Tenth floor of the Artificial Labyrinth.
After recruiting a batch of new familia members, Thanatos, having nothing better to do, wandered around the labyrinth.
Before long, he came across a woman in a coat nearby. "Hey, if it isn't little sister Valetta."
Thanatos walked over with his hands in his pockets.
"I heard you've been trying to recruit the Kali Familia lately. How's it going?"
Valetta grinned and retorted, "What do you think?"
Thanatos got his answer.
"With little sister Valetta personally handling it, securing the Kali Familia shouldn't be a problem."
"Heh, the power of a god is really convenient," Valetta curled her lip. "Just as you guessed, it's already done."
"The members of the Kali Familia are currently on a ship and will arrive at the port city of Meren before long."
"Oh, that's wonderful news."
Thanatos very cooperatively clapped his hands.
As the familia ruling Telskyura, the Kali Familia was one of the few outside Orario to possess First Class Adventurers.
Especially a few months ago, when the Kali Familia's captain and vice-captain broke through to Level 6, news that spread across the world.
The Artificial Labyrinth wasn't short on cannon fodder.
The reason they had been hiding underground was mainly due to the gap in high-level combat power.
Once the Kali Familia joined, combined with the power of the Monsters and the immortal spirit embryo being cultivated...
The counterattack against Orario was within reach...
BOOM——!
A tremendous roar came from the distance, shaking the ground.
Thanatos, who had been fantasizing about a bright future, froze, a look of confusion appearing on his face.
What was going on?
"What's going on?"
Valetta frowned.
The floors of the Artificial Labyrinth were made of Adamantite; it wasn't easy to cause such a massive commotion.
"Lord Thanatos! Something terrible has happened!!!"
Just as Valetta and Thanatos were falling into confusion, a member of the Evilus clads in a black robe came running over.
"The... the adventurers are breaking in!"
"Adventurers?" both exclaimed at once.
Valetta and Thanatos were stunned for a moment.
The mortal and the god exchanged a look, an ominous premonition suddenly rising in their hearts.
However, Thanatos did not panic too much.
As the administrator of the Artificial Labyrinth, he knew very well how strict the defenses of this labyrinth were.
"Go! Let's head to the Central Control Room!"
...
The Central Control Room was the monitoring center of the Artificial Labyrinth.
As more and more floors were built in the Artificial Labyrinth, the difficulty of managing it gradually increased.
To facilitate management, the Daedalus family established a Central Control Room within the labyrinth to monitor the situation throughout.
The location of the Central Control Room was not fixed.
To prevent the Central Control Room from falling, the Daedalus family usually placed it in the middle area of the Artificial Labyrinth.
Currently, the Daedalus Labyrinth had a total of 18 floors, so the Central Control Room was placed on the 9th floor in the middle.
This was another reason why Thanatos had placed the base for the Evilus on the 9th floor.
Being close to the Central Control Room, they could understand any disturbance immediately and send people to deal with it.
"Lord Thanatos! You've arrived!"
Inside the Central Control Room, seeing Thanatos and Valetta arrive, the Dark Faction member responsible for keeping watch hurried forward.
"The Orario adventurers are breaking in!"
"They've used some unknown means to obtain a large number of keys; the labyrinth doors can't stop them at all!"
"A large number of keys?"
Thanatos raised an eyebrow.
Management of keys for the Artificial Labyrinth was very strict. Although one was lost recently, it couldn't be described as 'a large number' by any stretch of the imagination.
Looking past the Dark Faction member, he gazed at the monitoring screens nearby and found that the person wasn't lying.
On twenty full monitoring screens, each showed a powerful adventurer leading a charge.
They held red orbs in their hands; whenever they encountered a door, they would lift and wave the orb, and the door would instantly open.
Even more shocking was that the images on the monitors were not fixed; they switched batches every few seconds.
But no matter how many times they switched, the scenes on the monitors remained the same: adventurers using keys to open doors.
"This is impossible!"
Valetta also saw this scene: "Where did all these keys come from! There are too many!"
"They must have been duplicated."
Thanatos turned his mind and provided an answer.
The wisdom of a god allowed him to understand much; some things he could guess the general truth of with just a glance.
"A while ago, Ishtar was sent back to the Heavens, and the key she held never turned up."
"It seems now that the Guild intercepted it, and they found an adventurer skilled in Mystery to duplicate it."
"Tsk! Then what do we do!"
Valetta was starting to panic.
She had just seen Ottar on the monitoring screen. That was a Level 7 adventurer, not someone she could hope to contend with.
"Don't worry, we still have a chance."
Thanatos remained calm: "Go and call sister Revis; we need her strength."
"No need to call, I'm already here."
The door to the Central Control Room opened again.
Revis walked in, carrying a blood-colored longsword.
"Revis! You've come at the right time!"
