Marco the “Leech.”
He was a Slave Trader operating in the black markets of the Garcia Empire.
If someone asked why I knew the name of some mere Slave Trader, the answer was simple.
It was because this lunatic was insane even by standards that defied common sense.
In truth, it would probably be more accurate to call Marco a collector than a merchant.
The reason he worked as a Slave Trader and the reason he obsessively hoarded money both stemmed from his uncontrollable desire to collect things.
And I knew about the first victims of that obsession.
“There’s something I want to ask. How’s your family doing?”
“Ahaha… We’ve barely met, and you’re already asking about my family…?”
“I’m not asking how they’re doing. I’m asking whether they’re still alive.”
“You keep talking like you know me… Do you know something about me…?”
Marco began loosening the muscles of his face with his right hand.
Using his index finger and thumb, he forcibly pulled the corners of his mouth upward.
“Of course I do. You’re probably the only lunatic among Slave Traders who sold his own family.”
“Ahaha….”
Marco’s eyes gleamed.
This bastard… he was actually enjoying this.
“I still remember it so vividly… The look on his face when his own son sold him was truly… something I wanted to preserve forever….”
Lunatic.
Even knowing he was merely a character originally created for a game, hearing it still sent a chill through me.
If I kept talking to him, I felt like I would be the one losing my mind, so I went straight to the point.
“Garbo. How did you get that Werewolf slave?”
“How did I get him…? I paid another Slave Trader the proper price… He was a criminal, wasn’t he…?”
“Cut the bullshit. A promising Rank 7 Adventurer suddenly committed murder in the middle of the capital? For what reason?”
It was something I had never been able to confirm before.
Not through the screen of a game.
If there was one advantage to entering this world, it was this.
I could learn things that had never been revealed in the game.
I looked at Marco, who was smiling faintly.
“That was your doing, wasn’t it?”
“Ahaha… How did you know…?”
“What the hell did you do?”
Without realizing it, my heart began beating faster.
This was information that had never appeared in the game.
And now, the secret was finally coming directly from the person responsible.
“Werewolves are famous even among collectors… And I happened to get my hands on an excellent drug… It suppresses the reason of other races and draws their instincts out to the absolute limit… One dose and they’re practically a Monster….”
“You framed him?”
“Framed him…? That was the beast’s own instinct… The drug merely awakened it….”
“You’re insane.”
“Ahaha. He had no idea I orchestrated any of it. He even followed me obediently because he thought I was the master who saved him… The problem was giving him orders… He kept saying strange things about refusing to kill innocent people… So I had a brain transplant performed… Thinking about it now, what a waste… If Garbo still had his original brain, you’d be the one lying dead right now….”
Marco sighed and glared at me with murderous intent.
“You ruined everything… Well, I’ll probably die here… but this won’t be the end… I already sent your name and description to the higher-ups….”
“…What the fuck are you talking about now?”
Marco pulled a Crystal Orb from inside his clothes.
“One of the Crossbowmen has another orb connected to this one… I sent him ahead just in case… He should be leaving the Labyrinth soon….”
Damn this bastard.
He was already on his way out?
Even if I chased him immediately, there was no guarantee I could catch him.
“You know what that means…? They’ll come after you… A Mage who can use two schools of magic is rare….”
“…Yeah. Probably.”
“They’re dangerous… Someone like you will be captured and killed before you know it… They’ll take what they want from your body… Ahaha….”
Marco threw his head back and laughed as though he genuinely found the thought amusing.
He laughed for quite a while.
Then, just as abruptly, he stopped.
“So… why don’t we end this here…? I’ll stop the Crossbowman even now….”
He was making me an offer.
Spare his life.
In return, he would keep my information from reaching his superiors.
“I don’t know. That doesn’t sound very sincere. Why don’t you get on your knees and beg?”
“If I do… will you spare me…?”
“Maybe.”
Marco silently stared into my eyes.
A brief silence passed between us.
Then Marco’s lips curled into a grin.
He relaxed his grip on the Crystal Orb.
CRASH!
The orb shattered into fragments.
Pieces scattered across the floor and glittered near my feet.
I immediately summoned an Ice Sword in front of me.
Then I sent it straight toward him.
THUD!
“Ah… ahaha….”
Still smiling, Marco fell backward.
Once he collapsed completely, I snapped my fingers and dismissed the Ice Sword.
I would have liked to rest immediately after dealing with Marco, but there were still several things I needed to do.
First, after exhausting myself both physically and mentally in battle, collecting the spoils was urgent.
Apparently, illegal business really was profitable.
At first, I had been disappointed that Marco did not even carry something as common as a bag.
Then again, he was a merchant rather than an Adventurer, so it made sense that he had not come here loaded with hunting equipment.
But I had never expected all of that to be foreshadowing for this.
‘A ring?’
The only thing I recovered from Marco was a black ring.
