I Became a Slave Collector in the Labyrinth City

“Sion, you’re alive. I’m really glad.”

A red-haired woman with an eyepatch on her left eye grabbed my shoulder and grinned.

Guild Master Moira.
This was probably the fifth individual interview.

She’s a woman with quite large breasts.
Also, she was a former platinum badge adventurer with her whole body covered in small scars.

“So you’ve finally decided to become a guild member. I’m proud!”

“No. That’s not it.”

“What? It’s not fun if you keep playing hard to get. Won’t you come under me soon?”

“Hmm. I’m not really interested.”

“Damn it.”

This woman has been throwing passes at me ever since I acquired the spatial pocket.
She even subtly tried to seduce me to share a bed with her.

Sorry, but I’m not into married women.
I don’t know much about her husband, but she has a child.
It was a daughter who looked exactly like her mother.
I’d rather prefer the daughter, to be honest.

“So, you want to form an underground city conquest team?”

Moira returned to her usual expression after her advances didn’t work at all.

“Yes. I made a promise with a silver badge adventurer.”

“I heard roughly from Edwin. You want to bring back your companions’ corpses from the underground city, right?”

“Yes yes. And I thought it would be good to help with supply transportation while going down to retrieve the corpses.”

“I was thinking of forming a conquest team anyway, so the timing is good.”

The guild master had it all planned out too.
Well, the underground city must be a real monster den right now.

Although the guild master didn’t say it, she probably realized that sending in a few adventurer parties wouldn’t be enough.

There’s a high possibility that the underground city is teeming with monsters after the Great Shift.
So there’s a need to deploy adventurers to clean up the monsters once.

“Of course, since I have almost no combat ability, I’m planning to just handle supplies and get out.”

“That alone is excellent.”

My plan was also to recruit a conquest team, gather lots of silver and gold badge adventurers and throw them into the underground city, then just transport supplies while riding along with the conquest team and get out.

Then the map will be made naturally, and monsters will be hunted, so safety will increase naturally. Then I can retrieve Rohan’s companions with him.

“Good. About thirty people have gathered already. Probably more people will gather if you say you’ll be responsible for supplies. Since they won’t need to carry luggage down.”

The story of a porter with a spatial pocket has spread to some extent among adventurers.
Right now, there are even some gold badge adventurers who have sent love calls to me, so I think many will apply if I say I’m participating.

“Then when will the conquest team be able to depart? I’d like to go and come back as soon as possible.”

“Since you can transport supplies freely. We should be able to enter by tomorrow morning at the latest. The sooner we enter, the better. I’m thinking of moving up the time as much as possible.”

“Good. I have some separate preparations to make too.”

“Alright. I’ll prepare the supplies to be transported in advance.”

Done. The conquest team was formed smoothly.
Now I just need to go down, quickly find Rohan’s companions’ corpses, and escape back up.

“By the way, Sion. Did you gain something?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“No, I mean an ability. It seems like you gained some unique ability.”

“Ah..”

The eye behind the guild master’s eyepatch observed me.

Moira is the possessor of a magic eye. She said it was a magic eye type ability.
Although I don’t know exactly what effect her magic eye has, her left eye could somewhat discern others’ abilities.

“I gained an ability called Spirit Eye Awakening. Do you perhaps know anything about this ability?”

“Spirit Eye? An eye that sees souls. Hmm. I don’t know the detailed abilities, but judging by how my eye reacted, it must be quite a good ability. Sion, did you receive some blessing from the labyrinth? A spatial pocket and a magic eye, huh.”

The guild master looked at me as if she was secretly envious.
This person doesn’t know what kind of ability Spirit Eye Awakening is either.

If even the guild master doesn’t know, just how rare of an ability is it?
Should I ask ‘that person’ after all?

“Alright, I understand for now. I’ll be going then.”

“Okay, see you later.”

The guild master nodded and started paperwork again.
I quickly left so as not to disturb her further.

By the way, so the guild master was thinking of forming a conquest team too.
Well, there’s no way the guild would just stand by in this situation.

The rescue teams brought out people they could quickly bring out.
From now on, they were probably planning to leisurely explore the changed underground city.

“Rohan.”

“Ah, Sion. You came first.”

“Yes. I just had an interview, and the guild master says she’s forming a conquest team. It seems we can join that and go down to the underground city.”

“You’ve already finished talking?”

“Yes. I was called in as soon as I arrived.”

“I see. Then can you tell us when we’ll be going down?”

“I think we’ll depart sometime tomorrow morning. We should finish our preparations by then.”

We’ll all go down together, but we’ll have to retrieve the corpses on our own.
It’s true that I’m planning to ride along with the conquest team to move around the underground city more safely, but we can’t just follow the conquest team without doing anything.

