them in the ground to light up. We need to drive away the darkness.”

Darkness fundamentally eats away at the human mind.
Just being in a bright space fills up mental strength, so we needed to quickly color this space with light.

There’s a reason the gold badge adventurers lit torches first.

“Hmm. Judging from the circumstances, this building seems to be built in the center of the underground city. I’ll name this district the ‘Central District’ from now on.”

“Central District?”

“Yes. We can call it the Central District or the Gate District. And let’s call this building the Central Hall.”

Solar named this place.
Naming something is humanity’s struggle to escape from unknown terrors.

The moment you quickly decide on a name and define the subject, it’s no longer an unknown terror.
Defining an unknown existence was quite important.

“There are no monsters here.”

“As Gou said, I didn’t sense any traces or presence of monsters in the Central Hall either. After checking several times, the Central Hall seems to be completely empty.”

“Conquest team leader. Are you saying the Central Hall is safe?”

“I can’t say it’s perfectly safe, but. For now, we should think it’s safe.”

Most of the gathered adventurers were convinced by Solar’s words.
No matter how much they looked for over an hour, nothing that could threaten adventurers appeared in the Central Hall.

Of course, it’s possible that danger factors haven’t activated because we haven’t triggered or fulfilled certain conditions.

“Anyway, it seems we can go to other districts through the five gates of the Central Hall.”

“Wait a minute. But why are there five gates? Shouldn’t there be four?”

Adventurers expressing doubt while looking at the five gates.
I was curious about that too.

Why five instead of four?

‘The underground city should originally be divided into 4 districts.’

Ruins District, Plaza District, Spire District, and Garden District.
The underground city originally had only these 4 districts.

But now it had changed to a total of 6 districts.
In addition to the existing 4 districts, this ‘Central District’ and a ‘Submerged District’ have been added.

“Wait, look at this gate. The buildings are submerged in water. It’s a new district.”

“Huh… Does that mean aquatic monsters will appear?”

“It looks like it might be waist-deep.”

“Look over there. The deep parts are so deep you can’t see the bottom.”

Some adventurers expressed concern at the changed scenery of the labyrinth, while those with a strong sense of adventure showed interest, saying it was a new farming spot.

The anxiety and excitement emanating from the adventurers amplified.

“For now, let’s set up a base camp in the Central Hall. We’ll proceed with exploration after that. Porter, unload the supplies.”

Following the order of Solar, the conquest team leader, I took out the supplies from my inventory one by one and placed them in the center of the building.

From food to large pots, firewood, oil bottles and glass bottles filled with drinking water, and even strong liquor.
Plus various items like simple tents and boxes containing all sorts of herbs.

“You can carry this much? There’s all sorts of things.”

“I envy that spatial pocket.”

“Hey, don’t put oil bottles near the torches! Do you want to die?”

“Ah, I didn’t know. Sorry!”

As I unloaded the supplies, adventurers who started organizing the luggage made comments while setting up the base camp.
It’s a rare sight to see someone with a spatial pocket, so everyone is reacting with curiosity.

“For the defense of the base, 2 teams will remain here. The remaining 10 teams will divide into 2 teams each and start exploring the districts.”

“Who’s going to that submerged area?”

“The submerged area. Let’s name it the Lake District for now. We, Morning Sunshine, will lead the exploration of the Lake District. We’ll take one more team for support.”

“I’ll pass. I don’t want to die in a place I’ve never seen before.”

“Our team passes too. It’s too dangerous.”

“No support team? If there’s no support team, we’ll decide by drawing lots.”

“Wait, our mission was just to deliver supplies.”

“Ah, the corpse retrieval team can be exempted. You’ve worked hard. Let’s meet alive.”

At Rohan’s words, Solar exempted our team from the drawing.
We didn’t come in for exploration, but to retrieve corpses.

“Then, let’s go to the Plaza District first.”

“Rohan-ssi. You said you roughly know the location, right?”

“Yes. I remember the scenery of that place. If we succeed in retrieving the corpses, we should be able to go up through the transfer stone within 30 minutes.”

A half-collapsed building in the Plaza District.
6 corpses hidden inside.

After retrieving the corpses, we just need to run to the location of the transfer stone that Hachi and Rohan remember, and escape the labyrinth right away.

