Chapter 94: Three Objectives

“For now, we have three objectives.”

The Saint looked at us with an expression that seemed troubled.

Then she spread three fingers and showed them to the inquisitors and me.

Three objectives arbitrarily decided by the Saint.

“First. Hunting the giant that has settled in the garden district.”

As soon as the Saint finished speaking, Paramel had a fit.

“Ugh.. that’s a bit…”

“Paramel. Are you scared?”

“How can you say that, Raphael.. Of course I’m scared… Only you would feel a fighting spirit towards that giant…”

“Paramel, unfortunately, I also feel a fighting spirit towards the giant.”

“Ugh.. To think there are two crazy people..”

Paramel looked at the Saint and Raphael with astonishment.

Sasaro also cleared his throat with a “hem hem” as if agreeing with Paramel’s words.

You could say Sasaro’s spirit has been dampened since the giant appeared.

Judging from how he keeps saying he wants to retire quickly and spend the rest of his life, Sasaro also seemed to dislike giant hunting.

“It seems Paramel and Sasaro are against hunting the giant. Then what about Rosie?”

“I’ll follow Porter-ssi’s opinion.”

“Good. Two in favor. Two against. One abstention. What’s left is you, Porter.”

“Me?”

“Yes. The result will be determined by your choice. Whether to hunt the giant, our first objective, or just give up. Decide.”

Suddenly, it seems I’m holding the knife handle.

Of course, I don’t want to fight the giant. Why should I fight that crazy giant in the first place?

Even if that giant was sent to raise the mana concentration of the 5th floor to make it easier for monsters from the 7th floor to come up, as a terraforming monster.

I have no intention of fighting that thing right now. I came to hunt heretics, not to kill giants.

“I think fighting the giant is not right. If we’re going to fight the giant, send me up to the surface first. I came to pick up heretic corpses, not to fight giants. Or give me additional compensation worth more than my life.”

“Hmm. Two free resurrections?”

“What?”

I was instantly intrigued by the Saint’s offer.

Two free resurrections?

Wait a moment, does that mean she’ll take me up and resurrect me for free even if I die? For free?

What if I don’t die at all?

There’s no law saying I have to die during the giant hunt.

What if I don’t die? If I don’t die, then I get the chance to have 2 free resurrections? Should I pass this up? Two free lives.

Of course, I could die with my body so mangled that resurrection isn’t even possible.

But there’s clearly a possibility that I won’t die in this giant subjugation. In that case, I’ll be able to use the elixir of resurrection twice for free.

“Ah, wait a moment. Two free resurrections. This is quite tempting.. Hmm. Excuse me, Saint.”

“Yes. Speak.”

“Can you possibly resurrect someone else for free besides me? Not necessarily me.”

“Hmm. Well, alright. Two times. Limited to two times for free. I swear on my honor as a Saint and goddess.”

“….Alright. Let’s hunt the giant.”

“Wait a moment..!”

“Oh my. Giant hunting, you say.”

At my decision, Paramel and Sasaro made expressions like they were about to die.

Well, I have a plan too.

‘If I can handle the vengeful spirits of adventurers…’

We might be able to succeed in hunting the giant using them.

Moreover, I now have 3 special scrolls I bought from the Magic Tower.

‘An instant teleportation scroll that can move anywhere within the same layer. Object transfer that can send objects anywhere within 10 meters. And spirit summoning that can call all nearby spirits.’

If used well, instant teleportation and object transfer could instantly kill the giant, and if I cast spirit summoning and gather all the vengeful spirits, it might be possible to mass-produce troops.

If I add the Ring of Spiritualization to this, it really seemed possible to kill the giant if I just catch the right moment.

“Good. Then let’s hunt the giant before we escape the labyrinth.”

The Saint grinned and folded one finger.

Raphael also looks strangely pleased.

These crazy battle maniacs.

“Then the next objective. The second objective is to go below the floor division and kill the Blue Apostle who is presumed to have summoned the giant.”

“Below the floor division?”

