I Became a Slave Collector in the Labyrinth City

“Sion.”

“Yes?”

“Give me some water. Hehehe.”

I took out a water pouch from my spatial pocket and handed it to Yuria.

“This is thirstier work than I expected.”

“Indeed. We sweated a lot.”

Yuria and I lay on the same bed, looking up at the same ceiling.

It was like a dream.
I also learned why men lose all self-control when they fall for a woman.

“Sion.”

“Yes?”

“I’m curious about something.”

“What is it?”

“How far are you aiming to go?”

“In the labyrinth?”

“Yes. I’m curious about what floor you want to reach.”

Yuria rolled over to face me.

A girl in my arms asking about my dreams.
What answer should I give her?

Should I say my dream is to reach the deepest part of the labyrinth, like a dreaming boy?
Or should I say I want to realistically stop around the underground city?

“Well, I haven’t really thought about it specifically.”

I decided to tell the truth.

The floor I want to reach.
I haven’t set a target floor yet.
Until now, I’ve just been going down as far as I could.

Moreover, my original goal of buying a slave has been half-achieved thanks to Yuria.
I originally wanted to buy a slave to have a wife who wouldn’t cheat on me.

I’ve also earned more money than ordinary low-rank adventurers could.

To be honest, if I followed Yuria and joined the guild, becoming a certified instructor and just guiding beginners around the upper levels, I could make a decent living.

Yes, I’ve slightly lost my goal now.
Because I’ve gained stable survival rights in the labyrinth city.
I’m at another crossroads.

Whether to move forward.
Or to settle for this.

That’s why Yuria asked about my future direction.
She must have been curious if I’ll stop here or go further.

“What about you, Yuria?”

I decided to ask her instead.

Where is your goal?
How far down do you want to go?

I’ve already half-achieved my goal.
So what’s important now is not my goal, but hers.

“For me, well. Mm. As an adventurer, Yuria wants to reach the end of the labyrinth. But as your girlfriend and wife, Yuria… well.”

Yuria pondered for a moment.
I quietly waited for her to organize her thoughts.

Decisions about one’s path should always be careful.
It’s about her future. It should be respected as an individual choice rather than being interfered with by others.

“Actually. Should I stop too? You told me two conditions at first, remember? First, a slave who would love only you. Second, someone domestic, not an adventurer. You said you needed someone like that.”

“…”

I couldn’t respond to Yuria’s answer.
Somehow, her words about stopping weighed heavily on my heart.

I felt like I might be blocking her path forward.
Is it right for someone like me to block the way of someone who could potentially become a platinum badge holder?

If it weren’t for me, could she have flown much higher?
I might have become her cage, taking away her freedom.

Thinking that way made my chest feel a bit tight.

I wanted a slave wife who would unconditionally obey my orders.
But I didn’t want Yuria to become a slave without her own will.

Because I like her, I don’t want her going into the dangerous labyrinth anymore.
But conversely, I don’t want a Yuria who has lost her wings.

My head becomes complicated with these conflicting emotions.

“Yuria.”

“Yes?”

“I want to know your true feelings.”

“My thoughts? I just told you my thoughts.”

“No, I mean. Well. Um. Do you really not mind giving up being an adventurer?”

“…”

Yuria opened her mouth, then closed it again.

Giving up being an adventurer.
It means giving up on progressing further.

I don’t mind.
I’m an utterly worldly and pessimistic person with the sensibilities of a 21st century modern human.
My life is the most important thing to me, and if I have money, I could throw away everything, labyrinth or whatever.

But she’s different from me.
Her childhood was painted by the labyrinth city.
Her adolescence also progressed within the labyrinth.
Her entire life has been steeped in the labyrinth.

Perhaps Yuria is even more deeply entwined with the labyrinth than I think.

Moreover, she’s brimming with talent.
At such a young age, she’s already on the verge of getting a gold badge.

Probably after one or two more mana adaptations, and if she gains even one more ability.
She would become a guild-certified gold badge adventurer.

There are quite a few silver badges. It’s proof of being a veteran.
But gold badges, which could be called proof of being a big fish, are even rarer.

‘Finally, Yuria’s mother, Moira is…’

A platinum badge holder.
Undisputedly the strongest woman in the labyrinth city.

A monster possessing 5 magic eyes and 2 magic swords.
Moira is someone who reached the 7th floor alone and came back up.

Even though she playfully flirts with me.
And even though she’s stuck in the guild looking at paperwork.
It doesn’t change the fact that she was a legend who dominated an era.

Can Yuria, who grew up under such a person, really give up on the labyrinth?
She has a mother who could be called a hero.
Moreover, judging by that worn-out armor, it seems her father, who has already passed away, also wanted her to become an adventurer.

Maybe someday in the distant future.
Yuria might regret today’s decision.

After regretting.
She might even resent me.

Before that happens.
I thought it would be good if she could also clearly achieve her own goals.

“Sion.”

“Yes. I’m listening.”

“Is it okay… if I tell the truth?”

“Yes. Tell me the truth.”

“Well… I…”

Yuria seemed to keep hesitating, as if afraid I might reject her.

“Whatever decision you make. Our current relationship won’t suddenly change. So tell me.”

“…Okay. Thank you.”

Yuria now seemed to have found certainty.

“I want to go down to the 7th floor and see it. I’m curious about… the ideal world on the 7th floor that mom saw.”

“The ideal world on the 7th floor?”

“Yes. The place called the fairy nest. Or incubator.”

