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Goblin Chapter 163: Entering the Labyrinth
🕑 Added 2025-08-15 17:06:18 +0000 UTCThe next day.
They bought tickets for the coaches to the labyrinth.
The convoy rolled along the South District’s avenue toward the western gate barbican. Passing beneath the bastion-like arch, the view opened into endless scrub and woodland.
Near noon, the coaches stopped before an enormous encampment.
In no time at all, the ground around the labyrinth entrance had grown into the noisy seed of a temporary town—and it was clearly still expanding.
Muddy tracks were packed with adventurers under heavy packs. Morning rain had left countless puddles, which boots splashed through without a thought.
“Looking for a party to push to Level Two? Need a cleric!”
“Top-grade blood draughts—lifesavers for explorers, hero! Have a look!”
“Today’s goal: break through to the second floor!”
The camp roared with voices.
Recruiters, hawkers, teams arguing over routes—clamor tumbled over itself from every direction.
“Should we stock more food?” Alia asked.
“We should have enough,” Gauss mused. “We also need space in the storage pouch for loot.”
Inside were the supplies they’d bought in Grayrock, plus frog jerky and freshly made frost snake jerky.
And the labyrinth ought to have at least a few edible monsters. Worst case, they could live off the land.
It was their first dive; Gauss didn’t plan to go too deep. For a few days, what they’d packed was plenty.
Overpack, and there’d be no room for the spoils.
“True.” Alia nodded, realizing she’d been over-nervous. First time in a labyrinth—of course it felt like nothing was ever “enough.”
Man and woman, plus a wolf, flowed with the crowd toward the entrance.
At last, a vast sinkhole loomed ahead, tens of meters across and bottomless to the eye, as if boring to the planet’s core.
At their feet, a neat stair of stone.
Adventurers either went down with shining eyes, or trudged up filthy and exhausted.
Gauss and Alia drew a long breath, merged into the stream, and descended the endless steps into the deep unknown below.
The stair was long—easily a hundred meters down.
At the bottom, the space opened up.
First came the antechamber to Basement Level One.
The Adventurers’ Guild had already made it fully functional.
Broad and bright, with fountains, makeshift buildings, and a field of tents—parties doing last-minute resupply and rallying for departure.
According to the Guild’s Labyrinth Guide:
This labyrinth is vast; the number of layers is unknown. The deeper you go, the greater the danger—and the richer the rewards.
A relic of an ancient civilization, a labyrinth is something strange—almost a living thing. Even on the very top floor, where adventurers think they’ve “cleared everything,” new zones and monsters bud out every day.
Like a great beast that never stops growing and refreshing.
On that premise, the Guild proposes a “Lifespan” theory: a labyrinth passes through juvenile, adolescent, adult, and late phases, maturing as it grows. After the late phase ends, the labyrinth withers—growth stops, spawns cease, monsters and treasures dwindle to nothing, and the structure shrinks until it vanishes from the world. Adventurers call that “clearing” a labyrinth.
Some labyrinths live centuries or longer; some “die” after only a few years of exploration. You can’t know in advance—only learn by delving.
That uncertainty is why it’s called a “labyrinth.”
Right now, this one is in its juvenile phase: flourishing—and as friendly as it’ll ever be to low-level adventurers like Gauss.
“Slimes again!”
A shout went up somewhere in the hall, and a few fresh slimes were instantly mobbed under a tide of adventurers.
Beyond the hall stretched B1, a broad expanse of crumbling walls, ruined structures, and all manner of underground flora.
Yes—plants grew down here. Thanks to some unknown light that often spilled from above, vegetation thrived in the depths.
“Shall we head out?” Gauss looked to Alia. After a night’s rest, both felt sharp.
“Okay—you lead.”
First time in, they were extra cautious.
Gauss picked a direction.
Taking point, he cast an Omni-Armor shield on both of them.
The guide said B1 was mostly low-tier monsters—no great threat to the two of them—but better safe than sorry.
“The entrance down to Level Two moves periodically,” Gauss recalled from the guide.
