Chapter 44: The One with a Broken Spirit

“This is…”

Yuria and I looked at the slave in the iron cage.

Among the slaves cursed with transformation, she was a woman who looked relatively normal.

“All four limbs intact. She seems in better condition than I expected. Why is she here?”

Brown skin and jet black hair, unknown characters and tattoos visible through her clothes.

She wasn’t from the East, but seemed to be a minority tribe member from the South.

She looked like a girl who might have lived in some jungle.

Compared to the other slaves we’ve seen in the basement so far, she has an extremely normal appearance.

She didn’t have antennae growing, nor was her body covered in fur.

She just looked like a Latin girl from the South, so why was she in this black market slave shop that only gathers oddities?

Expressing my doubt, Yuria pointed to the girl’s eyes.

“Sion, look closely.”

“Hm? Ah.”

“It seems she can’t see.”

“I see. She’s blind.”

Eyes that seemed to have lost their light.

The girl appeared unable to see in front of her.

‘She has a disability.’

Of course, even with a disability, there’s definitely demand as long as she’s female.

There are even guys who like it more if she can’t see.

But the real problem wasn’t just blindness.

After observing a bit more, I could notice why she hadn’t been sold.

“She’s gone mad.”

“Her mind seems to wander.”

The girl’s mental state looked very bad.

She was constantly muttering something to herself and trying to dig the floor whenever she got the chance.

“I have to go back.. Again.. I have to go down there again.. No.. Give up.. You’re finished.. You’re broken.. Give up…”

Rather than simply trying to dig the floor, it seemed like she was trying to engrave something on the floor with her fingers.

Despite the slave trader wrapping her index finger in bandages, worried the product might get damaged, she stubbornly tried to dig the floor and write characters.

Could she be a mad witch?

If so, she’s extremely dangerous.

There’s nothing more dangerous than a mad magician.

The unwritten rule that senile magicians must be killed didn’t come from nowhere.

‘Perhaps the mental illness itself is a kind of curse.’

It might be a curse of mental derangement rather than a curse of transformation.

I could find out if I asked the slave trader about this one.

“Hey. Is this one also cursed by the labyrinth?”

“Hm? Ah. It’s not a curse, she’s just a friend who’s a bit mentally ill. She worked as a porter, died a few times, and went completely mad. Her mental state is really bad, you see. They say she wandered around and ended up here.”

“…”

She really was just a mentally ill friend.

From what I heard, it seems she caused trouble several times in other aboveground slave shops and rolled down to this slave shop next to the black market.

A woman who flowed in from the South, engaged in adventurer activities, completely broke after experiencing several deaths.

Moreover, she didn’t sell as bad stock and eventually flowed into this shop, so you could say she took the worst route.

“She won’t sell. Almost no one wants to buy if there are mental problems. They might get their flesh torn off if bitten.”

“What happens in these cases?”

“What can we do if they don’t sell? They can only wait in the iron cage to be sold until they die. If it really doesn’t work out, they’ll end up in the mines. Or sent as experimental subjects to magic towers. The worst is being dragged to brothels. After quite a lot of modifications, that is.”

I got goosebumps at the talk of modifications.

How would a mentally ill person be modified to be used in a brothel?

At the very least, they’d make it so she can’t properly use her arms and legs.

Just imagining it made me nauseous.

“Sion, are you going to help her?”

“I don’t know.”

To be honest, she’s a burden.

You can’t help everyone just because they’re pitiful.

Yuria knows this fact well too.

This world is too harsh to take full responsibility for a person based on compassion alone.

I’m not affluent enough to support a blind person who can’t see just because I pity them.

I didn’t have the mental or material leeway to live with a disabled person.

“There’s nothing to buy, should we head back soon?”

“Let’s do that. It’s a shame. Let’s buy a slave later.”

“Hehe. Then until then, can’t Sion come to our house and keep being a housekeeper?”

“Hey! Housekeeper sounds a bit off. Let’s go with cohabitant for now.”

“Okay! If Sion comes, our house will get a bit cleaner at least. Right?”

“Are you trying to completely dump all the housework on me? Are you testing me to slack off? Huh? Why aren’t you answering?”

“Eh, no way. I’m not that much of a burden! I’ll clean together too. Maybe. Hehehe.”

“Maybe, you say. Oh… Yuria.”

“Oh come on. Honey. Don’t get mad. Hm? If you keep complaining, I’ll do the windmill throw?”

“Ugh..”

As I looked at her pitifully, Yuria quickly linked arms and acted cutely.

It’s absolutely not because I’m afraid of Yuria’s windmill throw that I shut my mouth. I’m letting it slide because her aegyo is cute.

Anyway, buying a slave is off the table.

Well, the original purpose was to date Yuria.

I was planning to buy a household helper slave while going around slave shops on a date, but since there’s no merchandise I particularly like, it’s right to head back now.

But thanks to this, I learned that there’s a place like this.

The slime human was quite impressive.

A slave whose offense and defense change depending on the owner.

It seemed like there would be quite a demand.

“Let’s come look again if we get another chance.”

“Yeah yeah. But it was fun. It felt like coming to see a circus.”

“That’s true. We got to see some interesting things.”

I was satisfied after seeing so many strange slaves.

Should we go up, eat, and head to the guild?

The settlement money from the monster dismantling shop should be out today.

“Update… Clear condition… New monster…”

“Hm?”

It was just as I was about to completely move away from the girl in the iron cage, having given up on buying a slave.