“Yes. Below the floor division of the underground city.”

“Oh my..”

Originally, our target was the heretics who would be above the floor division.

The original goal of this labyrinth trip was to finish the first subjugation by completely dealing with them.

“After seeing this giant summoning incident. I think it’s not right to just kill the small fry and go up. We shouldn’t give them even a moment’s gap.”

“Then? Are we really going down?”

“Yes. Let’s change our strategy to quickly deal with the three most important ones and slowly hunt the remaining underlings.”

The Saint says to quickly deal with only the most important suspects.

“No matter how many underlings there are, giant summoning is impossible. I think it’s urgent to deal with those who are the main actors. We don’t know what other atrocities they might commit.”

It was certainly true.

It’s understandable to be wary after they committed such a crazy act.

No matter how many small fry we kill, if the key figures are alive, we don’t know when they might summon another giant.

Whether the giant summoning was intentional or a simple accident, now that we know they can summon giants, we needed to deal with the key figures as quickly as possible.

“But Saint. Who exactly are these three vicious ones? And what’s the Blue Apostle?”

“According to what the religious order has identified, in the underground city there’s the Red Apostle who oversees the ‘ability transfer ritual’ that extracts adventurers’ abilities and injects them into heretics, the Blue Apostle who summons monsters from the deep layers, and the Green Apostle who was in charge of heretic training and mind control. They were active 30 years ago too.”

The Red Apostle who kidnapped and tortured adventurers, stole their abilities, and distributed them to heretics.

The Blue Apostle who called monsters from the 6th floor to the surface to terrorize and devastate cities.

And the Green Apostle who turned kidnapped people into heretics and was in charge of their education.

These three apostles were identified by the religious order. And in addition to these, there’s probably one new bastard who can infinitely respawn heretics and a third force that has the technology to perfectly control monsters.

“Killing all the heretics is important, but if we miss even one of the three I just mentioned, we’ll feel uneasy afterwards. We need to kill all three for sure and drag them up. If not, we should catch at least two.”

It was about prioritizing assassinating key figures over the mission of killing all heretic underlings.

I agree. I could understand after fighting directly today. It’s meaningless no matter how many idiots who just know a bit of sorcery and shoot black magic we catch.

We need to catch and crush the real skilled ones to stop this dirty misfortune.

The problem is that these three bastards, befitting key figures, are gathered below the floor division of the underground city.

“Um, Saint. You know that below the floor division of the underground city is a maze that changes daily, right?”

“I know. But the light will guide us.”

“The light…?”

“Yes. These are people I’ve killed before. I can locate them with the ‘Sinner’s Book’. People don’t change just because they’re resurrected. I can find them with my ability.”

“I see.”

The Sinner’s Book, one of the abilities the Saint possesses. With this, she says she can roughly locate the apostles.

She can find one at a time, and the most urgent problem now is the location of the Blue Apostle who summoned the giant.

“I’ve been tracking since I was meditating earlier. I already roughly know where he is.”

Fortunately, the Saint has already located the Blue Apostle.

“We must catch the Blue Apostle who summons monsters from below no matter what on this labyrinth trip. If we fail, we don’t know what state the underground city will be in when we come in next time.”

All the inquisitors nodded.

“Haah. I guess so.”

I couldn’t help but agree.

Whether the giant crawling up was the heretics’ intention or not, the very fact of pulling up monsters from the lower floors was dangerous.

“Then let’s make finding and killing the Blue Apostle our top priority.”

“The problem will be going down below the floor division.”

“That’s right. To go below the floor division, we need to find the entrance. Excluding the garden district which is difficult to enter because of the giant, and the central district which has no way down in the first place, we need to find an entrance to go down in the remaining 4 districts.”

“Saint, where exactly is the Blue Apostle’s location?”

“Below the lake district.”

The Blue Apostle has settled below the new district we have the least information about, of all places.

To catch him, we had to go down below the lake.

“Let’s look for the entrance in the lake district.”

“Ah, wait a moment please.”

