Chapter 46: Worth More Than 22 Gold
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 46: Worth More Than 22 Gold
We took out some food from the inventory and ate a light dinner while listening to Olivia reveal the secrets of the upper levels.
"So, you're saying a World Tree Branch is hidden on the Botanical Garden 3rd Floor?"
"Yes..."
"And one of the Hoarding Rabbit nests on the Breeding Ground 3rd Floor hides the Butcher's weapon?"
"Yes, yes... If you get that, you can become an absolute beast against monsters..."
"Huh."
"This is just..."
Yuria and I looked at Olivia, feeling somewhat bewildered.
And for good reason.
"That stuff was all looted ages ago. The Magic Tower already recovered the World Tree Branch. And I heard one of the Platinum Badge adventurers has the Butcher's Sword. Right, Yuria?"
"Yeah. Most of what Olivia mentioned was cleared out over twenty years ago. Almost all the items she's talking about are artifacts currently held by the Platinum Badges."
"You're a step too late, Olivia."
"Eh...?"
Olivia froze, her spoon halfway to her mouth as she sipped her soup.
She stared blankly, her mouth hanging open in disbelief.
"Most of the information you have about the upper levels has already been picked clean by adventurers. Yuria is a Labyrinth City native, so she knows her stuff. You really are too late."
"If you'd come to the Labyrinth City thirty years earlier, you might have snagged half of what you mentioned. What a shame."
"Eh. E-eeeeh...? N-no wonder... I couldn't find them no matter how hard I looked... Ah... Aaaaah..."
At our words, Olivia looked as if she’d been punched in the gut, her eyes welling up with tears.
She seemed to be falling into a panic as she realized the "secret and incredible knowledge" she possessed was actually outdated information that had been common knowledge for two decades.
How should I put it? She looked like someone who had just realized their winning lottery ticket had expired.
Olivia began to deny reality like someone who had lost all hope and dreams.
"Adventurers aren't idiots. They're the quickest people alive when it comes to sniffing things out."
"Their lives depend on that intuition. If something looks even slightly suspicious, they poke at it immediately."
Adventurers are a bunch of opportunists who will try anything—traps or not—if it looks like it'll pay off.
They’re the kind of people who capture Labyrinth monsters to sell as adult toys; there’s no way hidden elements in the upper levels would have remained undiscovered for long.
Consequently, the secret rooms, easter eggs, and hidden features Olivia mentioned had already been plundered by the previous generation of adventurers.
Since there were no reports of them respawning after the Cataclysm, it was safe to assume she was out of luck.
In short, Olivia was working off an old version of a Labyrinth walkthrough.
Maybe it was different deep within the Underground City, but the upper levels, which adventurers frequented until they were worn smooth, had definitely been picked clean.
"Ah... Aaaaah... Why..."
Olivia clutched her head as if she had a splitting migraine.
It felt like watching the downfall of a promising prospect who had dreamed of a complete life reversal.
Perhaps because she was a bit unstable, her emotions felt exaggerated. Her descent into despair felt strangely theatrical.
"N-no... This can't be happening... If I'm useless... I'll be abandoned again... I don't want that..."
"Hey, Olivia. Just calm down for a second..."
"Huaaa... Please don't throw me away. Please... I'm sorry... I'll squeeze my brain for other knowledge... Just don't abandon me..."
Olivia clung to me, sobbing.
I patted her back as she hung onto me and whispered softly to Yuria.
"Yuria, what should we do? It looks like our 22 gold just went down the drain."
"Hmm. Should we make her do chores? We need to break even on those 22 gold somehow. But since she can't see, there aren't many places to use her."
"True. What should we do?"
It seemed that from the moment Olivia regained her past life memories after being reincarnated into this world, she had quietly dreamed of a "power fantasy" life without telling anyone.
But reality was a gutter.
The artifacts she sought had already been taken, and she had died in the Labyrinth four times trying to find them.
Each time she was resurrected, she was sent back into the Labyrinth as a slave belonging to the Temple. Since she died every time she went in, the Church must have deemed her useless and dumped her onto a slave trader.