The problem is that we don’t know exactly where the place Rohan and Hachi remember is located.
We had to find the place where the two of them remembered the scenery. They say they’ll know when we get close, but we had to keep roaming the plaza until we get close.

“As we go deeper into the Plaza District, more High Orcs appear. They’re particularly strong among the underground city’s native species, so we need to be careful.”

Each district of the underground city has native species that make that district their home.
There are High Orcs in the Plaza District and Hop Goblins in the Ruins District.

We had to assume that these would keep crawling out as basic mobs.

“Besides that, we need to be careful of Garum, Gulun, and packs of Hati.”

The Plaza District is wide open. And wild dogs (Garum), wolves (Gulun), and dire wolves (Hati) fill the open plaza.
So we need to be careful not to get surrounded by them.

If the Ruins District, which is composed of corridors and rooms with buildings connected in a winding manner, is relatively low in difficulty in the underground city, on the contrary, the Plaza District, which is wide open and can be surrounded at any time, was a place with quite high difficulty.

‘Especially because those beast bastards gather instantly when they smell blood, we need to hunt quickly and leave that place as soon as possible.’

Adventurers who don’t know this die.
It’s a structure where if you kill a hunting dog and start skinning it, wolves come, and if you kill the wolves, this time a pack of dire wolves comes to attack.

Moreover, because they’re beast-type monsters that chew on adventurers’ corpses, the possibility of resurrection is also quite low here.

‘To hide corpses in a place like this. Rohan must be out of his mind.’

He must have hidden the smell and applied preservatives.
The canine monsters here generally have poor eyesight, so if you just handle the smell well, you don’t have to worry about the corpses being discovered.

But if we delay any longer, the smell will eventually leak out.
We need to retrieve the corpses before the decay progresses further and it’s too late.

“Then let’s go.”

We crossed the gate leading to the plaza.

The Plaza District is a place with sparsely collapsed buildings.

To survive here, you had to enter buildings from time to time to clear the aggro of beast-type monsters.
If you continue hunting while covered in blood, you’ll attract the attention of beasts, and if aggro accumulates like that, you eventually end up in a situation where you have to face a horde of monsters.

The problem is that the buildings you can enter to hide from time to time are already all occupied by High Orcs.
So while moving, you have to deal with beasts, and to rest, you have to deal with High Orcs.

This was why the Plaza District had high difficulty.

“7 charging from the right.”

“Louis! Put up a barrier!”

“Kugh..!! Earth Wall!”

The earth mage Louis raised an earthen wall towards the direction the Garums were charging from.
The leading Garums that couldn’t slow down crashed their heads into the wall and collapsed, and the ones chasing behind also fell, unable to slow down.

“Um bahara. Mera.”

The druid Horaru immediately sang the ‘Voice of Empathy’ towards the half-dazed pack of Garums.
If they were normal Garums, they would have rejected Horaru’s communication, but the ones that had received a shock to their brains fell into an empathetic state.

“Shit..!!!”

Meanwhile, Yuria, Rohan, and Hachi swung their weapons against the charging pack of Hati.

Black-furred wolves avoid Yuria’s sword and keep their distance.
Rohan was giving orders while simultaneously annihilating three large wolves.
Hachi was protecting me while supporting his companions.

“Oh no..!! 6 more charging from behind!”

“Horaru! Quickly control the Garums!”

At Rohan’s shout, the druid Horaru, who had finished empathizing with the Garums, made them charge towards the pack of Hati our party was dealing with.

At the same time, Louis, who had finished his incantation, raised an earthen wall towards the Guluns charging from behind.

“Let’s run!”

“Aaah!!”

We ran.
Looking for an empty building.
We had to run and run.

“Damn it..! I didn’t think the monsters would increase this much..!!!”

“Shut up and run!”

Even Rohan and Hachi didn’t think the monsters would have increased this much.
Even though we erased the blood smell and left the battlefield as soon as the combat situation ended, we ended up surrounded like this.

There’s no way around this.
Because there were too many monsters to use the existing solutions.

“There! That building! Let’s go there!!!”

“What about the Orcs!!?”

“I don’t sense any! Run! Keep running!”

“Louis! Can you chant while running!”

“I’m chanting so don’t fucking talk to me!!”

Louis started chanting.
He must be planning to close the entrance and raise an earthen wall at the entrance as soon as we enter the building.

‘I feel like I’m going to die.’

