The labyrinth was 'reset' on the first day of every year, and it changed slightly each time.
The overall framework stayed the same, while the fine details kept shifting, so to speak.
On the 1st floor, the layout itself never changed, but the locations and numbers of objects tied to Special Zones and Mysteries were randomly rearranged, which served as the standard for dividing maps into 'Basic' and 'Expanded.'
"An Expanded Map... That isn't something a beginner would use."
"So, can you give it to me?"
"Is that all you want?"
"That's right around what that Mystery is worth."
"Oh, how conscientious of you."
An Expanded Map was quite expensive.
First of all, it had to be remade from scratch every year, and on top of that, the 1st floor was fucking huge.
By the lore's setting, it was probably bigger than South Korea's territory, wasn't it?
Since people had to comb through all of that, it took a brutal amount of labor, and it was only natural for the market price to rise accordingly.
"Fine. It's a deal."
Still, the man opened his pouch and pulled out an Expanded Map as if it were no big deal.
I caught what he tossed over and immediately handed it to the Dwarf.
"Check it."
"...How do you mean?"
"Just see if the Elite Room we marked matches."
"Oh, right."
The Dwarf quickly examined the map and soon let me know he was done checking.
"It matches."
Barring an absurd coincidence, this map was genuine.
From now on, as long as we put in the time, we could strip the 1st floor down to the marrow.
Well, now it's my turn.
"What you want is that red light you saw at the Water Source—that Mystery, right?"
"That's right."
I explained what I knew without hesitation, and the man meticulously wrote it all down.
"Ninety-nine Divinations, huh... If you hit a good one, it'd be very useful."
"I don't recommend using it yourself. Once you get one, you can't erase it."
"So that's why the price was cheap. Is there anything else left to explain?"
"You can receive multiple Divinations. And the quality of the potion has nothing to do with the Divination, so you're better off not using high-grade potions."
Looking quite satisfied, the man continued taking notes, then slipped the sheet of paper, now packed with writing, into his bag.
"By the way... no matter how many times I look at you, you seem like a beginner, yet you know this in quite some detail. Did you figure it out yourself?"
"That wasn't part of the deal."
If I were to answer honestly, I'd have to say I played this world as a game for 20 years—but I couldn't exactly tell him that.
"Then I can just make a new trade for this question. What do you need?"
"A record of 'Piercing Evil' or so, and I'll answer you."
"...I've never heard of a monster like that."
"Then you can't give me what I want."
I brushed it off with a plausible excuse, and perhaps because he roughly caught on to my intent, he didn't press any further about it.
Instead, though, was this his replacement?
Rather than asking, the man began staring straight through me.
I tried to ignore it, but because his gaze was so blatantly overbearing, my mouth ended up pried open against my will.
"...Do you want something?"
"What's your name?"
"..."
Fuck, he scared the shit out of me.
Don't glare at me over something like that—just ask right away, you bastard.
"Don't have a name?"
"...Yuta."
"Yuta. Hm, I'll remember it."
"What's your name?"
"..."
The man, whose expressions were as honest as could be, looked somewhat dumbfounded at my question.
"...You don't know me?"
True to his expensive price tag, he seemed to be quite a celebrity.
"Am I supposed to?"
"Usually, people do."
Since he put it like that, I glanced back over my shoulder—
"I do not know him either!"
"...It's my first time seeing him."
"Me too..."
Even my party members didn't recognize this guy at all.
For the record, in [Dungeon Log], the names of all NPCs other than the player character weren't displayed.
Depending on the situation, they just showed up roughly as their race name, 'Companion,' or 'Suspicious Explorer.'
"So, what's your name?"
"Find out for yourself."
My encounter with the man ended there.
After tossing out that half-hearted reply, the guy vanished straight into the cave beyond.
Staring at the empty spot, I thought to myself.
'Is that bastard nuts?'
I need to know your name to look you up or not.
Once we got back to the city, I'd have to ask around to see which of the famous guys was the biggest nutjob.
***
An Orc was a very useful party member.
I didn't mean the Orc race as a whole, but rather 'Urka,' the Orc belonging to our party.
