Chapter 10: Yernil of the Turn-Based System
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 10: Yernil of the Turn-Based System
Rumble—.
The cleared exit room began to collapse. Husks of egg sacs, wooden rafters, mud, stone, and sand poured down from the ceiling.
The structure of the Labyrinth's first floor was changing. A new exit room would be generated somewhere else.
A cleared exit room closes after about five minutes. The walls gradually close in, shrinking the space until—snap!—it swallows everything whole.
Anyone left inside would die.
Normally, any person with a functioning brain would have scrambled out of there already, but one human and one elf still remained in the Venomic Spider's exit room.
Me and Yernil.
“Caleb, it’s not that I don’t want to work. I’m willing to do anything you ask, really. You can even use my life if things get dangerous. But…”
After laying down plenty of assurances, Yernil asked.
“Wouldn’t it be faster… if we did it together…?”
The Venomic Spider had one poison fang on each side of its upper jaw. Yernil was working on extracting the right one while I watched.
“Yernil.”
“Yes.”
“Stop talking and focus on pulling the fang.”
“...Yes!”
Yernil quickly returned to her task, slicing away at the gum tissue around the base of the fang with a goblin dagger.
Yernil.
Sorry, but there’s a reason I can’t help you with the left fang.
The success rate for extracting this kind of item depends on the Dexterity stat.
So, what’s the fang-extracting capability of a wizard with zero Dexterity?
From my experience in the game, it’s about the same as my nephew’s.
A veritable king of destruction who breaks everything he touches. Just like that kid who shattered the wallpaper, his toys, his mom’s Yves Saint Laurent lipstick, and even the screen of a brand-new, two-million-won TV, I would probably end up rupturing the poison gland while trying to pull the fang.
In the game, my success rate was around 10%.
For someone like Yernil, with 2 Dexterity, the success rate was 90%.
“But do you think I can do it in time?”
Oh-ho.
Is Yernil talking back?
You want a taste of my hourglass?
“You can do it. Don’t worry.”
I recalled a funny line and used it to soothe her.
In the game, extracting a poison fang only cost 1 Action Point per turn.
So focus, Yernil. Sixty seconds should be more than enough for one fang.
“I got it!”
See?
“I got it!”
Yernil held up a fang, her face beaming.
“Give it here, and get the one next to it.”
“Okay!”
As I took the fang from Yernil, I reviewed the hourglass’s message window in front of me one more time.
I feel like an American dad reading the newspaper after telling his kid to pull weeds in the yard.
[Your Trust with Yernil has reached 100%!]
[You can now issue commands to Yernil during your turn.]
[When you end your turn, Yernil will carry out the instruction of her own will.]
[Yernil may be unable to perform commands that are highly difficult or violate her disposition.]
‘Unable to perform commands that are highly difficult or violate her disposition?’
Just like the backstabbing hourglass that kidnapped a gamer without their consent.
Giving me this crucial piece of information only after I’ve already made my decision.
Still, I could guess what it meant.
For example: Yernil! The spider’s poison gland is about to burst, so push Birtanen from behind to keep him from escaping! Let him melt in the poison!
…Yernil’s personality would never allow her to carry out an order like that.
And: Yernil! Do a triple axel while firing ten arrows in a row!
…A command like that would fail because it’s beyond her physical capabilities.
I’d have to slowly test the limits of the commands Yernil could follow.
“I got them all!”
Yernil held up both fangs, smiling brightly.
Her face was smeared with bodily fluids.
“Let’s go. We can make the arrows outside.”
*
Yernil’s Agility was 11, so why was her attack power so low?
Why were her arrows, stuck in the Venomic Spider’s side, about as effective as toothpicks?
The reason was her crappy equipment.
Archers are especially gear-dependent, and her goblin bow was just too terrible.
Wizards, on the other hand, rely more on their Wisdom stat for spell power than on weapon attack power, which was why my four-shot Fireball dealt a decent amount of burst damage.
But archers had something similar.
‘Special arrows.’
