Chapter 73: To the 4th Floor (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 73: To the 4th Floor (2)
After a relatively peaceful ten-day break, we were back at the Labyrinth Union.
“We’d like to use the elevator.”
I requested the elevator at the front counter.
Using it would allow us to go directly to the 2nd or 3rd floor, which we had already cleared.
“You’re probably the first party to take the elevator on only your fourth run,” the receptionist said.
Most adventurers just take the stairs to the 2nd floor to save money, and since there’s no elevator to the 1st floor, people usually start using it from the 3rd floor.
In other words, we were a party that had cleared the 3rd-floor exit room on our third run, so I could see why it seemed strange.
An unusual scene was also unfolding at the counter next to ours.
“Are you heading to the Deep Layer?”
Meldini, questioned by the Union employee, shook his head.
“We’ll be taking the stairs down to the 1st floor.”
“It must be your first time going to the 1st floor in about thirty years.”
The trio of Deep Layer professors was registering to use the 1st-floor stairs. Having that much firepower walk down was probably a rare event in the Labyrinth Union’s history.
“I do like that we don’t have to pay an elevator fee,” Dalstream said with a smile.
The elevator was one of the Labyrinth Union’s main sources of revenue, and the fare was quite expensive.
The receptionist at our counter happened to be explaining just that.
“The fee to the 3rd floor is 5,000 gold per person.”
“Hic…”
Yernil’s jaw dropped.
“A bit pricey, right? Most adventurers taking the elevator for the first time get angry and ask why it’s so expensive,” the receptionist said, as if she understood completely. But this was the standard.
Because…
“It costs hundreds of millions of gold to build one of these elevators.”
The elevators were fundamentally created by reversing the exit gate phenomenon.
When you clear an exit room, an exit gate appears, and adventurers emerge from it, right? Apparently, when that happens, traces of the adventurers’ mana are left behind in the labyrinth.
By reverse-calculating those traces, they can open a dimensional gate, allowing them to selectively reopen the exit gates that adventurers have already cleared.
In our case, that meant the 2nd or 3rd floor.
Naturally, creating something like this was incredibly difficult and required an immense amount of capital and time, which was why the fee was so high.
But even setting aside the Labyrinth Union’s need to recoup its investment, using the elevator was a rational choice when considering an individual adventurer’s profit margin.
In the time it would take to walk through the 1st and 2nd floors to reach the 3rd, you could easily earn more than 5,000 gold per person on the 3rd floor.
“Hyung-nim, here’s 5,000 gold.”
“Here’s my share.”
“Ugh…! Here you go, Caleb. So this is why you told us to bring money.”
I collected the money from my party members and paid the elevator fee.
Since our destination was the 4th floor, we had to take the elevator to the 3rd and then run to find the next set of stairs.
Time was much more precious than 5,000 gold.
“That’ll be 20,000 gold.”
After I handed over the payment, the employee gave me a piece of paper with information about the 4th floor and a small magic card.
A message was written on the card.
[Current Adventurer Parties on the 4th Floor: 0]
“Please hold onto this card until you come out. It tells you how many adventurer parties are on the 4th floor. This way, please.”
The employee guided us to the elevator waiting room.
This was where you boarded the elevators to travel to each floor.
Even though we had arrived as soon as the labyrinth opened, several teams of adventurers were already here before us.
All of them were mid-level adventurers or higher.
*
“Hyung-nim, look over there.”
Back Attack nudged me in the side.
“It’s a Deep Layer party.”
He was right.
And as a bonus, it was a familiar face.
‘Krom.’
Krom, the owner of Blackdog’s gambling den, had been released without charges after Enver was proven to be a possessor.
The gambling den was shut down, and with his newfound free time, he had come to the labyrinth.
“Hmph.”
The Orc recognized me and let out a smirk.
“Going to the 4th floor, kid?”
We hadn’t gone around announcing our plans, but he must have figured it out from our gear.
“Yes.”
“To the Ironworks?”
“Yes.”
“…”
Suddenly, Krom heaved his massive body to his feet and strode toward me.
I could feel Aimus, Back Attack, and Yernil tense up.
“Be careful if you’re going to the Ironworks.”
Krom leaned down next to me and spoke.
“There are some nasty rumors going around these days.”
“What kind of rumors?”
“I’ll tell you if you tell me how you got that invisible wizard’s eye onto the 2nd floor.”
“Then I’m good.”
“Ha!”
The Orc burst out laughing.
“Such bravado.”
“…”
“I’ve seen countless guys like you in the labyrinth. You obsess over information and planning like psychopaths. Now that you know there’s a threat, can you really stand not knowing what it is? Especially when your party members’ lives are on the line?” the Orc asked.
“My offer still stands. Think it over. Tell me what you did with that wizard’s eye, and I’ll give you a piece of information I know.”
“I’m fine.”
