I Became a Slave Collector in the Labyrinth City

“There are more monsters than on the 3rd floor.”

“Indeed, the number of monsters has increased.”

As Rohan and Hachi said, the 4th floor was more chaotic than the 3rd.
The footsteps of killer bugs could be heard everywhere, and there seemed to be more ratmen and slimes too.

“The 4th floor will likely be a speed battle. We need to rescue and escape as quickly as possible before the monsters swarm in.”

“Kieee!!”

“Oh no, they’re already here!”

Ratmen rushed in in droves.
At least ten of them.

More monsters will be drawn by the commotion.
We need to deal with them quickly and get away.

“Uryaaah!!!”

Rohan swung his sword at the rushing rat bastards, slicing them apart, and Hachi grabbed the surviving rat bastards and smashed them.

It was quickly cleared, but there was no time to rest.

More are coming. The path is blocked.

We had to hold out until Rohan cleared the way.

“Porter..!”

“Aaah!!!”

Monsters rushed towards us too.
It’s more than Rohan and Hachi can handle alone.
The moment to fight came sooner than expected.

“Rien! Save your magic!”

“Okay..!”

A short sword with a short blade is suitable for narrow passages.
If you can’t handle weapons as well as Rohan, you should choose weapons that can be swung recklessly without problems.

Slash!!!

I sliced the neck of a ratman rushing towards me and immediately threw the short sword I was holding to hit a killer bug targeting Hachi’s back.

“Thank you!”

Receiving Hachi’s thanks, I took out a hand axe from my inventory and split the head of a rushing ratman in half.

The dirty rat bastard’s blood and brain matter spurted out.
With no time to pull it out, I dropped the axe and took out a javelin from my inventory, throwing it at the ratmen jumping out from the right corridor.

Thud-!

Two of them were pierced by the javelin and died. There’s no time to retrieve the javelin.
A brief gap appeared, so in that time, I pulled out the axe stuck in the ratman’s head and used it to check the killer bugs again.

“Uh, aaah! Get away!”

Rien was also swinging her club hard from behind, crushing the heads of two ratmen.
I’m trying my best to keep monsters away from her, but it’s not perfect.

“Let’s get out of here now!”

“Yes!”

Finally, Rohan cleared the way.
We ran.

“To the right!”

“They’re coming, run faster!”

We ran and ran in the direction Rien pointed, and finally we were able to arrive.

As if to prove that our destination was right in front of us, a scream was heard.

-Kyaaah!!!

It’s the scream of a living person.

And I know that voice.
The priestess was alive.

“Erika!”

Rien shouted.
It seemed monsters had burst into the room where Rika and Erika were hiding.

Monsters are pouring out from both corridors.

“Damn! I’ll break through the entrance, you two go in and save them!”

Rohan pushed through the monsters filling the corridor.
To prevent any more monsters from entering the room where Erika and Rika were.

Hachi, realizing the urgency of the situation, also jumped in among the monsters.
While those two hold back the monsters rushing out from both corridors, we need to quickly enter the room and rescue the two.

“Rien!”

“Yeah!”

Rien and I entered the room where Erika’s screams were coming from, avoiding the monsters’ attacks.

“Kyaaah!!”

“Erika!!!”

Ratmen that had entered the room were rushing towards the convulsing Erika and the fallen Rika.

Erika was already pushed to her mental limits.
She didn’t recognize us even though we entered the room.

Moreover, Rika already seemed dead.
If so, we need to at least save Erika.

If we leave her, those dirty rat bastards will bite Erika’s neck and kill her.

“You rotten bastards!”

If Erika dies, the reward will be halved.
I absolutely can’t let that happen.

I threw myself and buried the axe in a ratman’s back.
It wasn’t enough with one hit, so I pulled it out and smashed its head again.

A fountain of blood spurts out as the ratman dies.
Not even having time to pull out the axe stuck in its head, I dropped it and took out a kitchen knife from my inventory.

To think I’d even take this out.
It’s a kitchen knife I bought to peel apples.

“Haa. Haa. Haa. Fuck!”

I feel like I’m going to die from shortness of breath.
My hands won’t move, but I can’t stop.

My muscles are screaming.
But still, I have to stab and kill.

The kitchen knife is the only weapon left.
I brought down the kitchen knife towards the back of a ratman attacking Erika.

To prevent cutting my hand if I stab recklessly, I gripped the knife in reverse, fixing the end of the handle with my thumb to prevent my hand from getting cut.

In a situation like this, I absolutely can’t injure my hand.

“Kieeee!”

The ratmen clawed and bit my body.
Each time, I shoved the kitchen knife harder into their bodies and picked up the axe to smash their vital points.

Just as the poison on the ratmen’s claws and teeth was gradually spreading through my body, I took out a syringe from my inventory and stabbed it into my thigh.

“Kugh..!”

