Chapter 35

#Chapter 35: Tin Knight and the Mysterious Underground Labyrinth (4)

The Ironblood Emperor, the previous ruler of the Empire, had this to say about adventurers:

“They’re the trash of society.”

“They don’t farm with a sickle, go out to fish, weave clothes on a spindle, or transport goods with a cart.”

“If a group can only consume without producing anything, the military mirrors that to some extent, but at least they follow the country’s command and can self-sustain in formats like millet fields. Moreover, they protect the nation from external threats and serve as a restraining force that prevents public order from falling into chaos through their very existence.”

“But what about adventurers? They don’t stabilize society; they stir up chaos. They roam the streets armed with all sorts of weapons, causing anxiety among the citizens, flaunting the riches they’ve stumbled upon and instilling a sense of relative deprivation in those who work hard for their living. The damage they cause by leading foolish youths to mistakenly believe that this is ‘cool’ is beyond description.”

“Some might come to defend them, citing the heroic deeds of certain adventurers. But I would ask in return: How many truly respectable adventurers are there among the rabble scattered across the continent? If only one in a hundred shines like a gem while the other ninety-nine are trash, how is that different from simply being a heap of garbage?”

“The freedom that adventurers chant about is nothing but licentiousness. A society that respects adventurers proves the incompetence of its rulers. Therefore, I have but one thing to convey to them.”

“Follow the nation’s control. Take responsibility for your assigned duties. That is the only way to prove that you are not trash but honorable citizens of the Empire.”

The Ironblood Emperor’s disdain for adventurers was well-known, yet ironically, he sparked a significant revival in the adventurer industry.

Before the Ironblood Emperor, the Adventurer’s Guild was not a single massive organization, but rather separate armed groups rooted in various regions, with no standardized compensation rates or rank systems for adventurers.

It was common for adventurers from different guilds to clash violently, and it was not rare for adventurers who failed their quests to switch guilds to escape penalties.

Without inter-guild cooperation, while adventurers in Area A idled due to a lack of work, the bounty in Area B skyrocketed due to a shortage of manpower.

The Ironblood Emperor forcibly overhauled this adventurer industry.

To be more precise, only those who completely surrendered their existing interests and conflicts with foreign powers survived, while everyone else was mercilessly crushed.

Now, clients no longer needed to wander around looking for a guild to take their requests, and adventurers had to treat clients with respect and diligently complete quests in order to maintain their ranks.

This filtered out those who couldn’t be distinguished from thieves, and the rampant prevalence of back-door dealings and public credit theft among adventurers vanished, significantly raising the overall quality of adventurers.

A wind of reform had indeed begun to blow, and all that remained was for the entire adventurer industry to rise.

At least, that was supposed to happen.

“Hey, doesn’t the guild atmosphere feel a bit weird these days?”

The ranger and party leader, Kumara, remarked, to which the wizard Magia responded with a frown.

“Weird? What do you mean?”

“I feel like the quality of the kids is getting worse lately.”

“Are you going to sound like an old-timer saying how bad the new recruits are in terms of skill and mentality?”

“No, it’s not about that. It’s about the overall atmosphere. It seems like there are guys who commit acts deserving of punishment getting off with a light reprimand, or conversely, those who haven’t done anything noteworthy getting promoted unusually fast. What should I call that, hmm.”

Kumara hesitated for a moment, then frowned as he spoke.

“It really feels like we’re gradually returning to the ‘old guild’ days you described.”

Magia, letting her long green hair tumble down, replied.

“Come on, it must just be a feeling. With the Empire openly watching us, if we were to return to the days when guilds had backings from various nobles and were scheming against each other, we’d get caught in no time. This time, the adventurer profession might even disappear from the Empire.”

“Which makes it more concerning. If it’s just a few idiots causing trouble, we can just kick them out, but once the whole guild starts rotting, we’ll be in trouble too.”

Magia appeared to be picturing an unpleasant future as she shut her mouth.

It was the party’s third member, the warrior Sitarr, who spoke instead of Magia.

“If your instincts are right, then what should we do?”

“What should we do? That’s—”

Kumara hesitated.

Magia then interjected.

“What can we do? We just live like mice in a wall.”

“Why do you say that?”

“If the troublemakers are idiots causing trouble elsewhere, we could just beat them up, but if the personnel management issues are coming from the upper levels of the guild, what can mere E-rankers do?”

“Hey, what are you calling us ‘mere’? E-rankers are recognized outside, you know?”

“Yeah, but that’s just their little festival. If you have complaints, start building your own achievements and level up to D-rank quickly. Specifically, stop chatting and go back to work.”

“Tch. It’s like you can’t stand seeing someone taking a break.”

While grumbling, Kumara grasped the picking set again.

“But really, shouldn’t they just allow us to take the reward after we find the hidden room? Why are all the chests inside locked too?”

They were on the 28th floor of the underground labyrinth.

Finding a secret room while searching for monsters to gather the materials required for the 25th floor had been great.

There were even three large treasure chests in the room, so it was no surprise that Kumara’s spirits were rising.

The problem was that all three chests were securely locked.

Kumara managed to open the two decorated with silver and copper, but the last golden chest was proving utterly impossible to unlock.

Finally, as the sound of crack echoed, and another picking tool broke, Kumara slumped backward.

“Ah, I’m done! Enough of this!!”

Magia, looking down at the party leader who was throwing a tantrum on the floor like a child, eventually let out a sigh.

“Sitarr. Can’t you lift that chest and move it away?”

Sitarr, who had been checking the chest, shook his head.

