I Became a Slave Collector in the Labyrinth City

“Young lady. Wake up.”

“Uh… Hmm? Yawn Ah.”

The young lady looks around, wiping her drool.
How peacefully did she sleep in this situation?

“We’re still in the labyrinth, huh.”

“Yes. We’re still in the labyrinth.”

“Damn it.”

Did she hope to be outside when she opened her eyes?
Unfortunately, there’s no chauffeur service here.
We have to walk out on our own feet.

“Young lady, I’m going to sleep a bit too. Here, do you see this hourglass?”

“Yeah. How many hours does it run?”

“It runs out in about 4 hours. Please wake me up then.”

“Alright. Um…”

“Yes?”

“Can I stay like this?”

It seems she wants to stay in my embrace. It would be cold if she moves away.

“Sure, do as you like.”

I decided not to mind since it’s warmer and better for me too to keep hugging the young lady.

Well then, let me get some shut-eye.

“Is he asleep?”

“…”

“He’s sleeping.”

The heavy weight of a man felt on her back.
Sion seemed to be asleep.

‘He can sleep so easily in this situation.’

Despite having slept while drooling herself, Lea reproached Sion for falling asleep so insensitively.

‘By the way, I wonder what happened to the others.’

A question that arose as her drowsiness faded and her mind cleared.
What happened to the female knight Rika, the witch Rien, and the priestess Erika?

Where did the three of them disappear to?
Maybe they were blown to the depths of the labyrinth.

If that’s the case.

‘They’re probably…’

Dead.
The chances of survival were slim if someone who hadn’t properly gone through mana adaptation was suddenly dragged to the depths.

Dizziness and vomiting, hand tremors and anemia are just the beginning, gradually it becomes difficult to breathe, and in severe cases, it can lead to death from respiratory failure.

Suffocation in a labyrinth without water.
The most common death for newcomers who fall into the 5th floor or below of the labyrinth without proper mana adaptation.

‘It can’t be. They’re not the type to die so easily.’

Although she might lack knowledge about monsters, the female knight Rika’s skills were not low.
The witch Rien’s ability to improvise and the priestess Erika’s mental strength were also reliable.

As long as they didn’t fall below the 5th floor, they should be alive. That’s what Lea thought.
But on the other hand, she was still anxious.

‘But they don’t have a porter.’

If they had a porter too, they could survive more easily.
After all, it’s the porter who’s dragging even herself, who’s almost no help in combat, by the scruff of her neck.

A porter with knowledge about the labyrinth and all sorts of items was a cheat key that increased survival rate several times just by existing.

Without such a porter, could the other companions safely escape the labyrinth?
Her worries deepened and negative thoughts grew.

This is not good.
Realizing this, Lea shook her head to clear away the distracting thoughts.

She could only hope for their safety.

‘Please, let them all be safe.’

Lea worried about her companions.
They were like childhood friends to her.

“Cough. Cough.”

The witch Rien opened her eyes.
Caught up in the Great Shift, she was blown alone to the underground tomb.

The porter grabbed Lea, and the female knight Rika grabbed the priestess Erika who was next to her.
But Rien wasn’t grabbed by anyone and was blown away alone.

If there’s one fortunate thing, it’s that this is the 1st floor.

“Wh-where did everyone go…?”

No matter how much she looked around, she couldn’t sense anyone else’s presence besides her own.
The labyrinth was eerily quiet, and around her were only the undead who had lost their minds.

“Uooh…”

“Eek..! It’s disgusting..! It stinks..!!”

A half-rotten zombie emitting a foul smell staggered towards Rien.
Zombies were the most basic monsters in the underground tomb area.

They’re easy to deal with, but they don’t feel pain or fear and keep attacking until their heads are smashed. They’re monsters that need to be dealt with quickly because if you’re careless, you can quickly be cornered, and once cornered, you’re likely to die from the gathered ones.

“Ugh!”

Rien immediately shot a fireball towards the approaching zombie.
Her most confident magic flies towards the zombie’s head.

Whoosh!

“Uooooh!!”

The zombie whose head caught fire died while flailing its arms towards the sky.
The zombie dies helplessly as its weak point, the head, burns.

“What? This is easier than I thought??”

Rien laughed as she looked at the zombie that fell to the ground dead.
The enemy died much more easily than expected.

“This might be… an easy win?”

