In the game, the party-joining system was an essential feature.
For example, suppose a five-person party on the middle floors or higher had, for whatever reason, been reduced to only an Archer, a Mage, and a Priest.
All of the frontliners who served as tanks had died.
It would be difficult for a group of backliners specialized in offense and support to make it all the way back to the first floor on their own.
But what if they happened to encounter two tanks from another party whose entire backline had been wiped out?
The two groups could simply merge and form a new five-person party.
It was truly a godsend in desperate circumstances.
If their Affinity grew high enough, you could even recruit them after returning to town.
But this was reality.
Apparently, I had been thinking about it too casually.
I never expected joining a party on the first floor to be this difficult.
The first to speak was the large, burly man with a shaved head.
“I am absolutely against it! Marauders are already running rampant. We cannot possibly travel with some suspicious stranger whose identity we do not even know!”
The skinny man with glasses picked up where he left off.
“I agree. The fact that he does not have a single wound on his body is suspicious as well. There is no need for five people to travel together in such a narrow maze.”
The handsome blond man finished it off.
“You heard them, dangerous stranger. There is no place for you among us.”
Everything they said was perfectly reasonable.
If I were in their position, I probably would have thought the same thing.
Yes.
If they had actually meant any of it.
‘This is ridiculous.’
I scoffed inwardly.
They were lying through their teeth without even trying to hide it.
Their expressions showed no tension whatsoever, and their arms hung loosely at their sides.
They did not regard me as an enemy in the slightest.
Then why were they acting so hostile toward me?
The answer was probably Claire, the only woman in the group.
“Everyone, please calm down. Even so, we cannot simply turn away someone who says he needs help.”
Her clear voice pleasantly brushed against my ears.
She was a red-haired woman dressed in armor.
Her appearance was so beautiful that she almost looked sculpted.
I could understand why the men had fallen for her... but that was the kind of thing that made sense in ordinary life.
‘Good grief.’
Romantic nonsense inside a labyrinth?
Were these people really adventurers?
Their bizarre party composition of four Warriors bothered me too.
“Please come this way. My name is Claire.”
Still, there was no point dwelling on it now.
I approached them at Claire’s invitation.
The blond man immediately closed the distance between us and whispered,
“I will permit you to accompany us.”
Then he quietly warned me,
“But remember this. Do not speak to Claire any more than necessary. Understood?”
I was so dumbfounded that I momentarily lost my words.
What kind of lunatic was this?
“And if I refuse?”
“What?”
“Are you her fiancé or something? If not, you seem awfully fond of meddling in other people’s business.”
The blond man’s face reddened as though I had insulted him.
“Meddling? Have you finished speaking?”
The atmosphere instantly turned hostile.
Maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut.
At that moment, the woman abruptly stepped between us and addressed the blond man.
“Sir Parian. If you speak that way to someone you have only just met, even a saint would take offense.”
“Ahem. I spoke quietly. You heard me as well?”
“Yes. And there is no reason he should speak to me only when absolutely necessary, is there?”
Thank goodness.
At least one of them seemed to have some sense.
“I apologize, Adventurer. Please allow me to apologize on his behalf. We have been wandering through the same area for hours, so I believe everyone has become somewhat sensitive.”
“Wandering? I thought you were heading for the exit.”
“Yes. But even though we have been following a map, it feels as though we are making no progress.”
“Can I see it?”
I took the map Claire handed me and examined it.
After checking several important sections, I reached a conclusion.
‘They got scammed.’
There was no such thing as a proper map of this maze in the first place.
That was because the maze changed little by little in real time.
Even now, it was probably shifting so gradually that we could not perceive it.
The way to navigate it was by recognizing patterns.
Using fixed areas such as altars and respawn zones as reference points, you compared them with monster spawn locations to determine the locations of traps, exits, and other landmarks.
It sounded simple when explained aloud, but learning it in practice required dozens of rounds of trial and error.
Sure enough, even after I gave them a simplified explanation, none of them understood.
Claire was the only one who grasped the gist of it.
“Then, Adventurer, you—”
“I’m Allen.”
“Then, Lord Allen, do you know the way?”
Of course I did.
I had already memorized the patterns completely.