If she had sold her information earlier, she might have lived a more comfortable life.
It seemed her attempt to use that information to rise in the world had backfired spectacularly.
To top it off, she had no talent as an adventurer and had even lost her sight.
Her life was truly a series of unfortunate events.
I felt bad for her.
But that was the extent of my sympathy.
If she was useless, I had to find a use for her.
How could I utilize her?
What kind of jobs could a blind person do?
To ensure Olivia didn't get lazy in her comfort, I made sure to emphasize that she could be abandoned at any time.
As Yuria and I were discussing how to put her to work, Olivia sensed the crisis and screamed out.
"I-I can see!"
"Huh? What? You can see?"
"You said you were blind. Now you can suddenly see? What are you talking about? Were you lying to us?"
"N-no! It's not that. I-I don't mean I see with my eyes..."
"What?"
"The truth is..."
Realizing her life would be over if we abandoned her, Olivia hurriedly explained how she had lost her sight.
"A side effect of an Ability?"
"Yes... Some skills come with penalties..."
"A penalty that makes you go blind? What kind of Ability is it?"
"It's... um... Soundwave Detection... I can perceive the location and details of objects through sound."
"Soundwave Detection?"
It was an ability similar to a bat's.
I had no idea such an Ability existed.
"Then why did you pretend you couldn't see?"
"I-I wasn't pretending... It's just that using this skill in wide-open spaces gives me a headache..."
It seemed she couldn't use it all the time.
Due to the limits of her brain's processing capacity, using Soundwave Detection in a vast area without a ceiling caused dizziness and nosebleeds.
It was a case of brain overload due to information excess.
"That's a broken Ability for the Labyrinth, though."
"Yes... I can perform all-around detection regardless of whether there's light..."
She could see in the dark like Night Vision and detect presences in every direction.
Especially in the narrow corridors of the Labyrinth, she could immediately sense when an enemy was approaching.
It was a power similar to the detection-type Ability Hachi had.
While it might cause difficulties in daily life, it was the perfect Ability for Labyrinth exploration.
Of course, Olivia was so purely untalented that she had managed to die four times even with such a power.
But wait.
If Yuria and I hadn't acted like we were going to abandon her, she would have kept hiding this Ability, wouldn't she?
She wasn't someone to be underestimated.
She wasn't the type you should just coddle because she seemed pitiful.
If I didn't pressure her periodically, there was a slight chance she’d start getting ideas.
"A-and... I haven't told you the secrets of the Underground City yet..."
"Right. You only talked about the upper levels."
Her knowledge of the upper levels alone was substantial.
Furthermore, Yuria had confirmed it was all true.
Her knowledge of the Underground City was likely accurate as well.
Especially since new exploration zones had been added after the Cataclysm.
There was a very high probability that the hidden elements of the new zones hadn't been properly discovered yet.
"First... I don't know the current state of the Labyrinth very well... Please tell me how it changed after the Cataclysm... I need to know the version..."
It seemed the hidden elements differed depending on the "version."
Since new elements would have been added with the update, checking the version was indeed important.
"Hey, Sion. What does she mean by 'version'?"
"Ah. She means she needs to know roughly which Cataclysm we're on."
"Aha."
"For starters, this Cataclysm created a Submerged Section in the Underground City."
"A Submerged Section...? You mean the Lake Section, right...?"
"Yeah. I think that's what they call it. And when you enter the Underground City, you always start in the Central Section."
"Ah... Then this update must be a large-scale reorganization of the Underground City."
Olivia muttered to herself as if she had grasped the version, and soon began to pour out the knowledge she had recalled.
"I-I'm sorry... It takes a bit of time to remember... First, with this Underground City update, two neutral monsters... NPCs should have been added."
"Huh? Neutral monsters? Sion, what's an NPC?"
"Um. Just think of them as beings that don't attack first."
"Aha."
"Olivia. If you keep using game terms, it'll be hard for Yuria to understand. Use Labyrinth City terms."
