Chapter 117: The House Disappeared

“Well, I guess that wraps up our discussion.”

“Indeed. I’m counting on you, Rosie.”

“Hmm. I’ll do my best.”

“Thank you both.”

The three people shook hands and smiled warmly as if concluding some summit meeting.

I sat on the sofa, looked at the three of them, and sighed. I’m glad it worked out well.

“Um… Is everything okay…?”

“Yeah. I’m just glad they didn’t fight.”

I patted Olivia’s head in response to her worried question, saying I was satisfied with how things turned out.

It’s fortunate they didn’t fight. If even one of those three had disagreed with the current situation and tried to fight, the house would have been blown away.

Yuria was someone who knew the virtue of compromise, Rosie was someone who knew propriety, and Young Lady Rea seemed to have decided to go along with Yuria’s wishes as the relative underdog.

“Is Olivia okay with this?”

“Huh? Y-yes… I’m… quite satisfied with the current situation…”

Olivia didn’t seem to have any complaints about Rosie joining either.

To begin with, she doesn’t express many opinions. She seemed to have found peace of mind since coming to this house.

“Then I’ll be heading back now. See you next time.”

“Okay. Come over for a meal sometime.”

“I’m grateful for your hospitality.”

“I should get going too. It was nice seeing you after so long. I’ll come visit again.”

Rosie and Rea left.

Rosie returned to the Order, and Young Lady Rea said she had to stop by her master’s place for afternoon training.

“I’ll be going out for a bit too.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to the hole-in-the-wall shop. I need to tell Raphanel about the experiment results.”

“Oh? Alright. Ah, can you buy some basil on your way back? We’re out.”

“Okay. I’ll get some.”

I can buy it on my way back from the hole-in-the-wall shop.

The cuisine in this world tends to use a lot of basil. It’s like how Koreans use plenty of garlic in their food.

I enjoy the flavor of basil too, so I often add it to my dishes.

I also eat garlic and perilla leaves frequently. People here don’t seem to eat perilla leaves much. So I buy them cheap and enjoy them by myself.

They only use tiny amounts of garlic in cooking here. I tend to buy large quantities and stock up on it. Yuria commented once that I smell of garlic.

Without kimchi in this world, I had to find other ways to satisfy my cravings.

Imagine having to eat pale soup with bread dipped in it 365 days a year. This world is quite challenging for Koreans.

I miss pickles, danmuji, kkakdugi, kimchi, and pickled garlic.

Give me jeotgal. There’s no soy sauce either. No gochujang. No doenjang.

Damn, the only thing available is rare beef dripping with blood.

It’s so painful to have to be satisfied with some strange pickled turnips.

Thinking about Korean food makes me crave kimchi fried rice again.

I think I should seriously consider making kimchi soon.

There are no earthenware pots, no jeotgal, and it’s hellishly difficult to find chili peppers, but I think it’s worth a try.

Because I have vast funds at my disposal.

‘The temperature in the labyrinth is just right.’

Come to think of it, the inside of the labyrinth is cool year-round.

What if I made kimchi in the labyrinth? It’s like a natural kimchi refrigerator.

“Huh?”

As I was planning to make kimchi in the labyrinth while heading towards the eastern red-light district, I saw a crowd of workers gathered, demolishing the red-light district.

“Hey! Don’t just stand there, move aside!”

“Heave-ho!”

Crash-!!!!

As they demolished the building with a wrecking hammer, cockroaches and rats poured out in droves, and several magicians on standby chanted spells to exterminate the pests.

I could see adventurers sweeping up the corpses of the bugs.

They were completely devastating a certain area.

As I tried to avoid the scene of destruction and head to Raphanel’s hole-in-the-wall shop, a guard watching over the construction site approached and blocked my path.

“Hey there. Who are you? Where are you trying to go?”

“Ah, I was just trying to go to that alley over there.”

“Sorry, but this area is off-limits today.”

“What?”

“We received a report that remnants of heretics are hiding here.”

Ah, Paramel must have reported it.

He probably informed them about the transfer stone in the sewers under the eastern red-light district that connects to the underground city.

They must have started demolition right away since they need to secure the transfer stone connected to the labyrinth as soon as possible.

‘I hope Raphanel didn’t get caught up in this.’

Just as I thought that, someone came running towards me, sobbing.

“Sion..! Sion…!!!”

“Eh. Raphanel?”

“My house… My house is gone..!”

“What?”

It seems Raphanel’s house got caught up in the demolition.

“So, you’re saying when you woke up, all the defensive wards were shattered and the barrier broke, leaving half the house destroyed?”

“Yes. That’s what happened.. My workshop… My dwelling that has endured for over 100 years…”

“Oh dear.”

Raphanel’s hole-in-the-wall shop that had been a part of the 100-year history of the red-light district.

It was demolished today.

Fortunately, it seems only the shop entrance was destroyed, so it doesn’t look like he lost any truly important items.

Since the defensive wards that made the shop difficult to find were broken, it seemed better to change locations.

“Did they offer any compensation?”

“Well, you see. A supervisor came and told me to report the damage, but… there are some products that I can’t really report, you know.”

“Oh no. Do you have somewhere else to go?”

“I can find a place if I look, but… I have too much stuff.. Would you help me?”

“Of course I’ll help. Let’s go.”

“Thank you. You’ve eased my mind.”

Raphanel hugged me while sobbing.

It’s understandable to be mentally unstable when half of a hikikomori’s house gets blown away.

“If we go around that way, the workers won’t notice. Let’s go.”

I followed Raphanel, taking a detour to enter.

“By the way, how did you return safely? Are you hurt anywhere?”

“I don’t have any particular injuries, but I have a lot of questions I want to ask.”

