Chapter 11: The Strongest Exit Boss
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 11: The Strongest Exit Boss
“Look at this.”
A corpse lay in front of the exit room.
It was a young male wizard, his skin and hair well-cared for and glossy.
I knew that face.
“It’s Avison.”
He looked exactly like the face on the ID card in the wallet I’d returned to the dwarf.
Thanks to Soul Preservation, despite being dead, the body had a strange, eerie quality, as if it were merely ‘sleeping.’
“Maybe that’s why he looks so neat and tidy, even in this state. Like a young master from a rich family,” Yernil remarked.
“He probably is.”
“He is?”
“Yes. Because he received the Soul Preservation magic service.”
That magic was incredibly expensive in the game, and it was bound to be the same here.
If it were cheap, people would just cast Soul Preservation on all their slaves, then collect and recycle the bodies a few days later.
To burn such an expensive magic insurance policy on the 1st floor? Avison had to be the much-loved son of a wealthy family, a complete novice just starting his Labyrinth adventure, who had used his parents’ connections to get into a skilled party like Birtanen’s.
“Ah…”
Yernil nodded in understanding.
“If we recover his body and take it with us, his family will probably offer a decent reward. We could hope for that. But more importantly…”
I pointed to the damaged part of Avison’s body. He was missing a leg.
“Do you hear anything like the sound of an insect chewing on meat nearby?”
“…Ugh.”
Realizing what I was looking for, Yernil’s face turned pale.
Birtanen had said Avison was carried off by a Black Hornet, a type of giant wasp monster.
“I hear it.”
“Do you also hear the buzzing of an insect’s wings?”
“No.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“…That’s strange.”
A Black Hornet won’t hunt for more prey if it already has food, nor will it wander far from its spot.
“Alright, let’s head toward the chewing sound.”
“We don’t have to go far. It’s right over there…”
Yernil pointed to a corner a few meters away. I’d been so focused on watching for the wasp that I hadn’t noticed it before, but now I saw a giant, white egg sac.
“A Black Hornet egg.”
The egg sac, about the size of a human torso, had its top torn off. Inside, a fat, giant larva was squirming.
It was chewing on a piece of Avison’s thigh.
The Black Hornet must have chopped Avison’s leg into pieces—ankle, knee, thigh—and dropped them in one by one through the torn hole at the top of the sac.
“This is getting weirder.”
I was utterly confused.
Where did the Black Hornet that was feeding it go?
The larva has almost no survival skills until it becomes an adult, so the mother Black Hornet has to stay by its side, continuously feeding it. And, of course, it wouldn’t leave its post if there was food nearby, all to protect its egg sac.
“So where did it go?”
If other adventurers had defeated the Black Hornet, there would be traces of a fight, and they would have gotten rid of the larva as well.
That meant the Black Hornet had abandoned its own egg and left of its own accord. But why?
The Black Hornet was the strongest field monster on the 1st floor of the Labyrinth, so it wouldn’t have fled from a clash with another field monster.
That only left the exit room.
No matter how I thought about it, that was the only explanation.
The Black Hornet had sensed the scent of the boss inside the exit room and fled.
But for that to happen, the Black Hornet must have encountered that exit boss before. Does that even make sense? How could a field mob like the Black Hornet meet a boss mob that only appears in an exit room?
“Ah.”
It could.
I remembered.
Fuck.
There was only one possibility that could make this impossible situation make sense.
“Yernil. We’re screwed.”
We had drawn the worst possible exit boss.
I was confident I could take down any 1st-floor exit boss with my poison arrows, but this one was the sole exception.
“Ah, we’re seriously fucked.”
In all the countless times I played the game, I had only encountered this particular exit boss on the 1st floor once.
And I hit that astronomical probability now?
Is this because of the developer difficulty?
No wonder my luck in finding the exit room was so good.
*
‘A Possessed Adventurer.’
Even in the game, these guys were the opponents I least wanted to face as an exit boss in the early stages.
Running into them meant game over nine times out of ten.
The concept was that an adventurer active in the Labyrinth had their soul captured by the Labyrinth Master and became their servant.
They were permanently afflicted with an incurable ‘Madness’ status effect, making conversation impossible, yet they could still use all the skills and magic from their adventuring days.
And they were ridiculously strong.
They were originally adventurers who were considered the best on their respective floors, and then one day, they would suddenly disappear.
In town, NPCs would gossip, saying things like, ‘Did you hear? Hong Gildong went missing on the nth floor of the Labyrinth!’ and a few days later, they would pop up as the exit boss for that same floor.
In other words, a famous adventurer who recently went missing on the 1st floor, one with a history of joyfully beating the crap out of Black Hornets, had become a slave to the Labyrinth Master and was now the exit boss here. The Black Hornet caught his scent, freaked out, and bolted.
