Chapter 12: RoutineDay 9

  The guys came down to breakfast soon after me. After a little small talk about where they’re from — completely unfamiliar pces, soon forgotten — I told them that it’d be a simple day of progressing through the floors. I really wanted to gain a few more levels of my Mage job so I redistributed my bonus points to increase EXP, both for myself and my team.

  We went to Vale’s Labyrinth and started with the second floor. The guys already ignored the fact that I could casually use other skills and I didn’t even pretend to chant in front of them. We breezed through till midday, stopped for a light lunch, finished the second floor and even part of the third by evening. We made such good progress by jogging between encounters. Long day but little challenge. Marcus got a few scratches, which I quietly healed by briefly switching to my Monk job. I’m sure he noticed, but neither of us acknowledged it. These guys are great. No need to sweat the small stuff… like my game-breaking and presumably unique skills.

  We ate dinner and went to our rooms. To help get a feel for how far I might be able to warp, I made several round trips from my room to the byrinth without resting. Pretty short distance but I couldn’t really feel it. I even popped over to the forest outside the vilge a couple times. It was nice that just a few levels of Mage (and Hero) were so helpful. It’s not too long before I could do a real test.

  Tired but not sleepy, I started looking through my skills and saw that I had unlocked the Tutor job. [1] Never heard of that one, but I guess it makes sense. Didn’t get it while simply transting so it probably got triggered after I started to structure the lessons. Guess I have yet another career to fall back on.

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  Day 10

  Basically the same pattern, but we continued from where we had stopped on the third floor. By evening, we managed to finish the fourth. We ended a bit early, so I left the guys at the inn before warping over to the adventurers guild to sell off the pile of drops we’d gathered over the st couple of days.

  Walking outside to get back to the inn for dinner, I noticed a few thugs loitering around the area. Seemed odd in this neighborhood, but I guess they have business to take care of too. As I passed, one spoke to me in Valic, ?typical-greeting?.

  I replied in Valic with, ?generic-response?. Don’t actually know what either phrase means, but Tuuli had me memorize them. My response was the one that was easiest for me to pronounce, especially with a non-committal mumble. The greeter walked back to one of the others and sort of shook his head — which hopefully meant the same thing here as it did back home.

  That was almost certainly a test and it looks like I passed… this time. They’re probably checking everyone with my general description and seem motivated enough to even do it out here. Well, might be time to leave town since there aren’t many tall guys to check before they start second-round interviews. Thankfully, the st few days of working on my Mage job seem to be enough to repce what would probably have taken years of honest effort.

  I walked back to the inn with at least one Thief tagging along to see where I was going. Don’t think that they’ll try a frontal attack so I ate dinner with the guys as usual. Afterwards, we walked up to their room for a quick chat.

  “Seems like some bad guys are watching me. Even if they’re still uncertain, it won’t take them long to confirm that I’m the one they want. So, we should leave town in the morning.”

  “Shouldn’t we fight back?”

  “Nah, too many of them and if they really get serious, it’ll be a total mess.”

  “If it’s that bad, you should stay with us, Boss.”

  “I’d do that if necessary, but with the knight’s HQ so close, a direct attack on this inn would be insane — there’s no way I’m that important to them. Anyway, I have a pn to shake them off our trail.”

  “OK, we’ll be ready, Boss.”

  “And when things cool down, I’ll come back and clean up.”

  “…”

  “Well, goodnight, see you tomorrow at breakfast. May as well block your door, just in case.”

  I went back to my room, cleaned up and warped over to Tuuli. I really wanted to tell her how her lessons helped buy me time, but we were far from that level of linguistic complexity. I think the Valic name for the privileged nguage is ‘Raami’, with a rolled r, but that could just be what she calls our retionship. With the risk of accidentally asking if someone knows ‘friends-with-benefits’, I’ll stick with calling this ‘English’ for now.

  I activated my Tutor job and we dove into English practice (not the other stuff). It wasn’t like I suddenly came up with better expnations, but Tuuli’s comprehension and retention seemed to improve dramatically. She was already picking up the nguage much faster than I thought possible considering how absurdly foreign it must feel (judging by my impression of Valic). Even just studying a few evenings a week, Tuuli might reach practical proficiency in a month.

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  Day 11

  Our time together already felt quite comfortable. Maybe it’s this dangerous world that encourages fast intimacy. After a light breakfast, I warped back to my room to find everything still in pce — I hadn’t left anything valuable anyway. Ate a second breakfast at the inn with the guys, cleared out our rooms and left for the byrinth.

  I was happy to see that the guys didn’t seem particurly concerned that we were being watched as we left the inn. Our pursuers weren’t close enough to attack, but I could identify a few other thugs along the way and even a couple trying to act nonchant near the byrinth entrance. Sure looks like they’ve confirmed my identity and are more than a little interested. I made certain that we were easy to follow and that they saw us enter.

  Once inside and around the first corner, I quickly opened a portal to the second floor of Curatar’s Labyrinth. I don’t know if the thugs had squads ready to attack us inside Vale’s Labyrinth or if they’d wait till we got out. Either way, there’s no way they’d expect that we could leave without being seen. As long as we stay away from Vale, they’d probably assume that we met our doom.