Seeing her ally arrive, Valetta's spirits lifted.
After Thanatos's reminder, she also remembered Revis, their trump card.
"Quickly release those Monsters you created! We need their strength to deal with the adventurers!"
"I won't release them."
"First, let's focus fire on the Loki Famil—huh?"
Valetta's voice stopped abruptly.
Looking at Revis, who had refused to release the Monsters, she was first stunned, and then her expression became distorted.
"What do you mean you won't release them! Stop slacking off; if the Artificial Labyrinth falls, we're all finished!"
"I know."
Revis's expression remained emotionless.
An upward slash flashed by, and Valetta, caught off guard, was cut down to the ground, spitting out a large mouthful of blood.
"Damn it! Are you freaking crazy!"
"I'm not crazy."
Revis stepped forward and delivered a kick to the other's head.
Level 6 power surged out; Valetta's head slammed against the hard floor, and with a thud, she fell unconscious.
After that, she cleared out everyone else in the Central Control Room with one strike each, leaving only Thanatos.
"Please cooperate, Lord Thanatos."
"OK, OK~ I'm the best at cooperating."
Thanatos raised his hands in surrender very flamboyantly, a thoughtful look flashing in his eyes as he looked at Revis.
"Sister Revis, give me a reason."
"What reason?"
"The reason for your betrayal, of course... Anyone in this labyrinth might betray us, even the Daedalus family who built it might betray us to preserve the labyrinth, but you're the only one I never doubted. Why do this?"
Monsters were the feelers of the Corrupted Spirit.
To lift the lid and release the Corrupted Spirit, they were naturally on the opposite side of Orario.
The Artificial Labyrinth was a part of the Monsters' plan; logically, there should be no reason for betrayal.
"My connection to it has been severed."
Revis satisfied Thanatos's curiosity: "The reason I am standing here now is because I am following the instructions of another person."
Thanatos hurriedly asked: "Who?"
"Me," Lynn's voice rang out.
Having broken through the outer defenses at maximum speed, he had shattered all the walls along the way, arriving here in a straight line.
Looking at the mess inside the Central Control Room, he nodded slightly, very satisfied with Revis's efficiency.
...
"You certainly are fast."
A few hours later, Finn arrived at the Central Control Room with his team.
At this moment, Thanatos had already been tied up by Lynn with rope, and his mouth was covered with a piece of tape.
His gaze swept over the God of Death, and then Finn looked at Valetta, who was also tied up nearby.
"Aren't you going to deal with this one?"
"I'm dealing with it; wasn't I waiting for you?"
"...You want to sell her to me?"
Finn quickly guessed Lynn's intention.
Lynn nodded: "A mere Level 5, even if killed, wouldn't count as a deed."
"Rather than wasting her directly, it's better to maximize the effect and let her serve one last purpose."
"Within the Loki Familia, there must be someone with maxed-out stats but lacking a deed to reach Level 5 or Level 6."
"Yes, some are indeed lacking a deed."
Finn replied truthfully.
Regarding illegal matters like human trafficking, Finn had a very flexible moral baseline.
Buying and selling ordinary people? No!
Buying and selling Valetta? Yes!
After all, as an established Level 5 adventurer, Valetta still had her strength.
If used properly, she might allow one of the executives like Bete or Tione to break through to Level 6.
However, ...
"Can the price be a bit cheaper? The accounts have been a bit tight lately, and I really can't produce any extra money."
"Then just owe it to me and pay me back later."
"Alright then."
He had only asked in passing; Finn wasn't too disappointed when he didn't succeed.
After a brief chat with Lynn, his gaze shifted to Revis nearby.
"Is she the Monster you mentioned yesterday?"
"Yes, she is the messenger of the Corrupted Spirit; all that information was given to me by her."
"A messenger?"
Only then did Finn realize Revis's specialty.
To be chosen by the Corrupted Spirit and stand out among many Monsters to become a messenger, Revis must have characteristics that differ from ordinary people.
But as his gaze sized up Revis, he only saw that her strength was not simple, giving him a faint sense of danger.
However, compared to the monsterized Filvis yesterday, this sense of danger wasn't particularly strong, roughly at the level of a Level 6.
"Revis didn't become a messenger based on strength."
Seeing Finn's confusion, Lynn replied in concise language:
"She was an adventurer from 900 years ago who died in the Dungeon and was transformed by the Corrupted Spirit. For certain reasons, she became the other's confidante."
Finn was stunned: "900 years ago?"
Lynn let out a light chuckle: "Monsterization is quite miraculous, isn't it?"
Finn nodded silently: "..."
It truly was miraculous.
Although an adventurer's life level would leap and their lifespan would be significantly extended after sublimation,
900 years was still an excessively long number for a First-Class Adventurer.
"By the way, what was standing here was only one-seventh of Revis's soul. We might encounter other versions of Revis during future expeditions."