Suddenly, words I shouldn’t hear reached my ears.

‘Update, clear condition, and new monster?’

In this world, the labyrinth’s monsters are called ‘mabeol’, not ‘monster’.

Moreover, the word ‘update’ itself is hardly used in this world.

It’s a world where leveling up is called mana adaptation.

A world where skills are called abilities.

While ‘clear’ might be okay, ‘update’ and ‘monster’ were clearly quite alien words in this world.

“Wait a moment.”

“Hm? What’s wrong?”

“This one. There’s something about her.”

“Did you sense something unusual?”

“Yeah. There’s something I need to check. Can you wait a bit?”

Yuria nodded at my request.

As if telling me to check as much as I want.

Perhaps because she had high trust in me, Yuria went along with my eccentricity without any issue.

I approached the girl in the iron cage again.

“Hey. Hey. Hey hey.”

“Huh.. N-no.. No…”

At my call, the girl in the iron cage startled and backed away.

Despite having nowhere to run, she crawled on the floor to get as far away from me as possible, clinging to the far end of the cage while trembling.

“H-hey! Why are you suddenly acting like this!”

As I approached as if I was going to enter the cage, the dwarf slave trader ran towards us.

“No, I wasn’t trying to bully her. I just have something I need to check. By the way, what’s this friend’s name?”

“Name? Oh. Ah! Right, I think it was Olivia.”

“Olivia? I see.”

The girl in the cage’s name was Olivia.

I couldn’t know if that was her real name or an alias she created to live in this world like the name Sion I use, but for now, I called her name to try to calm her down as much as possible.

“Hey, Olivia. I’m not trying to bully you. So don’t be scared and listen to what I have to say, okay?”

“Ugh…”

“Olivia, do you perhaps know about Earth?”

At my question, Olivia’s body, which had been trembling in fear, twitched and then froze.

“E-Earth… Earth.. N-no way.. It can’t be. No matter how much I looked, I couldn’t find it. Why did it appear only now.. It’s too late. No.. This is an illusion.. The labyrinth is toying with me again. I’m already dead.. No…”

The conversation isn’t getting through.

She strongly denied reality.

She was rejecting everything approaching her, dismissing my very existence as the labyrinth’s machinations.

I understood at once why she couldn’t be sold and rolled down to this place.

Olivia was defenseless against external stimuli.

No, she was too defensive.

She regarded everything approaching her as an enemy.

I need to calm her down.

Judging by her twitching reaction when I mentioned Earth, she’s definitely from Earth.

It seemed I needed to talk more about Earth to ease her tension.

“Olivia. Olivia! Just calm down and keep listening to me. Do you perhaps know about America?”

“A… America…!”

“What about China and England? How about Australia? Do you know about the countries I just mentioned? Computer. Cell phone. Internet. WiFi. Do you understand? How about movies or mobile games?”

“…”

Olivia stared at me blankly.

Her two eyes would be white and unable to reflect anything.

But somehow, she was accurately recognizing where I was.

It seemed like she was looking at me, which was more than just perceiving direction by voice.

Even though her two eyes clearly couldn’t reflect anything.

‘Now I get it. What she was writing on the floor was English.’

What she was desperately drawing on the floor was the alphabet.

Characters I hadn’t seen even once since falling into this world.

‘This woman. Is she a transferee like me?’

Looking at the characters and tattoos engraved on her body, they were too crude to be from Earth.

It’s highly likely they were tattoos engraved in this world, not on Earth.

If that’s the case, she might be a reincarnator.

I’m not sure, but at least it’s clear her place of origin is Earth.

And while I couldn’t be certain what exactly she wanted to write, I could recognize a few of the words she was writing.

‘Dungeon?’

Looking closely, it seems to be content about having to clear a dungeon.

Since she was forcibly digging into the ground with her fingers to engrave the characters, I couldn’t make them out properly.

If I could give her a pen and paper, I could see more proper writing.

She might have crucial knowledge for conquering the labyrinth.

‘I might be able to use this?’

As I was organizing my thoughts, Yuria, unable to contain her curiosity, asked what an Earthling was.

“Hey, Sion. What exactly is an Earthling? Is it some tribe name?”

“Hm? Oh. Something like that. She’s probably from the same hometown as me.”

“Ah. So that’s why you can communicate. I was surprised because you were saying words I couldn’t understand.”

Yuria immediately understood when I said Olivia and I were from the same hometown.

She probably understood names like Earth or America as place names somewhere in the Eastern continent.

I think she might have taken content about modern things like computers or cell phones as something that exists in the East.

At times like this, I’m so glad Yuria is simple-minded.

Since she just vaguely understands and moves on, it reduces the need for difficult explanations.

“Um.. You. Really. Are you really an Earthling?”

While I was talking briefly with Yuria, Olivia in the iron cage asked in a trembling voice that sounded anxious.

I answered her question with confidence.

“Yes. I’m an Earthling like you.”

“Ah.. Ahhh.”

Tears poured from the girl’s eyes.

Soon she approached me, reached out through the iron bars, and hugged me tightly.

I didn’t particularly avoid the hug.

Because I didn’t sense any bad intentions.

“Thank goodness.. I really wasn’t alone.. Finally. I’ve finally met someone…”

I met someone from my hometown at the bottom of the labyrinth city.

An Earthling who might have precious knowledge about the labyrinth.

Moreover, a possessor who fell into this world before me.

And had her spirit completely broken after rolling and rolling, dying several times alone.