"The short hand has reached 8! Human! Dwarf! Elf! Wake up!"
Even though his core concept was a barbarian warrior, he had the coward trait, and on top of that, he had the drawback of bottom-tier intelligence even among Orcs, a race with rather low intelligence to begin with...
"Is it morning already...?"
"Ugh... Next time, I definitely need to bring a sleeping bag..."
"Good work. I slept well thanks to you."
The Constitution he possessed, [Healthy Insomnia].
Just by guaranteeing enough sleep for our entire party through that ability alone, he was easily pulling his weight.
"I did nothing!"
He didn't really realize it himself, but in truth, his contribution to keeping our party in such fine shape all the way to today, our 6th day, was immense.
"Is everyone ready?"
"Yes."
"I've packed everything."
"A warrior is always battle-ready!"
"Urka, you're holding your axe backward."
"...E-even like this, I can easily kill weak monsters!"
Starting off noisy again today, I see.
In any case, our party's 6th day had dawned safely.
Before starting our schedule, the Dwarf unfolded the map.
Not the Basic Map we had been using until now, but a full-fledged 'Expanded' Map.
When he opened the booklet-style map, a picture completely different from the dead-simple one before—
"Oooh..."
"How do you even read this?"
"It makes me dizzy!"
A map marked with countless symbols revealed itself.
"Nice."
"Our location is here. And the exit is here."
"What's the route?"
The Dwarf drew his pen briskly across the rather complex maze to mark the path we would take.
"Didn't you say it's about a day's travel away?"
"That's right. It's around 10 kilometers."
"That leaves us with a day to spare."
The 6th day had only just begun, and we wouldn't be able to leave the labyrinth until we filled out the full 7th day.
If we headed straight for the exit, we would just end up wasting a whole day there.
It wasn't a very good choice.
Because... we were a bit broke right now.
'Around 1,000 gold, maybe.'
That was the amount we could pocket from selling our byproducts.
Not each person's share, either—that was the total for all of us combined.
Per person, we'd only be holding a measly 250 gold or so.
With that money, we had to survive the week it took to re-enter the labyrinth and prepare for our next expedition—
'Way too tight.'
Therefore, we decided to spend the remaining day making money.
Originally, since this was Twinkle Dog territory, I had given up on the idea, but thanks to happening to get our hands on an Expanded Map, it was a different story now.
"We'll stop by here."
I pointed at a Special Zone located near our route.
***
A Special Zone situated near the halfway point of the route toward the exit.
The symbol marked on the map and the entrance was a sparkle shape—somewhere between a sea urchin and a major's rank insignia.
The name of this place was—
[Powder Room]
Its function was simple.
"What is that?"
"...Is it a table?"
A wide altar sat in the center.
"It's a monster spawner."
There, I could summon a 'Twinkle Dog' of any element I wanted.
To set the element, all I had to do was turn the rod fitted beside the altar, align the desired element facing upward, and slot it in.
"This one is fire element, right?"
"Then this must be ice."
"I can tell too! A zigzag... Hm...! I know! This is definitely a fist! It looks like a rock cracked from being punched by a fist!"
"It's lightning."
"What is that?!"
"Electricity, thunderbolts... that sort of thing. The magic I use is lightning magic, too. And there's no such thing as a fist element."
"I see!"
There was nothing to agonize over.
Among Twinkle Dogs, only one kind made money anyway.
"From now on, I'll only summon the steel element."
"Steel... Doesn't that sound strong?"
"It's tough, but slow. Attack it from all sides the moment it's summoned."
After aligning the rod's position, I pushed it in with a click—and along with a brief flash of light, a beast covered in gray glitter appeared.
"Kraaang!"
It barked fiercely, but having already beaten over a dozen Twinkle Dogs to a pulp, we knew this thing's level.
Its roar failed to intimidate us, and the lone Twinkle Dog that had appeared—
"Kill it!"
"Kyau..."
The moment it was born, it became a corpse—
SHHK! SHHK!
—and turned into a fine byproduct.
