"It's roughly in this location."
Ryu produced a map of the 18th floor and pointed to a small red circle. Roy looked at the position and marveled; they had hidden it well—seven or eight hundred meters deep into the earth. Without the Magic Sword of Earth, finding it would have been impossible.
"What do you plan to do?" Ryu asked. She knew Roy had been waiting for this day to seek revenge.
"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing," Roy replied.
Ryu didn't leave. Her sky-blue eyes remained fixed on him. She had been consumed by vengeance before and feared Roy would let hatred cloud his judgment. The two stared at each other for a long time. Knowing the stubborn elf wouldn't let him go without a real answer, Roy raised his hands in surrender.
"I won't take a single step outside the Starry Court. Is that enough?"
Only then did Ryu relax. Although this youth loved to take risks and often did things that seemed insane, he was a man of his word. Even if his "honor" was often used in strange ways—like promising to kill a man's entire family and then following through because a man "must have integrity"—he was reliable.
Late into the night.
Roy, lying in bed, opened his eyes and accessed his system panel. He indeed wouldn't leave the Starry Court, but someone else was going to kill the Dark Sect for him!
[Puppet Summoning Card used. Selecting: Ottar. Remaining uses: 2]
A burly man standing over two meters tall appeared before Roy. Clad in work trousers, with brown hair and ears atop his head—it was Ottar! Roy curiously examined the puppet; it was an exact duplicate of that "dead pig" Ottar! The terrifying aura it radiated was that of a Level 7, enough to give anyone goosebumps.
"Go."
Roy threw a bottle of Ghost Poison, the Magic Sword of Earth, and a high-quality broadsword to the puppet. The Ottar puppet inherited the original's stoic and taciturn nature. It nodded, took the gear, donned a heavy cloak to hide its identity, and vanished into the night toward Babel.
The puppet only lasted for one hour. Traveling from the Starry Court to Babel and then down to the 18th floor was a race against time! Roy could share the puppet's vision, control it manually, or let it operate on "auto-pilot."
The Ottar puppet moved through the streets like a ghost. Thanks to the cloak, no one recognized it. The Dungeon, ever a bully that fears the strong, felt the Level 7 aura. Almost no monsters on the upper or middle floors dared to block its path. Even the Dungeon knew it was pointless. A thousand "Newbie Killers" like Killer Ants or Shadow Rays couldn't even scratch a Level 7.
Once inside, the puppet went full throttle, charging like a rampaging bull. Its Level 7 agility was like a thunderclap. Upon reaching the middle floors, it simply leaped into collapsed shafts, skipping multiple levels at once.
In just thirty minutes, the Ottar puppet reached the 18th floor at the exact location Ryu had mapped out.
Rumble!
The puppet thrust the Magic Sword of Earth into the wall. As the terrain shifted, a deep passage appeared. After finishing, the puppet buried the sword in a hidden corner and marked it for Roy to retrieve later. Then, it stepped into the tunnel. In the lightless passage, the Ottar puppet's steps were heavy, its eyes glowing with a faint, crimson light.
Man-made Labyrinth: Knossos.
A middle-aged man entered the central control room. Unlike clean-cut adventurers, he wore tattered clothes caked in dirt. His fingernails were stained with mud and dried blood, and his bloodshot eyes burned with an obsessive light. He was the brother of Dix Perdix (the captain of the Icelos Familia), named Barca Perdix.
Unlike his brother, Barca was fully consumed by the curse of Daedalus's blood. His entire life was dedicated to building this grand labyrinth. He didn't rest, had no hobbies, and no emotions; he ate just enough to stay functional. His only meaning for existing was construction. He would do anything for the labyrinth—collaborate with the Dark Sect, father children purely to keep the bloodline going... whatever it took. Because of this obsession, he possessed the "Mystery" development ability and the skill to create cursed items.
Today, he received a report of terrain shifting at a construction site, suggesting an adventurer had stumbled upon it. This happened occasionally. The control room allowed him to manipulate the labyrinth to crush or trap intruders. Barca's eyes glowed with a "D" symbol as he synchronized with a crystal ball on the altar, displaying various sections of the labyrinth.
He quickly found the intruder: a cloaked, burly man charging straight into the interior. Barca didn't hesitate. He manipulated the walls. The labyrinth walls were made of Orichalcum, one of the hardest metals in the world and a material for "unbreakable" gear. Usually, trapping an intruder in a room meant they would be a pile of bones in a few years.
But this time, Barca was stunned. As he lowered a stone wall to trap the intruder, the man exploded forward like a rocket, covering hundreds of meters in an instant. The man was breaking through the labyrinth at an impossible speed.
"Level 5? No, Level...?"
Barca frowned. He had killed plenty of Level 3 and 4 adventurers, but those above Level 6 were rare. Why was one here? Barca desperately closed the heavy stone gates further ahead, slamming them down.
"Hah!"
Just before the gates closed completely, the burly man's massive hands caught the gap. With a roar of pure strength, he physically hoisted the hundred-ton Orichalcum gate and slid through.
Trouble!
Barca's frown deepened. The intruder had reached the Great Hall, where massive supplies were stored; even if trapped there, the man could survive for a decade. However, Barca wasn't panicked yet. This was their headquarters. With thousands of dark adventurers here, they could drown the intruder in numbers.
"Intruder in Hall No. 2! Eliminate him immediately!" Barca barked into the communication device.
Under his command, members of the Thanatos and Icelos Familias converged on the hall—hundreds of them. They wore cruel grins. Since no monsters spawned in the labyrinth, hunting lost adventurers was their favorite sport.
On the other side, the Ottar puppet entered the spacious hall. Before it were rows upon rows of iron cages holding a massive number of monsters. This was the Icelos Familia's monster-smuggling operation. Outside Orario, aristocrats and coliseums in various kingdoms had a high demand for monsters. Since the Guild and mainstream Familias protected the public, they wouldn't touch this illegal trade.This illicit income flowed directly into the pockets of the Icelos Familia. Xenos—monsters possessing human intelligence—were in high demand, with a single one valued at tens of millions of Valis.
On the surface, Roy's eyes were cold. Under his control, the Ottar puppet swung its sword with lightning speed, shattering the iron cages and releasing the monsters. As the mindless monsters began to wreak havoc within the labyrinth, Roy pointed out an escape route for several Xenos.
"That way! Run, quickly!"
The Xenos looked at him in surprise, their eyes filled with gratitude, before fleeing in the direction he indicated. This was all Roy could do for them. If they fled now, they had a chance at life. Once he unleashed that bottle of poison, the Man-made Labyrinth would transform into a desolate, hellish ghost zone where nothing could survive.
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Danmachi : Starting with an Elf (400 Chapter – Ongoing)
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