Survive the labyrinth with EX-grade traits

I was confident that our party of four could make it to the top of the tower.

It wasn’t difficult to suggest to Veronica, who held such confidence, that we should delay our return and proceed to the next floor.

“Sounds good to me. I agree.”

She answered with a refreshing tone and continued, “I usually just repeat-hunt around the 11th floor until my food runs out or I’m mentally exhausted, and then I return.”

In other words, unless something strange and overwhelming happened, Veronica was confident in her abilities up to the 11th floor.

Her expressionless face seemed to hide a sense of pride as a middle-layer adventurer.

“That’s reassuring. I’ll ask the other two as well, and then we’ll decide on a plan. You can rest for now.”

“This is just my guess, but I think Yeriel and Lumia will easily agree. You know how they’d do anything you say.”

I felt a bit embarrassed and rubbed the back of my neck.

“They’re more than I deserve. It’s good… Well, I shouldn’t say more when they’re not here.”

[Chaos says it would be disappointing if you didn’t include her.]

Veronica said it was just her opinion, but I knew it too.

Even if I suggested going to the next floor without further explanation, Yeriel would probably smile and agree, and Lumia would quietly nod in agreement.

However, I believed that the more something becomes familiar and taken for granted, the more we should look back and be careful not to make mistakes.

Just because these two trusted me and agreed out of trust didn’t mean I should make decisions without asking or considering their opinions.

I am the party leader.

I am the party leader, responsible for making important choices that affect my companions’ lives and bearing the consequences of those choices.

“I’ll go. Let’s finish collecting the byproducts and have dinner after we’re done talking.”

As I finished speaking and turned around, Veronica offered to collect the byproducts herself, saying it would be less hassle than everyone moving around.

“Cresdowzer, right? Since everything else has turned to ash, there’s not much to collect. I’ll gather them in one place, so take your time.”

“No, you should sit and rest. You’ve worked hard too.”

“It’s nothing. We’ve all worked hard here, so it’s better to finish this quickly if I can do it myself.”

[Chaos praises her for having a sane mind.]

“Th, haha. Thank you so much. I’ll leave it to you then!”

If Hans or Crib had been in Veronica’s place, what would they be doing right now?

‘What do you mean, what would they be doing? They’d probably be lying down, spread out, by now.’

No, they might have been killed by Cresdowzer before they even had a chance to lie down.

Anyway, despite my constant complaints about bad luck and hardships, I seemed to have more than my fair share of good fortune when it came to companions.

With a newfound appreciation, I smiled and walked towards Yeriel and Lumia, who were still testing their unique items.

Yeriel threw a short, bright yellow staff made of sacred power into the air and caught it.

“Holy magic… I’ll… give up on it for now… Hmm?”

She mumbled to herself with a sullen face, but when she saw me approaching, her expression brightened.

“Ahren! It looked like you two were having an important conversation over there. Is it something I shouldn’t ask about?”

“No, it’s not that. I was thinking that instead of returning right away, we should go all the way to the 9th floor.”

“The 9th floor? Oh… I wasn’t thinking that far… Well! Now that we’ve all obtained unique items, I think we can manage to go up two more layers! I agree!”

“I’ll go wherever Ahren goes.”

“Hick! What? When did you get here? You were over there just a moment ago!”

Lumia answered Yeriel’s surprised question.

“It’s nothing. Since you talked to Yeriel and Veronica, I knew I’d be next. Ahren wouldn’t have a conversation with just the two of them, right?”

That was true, but her trust was unwavering.

“Of course, I didn’t know it would be about this, but I’ll do whatever Ahren decides, so keep that in mind.”

“Who said anything about you?” Yeriel raised her voice. “I agreed too!”

“That’s enough! Both of you, calm down. So, since all three of you agree, we’ll rest for a few days and then move on to the next floor?”

After getting their confirmation, I returned to Veronica, who had already gathered the pumpkin-colored fragments that had lost their brightness.

