While Benny had found some semblance of normalcy inside this labyrinth, those he didn't know still survived and had already reached the end of their supplies and weapons. Right now they were barreling through the remaining floors, though it wasn't made easier by their party size of twenty people. Somehow they'd all still managed to hold on, but barely. It spoke to the leader's strength and the quality of the remaining survivors. But this wasn't only the leader's strength that made their survival possible. It meant that all the remaining people here must be the cream of the crop, the best of the best, despite everything they'd encountered. From the betrayals to the powerful monsters, it all made this entire situation possible.
While it was true that they were a bunch of strong people, most of them had no affiliations with each other since they'd come in different groups when this exploration first started. So the leader could only be called more than capable of creating cohesion among these different individuals with differing opinions and views.
What made their ascent even harder was the fact that they'd lost their way. The maps they'd made were now useless. That was one part of the betrayal. Those people who'd managed to leave them all here to die had taken the maps. They'd also killed the other teams who had maps or at least taken them. So not only did the survivors have to fight off waves and waves of enemies, but they also had to retrace their steps to get back up.
They now lacked the mapped areas they'd created before. Considering there was no proper lighting in this dark and gloomy place, they were bound to make many mistakes. They'd also found out too late that the map makers were gone or had been killed off. The map makers were probably the most important people in this expedition gone wrong.
At the start of this journey, there had been five teams, each comprising twenty individuals. In each team of twenty, there was at least one mapper they had to protect. Mappers were important figures in dungeon expeditions and were pretty expensive to hire. They'd been given different areas to map out.
Since the chaos created by the traitors, not only had they lost the five map makers, but they'd also been backstabbed and left here to deal with the monsters. They could feel their blood boiling just thinking about it right now, with some cursing deep within about what they'd do once they got out of their predicament.
Unfortunately for them, they'd been sealed shut in this labyrinth, though this was unknown to them. But they couldn't harbor such thoughts for long. They were literally on their last legs at this point. Their armor and weapons were on the edge of breaking. Their supplies, no matter how they rationed them, were down to crumbs. Water was also an issue among them. And their health had dropped significantly, no matter how powerful they were. Their near-death adventure was going to kill them anytime soon. They also had minimal sleep from constant fighting.
Thankfully, they were now around the fourth floor, but they were still being chased by the monsters here. That was expected, considering the noise they made as a moving group of twenty people.
None of them deemed to give up, with the leader giving them speeches about not doing so since they were almost out of there. But even the leading person was almost at his limit. Honestly, he was already so tired that he might want to enter a beast's mouth and rest in its stomach eternally rather than continue. Yet he still pushed himself. He knew these were just thoughts, and that as long as he was breathing, he would continue to live.
Considering the state of these twenty strong people, it left one wondering how the fuck Benny had survived his own ascent that time. That was a question that defied all logic.
The contrast was stark and brutal. Here were twenty of the expedition's most capable fighters, working together with military discipline and coordinated tactics, barely hanging onto life by their fingernails. Meanwhile, Benny, the weak-willed coward who'd abandoned them, was not only alive but actually thriving in ways none of them could imagine.
The irony would have been crushing if they'd known the truth. While they fought desperately just to reach the next floor, Benny was mapping entire levels, discovering hidden civilizations, and growing stronger through methodical planning rather than desperate combat.
Part of it was numbers. Twenty people made noise, attracted attention, and required massive amounts of resources. One person could hide, could scavenge efficiently, could take time to learn and adapt without worrying about protecting others.
But there was more to it than that. These survivors were still thinking like raiders, like conquerors trying to force their way through the labyrinth's defenses. Benny had learned to think like prey, like someone who belonged in the ecosystem rather than someone fighting against it.
They were burning through resources because they were at war with the labyrinth. Benny was conserving resources because he was learning to live within it.
The leader pressed them forward with another rallying speech, unaware that the very qualities that made him a good leader in normal circumstances—his refusal to give up, his determination to save everyone, his aggressive push toward their goal—might be exactly the wrong approach for this particular hell.
Sometimes survival wasn't about being the strongest or the bravest or the most determined. Sometimes it was about being the most adaptable, the most patient, the most willing to change everything you thought you knew about how the world worked.
But they wouldn't learn that lesson. They couldn't afford to. They were too close to death to experiment with new approaches, too desperate to try anything but the tactics that had gotten them this far.
So they pressed on, twenty heroes racing against time and their own limitations, never knowing that the coward they'd written off as dead was the one who'd actually figured out how to master the labyrinth that was killing them.