“What is it, Porter?”

“Well, this is just my guess, but I think there might be other forces besides the heretics.”

Before entering the lake district, I told the Saint and inquisitors my guess.

It was a guess that some kind of force that controls the boss variants has joined the heretics.

“Certainly. It is a bit strange that mere heretics have the technology to control the Watchers of the 6th floor and handle variants. Not just pulling them up. But controlling them.”

“Beings that flowed in through transfer stones connected to places other than Labyrinth City… But if they were ordinary people, they would collapse unable to adapt to the mana quantity of the underground city…”

“As Paramel says, it would be difficult if they weren’t people who came down adapting to mana from the 1st floor.”

“Wait a moment. There are some types I can think of….”

Paramel took out a notebook and started looking for something.

“This is… an old record.. Ah, here it is. It’s recorded that the Ein race from the uninhabited zone, or barbarians beyond the borderline have extremely good mana adaptation.”

“Wait, does barbarian refer to barbarians like me?”

“Ah, that’s not it. These are guys who live much farther than barbarians. They’re a race closer to monsters than humans. They practice cannibalism.. It’s written that they’re beings who handle mysteries beyond the borderline. They’re called Yeti or Abominable Snowmen.”

Yeti. Hairy humanoid monsters.

Abominable Snowmen living farther than barbarians.

‘But what’s this borderline?’

I’ve heard about the uninhabited zone a few times so I roughly know about it. It’s called a land where people can’t live, an unexplored territory untouched by human hands.

Probably the borderline is also one of such unexplored territories.

“Hmm. If the transfer stone is connected to that place. It could be troublesome.”

“The heretics and Yeti might have joined forces. They might feel like kindred spirits since they believe in ancient gods..”

“I understand for now. Let’s think about the third force after killing the Blue Apostle. The ability to control monsters is quite annoying too.”

With this, we discussed the first objective of hunting the giant and the second objective of assassinating the Blue Apostle.

Then what’s left is the last objective…

“By the way, Saint. What’s the third objective?”

“That’s the most difficult objective. Escaping alive with our body and limbs intact.”

“Ah…”

“Isn’t that always the most difficult objective in a labyrinth trip?”

I couldn’t help but agree with the Saint’s words.

Escaping the labyrinth with body and limbs intact and a sound mind.

This is the most important objective after all.

“Well then. Let’s rest for a while and then move to the lake district. I’m a bit tired from meditating longer than planned. Just closing my eyes doesn’t relieve fatigue, you know.”

We decided to take a short rest before moving to the lake district.

It was the Saint’s judgment that it would be better to rest properly for about half a day before moving.

During the rest time, Paramel was busily recording something in his notebook, and Raphael lay down and snored.

Sasaro and Rosie leaned against the wall and took a nap.

The Saint went to check on the barrier surrounding the garden district. She said to rest but she’s the busiest.

It’s quiet. Everyone is spending their own time. Silence descended.

‘Well, since we’re resting anyway, I should experiment with this.’

I decided to try using mana removal, the newly added function to the Bracelet of Growth, before resting.

If mana is really removed, will I adapt to mana?

‘Oh…!’

As I closed my eyes and concentrated, I could feel something sticky clinging to my skin disappear and a refreshing sensation.

That feeling of being cleared out that you usually feel when you leave the labyrinth. The mana floating around me completely disappeared.

‘Ugh..’

And the pain that comes after the refreshing feeling.

It’s mana adaptation.

‘Level 8.’

I entered the next stage.

In terms of level alone, it’s enough to go down to the 7th floor.

Becoming level 8 means I’ve become able to withstand the mana of the 7th floor.

‘Headache… ability too..!’

I was worried I might not gain an ability, but.

As soon as the mana adaptation ended, knowledge flowed into my mind.

Soon, information about the newly gained ability was inscribed in my brain.

“This is…”

The effect of the Ability Fixing Bracelet activated properly.

[Soul Chain]

A new ability that will strengthen my spirit vision has been added.