“Unexpected.”
I didn’t need to reveal something like the Hourglass; I could have just said it was a form of psychokinetic teleportation, and he would have accepted it.
But even that was a waste.
Just letting him know I had an ability similar to psychokinetic teleportation was a loss.
And one more thing.
“It’s because I think I already know what the problem is.”
“You know?”
“It’s about the poachers, isn’t it?”
“…”
Judging by his expression, I was right.
Poaching. It means to mine in secret.
What were they mining?
The golem cores used in the Ironworks. They fetched a high price on the black market.
The problem was, if you took the cores from the Ironworks, no more golems would be generated. Not until the labyrinth closed and reopened again.
And adventurers had no way of getting to the magic stones dissolved in the sludge.
In short, if someone made off with the cores, every adventurer on the 4th floor from that point on would come up empty-handed.
That’s why the Labyrinth Union strictly prohibited taking golem cores from the 4th-floor Ironworks. If you were caught with one, it wouldn’t be sold for a high price; it would be confiscated, and you’d be fined.
“But people still take them. They’d get caught by the Labyrinth Union if they used an exit gate, so they cross the inter-wall space to escape into another labyrinth. They probably entered the same way in the first place.”
I could also guess why Krom was trying to tell me this.
It wasn’t out of genuine concern for me.
Those guys who crossed the inter-wall space to steal resources from Sohen’s labyrinth would, of course, be a criminal organization.
From Blackdog’s perspective, another organization meddling in their territory of Sohen would be an annoyance. It was likely a rival organization they were on very bad terms with.
“So you were thinking that if I was lucky, I might take care of them for you, right?”
And on top of that, he was trying to get the secret of the wizard’s eye out of me? All while making a big show of doing me a favor?
Krom…
Did you really think I’d fall for something like this?
“Hahaha!”
Suddenly, a woman in Krom’s party burst into laughter.
She had bright, bluish skin and light blue hair.
A mage from the northern beastfolk tribe, the Frostians.
“He got you there, Krom.”
“Hmph.”
Krom smacked his lips and backed away.
“You’re mistaken about something. I don’t expect you to beat those poachers.”
“…”
“From their perspective, they’d be thrilled to have rookies like you show up at the Ironworks and pick a fight. Why would they need to hunt for parties to rob when magic equipment delivers itself right to them?”
“Krom.”
Another of Krom’s party members called out to him. He was a human male who looked to be in his 40s or 50s.
His class was priest.
Not from the Order of Nathaniel. Judging by the mark on his shoulder epaulet, he was from the temple of Sanfriel, the god of sacrifice and challenge…
‘Cardinal-level?’
Being a Deep Layer adventurer really boosted your rank, huh.
“Enough games. Let’s get ready to go in.”
“Alright.”
Krom returned to his spot.
The Frostian woman in his party gave me a bright smile, waving her hand.
“I heard you caused quite a scene at the gambling den. Krom told me all about it. It’s the first time I’ve seen our Orc show this much interest in a low-level adventurer.”
“I’m about to become a mid-level adventurer, not a low-level one,” she said.
“You never know until you come out of the exit room. The 4th floor is a wall of despair where many low-level rookies have met their end.”
She wasn’t wrong.
Besides us, there were a few other 4th-floor parties sitting in the waiting room.
None of them spoke to us; they just watched quietly.
If we were beginners entering the 1st floor, we might have struck up a conversation out of a sense of camaraderie, even if we met outside the labyrinth. But these people didn’t form unnecessary friendships.
Because the chances of us dying were much higher.
‘Thirty percent.’
That was the probability of a party skilled in the 3rd floor surviving and clearing the exit room on their first attempt at the 4th floor.
“…Caleb.”
Yernil gently took my arm.
She seemed a bit overwhelmed by the atmosphere.
This waiting room, filled with mid-level and higher adventurers, lacked the fear, tension, excitement, or passion seen among low-level adventurers.
There was only the mannerism and lethargy of office workers waking up to go to their jobs.
Or perhaps the numbness of those who had crossed the line between life and death so many times that the fear had worn off.
That was all there was.
Will we become like that as we descend deeper into the abyss?
“Krom’s party, please enter Elevator 1.”
The elevator attendant called for Krom’s party.
*
A short while later, it was our turn, and we boarded Elevator 4.
From outside the enclosed space, the attendant closed the door and pressed the button for the 3rd floor.
After a brief wait behind the safety line, the entire elevator began to vibrate violently, and the labyrinth’s dimensional gate opened.
“Let’s go.”
Beyond it lay the 3rd floor.
The familiar landscape of a snowy field unfolded before us.
We had returned the Torch Helms we received from the Magic University’s Labyrinth Exploration Support Division.
We still had two mission completion points left, so we could have extended their use for this adventure, but I decided to save them.
Instead…
“Peaceful Mind.”
