episode_0008

8. Johnson’s General Store (4)

“Ka…Cain…”

“…Hmm…?”

I opened my eyes slightly at the feeling of someone tapping my shoulder, and saw Sia wrapped in a blanket all over her body, covering herself, with only her leg extended to touch my shoulder, waking me up.

“What are you doing?”

“That…that…”

Looking at her pupils shaking wildly in embarrassment, her cheeks slightly reddening with embarrassment, and her hands like ferns tightly clutching the blanket covering her body, I want to receive a big daughter too.

“Where does it hurt?”

“Uh… Huh??”

“Come here.”

Swish

I pull Sia into my arms and hug her, who is curled up on one end of the bed.

“What’s going on? Is it something you can’t even tell me?”

“What…what should I do, Cain? Sigh…”

Slurp-

As I gently patted her, Sia burst into tears and opened the blanket she was holding tightly to reveal her body.

Wow, this is a mess.

The pants I was wearing like underwear were soaking wet all over, as if I had peed, and I could also see my semen flowing down to my thighs and drying like a milky color.

“New.. It’s not even my period, but something strange… Ugh!!”

“Um…”

I knew that Claude was hanging out in the brothel with other women, but I had been making excuses that it was to protect Sia’s purity and that I had not properly educated her on sex until now, so I had a misconception about what sex was like.

There was also the fact that I intentionally made it so that people would think that I had pooped on my body since my underwear and pants were clean but I had a vagina.

“What should I do? Do I have a… disease?”

“Let’s take a break from collecting for today. And just in case, let’s go renew the card.”

“I…I don’t have any weird walls?”

“You never know? I got a guardian angel too, but I collapsed while vomiting blood.”

“I see… Okay..sigh!!”

“I’m resting well after going to the union. Just in case, I’ll stop by the church relief center and look for some information.”

“That…that…”

Since I don’t need the money urgently, I can stop by the general store tomorrow and start collecting the next day, so I’ll give it a day off.

“And it’s a secret from Claude, right?”

When I put my index finger to my lips and wink, Sia stops crying and smiles, putting her index finger to her lips as I do.

“Hehehe…sniff!! Thank you!!”

Wow!

And Sia also clings to me with an expression full of trust, saying, “Cain!” But I’m dissatisfied because the emotion in her expression clearly isn’t affection.

One day I’ll have to change that trusting expression into a slutty bitch expression.

I’m going to help Mr. Johnson clean out the storeroom tomorrow and get some razor blades and shaving soap in return for my compensation.

The current situation is an embarrassing situation for Sia, who always wants to look good in front of Claude, so she should come up with a suitable reason to tell Sia and make him her backer.

“Let’s wash up and go.”

“Okay!!”

While Sia, who had returned to her room, was getting ready to go out, I took the empty wooden bucket I had used yesterday out into the hallway, picked up a new bucket from the one in front of the door, took a shower, went down to the first floor, ordered two breakfasts, and waited for Sia.

“Cain. How are you feeling?”

“Oh, Mr. Frank, it’s okay.”

Early in the morning, I was sitting alone at a table with no other customers when a huge shadow appeared around me. I looked up and saw Mr. Frank, the owner of ‘Footprints of the Labyrinth’, approaching me in person, holding two plates of stew, bread, and salad, which are served for breakfast.

The old man, who had been a level 4 explorer in his younger days but had since retired, was huge, almost 2 meters tall, and had a scar running down his entire left cheek, giving him a menacing appearance.

Dalgrak-

“Hururup! Ugh.. The stew is delicious today too.”

“I see. I picked out some carrots for Sia to eat.”

“Hey, don’t do that. You’ll spoil the kid.”

“…”

The taste was so amazing that even my taste buds, which brought back memories of my past life, found it very delicious.

“Can I have dessert now?”

“Um…possible.”

“Then, I’d like just one sweet drink. My vision isn’t that good today.”

“Okay, I got it.”

“Here 2 bronze…”

“Okay.”