“Oh? Ask away while we move the stuff. I’ll answer anything.”

Feeling a strange sense of reassurance at his words that he’d answer anything, we arrived at Raphanel’s hole-in-the-wall shop.

“What happened here? The entrance really is gone…”

It wasn’t simply collapsed.

As if a cake cut with a knife, everything from the entrance to the counter had been erased.

“The defensive wards burst and vanished.”

“No way, it disappears this cleanly?”

“Seven protective magic spells burst simultaneously, resulting in this.. Even I haven’t seen a case like this before.”

“But who would break all of Raphanel’s protective magic?”

“Judging by the traces of destruction.. It seems Moira paid a visit.”

“Ah.”

It looks like Moira swept through once at the mention of heretics. And Raphanel’s hole-in-the-wall shop got caught up in that. They probably evacuated ordinary citizens in advance, but Raphanel, hidden behind the barrier, must not have heard the news and ended up like this.

Just hearing that Moira was involved made the whole situation start to make sense. Moira is capable of such crazy acts.

“Shall we start moving the stuff?”

“Let’s do that.”

I can’t say anything about Moira either. It can’t be helped. We just have to consider it a natural disaster.

“Oh, the hole-in-the-wall shop has a basement too?”

“It’s bigger than you thought, right?”

“Yes. No, what’s with all these tunnels?”

As I followed Raphanel down to the basement, something like World War II German tunnels appeared.

He lived here after digging such extensive tunnels?

“This place will be raided soon too. They’ll find this place once they search the sewers.”

“Oh my. So you’re planning to move your workshop completely?”

“That’s right.”

While putting alchemy tools, materials, and reagents into my inventory, I decided to casually suggest something to her.

“Hey, Raphanel.”

“Yes?”

“Since you’re moving anyway. How about going into the labyrinth?”

“Hm? The labyrinth?”

“Yes. The garden district in the underground city was just cleared out. There’s space there, are you interested?”

“Space in the garden district? What do you mean?”

“Well, you see…”

I summarized what had happened in the underground city and told Raphanel.

“A giant from the 7th floor came up. It committed arson and burned everything down. Killed all the trolls… And what’s this about frogmen?”

“It’s amazing, right?”

“There’s too much information. Wait, a giant came up? What about the magic beans?”

“We planted them all at the entrance of the central district gate. The monsters keep trying to cross into the central district, so we used them to block the entrance.”

“And did it work well?”

“Well, about that. It worked too well against the monsters. But the firepower was a bit lacking, so we put the soul of the heretic apostle…”

“Huh?”

When I told him we put Faenel’s soul in to increase the defensive power, Raphanel asked what that was all about.

So this time I explained about the soul chain and eternal dominion.

“Information… There’s too much information. Soul chain? Eternal dominion? You say you’ve gained the interest of the Loas? To be able to freely manipulate souls.”

“What do you think? Want to come to the underground city and set up a workshop? They say the labyrinth’s nightmare might awaken soon. I want to make the underground city a midpoint to conquer the labyrinth.”

“Oh my. Well. Let’s organize this information first.”

Raphanel slowly started to sort things out one by one.

In the meantime, when I told him about the growth bracelet, Raphanel nearly fainted.

“Alright. Let’s see. First, we need to solve two problems to set up in the underground city.”

“Two problems?”

“Yes. First, we need to make it so it’s not affected by the Great Shift.”

“Ah.”

When the Great Shift occurs, people inside the labyrinth are thrown to random locations. It would cause a catastrophe.

“We need to make it so the underground city isn’t affected by the Great Shift. At the very least, it shouldn’t be teleported to the deep levels.”

“How do we do that?”

“The Magic Tower will need to be involved.”

Raphanel said we need to create a phase stabilizer.

The problem is that it will consume enormous funds to make and utilize this properly.

“There are maintenance costs. We can get the main materials from the 6th floor. So we’ll need to explore the 6th floor too.”

“So we need to explore both the underground city and the 6th floor monster den at the same time?”

“That’s right. Even if we maintain it temporarily by throwing money at it, it won’t last long.”

“I see. What’s next?”

“We need to prevent monsters from spawning in unpredictable locations.”

The labyrinth’s monsters spawn randomly. To make the underground city a habitable area, we needed to be able to control the random spawning.

“This also requires research. However, if there’s one hope…”

“Yes?”

“Your eternal dominion and spirit eye should be of great help.”

We need to be able to control the monsters to spawn in desired locations. To do this, we need to be able to manipulate souls.

According to Raphanel’s thinking, I need to deeply interfere with the underground city through my eternal dominion.

“We’ll need to bring in voodoo practitioners and necromancers to the underground city too. Ah, and druids as well. And we need to solve the issue with the Loas. Haah.”

“Seems like we need a lot.”

We needed to gather intellectuals.

The Tower Master, Raphanel, Helena, and Olivia.

We needed a considerable amount of knowledge about the labyrinth.

“The pioneering project won’t be easy. It’s not just anywhere, we’re trying to make the labyrinth a safe zone.”

“It’s certainly difficult from the start. This… is it possible? The more I dig into it, the less I see a solution.”

“Still, there’s hope. It’s not completely impossible.”

Raphanel was looking at the situation positively.

“First, we’ll need to meet with the city’s leaders. Conflicts are bound to arise when interests intertwine. To begin with, for me to enter the labyrinth again. I’ll need their permission.”

“That’s true. We definitely need to solve that part first.”

Raphanel is currently banned from entering the labyrinth due to causing several incidents.

To bring her in, we first needed to lift Raphanel’s entry restriction.

I need to meet Moira, the Saint, and the Tower Master. Starting with them, we need to have a dialogue with the leaders of the labyrinth city.