Rien, an extroverted introvert, quickly became confident.
She realized that although their appearance was frightening, in the end, they were creatures that died with just one fireball.

“Well, well… The labyrinth isn’t much after all…!”

Although she was very tense after being separated from her team members, seeing the zombie sprawled on the floor made her confidence surge.

It was unfounded confidence, optimism born from lack of experience.
Perhaps it was a struggle to forget her fear. It might have been her own way of shaking off her terror.

In any case, the labyrinth wasn’t so lenient as to let a beginner be happy after killing just one zombie.

The moment you overestimate your skills and feel that the labyrinth is nothing special.

That can be seen as the biggest crisis.

“Oh no..! My magic power..!!”

Mana is not infinite.
This is common sense and something that those who handle mana should always be mindful of.

But people sometimes forget such obvious things.
Whether they’re tense or arrogant.

Rien was clearly tense.
She overused magic on zombies, and when her torch ran out, she kept using magic to create light sources, consuming mana.

As a result, her magic power was completely depleted, and now all she had left in her hand was her staff.

A zombie approaches Rien. It didn’t wait for Rien to respond.
Zombies simply do their best to bite and kill the living.

“Ugh…!”

The zombie stretches out its arm.
If she doesn’t deal with it quickly, she’ll soon be surrounded by zombies drawn by the sound, and the moment she’s surrounded, she’ll meet her death.

“D-die!”

The only attack method left is the staff she’s holding.
In the end, in her urgency, she swung the precious pine staff given by her master to crack the zombie’s head.

Crack.

A sensation she’s never felt before.
The feeling of bones and flesh being crushed traveling up her hand was extremely unpleasant and chilling.
The sensation was quite unfamiliar and unsettling as she directly beat a zombie to death, which she had been burning with magic until now.

Moreover, the fact that her cherished staff was now covered in dirty zombie blood slightly lowered her mental strength.

“Ugh. It’s dirty..!!!”

Rien suddenly disliked the labyrinth even more.
It was hell to be struggling in a place she would never have entered if it weren’t for Lea.

She wants to escape immediately, but for some reason, the transfer stone is nowhere to be seen.

“Ugh. I need to find a transfer stone quickly…”

To escape this hellish place as soon as possible, Rien wandered around looking for a transfer stone.

And after wandering for a while, what greeted Rien was a staggering… skeleton.

“Huh?”

Skeletons weren’t supposed to appear on the 1st floor of the underground tomb.
As the shallowest floor, only zombies weak enough for a mage to beat with a staff should appear normally.

However, for some reason, a skeleton that should only appear from the 2nd floor was now standing in front of Rien.

There’s no vanguard to block the front. No mana left.
She can’t defeat a skeleton with the staff that’s severely damaged from how many zombie heads she’s bashed in.

Now there’s nothing left for her…

“Ah.”

…Death approaches.

The rusty sword swung by the skeleton.
Rien hurriedly tried to dodge the sword, but there was no way a slow mage could properly avoid it.

Slash!

The rusty blade tore through her clothes, leaving a wound on her arm.
If she doesn’t receive purification and healing prayers quickly, she’ll get tetanus.

“It hurts..!! It hurts hurts hurts hurtssss!!!”

What’s more serious is that this is the first time she’s been injured like this, and she wasn’t mentally sound enough to properly respond to the burning pain that occurs when flesh is cut by a blade.

Rien has been wandering alone in the dark labyrinth full of the undead for 7 hours now, smelling the rotten stench.

She exhausted her mana by creating fire in pitch-black darkness after her torch ran out.
She was about to collapse from hunger, sleepiness, and fatigue.

In her abnormal state, she fell into fear and panic.
She floundered in panic, intimidated by the death energy emitted by the undead.

It felt like she was sinking in a swamp.
The swamp of death tightly grips her ankle, dragging Rien into deeper waters.

A cruel death sentence was about to fall on the young witch who hadn’t properly experienced the labyrinth.

The labyrinth doesn’t show mercy and thrusts its blade.

“Ah.. Ugh.”

Rising nausea.
Nothing came up because she hadn’t eaten anything.
Rien just dry heaved and floundered.

‘W-what should I do? What to do? What should I do?’

No matter how much she asked herself, there was no answer.
Her mind goes blank. There was no one to show her the way.

She has to break through alone.
Failure means death.