We discovered this place about six months after arriving in the labyrinth city. The owner was a bit reserved and intimidating, but the three of us ended up staying here for a long time because of the no-frills price, reasonable basic services, and quality food.

Uncle Frank sometimes looked at Sia with a wistful expression, but… well, there’s no one in this city who doesn’t have a story, so he didn’t bother asking.

“Cain came out.”

“Okay, eat it quickly before it gets cold.”

“Yeah!”

“Uncle Frank said he left out some carrots in your stew.”

“Really?”

While Sia was coming down and sitting at the table, Uncle Frank was also coming towards us, having finished making his drinks. When Sia heard what I said, she suddenly turned her head towards him.

Whoosh!

Wince!

“Thank you, sir!!”

“Ahem! Okay.”

Click-

“Huh? I didn’t order this?”

“Service.”

And then Sia smiles as she sees the man turning around and heading towards the kitchen.

“Ehehe service, Cain!!”

“I ordered it, but they didn’t take my money.”

“Wow! Thanks Cain!! I’ll drink it well.”

After eating breakfast with Sia, who accepted a sweet fruit drink with ice, we headed to the Explorers’ Guild.

*

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Talk-

“Hmm… I don’t think you have any quirks, Sia?”

“Ah… Thank goodness.”

There was no need for me to go to the place where I renewed my card, but I couldn’t leave Sia alone because she was so anxious, so Mion and the three of us stood in front of a machine that we thought looked like the ATM we saw last time.

“Thank you. Lukewarm.”

“Hehehe, if you’re grateful… you know?”

“What?”

“Hey~”

Knock knock!

I licked my lips as I watched Mi-on pat my chest with a longing smile.

“You know it’s hard to renew your card if it’s not the day you originally reported returning to the labyrinth.”

“Oh, right.”

“Right now, it’s just Claude… That’s right! After Claude’s hierarchy was rearranged, he went in with Hawk to match up, right?”

“Relocation? Huh, already?”

“There must have been quite a lot of shaking throughout the city at midnight that day?”

“That’s right! It shook so much.”

Sia also looks at me quietly, beating the janggu.

When Claude woke up at the crack of dawn and went to the patchwork party… Ah, I was so tired that I almost fainted and fell asleep, but when I thought about it, the day Claude went to the patchwork party was the day of the class reorganization.

Now I remember that in the first place, Claude’s return schedule was messed up because of something stupid he did in the labyrinth, so he returned in a hurry.

“Ah… I fell into a very deep sleep that day because my body hadn’t fully recovered from the strain I had endured.”

“Aha.”

“Ah.”

“So there weren’t many people in the restaurant this morning.”

The reason it is difficult to conquer the labyrinth is because of the labyrinth’s rearrangement.

Since the internal structure of the hierarchy changes completely every 30 days, if you can’t find a portal to move down the hierarchy within a month, you’ll have to start the search over from the beginning.

Level 1 is just enough to catch the monsters on the first floor.

To conquer a tier, you must discover a portal to the tier below within one month.

No matter how lavishly you throw a party, it is financially and physically difficult for everyone in the party to carry enough food, drinks, and other necessities for a month.

Most parties would level up and gain status on the first floor, collect magic stones, and grind until they had enough equipment and experience, and then start attacking when they reached level 2, when it became easier to catch monsters.

Here, no one knows the speed at which you level up or the conditions under which your status increases, so if a party member develops a fatal quirk while clearing the labyrinth, you get kicked out, and as you add more people, time gets delayed, or you don’t get kicked out and say, “We’re together until the end!” and continue exploring, and the entire party ends up capsizing.

Even if you are lucky enough to have all party members reach level 2, if the protection is ambiguous or the status growth is slow, the strategy schedule will be disrupted, and people will gradually become exhausted.

So, people who come to the city with dreams of breaking through the labyrinth and living a life of wealth and honor eagerly challenge themselves to go deep into the depths, but it is said that when they reach level 3 or 4, they become discouraged and retire to do business or go back to their hometown.

