Chapter 132: Regrouping
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 132: Regrouping
“My home… is gone.”
When I left the temple after two more days of recovery.
[Magic University Dormitories Completely Shut Down]
The university dorms had closed their doors.
There were three reasons for this.
First, the Deep Layer duo from Wyndham, Bipa and Mugol, had destroyed half the dorms during a two-on-two battle with a pair of professors.
Second, some of the monsters that poured out during the Labyrinth Eruption had made their way to the university, finishing off the rest of the dorms during the ensuing battles.
Third, following the White Lion’s arrest, the Public Security Headquarters decided to investigate all key university personnel, making the dormitories subject to a search and seizure.
“Therefore, a temporary eviction order has been issued for all dormitory residents. The university administration is urgently leasing nearby housing to provide to students, so please proceed there.”
Guided by the assistant instructors, the students flooded out, completely devastated.
Just as Yernil and I had lived together, most of those students had been living with their families, lovers, or Labyrinth party members.
However, the housing provided by the university was woefully inadequate in terms of room count and size compared to the dorms, and a manager was always on-site, making it impossible to secretly live with others.
“Honey, just go to a hotel for a few days!”
“I’ll come pick you up!”
“Wow, looks like a whole family was living in that one.”
“Sohen’s greatest perk disappears just like that.”
Tearful scenes of separation often played out in front of the dorms.
Yernil was no exception.
“Caleb. Goodbye. Please call me when the party gathers before we enter the Labyrinth.”
She spoke with a wistful expression.
“Yernil, did you find a room?”
“No. Not yet.”
Until now, Yernil had been sleeping on the guardian’s bed next to my sickbed in Nathaniel’s Temple.
I’d thought she had a bit more luggage than usual, but I never imagined she’d been kicked out of the dorms.
“Where are you going to find a room?”
“The Guild Village? Look at this. It’s a house I put a 300-gold provisional deposit on yesterday and got the papers for. The security deposit is 100,000 gold, but they said the monthly rent is only 5 gold. I have some money saved up, so…”
“It’s loaded with senior mortgages!”
“What’s that?”
“No… Yernil, just don’t get a place on your own.”
If you lived in South Korea, you would’ve been a victim of rental fraud.
“Then what should I do?”
“Hmm… For now.”
Just then, a group of dormitory nomads passing by shot me a glare and muttered.
“King of Destruction… You… Were you only satisfied after you destroyed the dorms, too?!”
Come to think of it, everywhere I went in Sohen—Blackdog, the Magic University, the Public Security Headquarters—got utterly wrecked. If I destroy Nathaniel’s Temple, will that be a grand slam? It almost makes me want the achievement.
“Let’s find a place to live together.”
“Wh-What did you say?!”
Yernil literally jumped in surprise.
“But Caleb, you have the housing the university is providing, don’t you? You don’t have to do this because you’re worried about me! Really. You don’t have to mind me.”
I was worried about her, but to be honest, I had a more selfish reason.
White Lion, Dagger Raptor, Hyedam’s party… There are too many monsters crawling around inside and outside of Sohen.
Any one of them could come to harm me.
I needed a detection ability to sense danger in advance. Something like sound mapping.
And the rental housing crawling with university mages was even scarier.
Who knew if one of the White Lion’s minions was among them?
So, if possible, I wanted to find a place like an external hotel with tight security and heavy guards.
Hmm…
“Caleb.”
Someone spoke up from behind me.
“Isel!”
After greeting her warmly, I remembered her new title.
“…Professor Isel.”
“Just call me Isel when it’s just us. It feels awkward.”
Isel shuddered at the title of professor. She was someone who despised such empty formalities.
“Are you looking for a place to stay right now?”
“Yes.”
“Would you like to come to our mansion?”
“Really?”
“My father would welcome you both.”
“Me too?”
Yernil’s eyes widened.
“Of course. You may not be a wizard, but you’re the one who saved Avison.”
Rich connections are the best.
-
“Caleb!”
Someone welcomed me at the mansion entrance with open arms.