The fragments were tiny, and there were quite a few of them. She must have been bothered to collect them all by herself.

I expressed my gratitude to her.

“Wow, they broke into smaller pieces than I thought. Thank you. I appreciate your effort.”

“Don’t mention it. It wasn’t that difficult.”

These shattered fragments of the core were meant to be given to Gardan, the master of the Earth School, as a reward for a favor.

What favor?

The favor was to gain access to the magic tower for Lumia and the opportunity to learn various spells.

From the time I was separated from the party on the 4th floor to when we reunited and reached the 7th floor, we shared various conversations during our rest times.

One of the topics I caught from Veronica and Lumia’s conversation was that Lumia, a dark witch of the black magic school, needed to learn common spells.

‘What did Veronica say? She suggested that it would be good to use connections to help Lumia learn common spells, right?’

As everyone knew, accessing the magic tower was challenging, and learning spells or becoming a wizard was even more difficult.

‘No wonder priests and wizards are considered noble professions.’

Priests and wizards are valued because priests must always maintain their piety and not belong to a party with evil members, and wizards, unless they inherit their position or have exceptional talent or wealth, cannot become wizards.

Connections… Sigh.

The only people I could rely on for help with the magic tower were the mid-level wizard Haynes, the Earth School master Gardan Turgun, and the daughter of the magic tower master, who was locked in the top floor. That was it.

Even if I asked for a favor from the daughter of the magic tower master, locked in the top floor, and just asked Haynes or the clumsy female wizard to pass on a message, I wouldn’t need to pay any compensation.

But no matter how I thought about it, I didn’t have even a speck of desire to do so.

Whether the resurrected woman held good or bad feelings towards me,

I didn’t want to intentionally take advantage of her, even if it was a genuine, burning love or not. I didn’t want to become a real bastard.

‘I turned away from the easy path, so I have to take the difficult one.’

The Earth School focuses on earth, rocks, and golems.

Even Haynes, who has a unique item that allows him to summon a golem, is obsessed with enchanting the core he obtained from the cave.

The core of the weathered golem from the 3rd floor is like that, so how much value would the fragments of the core of a giant-type monster, which took almost a month to hunt and grow, hold?

I expected Gardan to accept the terms I mentioned earlier.

“Okay, everyone, listen up—”

“If we didn’t have a wizard in the party, I’d pay a large sum to buy various magic tools, but we have Lumia, don’t we?
To create an opportunity for Lumia to learn new spells, I plan to pay the core I obtained from Cresdowzer to Gardan, a high-ranking member of the Earth School.”

Since the monster is too unique for us to determine its value, and it’s also inconvenient to wait for several weeks at a separate window, I might as well consider it as not on the loot list.

“I agree. Since we don’t know the exact value, it’s fine to forget about it as a bust.”

Veronica, being the one who brought up Lumia’s magic in the first place, agreed without saying much.

“It’s fine! I don’t need to desperately make up for my lack of strength with money, and my growth isn’t that slow either! I have quite a bit of money saved up!”

Yeriel, with a bright smile and her tongue sticking out, agreed without any objections.

“Oh, right! Lumia, I wasn’t mad at you earlier, was I?”

Out of the four party members, including me, three agreed, but Lumia seemed taken aback and stumbled over her words.

“Uh, what?”

“Accept it. Lumia. Just say thank you at a time like this.”

“⋯Thank you all so much. I’ll try my best to learn when I return this time.”

Lumia laughed with teary eyes.

[Chaos says it’s an itchy conversation.]

Honestly, just seeing her expression, I felt the core had already paid for itself.

“Okay, everyone! Let’s eat and take a real break.”

In the heartwarming atmosphere, the conversation after dinner led to bedtime.

One day passed, then two, and three, and now four.

After confirming that everyone had recovered to their best condition over the course of several days, we stood in front of the portal in the central area.

The 8th floor.

“Everyone ready? Let’s go!”