“Not a chance. It won’t budge. This thing looks like a chest on the outside, but it’s completely fused with the floor.”

“Well, then there’s nothing we can do. Let’s head back.”

“What about the treasure chests?”

“It’s this idiot that broke all the picking tools, so what can we do?”

At Magia’s remark, Kumara retorted angrily.

“Anyone would think I did it on purpose! Besides, I opened the other two just fine! The security level of the traps in this labyrinth is extremely high. Most rogues or rangers would find it challenging to even open one!”

“Just keep your voice down; there’s no need to announce that there’s a hidden room here, is there?”

After listening to their bickering, Sitarr proposed.

“How about we just break the chests if the tools can’t do the job?”

“Hmm.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Kumara shook his head.

“No, let’s not do that. There’s a big chance we’d ruin the contents while breaking the chests, and even if we can’t have it, we shouldn’t deny others the chance… that would look bad as adventurers.”

Magia shrugged her shoulders as well.

“Well, I’m not sure when this industry ever had such ethics, but I agree, let’s not smash them. There’s a chance the chests might still be intact when we come back next time. After all, only teams that can come down to this level—”

She never finished her thought.

Kumara signaled for quiet with a shush.

A voice echoed from a distance just then.

“This way! At first glance, it may seem like a simple dead end, but in truth, you can pass through the wall! The treasure chests inside are tightly locked, and I left them unattended!”

The three tensed up with surprise.

Someone was pointing out the very secret room they were in.

And then—

*Click.*

Suddenly, someone stepped through what appeared to be an empty wall.

A suit of metallic armor enveloped the figure completely, glinting dully in the torchlight.

Blue ghostly flames flickered in the slits of the helmet.

The sword in one hand and shield in the other seemed to blend seamlessly with the body, and even the smallest movements exuded an unsettling pressure and momentum.

Sitarr gulped.

As the frontline warrior of the party, he instinctively understood the skill gap between himself and the knight before him.

‘I can’t win. At best, I can buy time.’

Suppressing the urge to instinctively draw his axe, Sitarr managed to hold back.

The opponent wasn’t displaying any hostile moves yet; drawing a weapon recklessly might ignite the sparks of conflict.

Kumara and Magia didn’t quite do the same as Sitarr, but they too sensed the unease in the air.

Silence stretched for several moments.

Kumara finally broke it.

“Uh, hey, you don’t look familiar. I’m Kumara, an adventurer mostly active at the Schwarz Branch of the Adventurer’s Guild. These are my companions. And you are?”

The knight responded only by staring at them without answering.

Though the three were still tense, another figure appeared from behind the wall.

A witch with blue eyes dressed in attire reminiscent of a crow emerged.

She opened her mouth.

“I’m Dorothea, a survey agent of Halder Trading Company. I was planning to rest in here. And you all? If you’re staying, you might want to move on.”

“Not a problem. We were about to depart anyway,” Kumara replied as he took the lead, and the other two followed him out.

Once they exited through the wall, a blonde girl was seen pulling a cart and greeted them with a bow.

After returning that silent greeting, the three promptly left the scene at a quick pace.

They walked, walked, and walked.

Only once they had completely moved to the next floor did they open their mouths.

“Whoo! I thought my heart was going to leap out of my chest!”

“Thank goodness they didn’t show any ill will either.”

“…The secret room is definitely useful for evading monsters, but its downside is that you can’t verify its existence until another person barges in. We need to be more careful next time.”

After airing their impressions, the three started discussing the mysterious party they had just encountered.

“That knight looked very dangerous. What could he be?”

Magia shook her head at Kumara’s comment.

“That’s not a person. It’s a rare type I haven’t seen before, a magical automaton. That mage who entered last must have been its master.”

“Seriously? It’s no wonder its presence felt so ominous.”

“Ominous? I felt the opposite; I didn’t feel any emotion from it, which made it even creepier.”

“Is that so? I guess it might have felt like that. Oh, but the girl in the same party was pretty. One of them seemed a bit outdated in her fashion though.”

“What was that cart all about? It was covered with cloth, so you couldn’t see the contents, but it looked quite full.”

“Could it possibly be treasure or something?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s probably just monster byproducts or something.”

Though they continued to speculate on various theories, they ultimately came up empty.

After all, in the brief moment they had only spent a few minutes together, there were limits to the information they could gather.

“Alright, let’s wrap it up and head back.”

Thus, having concluded their discussion and while they were about to head up, Kumara suddenly remembered something.

“Huh? By the way, whose voice led us to that room in the first place?”

It could not have been Dorothea the mage’s voice, so she was out. The knight wasn’t a person but a magical automaton, so he was out too. The only remaining suspect was the blonde girl, but there seemed to be a disconnect between her outward appearance and her speech.

“If one knows about the hidden room like that, it suggests that she’s quite a veteran among adventurers. The Halder Trading Company shouldn’t be underestimated.”

***

“Ah-choo!”

“Father, are you alright?”

“No, it’s nothing serious. I just need to sleep warmly tonight.”

“It’s good to drink water often. By the way, it’s been quite a while since Adel and the others went in; haven’t they come out yet?”

“Haha, exploring a labyrinth isn’t an easy task. Especially for inexperienced beginners. If they’re lucky, they probably have reached about the 4th or 5th floor by now.”

“How many floors are there in total?”

“Definitely 30 floors. It’s an enormous scale, but the monsters below the 20th floor are dangerous enough that even E-rank adventurers must risk their lives against them, so they shouldn’t push it too far…”

***

*Clack.*

15 hours since the entry into the labyrinth.

The group of the Tin Knight.

They reached the 30th floor.

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