Even within the conquest team, everyone will move in team units.
While the purpose of exploring the underground city centered around a base camp is the same, where to go will be different for each team.

Therefore, it means we need to separately recruit people who will retrieve corpses with us.
Because we have our own purpose of retrieving corpses and going back up.

It’s not like everything is solved just by forming a conquest team.
The conquest team is literally just a device to increase the probability of survival in the underground city.

“By the way, about the corpses of the people we need to rescue. You remember exactly where they are, right?”

“I remember the location clearly. We hid them in a building next to the plaza district before coming up. If we go down and find the plaza district, we should be able to retrieve them.”

The underground city is divided into several districts by the type and style of densely packed buildings.
I haven’t heard the details, but I think there were broadly a plaza district, a temple district, and a spire district.

The monsters that appear in each district are all different, so I need to study this part separately too.

“I’m sorry, but could I also know how your companions died?”

This is important information.
We need to know why they died to be able to deal with it.

“We were caught up in the Great Shift and blown into the plaza.. and unfortunately, a chimera appeared.”

“Ah.”

Chimera.

It’s a notorious resident of the underground city, as vicious as the minotaur.

“Don’t worry. We killed the chimera before coming out.”

A party of 8 including Rohan and Hachi.

To be precise, it seems that the party led by Rohan and the party led by Hachi, 2 parties, cooperated to fight the chimera.

And six people died in the process.
Everyone except the two leaders of each party died.

“There were some mixed in who were going down to the underground city for the first time. Our role was to guide them and show them the underground city as leaders.”

If they hadn’t been caught up in the Great Shift, they probably would have looked around the underground city a bit and then come back up.

“There were some whose mental state broke as soon as we were caught in the Great Shift. We fell back into the underground city while we were on our way up after exploring the underground city.”

It’s understandable for a newcomer who just came down to the underground city to have their mental state break.
Just as they were barely escaping alive from the damn underground city, they were caught in the Great Shift and fell back down.

“Anyway, it was chaos. Killing the chimera and coming back up alive in that situation was an impossible miracle. If not…”

If Rohan and Hachi didn’t have skills, they probably would have been annihilated and become the chimera’s meal.

“Probably when we go down tomorrow, I’ll unload the supplies in a building to be used as a temporary base, and then I’ll be able to move with Rohan and Hachi to retrieve the corpses.”

“We’ll need to find adventurers to move with us.”

“Yes. I’ll leave that part to you. I have somewhere else I need to go.”

“Alright. I’ll find them before sunset. Let’s meet later.”

“Yes. See you later.”

Rohan and Hachi will find backline fighters and a healer.
It would be good to have a priestess from the Goddess Church who can quickly cast healing spells, but.
Priestesses from the Goddess Church don’t often enter the labyrinth, so that might not work out?

“Ah, I’ll leave the White Evil’s corpse separately. Please distribute the amount later.”

“Understood.”

After entrusting the monster corpses to the dismantling shop in the guild, I came out.
I entrusted all the monster corpses I hunted, from the bunny man onwards, so I should be able to receive payment later.

‘Then..’

I headed to the hole-in-the-wall shop.
The place where I bought various items including the tonic I used last time.
A hidden shop located in the eastern part of the labyrinth city.

An atelier run by an elf alchemist, no less.
It’s a small workshop that you come across when you follow the alley next to the eastern red-light district.

“Hmm? Ah. It’s Sion.”

As I entered the shop, a thick smoke greeted me.

It’s something similar to tobacco.
That woman is always smoking this.

“It’s been a while, Raphnel.”

A white-haired elf.
Elegant features and pointy ears.
And an expression that somehow looks languid, lazy, and bored.

“It’s been a while? Ah. It has been a while indeed.”

Her sense of time is different from humans.
She looks like a young child, but she’s actually a bent old granny of unknown age.

A true loli-baba existence.
How strong she is, what abilities she has, are all completely secret.

In the first place, only people who have permission can come to this shop.
The mysterious alley next to the eastern red-light district is a kind of ward.

I didn’t even know a place like this existed at first.
I became able to enter here on the day I gained the spatial pocket.

“The labyrinth was shaking. Did you survive the Great Shift?”

“Ah, yes. I nearly died but survived.”

“I see. To gain the Spirit Eye at the brink of life and death.”

“Huh? You can recognize this?”

“Of course. You’ve obtained something rare.”

Raphnel immediately recognized the Spirit Eye.
As expected of an elderly elf who seems to know things.

“Could you tell me a bit about this ability? I want to use it, but I don’t know how to.”

