Chapter 46: Worth More Than 22 Gold

We took out food from our inventory and had a light dinner while listening to Olivia tell us about the secrets of the upper levels.

“So, you’re saying there’s a World Tree branch hidden on the 3rd floor of the botanical garden?”

“Yes..”

“And one of the Hoarding Rabbit nests on the 3rd floor of the breeding grounds has a Slaughterer’s weapon hidden in it?”

“Yes yes.. If you get that, you can unleash unrivaled power against beasts..”

“Hmm.”

“This is completely….”

Yuria and I looked at Olivia as if we were perplexed.

And for good reason…

“All of that has already been looted long ago. The World Tree branch was retrieved by the magic tower. And I heard one of the platinum badge holders has the Slaughterer’s sword. Right, Yuria?”

“Yeah yeah. Most of the things Olivia mentioned were all looted over 20 years ago. And almost all the items Olivia talked about are artifacts currently possessed by the platinum badge holders.”

“Olivia, you’re a step too late.”

“Eh..?”

Olivia froze in the position of scooping up soup.

She stared blankly with her mouth open as if she couldn’t believe it.

“Most of the information you have about the upper levels has already been looted by adventurers. Yuria is accurate because she’s a native of the labyrinth city. You’re already too late.”

“If you had come to the labyrinth city 30 years earlier, you could have gotten half of the things you mentioned. What a shame.”

“Eh. Ehhh….? S-somehow… No matter how much I looked, they weren’t there.. Ah.. Ahhh…”

At our words, Olivia whimpered as if she had been hit in the solar plexus.

She seemed to panic as she realized that the secret and amazing knowledge she possessed was actually outdated knowledge that had been revealed over 20 years ago.

How should I put it. She’s like someone who realized their winning lottery ticket was actually an expired one.

Olivia denied reality like someone who had completely lost all dreams and hopes.

“Adventurers aren’t fools either. If you have good intuition, you’re an adventurer.”

“Adventurers risk their lives walking tightropes. If something seems strange, they’ll poke at it first.”

Adventurers are the type who will try anything that might make money, be it traps or whatever.

They even capture labyrinth monsters and sell them as adult products, so hidden elements in the upper levels would have been revealed long ago.

As a result, the secret spaces, Easter eggs, or hidden elements that Olivia revealed had already been looted by the previous generation of adventurers.

Moreover, since there was no word of them respawning after the great change, we have to consider it too late.

In short, you could say Olivia had an old generation version of the labyrinth strategy guide.

While we don’t know about below the underground city, the upper levels that adventurers frequent would have already been cleaned out.

“Ah.. Ahhh.. Why..”

Olivia held her head as if it was ringing.

It felt like watching the downfall of a promising young talent who dreamed of turning their life around.

Maybe because she’s someone whose mind wanders a bit, should I say she’s overemotional?

Her falling into despair seemed strangely theatrical.

“Ah, no… This can’t be… If I’m useless.. I’ll be abandoned again.. No..”

“Hey, Olivia. First, calm down…”

“Waaah.. Please don’t abandon me. Please.. I’m sorry… I’ll rack my brains to see if I have any other knowledge… Don’t abandon me…”

Olivia clung to me while crying.

I patted Olivia’s back as she clung to me and whispered quietly to Yuria.

“Yuria. What should we do? It seems like 22 gold has gone to waste.”

“Hmm. Should we make her do some chores? We need to at least break even on the 22 gold. But since she can’t see, there’s not much we can use her for.”

“Right. What should we do?”

It seems that after reincarnating in this world, from the moment her past life memories surfaced, Olivia had been quietly dreaming of an isekai unrivaled life without telling others.

But reality was a sewer.

The artifacts she was trying to find had already been looted long ago, and she ended up dying in the labyrinth 4 times while trying to find artifacts.

Every time she died and came back to life, she entered the labyrinth again as a slave belonging to the temple, and since she kept dying every time she entered, it seems the church judged her useless and just dumped her on a slave trader.

