Faced with these nasty setups, the two of them wasted nothing—like locusts sweeping through, they salvaged it all.
With Mage Hand they tripped mechanisms at range; with Entangle they had vines trigger the traps; then they collected the metal spikeheads from pit traps and the sharp heads from the quarrels one by one.
Little by little it adds up—this scrap metal can be sold for a tidy sum.
High-tier parties, or teams with money at home, might not care about nickels and dimes; but for two people who clawed their way up from the bottom, it felt wrong to leave easily saleable iron behind.
And Alia's Guidance helped here too: when they had to rappel on a rope to dismantle ground spikes and similar risky jobs, the cantrip boosted their odds of success.
Call it spell practice while they were at it.
Before they realized, the light dimmed again; time in the labyrinth flies.
"Whew… I'm a little tired," Alia said, sitting on the ground and dabbing the sweat from her brow.
"Thanks." She took the waterskin Gauss handed over, tilted her pale neck, and gulped deeply.
"How are you feeling?"
"A bit… yeah." Gauss could tell it too: the longer they stayed in the labyrinth, the more it seemed to sap stamina and mana compared to outside.
On the body, it showed up as fatigue setting in more easily.
Still, with his Energy Gland talent he could top up by eating whenever, so it was fine.
And in not quite two days—really just a day and a bit since yesterday noon—they'd already slain 149 small fry; much faster than on a normal quest.
On a beginner quest, once you count travel and prep on both ends, it could take two or three days to notch a hundred kills.
"Let's stop here for today," Gauss suggested. "Tomorrow we try to find the entrance to the second level. If we find it, we go have a look; if not, we head up to the surface and rest."
From the start, they hadn't planned a long first delve.
Alia set down the waterskin.
"Okay. The labyrinth is tiring, but the money's way better—and I feel like I've gotten stronger."
Thinking of the last two days of constantly scooping up coin, and how much smoother her spellwork had become with all the casting, she couldn't help but smile.
And this was only the first floor; if the second floor had fewer people, wouldn't there be even more to pick up?
Picking up money is… honestly addictive.
Now every time she saw ruins she wanted to wriggle in, forever prying at chair legs, tapping along wall seams and floor tiles.
Besides coppers from the lost age, old bronze and silver coins, they'd even found a few ancient gold coins with a distinctive style.
Even putting aside historical or artistic value, their larger size alone made them worth more than modern coin.
At dawn the next day, rested and ready, they set out again.
Gauss's internal map started to shine.
A regular party wandering blindly would inevitably loop around to somewhere they'd already been; Gauss could steer them straight into unexplored ground.
Whizz! A rough wooden arrow skimmed past Gauss's side.
He looked up into the distance.
Ahead was a mixed pack: goblins, kobolds, and gray oozes.
Not unusual down here—races that normally live apart on the surface often band together in the labyrinth to jump adventurers.
But Gauss's gaze slid past the monsters to the other side.
That pack was swarming a low-tier party:
Four people—two men and two women—swordsman, shieldbearer, archer, and lancer, all in leather, standing back to back against the mob. Normally, even if they couldn't handle it, they could run; aside from the goblins, the other two aren't that fast. But one teammate's foot seemed injured—a sharp wooden spike had punched a big hole through his right sole, blood soaking his boot.
Gritting his teeth, he braced the shield before him while big beads of sweat rolled off his brow.
"Need a hand?" Gauss called.
Ordinarily, if a low-tier team could cope, he wouldn't bother.
But they clearly couldn't; might as well help. They'd all started at the bottom.
They hadn't abandoned their wounded, either—seemed like decent folks.
Plus, he could top up his kill count.
Spotting the black-robed mage on the rise and the faint gleam at his staff tip, the four felt wild relief well up through their despair.
"We do! Sir, we've got a casualty—please help!"
"Alright."
Gauss nodded at the reply.
He pushed off—and vanished from the knoll.
An instant later he was strolling along the fight's edge. A lazy flick of his wand, and blue spheres of energy—like they had eyes—speared out, fast and precise, into the snarling monsters.
Boom! Clean hits cracked out one after another, mixed with screams and howls.
Every step he took, a few more fell.
By the time he reached the party, the last kobolds had been shot through the heart and hit the dirt.
Two dozen mixed mobs, wiped out!
"S-so… fast…"
The party stared, dumbfounded. The swarm that had had them under crushing pressure a moment ago had been mown down like grass by this black-robed mage.
Seeing the newcomer's handsome face and the bronze two-star badge on his chest, their eyes filled with a blend of envy and belated understanding.
So he was a Level 2 mage.
Still, he was really strong. Titles are one thing; seeing raw combat power with your own eyes is another, and it left them stunned.
If only they had that kind of strength… The same fierce longing welled up in each of them.
"See to your friend's wound first?" Gauss said, glancing at the injured shieldman and snapping them out of it.
He looked to Alia; she nodded and produced two softly glowing berries.
"These are Goodberries with mild healing. Feed them to him—it'll ease the injury."
She didn't give more—not from stinginess, but because the short-term healing wouldn't stack much.
"Thank you, sirs."
They hurried to tend the wound.
When they were done, Gauss and Alia, with no thought of payment, were just about to leave.
One teammate suddenly remembered something and called out to stop them.
"Sir, we can't repay your help… but we have a bit of intel you might find useful."
"Let's hear it," Gauss said, curious.
"Last night we found the entrance to the second floor. We didn't dare go down. The exact location is—"
The young man gestured, mapping out the route.
Gauss committed it to memory—
—and felt quietly pleased. Good deeds do get rewarded.
Look: intel on Floor Two delivered right to them.
After pointing the four back toward the labyrinth's main hall, Gauss and Alia watched them go.
"Head out now?"
"Yeah. Let's move—target, the second floor," Gauss nodded.
Entrances to lower levels shift every so often, so time mattered.
Every level is said to have a different environment, and the deeper you go, the stranger it gets—along with stronger, more varied monsters.
What curiosities were lying in wait on Floor Two?