They were a way to unleash incredible power even when fired from a trash-tier bow, because the arrows themselves were powerful.
Exit bosses, no matter what they were, were usually too tough for a two-slave party’s damage output. We needed to power Yernil up from the start, and I had formulated this strategy the moment I knew the Venomic Spider was in this exit room.
“We just need to combine the goblin arrows with the fangs to make poison arrows.”
I handed both fangs to Yernil.
“You should do this part, too.”
In the game, you could craft poison arrows by opening the combination window, but the success rate there was also proportional to the Dexterity stat.
So, you’re the craftsman this time, too, Yernil.
“Umm.”
In the game, you just opened the combination window, put in two items, and clicked the combine button. But I had no idea how it worked here…
“Like this?”
With a little click, Yernil made a poison arrow.
“What? How did you do that?”
“I just carefully pushed the arrowhead into the soft tissue inside the fang.”
“…”
Easier said than done.
The squishy soft tissue was attached to the poison gland. If you pushed too hard with a dull tip like a goblin arrowhead, you’d rupture the gland, but if you were too gentle, it wouldn’t go in.
“Hup.”
Yernil cleanly crafted the second poison arrow.
She did it so quickly, as if she were snapping Lego blocks together.
In any case, this was good.
If this were the game, a description window like this would have popped up.
[Poison Arrow]
▶ Poison Damage: 60-68
▶ Physical Damage: 7-9
▶ Creates poison gas in the target area.
[Poison Gas]
▶ Inflicts the ‘Poisoned’ status effect on any creature that inhales the gas.
The 7-9 physical damage was based on a goblin arrow, but the poison damage was that insane because it came from a Venomic Spider.
On top of that, it released poison gas for area-of-effect damage!
The DoT from that poison was so immense that the next exit boss would get hit with two of these arrows and have no choice but to go crying back to the Labyrinth Master.
“Hold onto these. Don’t shoot them until I give the signal.”
“Okay.”
“We need to conserve them. Let’s get going.”
Time for us to find the new exit room.
*
On the way, I tested the hourglass’s expanded functions.
I decided to start with something simple.
[It is your turn. Time remaining: 60 seconds]
[Action Points: ■■■■]
“Yernil. Take the water bottle out of your bag and give it to me.”
I gave the command, but my Action Points weren’t consumed.
It seemed that instructions for Yernil were treated as a sort of bonus action.
Probably because I’m not the one acting, right?
This was fucking awesome.
“Caleb.”
When I ended my turn, Yernil suddenly offered me the water bottle.
“Why the water all of a sudden?”
I played dumb and asked. I was the one who gave the order, but I wanted to see how she perceived it.
“I thought you might be thirsty. Isn’t it a bit hot in here?”
So that’s how she rationalizes it.
Next, I tested how it worked in combat.
As we moved through a passage, we found two goblins. I deliberately blasted the one in front with a Fireball and had Yernil take care of the other.
“Yernil, shoot the leg of the goblin in the back.”
Yernil shot its leg, and the goblin collapsed.
“Kieeeeeeak!”
As I finished off the goblin screaming and writhing on the floor, I checked with Yernil again.
“Why did you shoot its leg instead of its head?”
“Oh… uh… just because? The leg is an easier target.”
So that’s how she rationalizes it.
It was just as the hourglass’s guide had said.
When I give Yernil a command on my turn, she carries it out of her own will.
It was certainly convenient. With this, I could have Yernil handle tricky situations for me.
However, if I ordered an action that was too difficult or something she didn’t know, she couldn’t perform it.
For example, like this.
“Yernil. Do the Slickback.”
“…”
I gave the instruction and ended my turn, but Yernil just stood there blankly with an uncomfortable expression.
In that case…
“Yernil. Do any dance you want.”
End turn.
Let’s see what happens…
Hmm.
Yernil, who had been following behind me, suddenly started shuffling her feet. It looked a bit like the shuffle dance.
The moment our eyes met, she quickly stopped.
“…”
“…”
Her face turned slightly red.