Or else, you could die before that and become nutrients for the labyrinth.

Well… if you look at it from the perspective of someone who played an RPG, level 1 may seem like crap, but the labyrinth wasn’t called a labyrinth for nothing.

But it seems like the relocation only applies to levels 1 to 3, which is a bit annoying.

Our party was currently playing on the second tier and was looking to break through to the third tier.

“Since there are two level 1s with no labyrinth experience in the patching party, they’ll probably come tomorrow or the day after.”

“Hmm~”

The moment she spoke like that, Mi-on’s expression changed slightly.

“Why, Mr. Mi-on?”

“No~ Then you don’t have anything else to do?”

I sensed something strong in her expression, but I had no reason to question her here.

“Yes.”

“Then, Mr. Cain, Mr. Sia, I’ll see you next time~ Oh, by the way, Mr. Claude, you know that the equipment installment is due next week, right?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Then.”

After seeing her somewhat awkward smile for the last time, I sent Sia back to her dorm first and headed towards the relief center at the school.

*

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“Nice to meet you, Brother Cain.”

“Hello, Father Julius.”

I vomited blood and met the priest again who had wrapped my entire body in bandages like a mummy, and we greeted each other.

Julius, who was about 170 cm tall and wore ornate priestly attire, had a slightly indifferent expression and wore monocles.

Purple hair and purple eyes, what’s so odd about that?

“It seems that there are many people who have entered the labyrinth because of the relocation. Judging from the fact that there were few people who returned injured and were taken to the relief center.”

“That’s right. Haha, but why is Brother Cain at the shelter?”

Since I am not a customer, he speaks to me in a slightly timid voice.

Looking at this guy with the social awareness I gained from my past life as a modern person, I find it annoying that he is so open about showing how much he is annoyed.

“Nothing else, but….Can I get books or something like that from the church?”

“A book? Is it the Bible containing the words of the Goddess?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“If you would like to join our church-”

I quickly cut off Julius, who was about to give off a mad look like someone who preached in a cult in his past life, as if he had mistaken me for joining a cult in the flow of conversation.

“No, no, that’s not it. There’s a kid in our party who’s not a member but uses the Blessing of Recovery.”

“Ah…. Are you talking about Mr. Sia?”

Kkadak-

What, why do you hate me? Is it because I made you take less money from me and Claude? Now that I think about it, it seems like that’s what happened, but strangely, when the three of us, including Sia, stopped by the relief center, I don’t think I ever saw this kid’s face.

In the first place, there must be over a thousand explorers stopping by the relief center in the labyrinth city, so it’s a bit perverted to even memorize their faces and names.

This kid doesn’t seem normal either.

“I don’t have any other intentions, but I just want to look at it for study purposes, so could you lend me some?”

“I have one copy, but… please return it next time.”

“Yes, thank you.”

So I borrowed a book containing the doctrine and words of the church from a priest who was so quick to show off his money and headed to the general store street.

“I decided to go to Camella’s store tomorrow, so today…”

I headed to a store that sold order forms.

“No?”

“Ugh… Wait a minute!”

The old order book store owner grumbles and goes to the warehouse, then brings out an extremely thick book.

“1 Silver.”

“No, it looks like it’s been cut off and falling off, what the-”

“I don’t know, I won’t sell it unless it’s silver.”

Isn’t it crazy to sell a yellowed book with the title [Everything about Labyrinth City Labyrinthians!] on the cover for 1 silver?

Well… I guess there’s nothing I can do since this could be in some work I know.

“Here.”

“Thank you. Please come back again next time!!”

The owner, who had a stubborn attitude and an expression that said he would never compromise, quickly finished wrapping the item and bent his waist at a 90-degree angle as soon as I handed him 1 silver coin.

I think I got my eye checked, but I have some extra money saved up aside from the party funds, so let’s just ignore it.

I need to go and read some books quickly and think about how I can have a good time with Ms. Camella tomorrow.