‘Ah. Aah.’

Just as the skeleton’s second attack was about to cut her neck.
Rien remembered what the porter had said.

-Did you know? Even with corpses, the possibility of resurrection depends on their condition.

Even if a corpse is found, resurrection is impossible if the degree of damage is severe.
And here, the underground tomb was an area with a particularly high rate of corpse mutilation by the undead.

If you die, it’s completely over.
You won’t be resurrected.

Will she die like this?
Will she give up her life, steeped in fear, just from a single wound on her arm?

[You may give up. Die and become food for the labyrinth, you incompetent wench.]

Rien thought she heard someone’s voice in her ear.
At that moment, she escaped her panic state due to a rebellious psychology, and was able to stagger away from the skeleton.

The skeleton chased after the fleeing Rien.

The undead pursue the living to the end.
As they chased and were chased, zombies started to gather one by one like flies, drawn by the noise they made.

Death was still by Rien’s side.
Far from moving away, it was coming even closer.
Once it started rolling, it kept rolling endlessly.

A moment of carelessness.
A slight mistake.

As if to pay the price for not properly managing her mana, the grim reaper’s scythe was at Rien’s neck.

“Kyaa!!!”

She tripped over the leg of a dead adventurer and fell.
The rusty sword swung by the skeleton stabbed right next to her head.

She’s dying.
She’s going to die.

The desperate struggle of the newbie adventurer was about to end in failure—

“Over there!”

Someone’s shout pierced Rien’s ears.
Following that, an arrow flew and shattered the skeleton’s head.

Pung

The skeletal soldier lost its strength and collapsed.

Rien sat down on her trembling legs and looked up at the approaching figures.

She was saved just before death.

“Hey, miss. Are you alright?”

An adventurer with a greatsword on his back.
The golden badge hanging from his neck.

It’s a high-rank badge made of precious metal, not copper or iron.
It means he’s a veteran adventurer who can roam around the 5th floor underground city or below.

“There are wounds on her arm and back.”

“First, let’s give her first aid. Hey, miss. Didn’t you see anyone else? Is it just you?”

“Ah, that….”

7 hours after the Great Shift.

After assessing the situation, the city had gathered a large number of high-ranking adventurers and was conducting rescue operations.
A large number of veterans skilled enough to go down at least to the 5th floor underground city had entered the labyrinth.

They couldn’t save adventurers who had fallen below that, but they could cover up to the 5th floor.

“Ah… Lady Lea…”

“What? Lady Lea?”

“Wait, captain. Could she be…”

“Hey, you need to speak clearly. Are you talking about Lady Lea?”

“Y-yes..! Th-that’s right…!”

“Where is she now?”

“Th-that… I don’t really…”

Rien didn’t have any answers she could give because she didn’t know anything either.
Realizing there was no information to be gained, the search team captain made a regretful expression and ordered his team member.

“For now, take her outside. We’ll continue going in.”

Rien was soon able to be carried out of the labyrinth on the back of the search team’s swordsman.

Outside, it was a moonlit night.
Still far from dawn.

“Haa. Haa…”

The outside air she hadn’t breathed in a long time.
As the cold night air pierced her lungs, Rien could finally be sure that she had survived.

At the same time, she frowned at the faintly transmitted pain.

It wasn’t because of her wounds.
Mana adaptation was occurring in her body.

“Ugh.. It hurts..”

The mana adaptation was changing her body.
Rien’s physical strength and magic power increased slightly, and her five senses became a bit sharper.

But the changes didn’t stop there.

“Aah..!!”

An intense shock hit her brain.
Some new information was forcibly engraved in her mind.

It was an ability.

“Clue tracking…”

An ability to locate the position of a target using an object belonging to them.

Rien gritted her teeth at the ability given at such a timely moment, as if telling her to enter the labyrinth again to find her companions.

Was it mere coincidence that she was given clue tracking, or was it the malice of the labyrinth?

The entrance to the underground tomb she had escaped from flashed ominously like the mouth of a beast.
As if asking if she would stay still despite obtaining such an ability.

“Damn it.”

There’s no reason not to search if she can find them.
After all, her role is to guard Lea Lionel.

Rien broke Lea’s headband in half.

The ability activates.

West.
She could sense Lea’s energy from the west of the labyrinth city.

It was the entrance to the breeding ground.