It’s the same antidote I used on Rohan.
To resist the poison, I kept injecting antidote into my body in real-time while reducing the number of ratmen.

“Haa. Haa. Haa…”

I dealt with all the ratmen that were clinging to Erika trying to kill her.
Covered in blood and bodily fluids, it was hard to even keep my eyes open.

I wiped my face with a towel to secure my vision.
At that moment, my arm trembled and I dropped the kitchen knife.
My legs won’t listen.

Did I use all the muscles I could to their maximum?
I sat down and gasped for breath.

“R-Rien.. How’s it on your side…”

“Uugh..!!!”

“Huh? Rien!”

While I was saving Erika, Rien had dropped her club and was convulsing.

A slime had covered her head.
I didn’t pay attention to Rien while saving Erika.

‘Shit.’

Rien, who was trying to rescue the fallen Rika, seemed to have failed to check the slime on the ceiling.
In the end, the slime fell on her head, leading to the current situation.

“Rien!!! You need to pull out the core!!!”

I didn’t know if my voice would be properly conveyed, but I shouted anyway.
I wanted to rush over and help right away, but my legs were trembling and it took time to stand up.

“Uugh..!!!”

“Oh no.”

This won’t do.
Rien couldn’t grab the slime’s core.
She was just flailing her arms uselessly towards the air.

Curses naturally came out.
I forcibly moved my creaking legs and threw myself towards Rien.

Splat!

I straddled her fallen body and grasped the slime’s core, pulling it out.

“Ugh. Uweeek…”

Rien vomited mucus.
When I smashed the pulled-out slime core on the ground, the wriggling mucus soon spilled onto the floor.

“Uugh.. Kuhak.”

She repeated dry heaves and lay face down.
Erika, who had lost her mind, crawled to a corner of the room and trembled while holding her head.
Rika, who was already dead, was in a state of undress, her clothes torn off by the ratmen.

Everyone’s in a terrible state.

“Hey!! Did you save them!?”

“Yes..!”

Hachi’s urgent voice was heard from the corridor.
We need to leave soon. If we delay any longer, monsters will gather in unmanageable numbers.

“Erika. Erika!”

“Huah. Hueeeh..!”

“Erika, pull yourself together. Erika.”

“No, no. No. I can’t. Don’t kill me.. Please…”

“I’m not killing you! We came to save you. Look at me! Open your eyes and look properly!! Pull yourself together!”

“Heok…!”

I firmly grasped Erika’s face as she was trying to lower her head while shaking it, making her look at me.
Only then did Erika open her eyes wide and properly confirm my face.

“P-Porter…?”

“Yes. We came to save you. We need to move right now.”

“I-is this… reality? I’m not dead, right?”

“You’re not dead yet, so get up quickly! We need to get out! If we stay here, we’ll die!”

“Ah… Y-yes. Yes!!”

Thank goodness.
Maybe because she’s a priestess with high mental strength, Erika quickly regained her senses.

I put the dead Rika into my inventory and helped the panting Rien stand up.

“Rien! Transfer stone location!”

“Ah, aah. Wait a moment..!”

Rien took out the postcard she received from the young lady from her chest and tore it.

Search tracking activates.
Actually, this is why I told the young lady to stay on the surface.

Rien’s ability, search tracking, will now track the young lady’s location, and since the young lady is on the surface, the search tracking will end up pointing to the location of the transfer stone.

We can now find the transfer stone on the 4th floor.

“Rohan! Hachi! Let’s go!”

Rohan pushed back the remaining monsters while stabbing the antidote I gave him into his leg, and Hachi used another incantation like a flash grenade to paralyze one corridor.

“This way..! Left at the fork!”

“Run! They’re coming!!! Run!! Damn it!! Why are those women so slow!!!”

“I’ll carry them and run! Lead the way!!!”

Hachi grabbed Erika and Rien, who were lagging behind, with both arms and ran frantically.

Rohan, his face pale from overdosing on antidote, cleared the way ahead, and I followed behind them, running at the very back while checking the map.

“There! We need to go down the stairs!”

“Damn floor division!!!”

Rohan cursed the labyrinth with an irritated voice.

The transfer stone is probably below those stairs.

And ‘that thing’ will be there too.

“Fuck..!”

“Ah. As expected.”

White Evil.
The pure white crocodile monster.

It was standing in front of the transfer stone with its mouth wide open.
As if it had been waiting for us to come down.

Yes, it seemed the labyrinth didn’t want to let us leave just like that.
To add the worst on top of the worst and present such an absurd shittiness.

“Rohan!! Can you break through!?”

“Damn it..! There’s no time to hesitate!! You guys block the stairs!”

Rohan seemed to have steeled himself.
Soon, he took out a small glass bottle containing something unknown from his chest and consumed its contents.

