I Became a Slave Collector in the Labyrinth City

“It’s this way.”

Rien pointed in the direction we needed to go.
Based on that direction, I guide the exact path through mapping.

We find the direction where the rescue targets are using search tracking.
And find the path to advance using my map creation.

“There are monsters ahead.”

Hachi, the monk who had his eyes closed, detected the presence of monsters.
Seeing how he focused on sounds with his eyes closed, he seemed to have an ability related to hearing.

“Damn rats..”

At Hachi’s words, Rohan, the warrior with a broken spirit, drew his sword and stepped forward.
As a purifying energy settled on his body, the negative things emitted by the approaching enemies were washed away.

It’s not a buff that Hachi cast, and it doesn’t seem like Rohan used the purification blessing that paladins use.
Then that must be an ability.

‘I’m a bit envious of purification-type abilities.’

Rohan, befitting a warrior who takes the vanguard, had his own buff skill.
Especially, self-purification buffs are extremely useful in the sewers.

Because the rats crawling out of the sewers are filthy.

“That mister.. he’s stronger than I thought…”

Rien’s eyes widened at Rohan’s skill.

Unlike his unremarkable first impression, Rohan leapt alone into a group of more than seven ratmen.
Then he slaughtered all the rat bastards by himself without a scratch.

It’s skilled swordsmanship.
The way he mercilessly sliced up the rat bastards was flawless for a warrior in charge of the team’s vanguard.

While he seemed mentally unstable, his skills were certain.

‘He’s certainly worthy of a silver badge adventurer.’

He accurately cuts down the vital points of approaching enemies without faltering.
Even though the monsters in the upper levels are weak, I didn’t expect him to charge in so fearlessly.

The adventurer badges don’t lie.
It means he has the skills to roam around the underground city.

“Silver badge adventurers are certainly strong. You need to be at least that strong to roam the underground city.”

“Just how… dangerous is the underground city…”

“It’s unbelievably dangerous. The types and numbers of monsters increase too.”

“Ugh… I really hate the labyrinth..”

Rien might decide to never enter the labyrinth again after this experience.
Those who become afraid of the labyrinth end up being devoured by it in the end.

If you’re afraid, it’s better to just not enter the labyrinth.
There’s nothing as dangerous as a team member who shows abnormal behavior dominated by fear.

“Squeak!!!”

“Kieee-”

Soon, the approaching rat bastards retreated, pushed back by Rohan’s momentum.

“Get lost, you vermin.”

When Rohan threatened them with a growl, the ratmen started fleeing as if they had encountered a tiger.

They must have judged that they had no chance of winning for now.
They’ll probably come back with a larger group.

That’s the kind of monsters they are.

“Swarming… disgusting…”

Rien unconsciously grabbed my sleeve while looking at the ratmen.
She seemed to find the rat bastards physiologically disgusting and repulsive.

Certainly, it would be creepy to see strange dwarves that are neither human nor rat crawling around the sewers.

But it’s bothersome if she keeps pulling on my sleeve.

It would be better to just hold hands.

“Um, Rien. It’s hard to walk if you keep pulling on my sleeve.”

“S-sorry…”

Even while apologizing, Rien didn’t let go of my sleeve.

Her eyes are wavering.
Rien was scared by the number of those rats.

‘If I leave her like this, her mind might start breaking soon.’

That won’t do.
Rien needs to direct us where to go.
If she loses her mind here, we won’t arrive in time.

Like how I hugged the young lady, I think I need to help her recover mentally.

“Ah..!”

“Do you feel a bit better now?”

“Um.. yeah.. sorry..”

“It’s nothing. Let’s walk like this for a while, until Rien feels calm.”

“Okay… thanks..”

I firmly grasped Rien’s trembling hand.
Her trembling noticeably decreased.

Fear subsides to some extent just by having someone hold your hand.
Over the past 6 months, I’ve learned various ways to find comfort and stabilize my mind.

Just feeling the warmth of another person can stabilize the mind a lot.
Hugging would be best, but that’s impossible in a situation where we need to move.

So I just lightly held her hand.
I’m absolutely not doing this to flirt.

It’s because we can only advance in the right direction if our guide’s mind is intact.
And if I can restore her mental strength just by holding her hand once, it’s a cheap price to pay.

In the first place, there’s no way a promising young witch would give her heart to a porter like me.

“Um.. porter…”

“Yes?”

“Those… rat humans?”

“You mean the ratmen?”

“Yeah. Those things.. Are there usually this many of them..?”

“Ah. Yes. There are an excessive amount. There are probably more sewer rats than breeding ground horn rabbits.”

The first floor of the sewer area is a den of ratmen.

Rat bastards about the size of medium dogs attack those who enter, kill them, and live by eating their corpses.

They have night vision so they can identify enemies even in darkness.
Their claws and teeth have a weak poison that’s not fatal, but as wounds from their attacks accumulate, movement becomes slower.

Moreover, since they carry dirty diseases and parasites, purification is essential after fighting them, and if you skimp on purification, you might even get rat fleas or lice.

Above all, there are many of them.
They multiply so quickly that it’s hard to estimate how many offspring they produce, and if you neglect sewer cleaning, they form legions in no time.

It becomes troublesome when they form legions and start hunting adventurers.
The labyrinth city has already experienced such incidents several times.

That’s why the guild often puts out sewer cleaning requests to deal with them before they form legions.