How many times did she think I had entered this maze?
“So an Adventurer needs skills like these as well.”
Claire’s eyes sparkled as she pulled something out.
It was a small leather notebook and a quill pen.
When she began writing something down, I asked,
“What are you writing?”
“I was writing down the method you explained for finding the way.”
“Isn’t that a technique I learned through my own experience?”
“Pardon?”
“I’m asking whether it’s all right to take a technique someone struggled to learn just like that.”
“Ah, I’m sorry! I’ll tear it out right now—”
I stopped Claire as she hurriedly tried to rip the page from the notebook.
“I’m joking. It’s not much of a secret technique anyway.”
“Secret technique? What does that mean?”
Apparently, that expression did not exist here.
I naturally changed the subject.
“But why are you writing down methods for navigating the labyrinth?”
Because no matter how I looked at you people, you did not seem like adventurers.
“My father was an Adventurer while he was alive.”
“Did he die in the labyrinth?”
“Yes.”
Claire’s expression darkened.
Perhaps in an effort to keep the atmosphere from sinking, she forced a smile and continued.
“I am a Knight Trainee. Before becoming a knight, I wanted to visit the labyrinth once, for the first and last time.”
No wonder.
Her speech and mannerisms had struck me as belonging to that sort of background.
‘A commoner-born Knight Trainee.’
She had to be an elite.
There was even a saying that bloodline was a prerequisite for becoming a knight, since most knights were nobles.
“So? What do you think now that you’ve seen the labyrinth yourself?”
“It is... truly mysterious. I think I understand why my father climbed the labyrinth. If I were not pursuing knighthood, I might have aimed to become an Adventurer myself.”
Then her face reddened, and she hurriedly added as though making an excuse,
“Ah, I certainly do not mean to look down on Adventurers.”
“I know.”
Nine Adventurers out of ten would probably curse a knight for saying something like that.
They would consider it the complaint of someone who had everything.
“If there’s anything else you’re curious about, ask. I can answer most things.”
“Would that truly be all right?”
As though she had been waiting for the opportunity, Claire began firing questions at me.
Seeing how enthusiastic she was, I answered them one by one.
Behind her, I could see the trio glaring at me as though they wanted to kill me.
Surely they were not going to stab me in the back.
...Probably not.
Knights seemed to have naturally loud voices.
Even when they whispered, I could hear them.
Thanks to that, I learned quite a bit.
“Did you hear? The Kalsburg family is apparently recruiting Apprentice Knights.”
“Is that true?”
Whoa.
That startled me.
I did not expect my family’s name to suddenly come up.
“How many positions are there?”
“Three. Apparently, they are selecting personal knights for the Family Head’s children.”
“If someone becomes the heir’s personal knight, their future prospects will practically be guaranteed.”
The shaved-headed man and the man with glasses both looked excited.
The blond man watched them and spoke in an indifferent tone.
“I am not particularly interested. They may be a ducal house, but they are still in the North. I hear it is cold there and there is hardly anything good to eat. I would not go even if they paid me.”
‘This bastard….’
For some reason, that annoyed me a little.
“Well, I suppose one could see it that way. What do you think, Lady Claire?”
At the shaved-headed man’s question, all three men turned their attention to Claire.
She answered seriously.
“I am well aware of the Kalsburg family’s renown. There could hardly be a greater honor than becoming one of their knights. However—”
The trio leaned in when her sentence trailed off.
Somehow, I found myself listening intently too.
“As far as I know, the Kalsburg family does not employ commoner-born knights. If the rumor is true, then I would have no chance.”
Wait.
Did that mean all three of these bastards were nobles?
Now that I thought about it, they were quite something.
They probably entered the labyrinth solely because Claire said she was coming.
‘Nobles entering the labyrinth….’
The labyrinth was something like a privilege and a lottery ticket for commoners and the lower classes.
For nobles, entering the labyrinth itself was considered disgraceful.
A wealthy magnate would not board a deep-sea fishing vessel hoping to strike it rich, after all.
‘She is definitely beautiful, but….’
Was that alone really enough for them to go this far?
“Lord Allen, are you having trouble keeping up?”
Claire approached from behind and asked.
She had been worrying about me for a while now.