That was the only scenario that explained this bizarre phenomenon.
When I asked Yernil, she told me a rumor she’d overheard in the city of Flandre.
“I wasn’t an adventurer, so I don’t know the details. But I heard in a tavern that a rogue called Mr. Back Attack went missing on the 1st floor.”
“Mr. Back Attack?”
“Yes. Apparently, he became famous for single-handedly defeating a Black Hornet that showed up when his entire party was down.”
Fuck, it’s gotta be him.
I’m sure of it.
And of all things, he’s a rogue class?
The worst possible matchup for a wizard.
Besides, if he was strong enough to take down a Black Hornet by himself, his level must be high. At least level 7?
No, it could be even higher.
The adventurers the Labyrinth Master recruits as exit bosses are the strongest on that floor, and guys like that can usually handle the next floor up.
An adventurer who was exploring the 2nd floor could have returned to the 1st, acted as the top dog here for a while, and then got recruited by the Labyrinth Master.
If I think of it that way, in the worst-case scenario, he could be as high as level 10.
*
“Puhahahahaha!”
The bartender at ‘The Rats in the Beer Barrel’ burst out laughing at the story the dwarf brought him.
“Come on, my friend. You have to say something that makes sense.”
“I’m telling you, it’s true!”
“No incantation and a high-speed caster? A prodigy with just one of those traits might appear once in a hundred years.”
“Hmph, don’t believe me if you don’t want to!”
“Wait a minute, Birtanen.”
The bartender suddenly pulled out a bottle of whiskey and poured a glass.
“What’s this? I didn’t order this.”
“Didn’t you order it without an incantation?”
“Agh…”
Having gotten one over on Birtanen, the bartender pushed the glass toward him.
“Drink it up, high-speed! It’s a penalty shot for spouting nonsense!”
Other adventurers nearby snickered. Birtanen downed the drink in one go and wiped his beard.
“Keuh. Emma went to the temple, and Jikal doesn’t drink. It’s lonely having no one to back up my story.”
Emma had gone to request an additional resurrection scroll. It would take at least two days for her to return with it.
“Right. How’s Jikal doing?” the bartender asked.
“Well, he’s not bad. He lacks Labyrinth experience, but his skills are decent.”
“Of course. Anyone I introduce pulls their own weight. Once that friend gets some Labyrinth experience, he’ll probably become the next Mr. Back Attack.”
“Khaha!”
Birtanen snorted.
“Back Attack was a legend among the 1st-floor adventurers. He was a man who could more than pull his weight even in a 2nd-floor party.”
“Was he?”
“He was.”
“…”
“…”
“It’s a real shame such a man was captured by the Labyrinth Master,” the bartender said, pouring more whiskey.
“There are people in an even more pitiful situation.”
“Who?”
“The adventurers who run into Back Attack as an exit boss.”
“That’s true, too.”
“Most 1st-floor adventurers don’t have the ability to figure out the exit boss beforehand. They’ll get all excited thinking it’s an exit room, slam the door open, and in that instant, heads will start to roll.”
Bang!
The tavern door flew open.
“Looks like it’s time for my head to roll,” Birtanen said with a bitter smile.
A middle-aged noblewoman with a deathly pale face rushed into the tavern entrance.
Avison’s mother, Lady Marisa.
A young male wizard hurried in after her. It was Avison’s older brother, the wizard Clorence.
“Birtanen! Where is the dwarf warrior Birtanen!” Lady Marisa shouted.
“Right here,” the dwarf said, raising a hand. Marisa rushed over to him in a single bound.
“Avison… Is it true that Avison is dead?”
“It is. He died, we resurrected him once, and while we were searching for an exit room to escape, he was taken by a Black Hornet.”
“Ah…”
Marisa clutched the back of her neck and swayed. Her eldest son, Clorence, quickly supported her.
Birtanen nodded a greeting to Clorence.
“You must be Avison’s brother?”
“I am. Hah. That kid insisted on exploring the Labyrinth, and in the end…”
“Birtanen!” Marisa cried out, her face a mask of grief. “Didn’t I ask you to take good care of him! You’re a 2nd-floor party, why do you think I paid you a premium to take on the 1st floor!”
“Madam. I sympathize with your situation, but Avison’s death is not our responsibility. We were Avison’s comrades, not his bodyguards or trainers. And we did our best to protect our comrade.”
“…”
Marisa looked at her firstborn son, sobbing.
“Mother. The Soul Preservation should still be active. Please calm down and let’s listen to what Birtanen has to say.”
Clorence soothed his mother.
“Ahem.”
Birtanen took a long swig of his drink and explained the situation.
“Considering the duration of the Soul Preservation and the rate of the body’s decay, we can resurrect him if we go back and retrieve the body within a week.”