The man with the most vitality in all of Sohen.
The man who resurrects when he dies, resurrects when he dies, and resurrects when he dies—an immortal (?) created by capitalism, Avison.
“Phew! I heard you died this time. The experience of dying is truly… terrifying, isn’t it? I died once myself while helping people evacuate near the Guild Village. Thankfully, I had Soul Preservation cast on me right before the battle, so I survived.”
“How did you get Soul Preservation cast right before a battle?”
That was what I found strange.
The Soul Preservation procedure takes over half a day, so after the Labyrinth Eruption began, not even Deep Layer adventurers had the luxury of receiving it.
A priest capable of performing that ritual would have to be at least bishop-level, and it was impossible for someone of that caliber to be casually performing a half-day magic ritual on one person in the back room of a temple instead of being out on the front lines during the eruption.
“We have a former bishop who resides at the mansion.”
Ah.
So they had something like a live-in doctor for a conglomerate family.
“As soon as the Labyrinth Eruption began, he cast Soul Preservation on me.”
However, even for the Berten family, keeping such a high-level individual on retainer must cost a fortune, and maintaining multiple such people during peacetime when there are no eruptions would be insane.
They probably had one resident priest at most.
Therefore…
“Did anyone else besides you not receive the procedure, by any chance?”
“Yeah…”
Avison’s face fell.
It seemed the family’s main wizards, like Clorence, Isel, and Edward Berten, had given the Soul Preservation to the youngest son while they themselves rushed out unprotected.
Frankly, considering the city’s overall combat power, it would have made more sense to insure the lives of Edward or Isel.
“They told him to perform the procedure on me since I’m the youngest.”
He truly was a beloved young master.
“And Caleb! I have something to show you!”
Avison led Yernil and me out to the garden.
He then aimed his wand at the lawn and began to chant.
That magic was…
“Cumulonimbus!”
A massive black cloud billowed in the sky, pouring down a torrent of rain.
“I bound this spell, too, based on the thesis you submitted to the university!”
“…”
“I wanted to be like you, Caleb!”
My god.
Is this build even viable?
“Of course, I can’t summon five or six clouds at once like you can, Caleb.”
That was the problem.
If I couldn’t cast at high speeds using the Hourglass, I wouldn’t have used the Cumulonimbus build either.
It was a build I’d abandoned even in the game.
“You got this…”
But I couldn’t say that to his face, so I just cheered him on.
“I also joined a new party.”
Avison said proudly.
“Which one?”
“I rejoined Birtanen’s party.”
So he went there.
“We’re going to the 3rd floor now.”
Hmm.
Perhaps Avison was a perfect fit for Birtanen’s party.
That party was an ill-fated one where the wizard was guaranteed to die, while Avison was a young master blessed with the heavenly luck to always come back to life, no matter how many times he died.
“I’ll show you to your rooms, Caleb and Yernil.”
Avison personally led us and assigned each of us a guest room.
Yernil’s room was next to mine.
It was good that she was close. If something happened, she’d catch the sound and let me know.
Click.
I entered my room and flopped onto the bed.
I took out the gift I’d received from the Labyrinth.
It was a round capsule filled with what looked like a tangled ball of spiderwebs. It was slightly smaller than a knuckle.
‘Spider Web Capsule.’
I got this from the Spider Doctor.
In front of the stone monument stairs on the 3rd floor of the Labyrinth, when I was caught between Hyedam’s group of three and Yernil’s group of three, the Spider Doctor had slipped it into my pocket.
‘A summoning capsule?’
It looked like it.
If I opened the capsule and threw it into the air, the contents would unfold, creating a small gate through which the target would arrive.
The gate would probably connect directly to the Spider Doctor’s side.
I could use it as a trump card in a moment of crisis. I should save it for now. There were other ways to meet the Spider Doctor besides this.
I carefully put the capsule back in my pocket.
And…
‘Hyedam.’
I thought about her.
It was good that I learned a lot about Hyedam and the possessor village this time, but there was still so much I didn’t know.
The most mysterious part was that I had met the Labyrinth Master in the past.