It was probably because of the general perception people had of Mages.
“…….”
I silently shook my head.
I was actually a little short of breath, but there was nothing I could do about that.
It had been my own decision to build myself as an intelligence-based character rather than a strength-based one.
We continued walking after that.
Perhaps another group was traveling ahead of us, because we did not encounter even a single common goblin.
Our easy journey lasted for a while longer before we finally encountered a monster blocking the way.
CLATTER.
Its body was made of stone blocks.
Its entire form was angular, and its yellowish-brown color matched the surrounding walls so closely that it was difficult to spot.
‘Damn it.’
The moment I saw it, irritation rose before any sense of danger did.
That thing was a Rank-10 monster called a Brickman.
It had absolutely no aggression, but the problem was its defense.
The hardness of its body was comparable to that of a Rank-8 monster.
CLANG!
“Urgh...! It is incredibly hard!”
“This will be difficult. We have not even left a scratch.”
They might have been knights, but they were still only trainees.
There was no way they could break through it.
There was no reason to obsess over something impossible, so I turned around.
“Lord Allen. Please wait a moment.”
Claire stopped me and drew the sword at her waist.
It was a greatsword almost a handspan longer than Claire herself, even though she was tall for a woman.
Holding the sword close to the left side of her body, she began approaching the Brickman.
“…….”
The Brickman silently blocked the path.
Claire steadied her breathing once, then swung her sword in a single motion.
WHOOSH!
For an instant, I had the illusion that a mountain itself had moved.
BOOM!
Her sword struck the head of the fortress-like Brickman.
It still did not budge, though its expression somehow looked bewildered.
Claire’s second strike slammed into the exact same spot with another BOOM!
CRUMBLE.
Fragments rained down from the Brickman’s head.
The Brickman slowly reached out and picked up one of the pieces.
Then Claire’s third and fourth strikes landed one after another.
A clear crack had already formed across its face.
BOOM!
I lost count of how many blows she had delivered.
The resulting explosions of sound kicked up dust throughout the labyrinth, obscuring my vision.
By then, the Brickman’s head had already been reduced to powder.
‘Holy shit.’
A Knight Trainee had just smashed a Brickman apart.
More than her technique or the force of the blows, what astonished me was her sheer physical strength.
How did she produce that kind of power with such a slender body?
“We can continue now.”
At her words, every man present, myself included, resumed walking without complaint.
For a moment, I felt a pang of regret.
If she had been an Adventurer, I would have recruited her by any means necessary.
In any case, there was not much farther to go before we reached the exit.
Once we passed through the plaza, the rest should be smooth sailing.
Walking quietly behind the others, I reached inside my clothes.
My hand closed around the pocket watch I had obtained from the man named Garen.
This was a Relic called the ‘Thief’s Compass.’
Its single hour hand pointed slightly to the right of our current path.
It indicated the location of the thieves’ hideout on the first floor.
The Relic’s effect allowed it to locate shelters on the lower floors.
‘Put it aside for now.’
It was a shame, but I would have to investigate it next time.
At this rate, we should reach the exit without anything happening.
Completely uneventfully.
People always said the market was struggling.
It was said so often that one might wonder whether the market had ever been good.
This time, however, Marco could genuinely feel the downturn himself.
As war and poverty began to decline, the change proved devastating to a merchant like him.
“Mr. Marco. We have received word from him.”
One of his subordinates leaned over and whispered the report into his ear.
Only then did Marco open his closed eyes and ask,
“Where...?”
“They are almost at the plaza. But apparently, they picked up an extra hanger-on.”
“A hanger-on...?”
“A Mage joined their group. What should we do?”
Marco fell into thought for a moment.
As a general rule, any deviation from the plan was undesirable.
But hearing that the newcomer was a Mage changed his mind somewhat.
It was common knowledge that the brains and hearts of Mages fetched high prices on the black market.
Not long ago, they had even received orders to capture any Mages they encountered alive.
“Capture him alive... the Mage too….”
This was certainly good fortune.
A beautiful woman and a rare Mage.
“We’re lucky….”
Now there was one more thing to add to the collection.
He had wondered why he had such a pleasant dream last night.
A greasy smile spread across the face of Marco, the slave trader.