I can taste blood as my breath rises to the top of my throat.
But still, I ran. If we’re late, it’s over.

“Sion!! Hey!!!”

“Huff.. Huff.. Huh?”

“Throw an oil bottle behind.”

“Huh? Aah! Got it!”

At Yuria’s shout, I immediately stretched my arm back and took out an oil bottle I had put in my inventory.
Then the oil bottle fell to the ground and broke, and Yuria threw the torch she was holding.

Whoosh!!!

Flames rose and caught on the bodies of the beast bastards chasing us.
Good. Beasts fear fire. They started to run amok in confusion, and soon moved away from us.

“Earth Wall!”

Rumble!!!

An earthen wall rose at the entrance of the building we hid in.
We made it. We survived.

“Haa. Haaah.”

“Horaru, are you alright?”

“Ugh.. The empathy broke. They’re all dead. Ugh.. Huurk.. All.. All dead.. Again.. Again.. Again…”

“Hey, Horaru! Pull yourself together. If you break down, we’re finished.”

Rohan shouted.
Our team has survived three times now thanks to Horaru.
It’s because he controlled the beasts with the druid skill Voice of Empathy and drew aggro from other monsters.

However, Horaru was expressing mental anguish.
It seemed his mental strength was being chipped away in chunks every time an empathized creature was torn apart and died miserably.

“Rohan, just a moment.”

“Hm?”

“Let me take a look. Shouting will have the opposite effect.”

“Haah… Is that so. I’m counting on you. If Horaru breaks down..”

Rohan swallowed his words.
He seemed to have no talent for managing team members’ mental states, although he was perfect in giving orders in combat situations.
Rather, Hachi is better at mental management, but currently, Hachi is also in a very weakened mental state.

I, who had been away from the fighting, had no choice but to take care of Horaru’s mental state.
If Horaru breaks down, our party is finished.

“Horaru. Hey Horaru?”

“Ugh..?”

“Here. It’s honey. Eat some honey.”

“Honey.. Ah.. Honey. Like..”

“There’s still a lot of honey. Let’s hang in there a bit more. We’ve picked up a lot of monster corpses. When we go out, we’ll be able to earn a lot of money. You’ll be able to eat all the honey you like, right?”

“Honey. Yeah.. I’ll.. hang in there a bit more. Thanks.”

I decided to give up the honey I had bought for myself to Horaru.
Bear beastkin like honey after all.

When you’re tired and in pain, it’s good to eat something sweet.
Especially if it’s your favorite dessert, it’s even better.

It wasn’t a waste because he needs to eat honey and recover his mental state for us to move forward.

“Phew. Rohan, is it still far?”

“I’m starting to see familiar scenery. If we go a bit further.. We should come across the place where the Chimera’s corpse was.”

“The Chimera’s corpse won’t be there.”

“Right. The Chimera’s corpse would have been eaten up or dealt with by the High Orcs. Well, anyway, if we explore a bit more, we’ll find it. We should be almost there.”

“That’s somewhat of a relief. Everyone… Let’s eat something.”

He says the corpses of his companions that Rohan hid are around here.
It was a great comfort to hear that we should find it if we roam around a bit more.

As I took out meat and ingredients from my inventory.
We need to eat. We needed to fill our stomachs and rest a bit now.

“I’ll prepare dinner, so everyone rest a bit.”

“Thank you..”

“Nothing I can help with?”

“Ah. Yuria, you rest too.”

“Okay. Thanks. Phew…”

Yuria took off her boots with a deep sigh.
The others also slumped down, took off their equipment, and started resting.

“Rohan-ssi.. Let me look at that wound on your arm..”

“Kugh.. It hurts.”

“I need to disinfect it. Please bear with it a bit more….”

“Aagh..!”

The healer Yata sprayed disinfectant on Rohan’s arm.
It’s good to have a healing mage so we can recover right away after battle.

-Grrrr..

As Rohan screamed in pain, the howls of beasts were heard.

“Ugh, those dog-like bastards.”

“They are dog bastards indeed.”

“Right. That’s right. They were dog bastards. Hahaha…”

As the tension eased slightly, Hachi, who had been keeping his mouth shut, cracked a joke.
There’s warmth in the building, probably because we lit a fire.

Since we blocked the entrance, the beasts will probably loiter around for a while and then leave.
It looked like we’d have to spend tonight here.