I carefully removed it and put it on, but nothing happened.
Why would a lunatic like him bother wearing an ordinary accessory?
Acting on a suspicion, I raised my mana and poured some into the ring.
“…!”
The moment a small amount of mana entered it, I felt something extremely strange.
My eyes were looking directly at the ring, yet the space within it somehow felt vast.
Between my talent for magic and the knowledge I already possessed, I immediately understood.
‘Subspace.’
It was a Subspace Ring, an extraordinarily rare Relic containing the principles of Spatial Magic.
A mysterious storage space capable of holding items without ordinary spatial limitations.
It was a priceless convenience that freed Adventurers from the eternal burden of carrying backpacks, and it had also been one of the items I always made sure to obtain in the game.
How many terrible things had Marco done to afford this?
He had probably saved every coin he earned until he could finally purchase it.
As a merchant, he must have considered it extraordinarily useful.
‘Of course, the same goes for an Adventurer.’
Thinking about Marco’s victims almost made me feel guilty about taking it.
But the item itself had committed no crime.
I immediately channeled mana into the ring and searched through its contents.
Aside from miscellaneous junk, there was nothing particularly valuable.
I was not disappointed.
The Subspace Ring alone was more than enough compensation.
After everything I had just been forced to endure, I searched through the rest of Marco’s belongings to see whether there was anything else worth taking.
There was nothing.
“…….”
Looking around, I saw Garbo’s body lying nearby and Claire collapsed against a wall.
Her eyes were closed, and her breathing was steady.
Paralysis should not have rendered her unconscious for this long.
It was probably time to wake her.
We needed to get out of here quickly.
“Cough!”
Suddenly, I coughed up blood.
‘Fuck?’
It was the backlash from pushing both my mana and physical abilities to their limits.
A warning came from somewhere deep inside my body, one that I could not ignore.
The exhilaration I had felt earlier vanished completely.
My heart, which had been beating at an insane pace, gradually began slowing.
“Haa… haa….”
It felt as though the blood were draining from my limbs.
Cold swept over my body like a severe fever.
Soon, the strength left my legs, and I collapsed onto the floor.
The stone was already cold, and the blood spilled during the battle soaked into my clothes.
“Ugh….”
Cold.
I wished I had something to cover myself with.
Even thinking clearly was becoming difficult.
My consciousness was gradually slipping away.
I felt as though I might black out at any moment.
‘Absolutely not….’
I forced my eyes open and pinched my hand.
I did not know whether I was simply falling asleep or something worse, but I could not allow myself to lose consciousness here.
At the very least, I needed to figure out some way to keep my body warm before—
‘Ah… damn it….’
That was as far as my thoughts went.
It felt as though someone were watching my body from far away.
With that strange sensation lingering, I lost consciousness.
Claire’s eyes snapped open.
When she regained consciousness, the surroundings were terrifyingly quiet.
It took her only three seconds to understand the situation.
She hurriedly sat up and looked around.
“…!”
The first thing she noticed was the blood across the floor.
Her gaze followed it until she found someone lying nearby.
A man with Platinum Blond hair entered her vision.
Claire jolted and rushed toward him.
“Young Master Allen!”
Judging from the amount of blood around him, she feared the worst.
Holding her breath, she quickly examined Allen.
She took his hand and checked for a pulse.
THUMP… THUMP….
A faint pulse answered beneath her fingers.
Without realizing it, Claire released a sigh of relief.
“Haa….”
She removed his blood-soaked outer clothing and checked him for injuries.
Apparently, most of the blood was not his.
There were no obvious wounds on his body.
Only after confirming that did she notice that he was trembling from the cold.
Claire hurriedly removed her own outer garment and covered him with it.
Then she moved him closer to the torch.
Even then, his shivering did not stop.
With no other choice, Claire stayed close beside him, sharing her body heat.
She did not know how much time passed.
Eventually, his trembling subsided.
Only then did she finally relax.
“…….”
Claire looked around at the bloodstained room and the bodies scattered throughout it.
Following her father’s dying wish, she had spent her entire life moving toward a single goal.
Becoming a knight.
Before she could achieve that dream, her father had died in a Labyrinth while working as an Adventurer.
She had only wanted to understand a little of what he had experienced.
So why had everything turned out like this?
‘If… I hadn’t met Young Master Allen….’
By now, she would probably have been one of the bodies lying here.
Her chances of surviving alone had been almost nonexistent.
Especially against the Werewolf who had accompanied the man named Marco.
His strength had been incomprehensible.
‘Then how…?’
How had Allen survived against him?
“…….”
Haa… haa….
Allen’s breathing gradually became steadier.
Listening to it, Claire swallowed the words she had been about to say.
Twice now, she had received a debt of gratitude she could hardly imagine repaying.
How could she ever repay all of this?
She quietly waited for her benefactor to awaken.
And as she waited, she began thinking about what she should do from now on.