Returning to the First Floor (2)
I declared that I would defeat the floor guardian of the 1st floor, but of course that didn't mean right now. In the first place, I still lacked the absolute specs, so it was obvious I wouldn't even meet the minimum contribution threshold. What mattered now was getting stronger. And the fastest way to get stronger was, as expected…
“Gacha, huh.”
“Huh? What did you just say, Yona?”
The next day. In the labyrinth we had descended into again—this time properly equipped with weapons—Rydia, who had been leading the way, turned around. Her vividly shining red eyes stared straight at me. I met her gaze without looking away and asked in a serious voice.
“Lady Rydia. Could you lend me about 100 gold?”
“…What are you going to do with that much money?”
Let me see. If I had to explain gacha in simple terms…
“Gambling?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Why not! I can pay you back if I win!”
“Nonsense is troublesome. That's enough—prepare for battle. There's a goblin up ahead.”
“I know that too. I'll be right back.”
I passed Rydia with quick steps. The sense of incongruity came from a thick tree about five meters ahead. It was probably waiting up there, planning to drop down and snap its prey's neck the moment someone triggered the hidden trap. The trap had been thinly covered with soil, and the goblin itself was hidden among the branches. It seemed to think its camouflage was thorough… but as expected of a goblin, the work was sloppy. The trap's outline was visible if you looked closely at the soil, and though the goblin was hiding, it kept rustling restlessly. With just a little attention, the threat was obvious. Exactly the difficulty you'd expect from a 1st-floor monster.
Pretending not to notice, I walked forward defenselessly. The moment I neared the tree, I screamed loudly as if I'd fallen into the trap.
“Aaaah!”
“Gobbbbt! Foolish little human! Become my husband!”
Completely fooled, the goblin dropped from the tree with a delighted expression. It seemed intent on using the fall's momentum to smash me with its club… but I wasn't actually caught in the trap, and I already knew its location. There was no reason to get hit.
“I don't get why it's in heat for someone of a different race.”
Grumbling, I kicked off the ground and leaped. One jump wasn't enough, so I angled toward the tree. Tadak! I planted a foot on the trunk and sprang upward again with a triangular jump. The distance closed in an instant. The goblin had only raised its club overhead and wasn't ready to swing yet. I spread both arms wide and grabbed it as if embracing it. My flexibly bent arms slid between its joints and locked it firmly in place.
“Gobbbbt?!”
The goblin looked flustered—it clearly hadn't expected a joint lock in midair. Its strength was greater than mine, so given time it could have escaped, but it didn't have that time. I twisted my waist, flipped my body, released the hold, and kicked the goblin away. Using the recoil, I righted myself in the air and landed safely. The goblin, however, was completely inverted and fell headfirst.
“Gobbbbt…!”
Crack.
In the end, its neck snapped on impact and it died instantly. Without even drawing my dagger, I turned my back on the corpse and muttered in a low voice.
“Hmph. I cut off something unnecessary again.”
“No. You didn't cut anything.”
I ignored Rydia's dumbfounded remark and began dismantling the goblin. Hand bones sold as alchemy materials, so I severed them near the wrists and tossed them into my pack. Then I split open the chest and extracted the magic stone inside. That was all. Goblins were easy to hunt because they were weak, but their bodies weren't worth much either. I let out a deep sigh, sheathed my dagger, and watched as the corpse lost its color and collapsed moments later. Half the dust-like residue scattered on the wind; the other half seeped into the ground. It took about ten seconds for every trace of the goblin to vanish. Once the core anchoring the monster to this space-time disappeared, its form could no longer be maintained. That was why you had to harvest useful parts before extracting the magic stone.
Of course, even if it disappeared, it didn't truly vanish—it would eventually gather elsewhere and regenerate as a new goblin. No one knew which era that goblin would belong to. It might appear in a labyrinth from a thousand years ago, sprout somewhere in the Great Forest right now, or fly into the future hundreds of years later. Naturally, the goblin we just fought might originally have been from a completely different time period. The labyrinth's space-time was fundamentally twisted; the floors we explored were merely stabilized enough for people to survive in them. It was all flavor text added to justify the setting that monsters and resources in the labyrinth were infinite. However, the core that formed each floor—the remains of the dead god—was an exception. That was the very foundation of the floor, so no one could interfere with it except the Goddess of Love who had constructed the labyrinth's structure. For example, the World Tree visible no matter where you looked up on the 1st floor. In truth, it was little more than a massive illusion. The remains observable inside each floor were like shadows cast upon a specific point in space-time. Even if you somehow reached the World Tree after cutting through increasingly ferocious monsters, touching or destroying it was impossible. You would simply pass through as if nothing were there.