“When will the resurrection scroll be available?”
“In two or three days.”
“Two or three days.”
Clorence calculated the dates.
“The entry gate opens in four days.”
“That’s right.”
“It seems like time will be a bit tight once we enter. Will you be able to find Avison right away?”
“This.”
Birtanen held up Avison’s ID card.
“We’ll cast a lost item tracking spell on it and trace it back.”
“You managed to get the ID card, at least.”
“A certain genius wizard found it for us.”
“A genius wizard?”
The bartender cut in before Birtanen could answer.
“He’s a talented freak who can cast without incantations and at high speed.”
“Is such a wizard even possible? Possessing just one of those traits would be a top-tier talent…”
As a wizard himself, Clorence found the claim even harder to believe than the bartender did.
“Clorence! Could, could that wizard retrieve Avison’s body for us?” Marisa asked, her mind racing with wishful thinking.
“It’s possible,” Birtanen said. “His party only has two people.”
To retrieve a body, a party needs to have a vacant spot in the first place. If a party member died while fighting the exit boss, they would push their own comrade’s body through the gate instead of Avison’s.
“They could pass Avison’s body through one of the two empty slots.”
“…!”
“But it won’t be easy for just two people to clear an exit room,” Clorence said.
“That’s true. Besides, they’re a slave team from the magic university.”
“A slave team!?” Clorence was aghast. “Then isn’t it almost impossible? They won’t even have proper equipment, will they?”
“Correct.” Birtanen nodded. “But that wizard is an unbelievably talented guy, and he’s incredibly sharp. I have no proof, but for some reason, I trust him. Maybe they really will clear the exit room with just the two of them and come out.”
“Hmm.”
“As long as they don’t run into someone like Back Attack as the exit boss.”
“…”
A brief silence fell.
“W-we can’t just stand here, Clorence.”
Snapping back to her senses, Lady Marisa began to fuss again.
“I must post a reward for the retrieval of Avison’s body. I’ll commission the Adventurer’s Guild. Money is no object.”
At that, the adventurers inside the tavern suddenly had a gleam in their eyes.
“How much are you offering?”
The first to ask was a swordsman from the far east.
The leader of a trio that mainly operated on the 3rd floor and was currently rising in stock at the Adventurer’s Guild, ‘Swordsman Hijikata.’
“Need a price high enough to bring us down from the 3rd floor? Hire us.”
The most famous Lizardman warrior on the 2nd floor alongside Birtanen, ‘Lil’Dragon Aaron,’ threw his hat in the ring.
“Unlike Birtanen, we’re not clumsy…”
“Everyone.”
Clorence swept his gaze over the adventurers.
“Forget about it.”
“…”
As if by magic, everyone fell silent.
“I will go in with Birtanen and find my brother myself.”
“A 5th-floor wizard is coming with us?” Birtanen asked, his face brightening.
“Yes. He’s my brother. I should be the one to bring him back. And…”
Clorence continued.
“I’m also interested in that genius wizard.”
*
Birtanen.
Emma. And Jikal.
I miss you guys…
‘You said you were going to resurrect Avison, right?’
They would probably recruit another wizard, enter the Labyrinth, resurrect Avison, and toss him through the exit gate along with three magic stones.
Then they would find a new exit room and leave.
It would be awesome if they could squeeze us into those three magic stone slots…
“A strategy of waiting for Birtanen won’t work.”
As I saw it, that plan was doomed.
“Why not?”
“Because of this larva.”
The Black Hornet was the top monster in the 1st-floor fields, and the scent it gave off was like a wide-area monster-repellent ward.
Thanks to it, there were no monsters around here right now.
“But this thing will die before the dwarf’s party arrives, and monsters that catch the scent will swarm here in droves.”
“Then… then what do we do? Should we give up on this exit room and wait for the next one?”
“No. If there’s a Possessed Adventurer in there, no party currently on the 1st floor can clear it anyway. Waiting for another exit room is hopeless.”
And there was no guarantee that the next party we met would be as open to negotiation as Birtanen’s.
They might even be like the bald party and pose a threat to us.
The best option was for me and Yernil to take down Back Attack and get out.
“Can we… can we beat Back Attack?”
Yernil’s eyes were filled with the anxiety of a rain-soaked puppy.
I wonder.
In the game, facing a Possessed Adventurer as an early-game exit boss meant game over nine times out of ten.
But in the game, a wizard didn’t have the ability to fire four Fireballs in a single turn.
And it was rare to farm Venomous Spider poison arrows while playing as a 1st-floor slave party.
In terms of firepower, we weren’t lacking.
“Yernil.”
“Yes.”
“Can you trust me and follow my lead?”
“…! Yes!”
“Can you do as I say?”
“Yes!”
Good.
Then I’ll have to use a slightly rough strategy.