"Ah... Yes... So, through this Cataclysm, two non-aggressive monsters were added: Arachne and Frogman... Arachne will appear in the Spire District, and Frogman will appear in the Lake Section..."
"Are they like merchants?"
"T-they are merchants, but they're also gatekeepers to hidden sections..."
"There are more hidden sections?"
"Yes... If you complete Arachne's request, she'll let you into the Spider's Den... and if you do a favor for the Frogman, you can enter the Snake Nest."
This was entirely new information.
Yuria's eyes sparkled.
According to Olivia's explanation, the Spider's Den was like a lost-and-found center, and the Snake Nest was a place that gave massive amounts of experience, like a "Cow Level."
"Sion, you're writing this down, right?"
"Yeah."
"Amazing. She's worth way more than 22 gold."
Yuria stroked the head of Olivia, who was busy unraveling the secrets of the Underground City.
Yuria's expression, which had been full of doubt about whether Olivia was worth the price, brightened considerably.
"Anything else? Is there more?"
"Uh... wait a moment... I need time to remember..."
Olivia spent another long while muttering to herself as she processed her thoughts and recalled more information.
The loading time for each piece of information was quite long.
"Ah. Two trap-type monsters should have been added as well."
"Trap-type monsters?"
"Yes... They're creatures that deceive adventurers, like Mimics... Doppelgangers and Skinwalkers will be roaming the Underground City."
Doppelgangers and Skinwalkers.
Unlike Mimics, which disguised themselves as chests or containers, Doppelgangers and Skinwalkers were monsters that disguised themselves as adventurers.
"A Doppelganger is a type of slime that perfectly copies an adventurer's appearance... and a Skinwalker is an insect that wears the skin of a dead adventurer."
One copied the form, and the other looted corpses to play the part of an adventurer.
Both were dangerous.
It would be difficult to react if they approached while pretending to be allies.
"What about the Heretics? Anything related to them?"
"Well... the Heretics should be stationed below the Layer Division. Probably, after this Cataclysm, the area below the Layer Division in the Underground City has become completely twisted like a maze."
"A maze?"
"Yes. The shape of the maze changes at regular intervals. The Heretics will continue to increase the monster population by gathering sacrifices in the Underground City's maze... It's safe to say it's become much harder to enter the 6th Floor."
"It's a mess."
"And I think three boss monsters... special monsters... have been added below the Layer Division..."
"Three of them?"
"Yes... Creatures that spread the Petrification Curse... Cockatrice, Basilisk, and... Medusa."
The monsters Olivia named.
All three were creatures with the Petrification Curse; if you were caught off guard, you'd be turned into a block of stone instantly.
The Heretics and three new boss monsters.
Plus trap-type monsters and the mini-dungeons of the Underground City.
"The difficulty is way too high. Where did the balance patch go?"
"T-that's... it's originally a game where the high difficulty is the appeal... and the rewards are quite good... You'll gain as much as the difficulty demands..."
"This is crazy."
First of all, based on what I'd heard so far, it seemed the Underground City had been completely overhauled through this Cataclysm.
Furthermore, quite a few hidden elements that hadn't been looted yet seemed to remain.
In that case, it was a matter of who got there first.
We had to monopolize the hidden elements of the Underground City before other adventurers could get their hands on them.
However, if we just rushed into the Underground City in our current state, we likely wouldn't be able to do much.
Even the Raid Force had lost nearly half its members.
If I hadn't escaped the crisis with my Spiritual Eye, the Body Recovery Team I belonged to would have been wiped out by the High Orc Warlock and Sluggers.
If I went in now, I'd have to survive another brush with death.
It was too dangerous. There were too many monsters, and I couldn't enter the Underground City again with skills that hadn't even earned me a Silver Badge.
"Things are going to get busy."
I had to tag along with the Subjugation Campaign happening in a month.
While the other adventurers were busy cleaning out the monsters, I would monopolize the hidden elements Olivia told me about.
Of course, I had to improve my skills as much as possible before then.
"Olivia."
"Yes...?"
"Tell me the Training Method."
I had to give it my all.
It looked like the opportunity to make a fortune in the Underground City had finally arrived.