Exits between levels shift every so often. That constant churn makes fixed routes impossible; you have to scout anew each visit. With luck, you can drop several floors in a row; with bad luck, you’ll never find the way down.
Given time, once exploration settles, at least the early floors should have live-updated maps.
In any case, they weren’t in a rush to beeline for Level Two.
As they probed forward—
“NYAGH!!”
A few goblins leapt from behind a low, broken wall, shrieking and brandishing crude clubs.
At the familiar green faces, a flicker of nostalgia crossed Gauss’s face. He hadn’t seen goblins for nearly half a winter.
Feeling the thrum of Reptilian Strain inside him, he checked an eager Ulfen with a hand and drew his refined steel longsword.
Shing!
Steel sang from the scabbard.
He’d swapped his rapier for this wind-shedding longsword, but with Swordsmanship Basics and days of drills, the adjustment was easy.
Whoosh!
Air slid silk-smooth along the blade’s ridge.
A flash of white.
The lead goblin split open to the bone, blood spraying.
Gauss flowed on light feet—second stroke, third—wind-quick. In a heartbeat, the goblins were down in their own blood.
“Goblins Slain ×5.”
Gauss exhaled, heat blooming faintly in his body.
That was Reptilian Strain and Energy Gland drinking in “nutrients,” strengthening themselves.
Goblins again… just the thing.
“The monsters here are way more aggressive,” Alia said, coming up.
Out in the wilds, five goblins usually wouldn’t dare charge two professionals and a big wolf.
“Must be the labyrinth’s influence.”
Gauss glanced at the soil underfoot, already soaking up the goblins’ spilled blood.
Not that he minded.
During the winter hunt, those bottom-tier mobs that broke and ran had wasted him plenty of time. He’d be delighted if everything down here fought to the last.
They looted quickly and looked the way the goblins had come.
“There are probably more goblins that way,” Gauss murmured, and led on.
On they went.
Sure enough, more monsters—some lone strays, some in threes and fives—but nothing that could trouble them.
Besides goblins, they ran into kobolds, skeletons, and slimes—the usual bottom-rung menagerie.
After several hours, they took a breather on the second floor of a ruined building and lit a small fire.
“Total Monster Kills: 1,386.”
Gauss checked the bestiary.
Sixty kills so far—roughly forty goblins, the rest assorted riffraff.
He was broadly satisfied with the pace.
The place itself, though… eerie.
“Level One is huge.”
They’d only crossed paths with other people a handful of times.
And one thing had nagged at him since they came in: they were deep underground—so where was the light coming from? Was it even sunlight? He couldn’t tell.
“Gauss! Look what I found!” Alia called from downstairs.
After eating, she’d poked around the empty rooms below—she’d heard up top that people were prying valuables from the ruins, so she’d gone to try her luck.
Gauss followed her voice down. In a corner, she cradled several heavy, silver-white metal bricks.
“Silver?”
“The real thing.” She tapped an ingot; it chimed bright and clear.
“Worth three to four hundred silvers, I’d guess,” Gauss said, surprised. “A few golds, just like that. Lucky you.”
“Heh—hidden in there.”
She grinned and nudged a few loosened floor tiles she’d pried up.
Gauss gave her a thumbs-up.
No wonder adventurers flocked here. Even on B1 they could turn up a cache—and this, after much of the level had already been picked over before they arrived.
They were still savoring the windfall when—
Rumble!
By the old well in the courtyard outside, the ground heaved without warning.
A massive shadow, several meters tall, surged up from the earth!
“Shh.”
Gauss stiffened instantly, stowed the silver, and shot Alia a look.
Moving like a cat, he slid to the room facing the courtyard, flattened to the wall, and peeked through a broken window toward the open yard.
BOOM!
He’d barely leaned out when a great clod of dark-brown, ominously reeking sludge smashed through the window like a cannonball—
—hurtling straight at them.
“Look out!”
Gauss yanked Alia aside on reflex.
CRASH!!
With a sodden thud, the mass punched through the rickety masonry. Mud and grit exploded in a spray.