So that’s how it works.
Alright, I get it now.
Next, I tried ordering something that would be difficult for her to do because of her disposition.
“Yernil, kiss me.”
I suddenly felt like I was using one of those hypnosis apps from an adult webtoon.
A pang of guilt hit me.
Anyway, end turn.
“…”
This time, too, Yernil failed to carry out the command.
Given her timid and introverted personality, planting a surprise kiss on a party member would have been impossible for her.
But this was different from the Slickback.
Yernil’s face was now beet red, like a sunset, and her head was bowed low. Judging by the shade, it was about ten times redder than when I’d caught her doing the shuffle dance.
She’s embarrassed.
She probably imagined kissing me and was reacting out of shame.
The information I was analyzing was important.
Even among impossible commands, a word that doesn’t even exist in her mind, like ‘Slickback,’ is blocked at the conceptual stage.
But a command that goes against her disposition, like a kiss, can at least be imagined. With someone as expressive as Yernil, I could gain information just from the change in her expression.
In that case…
“Yernil.”
Time to move on to the important questions.
“Tell me about people who were possessed and brought here after playing the game Abyss of the Labyrinth.”
Would Yernil fail to even comprehend the thought?
Or would she know, but look troubled because it was some kind of taboo?
Or, against all odds, would a treasure trove of information pour out?
“…”
I ended my turn and waited, my heart pounding.
No reaction.
It was like the Slickback.
How disappointing, Yernil!
Am I the only possessor here?
Or are there others that Yernil just doesn’t know about?
Either way, I couldn’t end this with nothing to show for it.
“Yernil.”
I moved on to the next question that had been weighing on my mind.
“Tell me what you know about me from before we entered the Labyrinth.”
I don’t know anything about my past.
That could become a risk factor for me, so I needed to figure it out beforehand.
*
This time, Yernil knew quite a bit.
“Caleb, I was thinking about this back when we were on the slave ship together.”
Yernil began to carry out my command of her own will.
“They said you became a slave because of murder, right?”
“Pfft!”
I spat out the water I had just started drinking from the bottle Yernil gave me.
What a fucked-up start.
Murder? Murder!?
What the hell have I been doing?
“Are you okay?”
Her eyes widened.
“Ah, I’m fine. Go on.”
“I thought you’d be a really scary person, but you seem kind, so I like that.”
“…”
“I’m sure there was a story behind the murder. I didn’t hear the details, though.”
“R-Right.”
Was there? There had to be, right?
Please!
“You said you killed a woman from the Fox Spirit tribe who was your teammate, right?”
The Fox Spirit tribe was one of the demi-human races in Abyss of the Labyrinth.
The lore described them as a seductive fox race (?) who were skilled in magic, intelligent, and exceptionally beautiful, making them adept at charming people.
“That woman probably deserved to die!”
Yernil.
Did I do this to you…?
You’ve become something of a fanatic, haven’t you?
Wait a minute.
What did she mean, that Fox Spirit woman was my ‘teammate’?
“Didn’t you say you used to be a labyrinth adventurer in some city far to the east?”
I did?
“The magic university put one person with labyrinth experience in each of the four-person slave parties. For our team, that was probably you, Caleb.”
That reminded me of the bald guy again.
He had mentioned being expelled from the magic university, so he must have originally been a wizard from there with some labyrinth experience.
So I was that person in our party?
And the Fox Spirit woman I supposedly killed was a former labyrinth party member…
Now that I thought about it, it was a coincidence that both Yernil’s and my debt was 3,000 gold.
Anyone could see that murder was a far more serious crime than transporting drugs.
My actual debt should have been tens of thousands of gold, at least.
The fact that it was only 3,000 gold might mean there were some extenuating circumstances in that murder case.
“Caleb!”
Yernil suddenly shouted, pointing ahead.
“Look over there!”
“Huh?”
I never expected to find it so quickly.
Am I really the gamer with dogshit luck who got kidnapped into a labyrinth?
“It’s an exit room!”
We found it this quickly?