If she had sold the information she had long ago, she could have lived more comfortably.

It seems things got complicated as she tried to make a name for herself with the information she had.

On top of that, she had no talent as an adventurer and even went blind.

It was an incredibly unfortunate life.

It’s pitiful.

But that’s the extent of my feelings.

If she’s useless, we need to find a use for her.

How should we use her?

What jobs can blind people do?

I made sure to convey that we could abandon her at any time so Olivia wouldn’t become lazy in comfort.

As Yuria and I were pondering how to utilize Olivia, she sensed the crisis and shouted.

“I-I can see!”

“Hm? What? You can see?”

“You said you couldn’t see. Suddenly saying you can see. What do you mean? Did you deceive us?”

“Ah, no. That’s not it. Um, when I say I can see, I don’t mean with my eyes…”

“What?”

“Actually, this is…”

Realizing that if we abandoned her too, her life would be completely over, Olivia hurriedly explained how she became blind.

“A side effect of her ability?”

“Yes.. Some skills have penalties…”

“A penalty of going blind. What kind of ability is it?”

“Um… Sound wave detection.. I can know the location or information of objects through sound.”

“Sound wave detection?”

It was an ability similar to a bat’s.

I didn’t know such an ability existed.

“But why did you pretend you couldn’t see?”

“Th-that’s not pretending I couldn’t see… If I use this skill in wide spaces, my head hurts…”

It seems she can’t use it normally.

Due to brain capacity limits, if she uses sound wave detection in wide spaces without ceilings, she gets dizzy and gets nosebleeds.

It seems her brain gets overloaded from too much information.

“So it’s an overpowered ability limited to the labyrinth.”

“Yes.. I can detect in all directions regardless of the presence of light..”

She says she can see in dark places like night vision, and can detect in all directions like presence detection.

Especially when used in the narrow labyrinth, she can immediately notice if an enemy is approaching.

This was an ability similar to the detection-type ability that Hachi had.

It would be challenging for everyday life, but it’s perfect for labyrinth exploration.

Of course, Olivia seems to have died 4 times despite having such an ability simply because she lacks talent.

But this one.

If Yuria and I hadn’t made gestures of abandoning her, would she have kept hiding her ability?

She’s not someone to be taken lightly.

She’s not the type you can just pat on the head because you feel sorry for her.

I saw a slight possibility that she might harbor other thoughts if not scolded periodically.

“A-and I haven’t talked about the secrets of the underground city yet..”

“That’s right. You only talked about the upper levels.”

Her knowledge of the upper levels alone was considerable.

Moreover, it’s all been proven true through Yuria.

Her knowledge of the underground city must be accurate too.

Especially since new exploration sectors have increased after the great change.

There’s a very high possibility that the hidden elements of the new sectors haven’t been properly revealed yet.

“First.. Since I don’t know the current state of the labyrinth well… Please tell me how it changed after the great change.. I need to know the version…”

It seems the hidden elements differ depending on the version.

Since new elements would have been added with updates, checking the version is important.

“Hey, Sion. What does she mean by version?”

“Oh. She needs to know roughly which great change this is.”

“Ah.”

“First, through this great change, a flooded sector has appeared in the underground city.”

“Flooded sector…? You mean the lake area, right…?”

“Yeah. I guess they’ll call it that? And when you enter the underground city, you always start from the central sector.”

“Ah.. Then this update is a large-scale reorganization of the underground city.”

Olivia muttered to herself as if she had grasped the version, then soon shared the knowledge she newly recalled.

“S-sorry.. It takes some time to recall.. First, with this underground city update, about two neutral monsters… NPCs would have been added.”

“Hm? Neutral monsters? Sion, what’s an NPC?”

“Well. You can think of it as beings that don’t attack first.”

“Ah.”

“Olivia. If you keep talking in game terms, it’ll be hard for Yuria to understand. Speak in labyrinth city terms.”