After glancing toward the World Tree, I turned my gaze back to Rydia.
“By the way, Lady Rydia. Goblins don't seem to be my match anymore. Shall we try fighting other monsters soon?”
“Yeah. I bought you a dagger, but I didn't expect you to use it for butchering.”
“Ah… This time it felt more inconvenient to draw a weapon. You know, the time you can stay airborne is limited, so why bother pulling the dagger when I don't even have the power to finish it in one hit anyway?”
“I didn't say anything. Good job. That was the right call.”
Rydia gave me a faint smile and stroked my head. I didn't know why, but she seemed convinced that I enjoyed being petted. She did it whenever she wanted to praise me, no matter how small the matter. I didn't dislike it… but it wasn't something I particularly craved either. Besides, we were in the labyrinth, so she was wearing armor and the usual bust morphing wasn't visible. After watching her with a subtle expression for a moment, Rydia awkwardly cleared her throat, as if she had noticed my gaze.
“Ahem. Let's head deeper soon. With your current skill, Yona, it should be fine.”
“Ooh…!”
“But before that, come here for a moment.”
She crouched down and patted the ground beside her. Curious, I crouched next to her and found the goblin's crude trap still there.
“I'm going to show you how to dismantle this.”
“If you know it's a trap, you can just avoid it. Why bother?”
“There are times when you can't avoid it even if you know it's a trap. Do you know the difference between wandering goblins on the outskirts and hob goblins in the center?”
“Civilization.”
Overall, hob goblins were larger, stronger, and occasionally produced shamans, so there was a clear racial difference. Even so, they were still goblins—the gap in raw specs wasn't overwhelming. Therefore, the biggest difference lay not in biology but in lifestyle. Wandering goblins always moved alone or in groups of three at most, living barbarically. Hob goblins, on the other hand, formed tribes of dozens, built their own primitive civilization, and lived systematically. They had crude huts surrounded by fences, used a wider variety of tools, and maintained clear class distinctions. That was why they looked down on wandering goblins as savages… yet because their lust was equally strong, they made an exception for males and accepted them whenever they appeared. There was even a setting that male goblins were called the breeding class because they never left the village, never worked, and spent their entire lives mating until they died. It sounded enviable at first, but remembering that the partners were all goblins instantly killed the appeal.
…Wait a second. So that was why wandering goblins went into heat the moment they saw me. All the males had gone to the hob goblin side, leaving only females behind. As long as it was male, they apparently got excited regardless of race. I shuddered at the memory of the goblin that hadn't taken its eyes off my crotch until the very end. Rydia started petting my head again. I really wished she'd do this kind of thing after taking off her armor…
“Correct. Once you go deeper, conflict with hob goblins will be unavoidable. They aren't the strongest monsters, but they are the most numerous.”
“So I need to learn how to dismantle traps?”
“Yeah. Hob goblins don't just scatter traps and hope for the best—they set them in ways that make getting caught almost inevitable. That's why we're practicing in advance. If you can't avoid a trap, how to dismantle it. If you've already been caught, how to escape.”
Rydia nodded and began demonstrating on the remaining trap.
“Professional trap dismantling is so difficult and complex that even among scouts, few have mastered it… but goblin traps are crude. Any adventurer should be able to handle something like this. See? Easy, right?”
“Oh…”
After that, we continued toward the center and encountered several more traps, but as Rydia had said, they were all simple in structure. The dismantling methods were straightforward. However, after repeatedly spotting and dismantling traps, a thought suddenly occurred to me.
'Goblins fight dirty too. Is there really any reason for me—who's weaker than them—to fight fair and square using only daggers and crossbows?'
Setting traps like them wasn't a bad idea either, but there were plenty of other methods. So I decided to exercise a little imagination. A rather shady imagination about how to unilaterally beat them senseless. It would definitely come in handy someday.