“Huaaah…”

Steam erupted from his body.
Also, his eyes became bloodshot, and all the muscles in his body swelled.
Don’t tell me this person…

‘Berserker’s potion!’

Rohan, who consumed a potion worth 10 gold coins per bottle, ran towards the White Evil.

Crazy doping warrior.
Is his guts made of steel?

Soon, Hachi followed behind him.
No matter how much berserker’s potion he drank, it’s impossible to take on the White Evil alone.

“From now on, we need to block the stairs.”

The remaining me, Rien, and Erika had to block the monsters coming down the stairs.

“Erika, take this club. From now on, you and I will kill the monsters here. And Rien, you take care of the stairs.”

“Okay..! Fireball.”

I saved Rien’s magic for this moment.

The labyrinth’s malice?
I was already assuming the worst.

That’s why we could prepare.
The result of saving Rien’s magic unfolded before our eyes now.

“Burn to death.”

A fireball shot towards the stairs.
The bodies of the rat bastards coming down caught fire.

Moreover, the stairs themselves were engulfed in flames and burned.
It’s because I had sprinkled oil on the stairs in advance while following behind the group at the very back earlier.

“Uh, aaah..!”

“Erika! Hit them straight down!!! They’re not dead yet!”

“Ah, aah..!”

While Rien blocked the stairs, Erika and I had to deal with the monsters rushing towards us.

“Cough! Cough..!”

No, I’ll have to handle it alone.
Erika sat down clutching her chest.

It’s mana poisoning.
Rien, who had gone through mana adaptation at least once, was forcibly enduring, but Erika seemed to have reached her limit now.

“Kraaah–!!”

“Die!!!!”

Just then, a roar was heard from behind.
When I quickly checked the situation behind, Rohan was shoving his arm into the White Evil’s eye. How is that even possible?

Anyway, they took down the White Evil.
Rohan and Hachi had defeated the White Evil blocking the transfer stone.

“Crazy!!! They really did it!!! It’s done! Erika! Hold on a bit more! Rien, let’s go now!”

The White Evil fell.
Rohan and Hachi did it.
To think they could take down the 4th floor boss with just the two of them.

Those monster-like humans.
Maybe those two will go through mana adaptation when they get outside this time.

They are truly adventurers with the qualities to become gold badge holders.

“Let’s get out!”

“To the outside!!!”

We ran towards the transfer stone.
As the flames on the stairs gradually subsided, monsters soon poured down.

“Jump into the blue one!”

Rohan, who had activated the transfer stone in advance, waited for us.
Hachi probably went through first and is clearing the surroundings.

“Kyah! W-wait!!”

“Ueeeh!”

I strongly pushed Rien and Erika’s backs, sending them through the blue gate first, then immediately jumped in.

-Thud!

“Kugh..”

“Uaah. It hurts..”

“Cough. Cough…”

Both Rien and Erika are safe.
Hachi, who had gone through first, seemed to have roughly cleared away the nearby monsters.

Woong-!

Soon after, Rohan also succeeded in coming up to the 3rd floor.

“Haah.. Fuck. I never want to experience that again…”

Rohan, whose armor had become rags, sat down on the ground and sighed.

“Fortunately, there are no monsters nearby.”

Hachi, who detected that this place was safe through his sensing.
He sat down too.

“We survived…”

“Sob.. Huah… We survived… Goddess.. We survived.. Thank you.. Thank you..”

Rien stared blankly into space like a person whose soul had left their body.
Erika lay face down, clutching her rosary and expressing her gratitude for a long time.

“Hey. Porter.”

“Yes?”

“You, you got it, right?”

“You saw?”

“Of course. How could I not see that?”

“Just pay me the transportation fee.”

“Alright.”

Rohan grinned.

He saw that I had acquired the White Evil’s corpse before jumping into the blue gate.
If it were an ordinary adventurer, they would have had to abandon the White Evil’s corpse because it was too big and heavy, but thanks to the spatial pocket, I can bring its corpse up intact.

I’d like to gulp it down myself, but I can’t do that.
Knowing that Rohan and Hachi fought to death, I intend to hand over the White Evil’s corpse to the two of them.

The transportation fee is between 5 to 10 percent of the sale price, so it would be profitable just to receive that.

The White Evil’s skin sells for a high price.
Moreover, since I’m bringing up the entire corpse intact, we can sell all the other parts too.

“Rien.”

“Yeah..?”

“You worked hard. Would you like to drink this?”

“Heh.. It’s orange juice. Thanks.. Porter.”

“It’s nothing. Let’s all replenish our sugar levels a bit.”

I handed out sweet fruit juice to the group.

Rohan and Hachi downed the juice in one shot with good spirits.
Erika, whose face was covered in tears, fell into my arms and cried for a long time when I handed her the juice, as if something had been so sad and difficult.

We can’t fully relax yet since we’re still in the labyrinth, but at least we had a moment to rest.