I waited for the cooldown and cast the spell on the entire party.
Peaceful Mind, a Tier 1 mental illusion spell, provided resistance against confusion.
As for staying warm?
We drank ‘Warming Potions.’
This magic, which resisted freezing, lasted for 24 hours, and the potion could be regenerated over three hours by keeping it in a belt pocket.
The four of us had been chugging potions since yesterday afternoon.
“But are we really going to be okay with those poachers?”
As we moved through the snowy field, Yernil brought up the topic from the waiting room again.
“If there are such dangerous people around, is it really okay for us to go to the 4th floor?”
“Don’t worry too much. It’s fine.”
There were two reasons for that.
First, the poachers would avoid combat in the field whenever possible. Why? They didn’t have the time.
If even Krom was talking about them, it was likely that most 4th-floor adventurers already knew, right? That meant other 4th-floor adventurers would also be trying to find the Ironworks quickly to stop the poachers before they came up empty-handed.
Conversely, this meant the poachers had to find the Ironworks as fast as possible, steal the cores, and flee.
“So we’re unlikely to run into them in the field.”
“What about at the Ironworks, then?” Back Attack asked.
“Didn’t you say we were going to the Ironworks too?”
“That’s right.”
And yet, there was a second reason not to worry.
We had to do some preliminary scouting before entering the Ironworks anyway—to see what kind of monsters were currently there.
Golden Golems or Blacksmiths.
If either of those had spawned, it was better not to go in.
“I’ll send out a wizard’s eye beforehand to check.”
But what if the wizard’s eye spotted the poachers? Then we’d assess their equipment and combat strength. If we thought we could take them, we’d charge in.
If it looked difficult, we’d retreat.
“The very fact that we can pinpoint the enemy’s location means it’s not that dangerous. We’re the ones who get to choose whether to fight.”
This was one of the safer crises we had faced in the labyrinth so far.
Compare it to when plunderers like Sally were targeting us.
They would subtly provoke us in front of the 1st-floor stairs to intimidate us, then use a canine beastman’s sense of smell to track us, waiting to strike when we were at our weakest.
Or they’d pull a fast one, running up and pretending they’d been robbed by a 2nd-floor plunderer team to ask for help.
Honest villains like the poachers were much better than that.
And what about Antonelli, who tried to use Birtanen’s party as meat shields to go down to the 3.5th floor and experiment with the ossuary?
A crazy necromancer like him was a threat just by existing, but the poachers were manageable. In the worst-case scenario, even if they took the cores, it would only stop us from making money on the 4th floor; it wouldn’t trigger a monster wave.
In that case, we could just clear the exit room and leave, or if we felt it was a waste, we could go back to the 3rd floor and farm some more.
“I see.”
Everyone nodded, their worries slightly eased.
But a different kind of concern had sprouted in my mind.
‘Where did those poachers come from?’
I had already seen one other criminal organization in Sohen.
The drug dealer from the errand center who had scammed and used Yernil.
I wasn’t sure if that guy had the guts for it, but could two separate outside forces really be trying to leech off Sohen while Blackdog and the Public Security Headquarters were still active?
Lilweed.
Could that elf drug dealer be one of the poachers?
*
Adventurers who pass the 1st floor and enter the 2nd for the first time all say the same thing.
It’s too hot.
The swamplands of the 2nd floor are as hot and humid as a steam bath.
Adventurers who pass through there and enter the 3rd floor say:
Now it’s too cold.
The snowy fields of the 3rd floor are a place where your feet sink into the snow and the relentless cold and confusion assault you.
And the adventurers who overcome that and arrive on the 4th floor say:
“Damn it, it’s hot again.”
Back Attack tore off the scarf wrapped around his neck in frustration.
After a six-hour search for the stairs, a blast of heat hit us the moment we descended to the 4th floor.
A burnt, hellish wasteland.
An endless expanse of ashen ground, cracked and split by the intense heat, stretched before us.
Here and there, we could see ‘lava mounds’ rising up, red and swollen like pimples.
Pop!
Some of them burst, spilling molten lava.
Steam hissed as the crimson lava flowed over the ashen ground.
“It’s really hot.”
Yernil fanned the inside of her clothes with her hand.
“It’s actually a relief we don’t have the Torch Helms,” Aimus remarked.
If we’d had them, it would have been awkward—taking them off would feel strange, but wearing them would be too hot.
The 4th floor was a volcanic region.
High-temperature magma boiled beneath the ground, and lava mounds erupted like traps all over the place.
Occasionally, volcanic debris would fall from the sky.
“Huh?”
As I scanned our surroundings, an unexpectedly familiar face caught my eye.
Neko’s four-person party of constables appeared.
Wow, she never rests.
“My promotion review is just around the corner.”
She replied jokingly when I went over to greet her.
Were they here to investigate the poachers?