  I was ready for the pain of the long warp to hit me, but it never came. Sure, I felt tired, but it wasn’t so bad really. Now I could warp long distances with others in tow without difficulty. This was a fantastic step towards becoming untouchable. As long as I don’t do anything too stupid or suffer some random accident, I was well on my way to ensuring a reasonable level of safety. Now, I’ll drop my EXP cheats and switch over to crystal growth to quickly earn more money.

  “Guys, we should be safe now.”

  “Maybe they’ve set-up an ambush.”

  “True, but that’d be back in Vale. We’re now in Curatar’s Labyrinth.”

  “Boss?”

  “As you know, one kind of movement magic only works inside the byrinth and the other only works outside. But I can sort of… combine them. So, here we are, in Curatar’s Labyrinth, where no one in their right-mind would think to look for us.”

  “But, Boss, that’s… that’s…”

  “Wonderful, right Marcus?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I was trying to say. Thanks, Theo.”

  “Good, gd you understand. Well, it’ll look weird to leave this byrinth so early in the morning so let’s stay here till midday. We’ll just have to manage with our extra stuff till we can get to an inn. Also, I don’t want to make it so obvious that I’m a Mage with so many people around so I’ll use my sword till it thins out.”

  I had warped us to a spot fairly te on the second-floor so we casually fought kobolds and olive trees till we reached the line for the boss room. It’ll be safe to dump our extra gear to fight in there since no one else could enter before we’re done. We easily defeated the, um, [Palm Baum] — another German monster name, huh. I guess that happened in the manga too so it shouldn’t be an indication that merchants will suddenly start speaking German.

  We continued to the third floor and the first monster we saw was a spider the size of an Askan Mamute. [2] Nah, not something I want to deal with while over-encumbered. We’ve been in here long enough. Time to find an inn and maybe grab an early lunch.

  I warped us down to the first floor and we walked out of the byrinth through the normal exit. I suspect that the guys may have had some lingering doubts about the wild warp from Vale, despite the change in monster types, but walking out to the center of a different city should pretty much settle it.

  As far as I could tell, the guys haven’t started to think of me as some sort of dangerous monster, but it should be abundantly clear that it’d be bad to have me as an enemy — ignoring the svery issue. With just my currently moderate stats, anyone with an OP sword who can teleport at will is not a person to piss off.

  Of course, this strength is also my main weakness — if powerful people knew what I could do, it would be negligent of them to allow me to walk around freely… not that they’d ever manage to make a second attempt if they failed to get me. Almost sounds like my dark path of chaos isn’t completely off the table.

  Anyway, we found a nearby inn to drop off our extra junk. Two rooms, just like st time. But this inn is hopefully just short-term. These guys aren’t my ideal housemates, but renting would be better long-term. While munching on meat-skewers — even better than Vale’s this time — I talked to the guys about an important topic:

  “Do either of you know how to cook? I can to some extent, but I don’t want to take care of all of it.”

  “Yes. As long as it’s not too fancy, I can cook and Marcus can help.”

  “Good, because I’m thinking of renting a house in the outskirts of this city. Might eventually get a dedicated housekeeper, but it’d be good if we could take care of the basics for now.”

  “Oh, that sounds nice.”

  “Depends on the price, of course. I want to find a pce big enough for my bedroom to be far from yours… no offense.”

  “Ha ha, none taken. Um, Boss, so, our retionship really doesn’t bother you?”

  “Nope. Well, as long as you don’t start doing private stuff in front of me, but same would apply for a male/female couple.”

  “Understood. Thanks, Boss. Really.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you know it’s not that I’m nice, it’s just that I don’t really care what other people do as long as no one gets hurt. Anyway, let’s get back to work.”

  We went back to the rooms to get our gear, but I told them that we’d meet up in their room rather than downstairs.

  “The byrinth here has an entrance fee and often takes a long time to get in. I oppose the fact that they charge to enter, but mainly I’m too impatient to wait in line. I haven’t seen any fare inspectors yet anyway.”

  Not sure I expined that st part right, but decided to just continue.

  “The first floor is full of first-timers so it’s just a bother overall. So, I’ll open a door here so we can bypass all that and enter directly to the third.”

  “Um, won’t other people see that?”

  “Looks just like an Explorer’s skill to anyone else, but good to ask. You saw that the new monster on the third is a spider and there’s a small chance of getting poisoned… or maybe that’s just the ants. Regardless, keep these antidote pills with you. Remember that someone poisoned will probably need help taking them.”

  We continued from the start of the spider-infested third floor and made it all the way to the waiting area in front of the boss room. But, it’d gotten te by then and with so many parties ahead of us, this felt like a good pce to stop. I checked my crystal and found that it’d turned green. Cool, that’s an easy 10k. I warped us back to the guys’ room.

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  [1] The Tutor job is not mentioned in the LN.[2] In the WN, Spice Spider refers to both the normal and boss types. In the LN, the normal spider is first called Spy (v3 c2) but it’s usually written as Spi. The boss is quite clearly called Spy but it eventually becomes Spice. Here, they’re just spiders.