Bipa had stated as much when talking to Hyedam. ‘When we met the Labyrinth Master, even we barely escaped. How could we have imagined Caleb would survive that?’
That was why all three of them thought I was dead.
I would have thought the same.
The Deep Layer trio might have had a chance, but my survival rate there would have been close to zero. How did I make it out alive?
And another question.
[The Hourglass’s domination ability has been expanded.]
[Select a person to subjugate.]
1. Aimus (Trust: 100%)
2. Back Attack (Trust: 100%)
3. Isel (Trust: 100%)
4. Neko (Trust: 100%)
5. Bernard (Trust: 100%)
6. Hyedam (Trust: 100%)
Hyedam, why is your trust level still at 100 percent?
I did feel a little guilty for heartlessly leaving someone who trusted me this much behind in the Labyrinth.
How on earth did Hyedam get possessed, and why did I end up testifying in court that I had killed her?
The Labyrinth Master, Hyedam, me, and Bipa and Mugol.
I had to find out what happened in that final scene when all of us were gathered in one place.
That might be the most important question for my future journey through the Labyrinth.
‘Should I just go find Hyedam, Bipa, or Mugol and ask them?’
I could go, subjugate Hyedam, and then just issue a turn-based command for her to tell me what happened at the end.
Then Hyedam would spill everything she knew.
But…
‘Mugol.’
That tiger was what bothered me.
Right before we left the Labyrinth, Mugol attacked Yernil, Aimus, and Back Attack to drive them away, then tried to kidnap and imprison me.
He only stopped because the Spider Doctor interfered and Bipa talked him down.
From what I could tell, his feelings toward me were different from Bipa’s or Hyedam’s.
Hyedam was one thing, and even Bipa seemed to have some degree of camaraderie for me, but Mugol had not an ounce of goodwill. That’s why he had no qualms about hurting me.
The proof:
‘He actually tried to kill me in the dorms.’
That was after I had proven I wasn’t a possessor through lie detection magic.
And while Bipa didn’t touch me after that, Mugol threw a knife at me to protect the information about the elevator.
That bastard feels no camaraderie for me.
He’s a man with such immense pride in his martial prowess that he even challenged the Spider Doctor to a duel.
And his pride is so great that he drew his sword on Meldini when he was accused of being a slave-hating criminal.
A guy like that would probably…
‘He disliked me from the start?’
He might have been annoyed that a worthless porter got into their four-person party through his connection to Hyedam.
He only invited me to the possessor village because of Hyedam, and he couldn’t care less whether I died, was imprisoned, or whatever.
He might even be happy about it, thinking there was one less person who knew about the possessor village.
“Going back to find Hyedam is a no-go.”
I wasn’t sure about Hyedam or Bipa, but Mugol was a little scary.
It would be best not to provoke those three for a while.
Then, the second method.
‘Ask the Spider Doctor.’
He was a floor lord of a town between floors who knew a lot about the possessor village. He seemed to know Hyedam, Bipa, and Mugol inside and out, and most importantly, he was one of the Labyrinth Master’s minions.
Could he possibly know about the incident when I met the Labyrinth Master with Hyedam’s party?
Jingle.
I took the capsule out of my pocket again.
Summoning the Spider Doctor in the Labyrinth, where I couldn’t count on strong backup, wasn’t a stable option either, but…
‘Still, summoning him here in Sohen would be total overkill, right?’
I might get treated the same as that Broccoli Dipped in Red Chili Paste or the Growling Chihuahua.
“Yernil!”
I went to the room next door and called for her.
“Gah!”
Yernil scrambled awake from a nap.
“Wh-What is it?”
She opened the door, wiping drool from her mouth.
“Aimus’s iron staff is bent, everyone’s armor is damaged, and things are a mess. Let’s go out and regroup.”
“The Labyrinth is closed, isn’t it?”
“It’ll open soon. This city lives and breathes by the Labyrinth.”
I’ve really changed a lot.
To think that suggesting we go into the Labyrinth now comes as naturally as breathing.