The 7th floor of the labyrinth.
The 7th floor is probably the deepest level humanity has reached so far.

I see, Yuria wants to go to the floor her mother reached.

“The 7th floor. I’ve heard it’s beautiful.”

“Yes. She said it was incredibly, incredibly beautiful.”

“Alright, the 7th floor. Let’s go see it.”

“Really?”

“Yes. The 7th floor. Of course, I don’t mean let’s go right away. But we should be able to reach it before we die, right?”

“Hahahaha. That’s right. We should be able to reach it at least once before we die of old age. Yes. Let’s go see it together next time.”

I didn’t tell Yuria to give up being an adventurer.
Let’s just agree to go down to the 7th floor together someday and come back up.

Someday.

In the upper floor of a high-class inn in the labyrinth city.
Lea Lionel, daughter of the Lionel family, asked the witch Rien who was lounging in the room.

“Hey, Rien. Hasn’t the porter come up yet?”

“Hmm? Ah… just a moment…”

Rien’s ability ‘Search and Track’.
Lea had been using this to track Sion’s location for several days.

She wanted to meet him as soon as he came up from the labyrinth.
For some reason she couldn’t understand, his face kept flashing in her mind.

“Ehhh…? The porter… seems to have come up to the surface…?”

“What? Really? When! He was underground earlier!”

“Umm…. It might have been… a while ago…”

Quite some time had passed since Rien last activated Search and Track.
During that time, Sion had already come up to the surface, finished reporting, and even finished a celebratory dinner.

“Why didn’t he come to see me right away? I wonder why.”

Lea’s worries deepened at Rien’s answer.
She wondered if she was the only one who had been longing to see him so much.
She also felt like she had somehow lost to him.

“He probably went to rest because he was tired, young lady.”

“Is that so..?”

Lea nodded as if that made sense, at the words of the female knight Rica who had been meditating with her eyes closed.
Rica felt pleased seeing Lea, who had been talking about the porter constantly for days.

‘Did you want to enter the labyrinth that badly? Oh, young lady.’

She was completely off the mark.
Lea wasn’t just waiting for the porter because of the labyrinth…

Rica, who had built a wall against romance, couldn’t understand such delicate emotions.
Despite being a woman herself, Rica was a bit dense.

“I guess you’re right. He’s been going in and out of the labyrinth for days. He must be tired. Right, right.”

“Yes. He must have fallen asleep like he fainted, young lady.”

“Yes, yes. That’s right. That must be it, right? Nothing’s wrong, right? Should we go check? His lodgings might be uncomfortable. Wouldn’t he like it if we got him accommodations on our side? I saw last time that the porter prefers cost-effective lodgings.”

“Huh…? You want to go check at this hour…?”

“Well, I’m curious. He’s also my lifesaver.”

“That’s… true, but..”

“Let’s go see.”

“Okay…”

Rien put away the book she had been reading and got up.

“I’ll go with you too, young lady.”

“Okay. Let’s all go together and just take a quick look at his face.”

And so the porter comfort team was formed.
The three of them, excluding the priestess Erica who was doing volunteer work at the temple, set out to find the porter.

“Is it here…?”

“This is in a completely different direction from the porter’s lodgings?”

“Huh? Then where is this…?”

“I don’t know either!”

“It seems to be a residential area, young lady.”

“You’re right. Why did we come to a residential area? The porter lives in lodgings.”

“Umm… That building over there… I feel energy coming from there…”

Rien pointed to a building, feeling uneasy inside.

A two-story detached house.
It looked quite expensive.

It wasn’t a mansion where nobles would live, but it was the kind of house that a fairly successful gold badge or higher adventurer might live in.

‘Surely not… the porter…’

Unlike Rica, Rien had noticed the young lady’s feelings to some extent.
She was definitely 120% interested in the porter.

But at this evening hour, he’s in someone’s house, not lodgings?

‘There must be… something going on..’

Rien strongly felt that they shouldn’t go any further.

“Lea, let’s go back for now.. This doesn’t seem right..”

“Huh? What doesn’t?”

“No.. It seems like there might be some circumstances.. Maybe we should wait until he comes to see us first…”

“Indeed, it would be a bit inappropriate to suddenly visit a stranger’s house at this hour saying we’ve come to see the porter.”

“Well, you’re right. It would be against etiquette. I guess I got a bit too excited.”

Lea nodded obediently.
Outside the labyrinth city, her noble status might work, but this is inside the labyrinth city.
Acting on impulse could lead to unmanageable consequences.

“Still, it seems he returned safely. That’s good.”

“Yes.. That’s good…”

“Come to think of it. The porter definitely entered the labyrinth with the guild master’s daughter, right?”

“Huh..!? Oh… yeah…?”

“Those two. They’re not anything to each other, right?”

“From what I’ve heard, the porter seemed to have no interest at all.”

“Just the porter? What about the guild master’s daughter?”

“It seems she was clinging to the porter quite a lot.”

“…”

“L-Lea! Let’s go back for now.. There’s nothing we can do right now..”

“Yes. You’re right. That’s true. Everything you said is right.”

Lea clenched her fists.
While the porter was in the labyrinth, she had done some investigation about him and the women around him.

So she knew well.
About the woman called Yuria.

“They said she’d soon become a gold badge holder. Alright.”

She had no intention of giving up.
She had already made a contract with the porter to enter the labyrinth together.

‘Anyway, he and I are labyrinth partners. The opportunity will surely come.’

The young lady half-opened her eyes.
She had no intention of letting anyone monopolize the porter.