Well, anyway, ratmen are quite bothersome monsters for novice parties at the labyrinth entrance to deal with.
They’re not difficult to kill, but they’re troublesome and dirty in many ways.

“You’re not collecting the ratmen corpses..?”

“Those guys aren’t particularly useful. Their fur isn’t used much because it’s dirty.”

“They really are monsters with no use other than their numbers…”

If you try to find a use, you could probably find one, but I didn’t want to touch such dirty things unnecessarily.
And since ratmen eat the corpses of their own kind, if we just leave the corpses like this, they’ll clean up after themselves.

‘Satiated ratmen don’t take risks.’

Ratmen who are full from eating their own kind don’t attack adventurers by taking unnecessary risks.
So the more corpses you leave behind, the lower the encounter rate with ratmen naturally becomes.

“There’s a transfer stone over there.”

“Let’s go in.”

Soon we were able to find the transfer stone on the 1st floor.
As expected, the priestess and female knight weren’t on the 1st floor.

We need to go to the next floor.
I wonder, will they be on the 2nd floor?

“You need to watch out for the ceiling and walls on the 2nd floor.”

“Yeah… because of the slimes..?”

“Yes. They specialize in surprise attacks.”

I explained the dangers of the 2nd floor while still holding Rien’s hand.

Slimes are monsters that are traps in themselves.
Unlike other monsters, they make no noise as they crawl along walls or ceilings, then jump at adventurers’ heads when they approach.

If your head gets caught by a slime like that, in the worst case, you die from suffocation.
Because they instantly stick to you and block your airway, you’ll die if you don’t know how to respond.

If you lose a companion like that, you get attacked by rat bastards drawn by the smell of death, and as the number of companions gradually decreases, you end up alone in the end.

“Then.. if.. my head gets swallowed, what should I do…?”

“You know slimes have a core that acts as their center, right? You just need to grab that with your hand and pull it out.”

“That’s all…?”

“Yes. That’s all, but when you actually experience it, you end up panicking and dying from having your airway blocked. In the end, experiencing it a few times in real situations is most important.”

“Ah.. so it’s difficult to respond in real situations…”

It’s over if you can’t use the countermeasure even if you know it.

“Hmm?”

Splat!

Just as I was telling Rien how to deal with slimes, a slime that had been waiting on the ceiling fell onto monk Hachi’s head.
Let’s see how a silver badge adventurer responds.

Shluk!

“Huh… So that’s how you pull it out.. He pulled it out so easily..”

“Yes. That’s how you pull it out. Hachi seems used to it, so he pulled it out in one go. If Rien can calmly grab the core, you should be able to survive.”

As soon as the slime fell on his head, Hachi immediately grabbed the core and pulled it out.
Since the mucus that forms the slime’s body basically tries to follow the core, it’s essentially game over once you grab the core.

Crack!

Hachi crushed the core he had pulled out.
Then the slime’s mucus that was clinging to Hachi’s hand trying to retrieve the core lost its elasticity and spilled onto the floor.

It died because its core was destroyed.

“We need to collect this. We should put it in glass bottles and take it. Though we don’t have time to collect it now.”

“You collect slime mucus too…?”

“Yes. The mucus is actually the core part of slimes. The reason adventurers enter this dirty and smelly sewer area is because of that.”

Slime mucus is used in really diverse areas.
The Alchemy Guild uses it frequently as a catalyst, and the Adventurers Guild is always buying it in bulk.

“It’s essential for making detergents or bleach.”

“Ah, I see..”

It’s used in small amounts when making shampoo that nobles use, and it’s almost an essential ingredient when making bleach like Clorox.

It’s no exaggeration to say that slime mucus is one of the key items in the labyrinth city’s economy.
Because it’s quite difficult to obtain slimes in the natural environment.

“They’re not on the 2nd floor either, it seems…”

As we advanced dealing with slimes and ratmen, we came across a transfer stone.
It means the female knight and priestess aren’t on the 2nd floor either.

The situation is gradually becoming serious.
Surely they’re not really on the 4th floor?

‘They might have a high probability of being on the 4th floor.’

I felt the thick malice of the labyrinth.

“Let’s go down.”

As we went down through the transfer stone, my heart started pounding more and more.

It’s not a pleasant pounding.
My heart trembled as I imagined the worst situation.

‘Maybe…’

I thought we might not even be able to find the corpses.
We’re going down as fast as we can in our own way, but maybe we’re already too late.

Because we can’t stop the flow of time.
No matter how quickly we go down, if the two of them have already been killed by monsters….

‘No. If we act hastily because we’re in a hurry, we’ll die too.’

Right now, Rohan and Hachi are silently clearing the path.
They’re tackling the labyrinth with just two vanguards, without a healer or ranged DPS.

Even if they’re silver badge adventurers.
Even if this is just the upper levels.

Those two are already doing their best.
Even if I urge them more here, the conquest speed won’t increase.

All I can do now is pray that the female knight and priestess are safe.
No, I don’t even hope for them to be alive and well.

‘I hope at least their corpses are intact.’

The young lady’s family will cover the resurrection costs, so that’s not a worry.
The real problem is if the bodies are damaged to the point where even resurrection is impossible.

I should take comfort in the fact that Rien’s search tracking can still detect the priestess’s location.
If Rien’s search tracking loses direction, it means the priestess has already been damaged beyond repair.

As long as Rien’s search tracking is active.
Maybe… we can be a little at ease.