“Ah.. Yes.. So through this great change, two non-aggressive monsters have been added.. Arachne and Frogman.. Arachne will appear in the tower sector and Frogman in the lake sector..”

“Are they like merchants?”

“Th-they’re merchants, but also gatekeepers of hidden sectors..”

“There are more hidden sectors?”

“Yes.. If you complete Arachne’s request, she’ll let you enter the spider cave.. If you grant Frogman’s wish, you can enter the snake nest..”

This was completely new information.

Yuria’s eyes sparkled.

According to Olivia’s explanation, the spider cave is a lost and found center, and the snake nest is like an experience-giving cow barn.

“Sion, are you taking notes?”

“Yeah.”

“Amazing. She’s worth more than 22 gold.”

Yuria patted Olivia’s head as she revealed the secrets of the underground city.

Yuria’s expression, which had been full of doubt about whether Olivia was really worth 22 gold, brightened.

“Anything else? Is there more?”

“Um… Give me a moment.. I need time to recall…”

Olivia muttered something for a while again as she recalled more information.

The loading time is quite long every time she recalls a piece of information.

“Ah. About two trap-type monsters would have been added too.”

“Trap-type monsters?”

“Yes.. They’re ones that deceive adventurers like mimics… Doppelgangers and Skinwalkers will be roaming the underground city.”

Doppelgangers and Skinwalkers.

Unlike mimics that disguise themselves as boxes or containers, doppelgangers and skinwalkers are monsters that disguise themselves as adventurers.

“Doppelgangers are a type of slime that perfectly copy an adventurer’s appearance.. Skinwalkers are insects that wear the flipped skin of dead adventurers.”

One copies appearances, and the other wears corpses to act as adventurers.

They’re both dangerous.

It would be difficult to respond if they approach pretending to be companions.

“What about heretics? Is there nothing related to heretics?”

“Well. Heretics would be spread out below the floor divisions. Probably, after this great change, the area below the floor divisions of the underground city would have become completely twisted like a maze.”

“A maze?”

“Yes. At regular intervals… The shape of the maze changes. The heretics will keep increasing the number of monsters by gathering sacrifices in the maze of the underground city.. It can be seen as much more difficult to enter the 6th floor.”

“That’s crazy.”

“And it seems three boss monsters… special monsters have been added below the floor divisions…”

“Three of them?”

“Yes.. Ones that spread the curse of petrification… Cockatrice, Basilisk, and.. Medusa.”

The monsters that came out of Olivia’s mouth.

All three are creatures with the curse of petrification, and if you encounter them wrongly, you’ll turn into stone right away.

Heretics and three new boss monsters.

Plus trap-type monsters and mini-dungeons in the underground city.

“The difficulty is too high. Where’s the balance patch?”

“W-well.. Originally, challenging difficulty is part of the game’s appeal.. And the rewards are quite substantial.. The harder it is, the more you gain…”

“This is crazy.”

Based on what we’ve heard so far, it seems the underground city has been completely reorganized through this great change.

Moreover, it seems there are still quite a few hidden elements that haven’t been looted yet.

At this point, it’s a matter of who claims them first.

We need to monopolize the hidden elements of the underground city before other adventurers get their hands on them.

However, there’s a high possibility we won’t be able to perform properly if we just enter the underground city in our current state.

It seems nearly half of the conquest team died too.

If I hadn’t avoided the crisis with spirit vision, the corpse retrieval team I belonged to would have been wiped out by the High Orc Warlock and Slugger too.

Even if we enter now, we’ll have to overcome the risk of death again.

It’s too dangerous. With the number of monsters and skill level not even reaching silver badge, we can’t enter the underground city again.

“It’s going to get busy.”

We need to tag along with the subjugation operation happening in a month.

While the adventurers are busy cleaning up monsters, I’ll monopolize the hidden elements Olivia told us about.

Of course, we needed to improve our skills as much as possible until then.

“Olivia.”

“Yes…?”

“Tell me how to level up.”

Let’s try our best.

It seems an opportunity has come to make a big score in the underground city.