For the record, the byproduct of a steel-element Twinkle Dog was a pelt dusted with glitter.
If the condition was good, you could get up to 50 gold per pelt.
"Seven times a Goblin's, you say?!"
And the altar's cooldown was only 5 minutes.
"Fifty gold every 5 minutes? Doesn't that mean 600 gold an hour... and over 10,000 gold in a day?!"
Granted, that was assuming we got top-grade pelts every single time, but either way, it was definitely an easy place to make money.
Even at worst, three or four hours here would more than beat what we'd earned busting our asses for five whole days.
Because of that, it was a fairly popular spot among beginners.
'Which does make me a little uneasy...'
Well, we just had to get through one day without trouble.
Click.
"Kyauung!"
"Kill it!"
First, time to make some money.
***
As time passed, the Twinkle Dog pelts piled up fast.
Before we knew it, a little over eight hours had gone by, and the pelts we had gathered in that time numbered an honest forty-eight.
We wouldn't know the exact price until we had them appraised when selling, but at the absolute minimum, it would easily top 1,000 gold.
"That much, you say?"
"Wait, this feels kind of unfair. Doesn't that mean what we made here in eight hours is more than what we earned over five days?"
I didn't bother pointing it out, but it was nothing to feel wronged about at all.
If you didn't know anything, you'd end up a corpse in no time, whereas you walked away with as much as you knew.
A land where danger and opportunity coexisted, like the Americas of a certain era.
Because that was the labyrinth.
"Think of it positively. Either way, we got good results."
Cashable pelts in the city weren't the only thing we had gained from farming Twinkle Dogs.
"For starters, all four of us got a record, didn't we?"
First off, all four members of our party had obtained the Twinkle Dog's Normal Record, which granted 1 point of Mana.
Considering the standard drop rate for a record was around 1%, it was phenomenal luck.
It was also worth noting that none of those four drops had been a useless Special Record.
"And I'm glad a proper reward seems to have gone to you too, Yuta."
As for me, I had obtained a new Rune skill, a 1-cost spell called [Grease].
Since it was a practical skill that could be put to use in all sorts of ways, I was fairly satisfied with it myself.
"Let's call it a day here and get some sleep."
"How about we round it out to 50?"
"You look pretty exhausted... Are the rest of you okay?"
"I'm fine with it. It's only 10 minutes anyway, isn't it?"
"...N-no problem at all! Huff... A-a warrior's stamina is infinite!"
That was when it happened.
After waiting 5 minutes, I was about to move to summon another Twinkle Dog when my veins suddenly stood on end.
'...What is this?'
A sudden chill ran down my spine.
It felt as if an ominous premonition had taken physical form and brushed right against my skin.
Without any warning sign at all, that unease suddenly began washing over me.
'Wait, I think I felt this last time, too.'
The night of Day 1.
Back then, my body had been so dead tired that I hadn't felt it properly, but now I could sense it clearly.
This is the exact same kind of discomfort as back then.
And right after I felt that, we ran into the Raiders.
'...No way.'
Sure enough.
"It's all over now! How are we supposed to find those bastards on the 1st floor! It's not even right after we lost them—the 6th day is almost over already! The way I see it, they already left! They've probably reported us!"
"Stop whining already! If they really reported us, an investigation squad would've come down by now! Do you think finding us would be hard for those guys?!"
"Shut up and keep moving!"
Following the voices I remembered all too clearly—
"..."
"..."
The faces I had gone over again and again in my head so I could sketch composites the moment we got back up to the city came into view.
"Hah..."
Son of a bitch.
No wonder our luck was going so well.
***
< Yuta Histinger >
Race: Human
Grade: 1-Star
Rune Slots: 2 / 5
—Surprise Lightning (1-Cost) / Proficiency 5.7%
—Grease (1-Cost) / Proficiency 0.2%
Special Record
Body (Stage 0)
Muscle: 10 / Frame: 10 / Senses: 10
Magic (Stage 0)
Sorcery: 10 / Mana: 11 / Regeneration: 10
Overcoming (Stage 0)
Resistance: 0 / Mind: 0 / Indomitability: 0