We entered the blue portal leading to the next floor.

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Wooooong—

After riding the layer portal and landing somewhere, I looked around with caution.

The shining sunlight.

The lush forest nearby.

The yellow-brown dirt-based stones and gravel on the path I was standing on.

Even with Chaos’ Eye, I didn’t detect any dangerous elements and felt relieved.

This is the 8th floor.

The Boundary of Challenge.

Since it’s a collaboration between human-type and beast-type monsters, with a few cautionary elements, it’s said that if you underestimate it, thinking it’s just a layer to pass through to reach the Proof of Gate, you’ll end up with a bloody nose.

At a similar timing, the transferred companions also looked around at the new floor or checked their equipment.

“It’s said that from the 8th floor onwards, it gets brighter, so we won’t need torches.”

If I say sunlight, would it be strange? I’m not even sure if the thing floating in the sky is the sun.

Like the goblin forest on the 3rd floor, I don’t know the principle behind the sunlight-like light shining inside the Grand Labyrinth, but since each layer has a different space and unique creatures and elements, it’s more comfortable to just accept it as it is.

‘I’ve heard that even renowned scholars in the city don’t know much about the space inside the Grand Labyrinth.’

“Phew. Now I can finally live. I truly felt what it meant to be mentally exhausted.”

Yeriel, with her arms wide open, took a deep breath and savored the fresh air.

Yes. After seeing the black grass and tombstones in the resting area, and the night sky without a single star, looking at the lush forest, brown dirt, and bright sky made me feel healed.

Lumia, with perked-up ears, reported.

“There’s nothing that interferes with my senses right now. Just a moment.”

By now, she was used to it, and before riding the layer portal, she took out the map and compass she received and carefully examined the terrain.

This floor was also quite vast compared to the other floors we’ve been through.

To reach the central area where the portal to the next floor was located, we had to pass through the forest, just like in the resting area.

Usually, the most straightforward path was the crossroad, a wide path that stretched from each direction’s end to the portal.

There was also the option to pass through the dense forest or move through various side paths and trails.

“Ahren, it seems we’ve landed at a rather ambiguous point.”

“An ambiguous point?”

“Yeah. We have to choose between going straight into the nearest forest or walking to the crossroad and taking the wide path. What do you want to do?”

Hmm, what to do?

“How close is the crossroad from our current location?”

“⋯I can’t estimate the exact distance, but from the map, it seems like it would take about two to three hours.”

“Two to three hours. On the other hand, the forest is right in front of us.”

Considering the types of monsters that appear in the forest and on the crossroad, the inconvenience of camping at night, and the problem of having to light a fire or take out jerky right away, I decided.

I heard that on this side, there’s a gimmick where you encounter a monster at night, and it howls to call its pack.

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I made my decision.

Looking into their eyes, I spoke.

“I think our party’s strength at this point is not inferior to any other party passing through the 8th floor. Don’t you agree?”

“That’s true. We’re in a special situation, so we’re a bit late, but for a normal party aiming for higher floors, they would have already passed the 8th floor and moved on to the 9th and beyond.”

Considering the time we wasted from the 3rd floor onwards, it was highly likely that a mid-tier adventurer group or a party aiming for promotion had already left the 8th floor and reached the 9th and beyond. It was highly likely.

The trial, party separation, tag, giant monster hunting, and so on.

Unless there was another mid-tier party that went through similar hardships, our party was the strongest at this point on the 8th floor.

Therefore, the iron weapons and armor didn’t mean much.

Since camping in the forest would bring more trouble, it’s better to just push through with strength.

“The forest has too many things to consider and is too bothersome. Let’s take the crossroad and move faster. Lumia, can you guide us to the crossroad?”

“Sure. Leave it to me.”

Thud, thud.

Whether it was luck or not, we moved smoothly without encountering any monsters.

“So, we just need to go straight from here, right?”

And like that, two hours passed, and we reached the crossroad.