Chapter 87
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 87
Chapter Title: Duo
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After rejecting Cain's proposal early in the morning, I headed straight to the Labyrinth Guild. I'd heard that the restrictions on me had been lifted, so starting today, I could enter the Labyrinth again.
I hadn't seen Alensia around that morning, so I couldn't tell her I was going to turn down Cain's offer...
Whatever. I had no intention of wasting a day, so with the restrictions lifted today, I planned to dive right into the Labyrinth.
"Ah, Ian... you're here."
For some reason, the receptionist at the Labyrinth Guild was glaring at me with eyes full of resentment. It was like the look a worker who'd pulled three straight nights of overtime gives to the cause of their misery.
"Grind... Due to the disturbance in the eastern sector, several documents owned by the 'Black Marsh' clan were discovered, providing evidence that proves your innocence. Starting today, you are permitted to enter the Labyrinth again."
"Oh. That's fast, even for evidence turning up."
"Grrrrrind..."
What the hell? I complimented them, and they get mad?
"I've been pulling all-nighters for days because of that..."
"Pardon?"
"Nothing."
The receptionist's attitude toward me seemed to be getting weirder by the day.
Ignoring that, I browsed the quest list and picked something suitable.
'Sigh... Guess I'll have to go solo?'
Lately, after getting backstabbed by a party I'd joined, I was reluctant to recruit one. The forest layer wasn't familiar to me yet, so going solo would be risky...
But what can you do? Given my luck lately, forming a party would probably just lead to another betrayal.
Assuming I'd go solo, I'd already blown all my money on supplies for every contingency imaginable... but it still felt uneasy. Even when I'd gone in alone before, things hadn't exactly gone smoothly.
Still, forming a party feels iffy...
Well, if there was at least one reliable party member...
"Huh? Ian? Long time no see!"
"...Hiss?"
And inside the Labyrinth Guild, I spotted an unexpected face. Hiss, the catkin I hadn't seen since discovering the ruins on the 9th floor.
She was even wearing the silver badge marking an Intermediate Adventurer.
"You've been promoted?"
"Yep!"
Hiss said she'd recently passed the Intermediate Adventurer promotion exam. From what Lena had told me before, her skills were already at that level anyway.
In those ruins on the 9th floor, she'd broken through the undead alone and reached the room where Lena was trapped, so her abilities were undoubtedly solid.
"But Hiss, didn't you have low resistance, so you couldn't get promoted?"
Despite her skills, the reason Hiss hadn't advanced until now was her disastrously low resistance.
My [Sensory Block Lv. 1], which only affected little kids, had worked on her. That said it all.
"Hehe... While selling off the items from those ruins, I finally saved up enough for my target purchase!"
With that, Hiss proudly showed off the choker around her neck, like she was bragging.
"...What's that?"
"A magic tool that boosts resistance! I'd been saving up from adventuring specifically to buy this. I finally had enough, bought it, and passed the promotion exam in one go!"
Crazy. She passed that exam on the first try? I did too, but if they made me retake it now, even with my growth, I wouldn't be confident. Later, Alensia and others told me my exam had been unusually brutal.
"Passing it first try... Impressive. The difficulty must've been high."
"Huh? Yeah, it was tough, but I memorized all the monster traits the guild told me about, packed the essential magic tools and scrolls they recommended, and it was manageable."
........The guild?
"...The guild gives out that kind of info?"
"Huh? Yeah. I'm in the Rogue Guild, and they gave me details on all 150 monster types that appear in the exam, plus must-have enchant scrolls and potions."
"...Doesn't the internal layout change every time you enter?"
"True, but the monsters likely to show up at promotion exam difficulty are limited, and there are precedents from exams over the past few decades for layouts and environments."
"...Isn't leaking exam content forbidden?"
"That's why they don't say 'this exact thing appears,' but twist the scenarios a bit. Still enough to get the idea... Ian?"
"What I went through was..."
Damn it, I thought it was a trial-by-fire exam from the start, but there were study guides? No wonder it felt insanely hard for others to clear. Even memorizing guild info, the baseline was multiple failures? Alensia never mentioned that... No, Vivian's 'exam' probably included all that. I didn't have time to join a guild and study within her deadline.
Whatever. I passed anyway.
"But after actually getting promoted, I can't find a party, so I was thinking of going solo."
Same here. I ended up joining Joan's party after failing to recruit... No, don't think about it. Just sours the mood.
She can't find a party?
"What about Lena? Now that you're both Intermediate Adventurers, can't you team up?"
"Oh, Lena... She wanted to come, but I stopped her."
"Why? Lena seems like a super reliable party member."
"Well... Lately, she's seemed off physically. Her face is flushed, and she zones out alone sometimes... So I told her to rest. No matter what I said, she wouldn't go to the temple."
"........."
No way her heat hasn't worn off yet?
"Hiss."
"Yes?"
"In that case, want to party up with me?"
"Huh? I'm a rogue... and you're a rogue too, right? We need different positions at least."