“Hmm. The Spirit Eye, huh.”

Raphnel thought for a moment and then told me about the gist of the Spirit Eye Awakening power.

“It’s ultimately an ability that allows you to see what can’t be seen. For example, the dead. Or the souls of others. Or perhaps the unseen back side of the world.”

“It sounds like an incredibly cheating ability?”

“It might be cheating, or it might not be. Being a magic eye, it will probably depend a lot on the owner’s disposition.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You haven’t even opened your eyes yet. You’ve just gained the qualification to open them. It means no one knows yet what you’ll be able to see. You might be able to see everything, or you might only witness very insignificant things.”

Raphnel stared intently at my eyes while stroking her chin.
Her green eyes seemed to look into my inner self as if observing.

Even after hearing Raphnel’s words, I still couldn’t quite grasp how to use this.
Above all, according to Raphnel, I haven’t even awakened the Spirit Eye yet.

Literally, I just have the qualification to open the Spirit Eye.

“I don’t even know when the ability will activate?”

“That’s right. But you’ll be able to awaken it someday.”

It wasn’t proper information, but I’m glad it’s not a bad ability at least.
Because there are some abilities that are a bit ambiguous.

“By the way, the fact that you came to buy things. It means you’re entering the labyrinth, right?”

“Yes. I’m thinking of going down to the underground city this time.”

“The Great Shift has just ended. You can’t know what will happen. It seems like it would be good to take a lot of things. So, about that…”

“Don’t tell me. Another experimental product?”

“Haha. Well, you see. I’ve made something quite interesting lately.”

Raphnel took out a potion of a very mysterious color and put it on the counter.
This person always tries to experiment on me.

She only started selling the erection-inducing tonic after experimenting on me several times.

“What’s this one?”

“If you drink it, you can turn into a rat.”

“A rat?”

A potion that turns you into a rat when you drink it?
No, transformation magic itself is rare, but you made it into a potion?

Crazy monster of an elf.
What on earth did you create?

“Yes. The selling price would be about… 10 gold coins should be fine. No, considering the ingredients used… I think I should receive at least 20 gold coins.”

20 gold coins?
No good. If the price is estimated too high, I won’t be able to buy it freely.

I have to knock it down. I must absolutely bring down the price.

‘A long-lived species whose wealth I can’t even gauge. It probably won’t hurt much even if I knock it down a bit.’

Raphnel is actually an eccentric who just wants to receive money equal to the value of the item.
I’ve already found out through several conversations that she’s not the type who earns money because she needs it.

So it means Raphnel doesn’t really care even if I blindly haggle down the price.
To buy it as cheaply as possible, I, as a regular customer, had to absolutely knock down the price.

“No, who would buy that for 20 gold coins? It’s just for turning into a rat.”

“Huh? But, but.. it’s a potion imbued with transformation magic?”

“Ah geez. It won’t sell. Who would buy it? Why would anyone buy a potion to turn into a rat for 20 gold coins? Do you have a death wish to get stepped on?”

“Huh.. You really won’t buy it?”

“No, I won’t buy it.”

“Whyyy! Buy it!”

“It’s just an experimental product for now anyway, right? You’re selling an unverified potion for 20 gold coins? Are you in your right mind? Have you gone senile?”

“You… young whippersnapper… Alright. I’ll give you one bottle for free for now. Try it and tell me your thoughts.”

“I can’t resist free stuff. I’ll try it and let you know how it was later.”

I received the “potion that turns you into a rat” for free from Raphnel.

‘This is amazing.’

If you turn into a rat, you can enter small places.
Your presence will be much less noticeable than when you’re human too.

It seems good for infiltration or escape.
If intelligence is maintained, there are endless ways to use it.

“But this doesn’t have side effects like, say, lowering intelligence to rat level, right?”

“Huh? Ah. You mean side effects. Hmm. Your intelligence should remain the same. However… your preferences might change for a while?”

“Preferences?”

“Yes. Try it once. I’m not sure of the details either.”

“Hmm.”

From my experience of frequently using Raphnel’s potions so far, there were no extremely fatal flaws.
Rather, there were cases where it became beneficial if you used the side effects well. It didn’t lead to bad results.

I trust Raphnel’s skills.
This will surely be useful later too.

“Thank you. I’ll come again next time.”

“Alright. Let’s meet alive.”

After quickly buying the things I needed to buy, I left the hole-in-the-wall shop.
They sell all sorts of items, so I was able to get a lot of good things at quite cheap prices.
Above all, I acquired a potion that turns you into a rat, so I should use it effectively in the underground city.

The preparations for entering the labyrinth are almost complete.
I hope nothing bad happens.