"No, I'm frontline."
"??"
"Frontline."
After I pushed hard and showed her some of my gear and skills, Hiss finally believed me. In the process, I revealed my resistance skills too. Rumors had already spread from when we did resistance training in the Labyrinth before, so I couldn't keep hiding them forever.
"Whoa, you have resistance skills... You're a perfect tank!"
Well, considering how rare resistance skills are, I'm a top-tier tank. I even have [Provoke] by sheer luck.
"But... shouldn't we recruit more party members?"
"Hiss. Be careful recruiting. Grab the wrong ones, and you'll get betrayed and backstabbed right away."
"Nah... No way."
Hiss didn't buy it at first, but when I told her what I'd been through, her eyes went wide, and she nodded along.
"Hehe... So you think you can trust me, Ian?"
Hiss seemed pleased, thinking she'd earned my trust. Honestly, if I couldn't trust even Hiss, there'd be no one left.
From that 9th-floor quest, I still remembered her breaking through the ruins alone in isolation to rescue Lena. Her skills are proven.
The question was whether she'd trust me enough to party up...
"I can trust you, Ian! You saved Lena's life, right?"
"No, we fought together that time..."
"I heard you could've abandoned her and escaped."
"........."
Her trust in me was higher than I'd expected.
And so, we formed a duo party. Two is way safer than one. For the quest...
[Collect 10 Bigmouth Catfish inhabiting the lake on Labyrinth 12th floor.]
"How about this one?"
"Sounds good!"
Had I ever heard Hiss turn down a quest before?
Whatever. Fine by me.
Shall we? 12th floor.
I took frontline, but since both Hiss and I had [Stealth], clearing the cave layer was easy. The only monsters there that could detect stealth were undead, which sense without eyes.
"Whoa, Ian, your [Stealth] is amazing? I can barely sense you."
"........."
For me, it was shocking that Hiss could sense me at all with both [Stealth] and [Stealth Block] at Lv. 4... No, with senses like that, how did my skills work on her before? Her resistance must've been rock-bottom...
"Wow! This magic tool is incredible! First time reaching the 10th floor without a single curse!"
So she'd always gotten cursed at least once per Labyrinth run before? At that rate, [Curse Resistance] should've gone to her, not me...
Whether I was marveling at her former resistance or she at the tool's performance, Hiss kept gasping excitedly as she sliced through monsters.
"See! Took down 10 skeletons, no curse!"
"Calm down for a sec."
At this rate, she'd wipe every monster we met, so I barely got Hiss to settle and we re-entered [Stealth] to press on.
"Oh, hold up. Trap ahead."
Hiss spotted it before me and deftly disarmed it with skilled hands. I'd leveled [Trap Detection] and [Trap Disarm] a lot during my promotion exam, but hers were higher—her movements were lightning-fast.
My own trap skills were learned by watching her in the first place. Never properly taught.
"Hiss, where'd you learn that?"
"This? Rogue Guild taught me. I'm affiliated with them."
Guild again... They even give promotion exam tips. Guilds seem more beneficial than I thought.
"Mind telling me the perks of joining a guild?"
"Huh? For the Rogue Guild I joined, they teach trap knowledge and poison detection to members. Rack up contributions, and you can borrow or even get gear from the guild vault sometimes."
"Any obligations?"
"Yeah. Details are internal guild secrets, but... there are quests the Guild hands off directly, or missions from the guild master or officers."
Guild training and internal gear, huh?
I'd heard you could get basic swordsmanship training from the Swordsmanship Guild for a fee, but advanced stuff required joining...
I'll keep that in mind. Seriously considering joining a guild. My adventurer knowledge comes from the library and Alensia, but it's not enough. Library lacks practical info, and Alensia hasn't adventured in 10 years.
Chatting idly, we only took out undead charging blindly through our [Stealth] via life detection, reaching the end of the 10th floor. Just as we entered the forest layer...
"Oh, Ian. Heard about that?"
"About what?"
"Lately, undead are showing up in the forest layer too. It used to be impossible to see them in that vibrant forest—rarer than a star in the sky—but they've been increasing weirdly recently."
Undead?
"Adventurers active there are having trouble. They take quests for regular monsters, but only undead show up..."
"Undead, huh... Since when?"
"Dunno? About two weeks? Started with one or two, now more and more."
"........."
"What's up?"
"Nothing. Just... undead reminded me of those ruins on 9."
"Those ruins did have undead. No idea why they spawned there, though..."
"........."
Reason for undead in the ruins... That torn page?
'The page you brought is part of the book I was looking for.'
Why was Vivian's words from back then coming to mind?
"Ian?"
"Sorry. Let's go."
It'll be fine. Got nothing to do with me. I just need to catch bigmouth catfish from the 12th-floor lake.
Whatever's causing undead in the forest layer, the Labyrinth Guild folks will handle it.
......Shouldn't have heard that. Making me paranoid as hell.