Lynn's voice rang out again. Finn sighed inwardly, "It seems that before the next expedition, I'll need to seek you out more often to exchange intelligence."
Although he didn't understand what 'one-seventh of a soul' implied, it was clear that Revis was a major problem.
To be favored by a Corrupted Spirit, this individual definitely had hidden trump cards and could not be underestimated.
...
The subjugation of the Artificial Labyrinth came to a successful conclusion.
Aside from a few adventurers with insufficient strength who were injured during the assault, Orario's side suffered almost no actual casualties.
Lynn was not surprised by this.
Inside the Artificial Labyrinth, the forces were divided into the Dark Faction and the Monsters.
The former did not have much high-end combat power; aside from Valetta, their most important strength was the Ikelos Familia.
However, the Ikelos Familia had been taken down by Lynn long ago, and even Ikelos himself, as their god, hadn't escaped and was currently being held by the Freya Familia.
As for the Monster side, Olivas was killed, Revis was restricted and unable to resist, and Filvis had defected directly to Lynn's side.
Without the threat of the Monsters and the spirit clones, the Artificial Labyrinth was a paper tiger.
It looked imposing with its numbers, but in reality, the only one who could be called high-end combat power was Valetta, who had been cut down by Revis.
On Orario's side, there were elites sent by the major Familias, the Labyrinth maps and keys distributed by Lynn, and the advantage of a surprise attack.
Faced with an absolute gap in strength, the Artificial Labyrinth couldn't even hold out for a single day before being breached, with everything from the first floor to the Eighteenth Floor falling.
"Well done! Lynn!"
Royman praised him in a cheerful mood.
Although the matter of the Artificial Labyrinth couldn't be publicized, it still counted as his achievement.
Furthermore, Lynn's growth rate surprised him; he had originally expected it to take half a year to break through to LV5, but instead, he reached LV6 in just three months—an astonishing speed.
If this continued, perhaps Lynn could surpass the former Zeus Familia and Hera Familia to become Orario's... the lower world's first-ever LV10 adventurer.
"Lynn, when can you break through to LV10?"
"I don't know, but it will take some time."
"Oh? You're actually confident you can reach LV10?"
Royman, who had just been fantasizing, was shocked.
"It can be done, but it will take some time."
Lynn gave an affirmative answer once again.
A day had passed since the subjugation of the Artificial Labyrinth.
Under Lynn's witness, Bete had a duel with a fully healed Valetta and emerged victorious.
Having conveniently consumed Valetta's soul, along with the souls of many Evilus and Monsters in the Artificial Labyrinth, theoretically, his gains this time should have been quite large.
However, after asking Hestia to update his blessing, the results were not very ideal.
[YukimuraLynn—LV6]
[Strength: I0→H126]
[Endurance: I0→H100]
[Dexterity: I0→H153]
[Agility: I0→H116]
[Magic: I0→H141]
Each of the five basic attributes increased by 100+.
For an ordinary adventurer, this might be a qualitative change, but for Lynn, this speed was undoubtedly much slower.
As for the reason for the slowdown, it was very simple.
He had hit a bottleneck.
LV5 souls could no longer bring him qualitative changes, and as for practical combat training, that was even more impossible.
Lynn had privately fought Ottar once.
The Boaz youth who had once brought him immense pressure was no longer his match, even after activating Beastification.
Unknowingly, he had already reached the peak of Orario, and even this world.
Researching the Monster physique for replication was also because he wanted to open up a new path to increase his strength.
"Within half a year, I'm confident I can break through to LV7."
Lynn looked at Royman and said, "As for whether I can reach LV8, LV9, or even higher, that depends on luck. If luck is good, even LV100 is possible."
Royman was a bit confused: "What does luck refer to? A Monster powerful enough to become a deed?"
Lynn shook his head: "This is hard to explain to you. Let's just say those who know, know; if you don't know, don't ask."
Royman: "...?"
If you don't explain, how am I supposed to know anything?
Royman was somewhat helpless regarding Lynn's riddles.
But after all, he was his partner.
Compared to the uncooperative Freya Familia and the Loki Familia with limited high-end combat power,
the rapidly growing Lynn and the Hestia Familia had already jumped to first place in Royman's heart.
If Lynn didn't want to say, then he wouldn't ask.
As long as the other party could continue to get stronger, it was fine.
"If you need any help, just tell me. As long as it's within my power, I'll help."
"Give me a few land deeds and some money. I'm planning to open a few more branch restaurants in other areas of Orario."
"..."
Next time he spoke out of turn, he'd be a dog!
...
Holding the two newly acquired land deeds, Lynn walked out of the Adventurers Guild in a pleasant mood.
He left the cleanup work for Royman to handle.
He didn't intend to send members of his Familia to manage the Artificial Labyrinth; having the authority to enter and exit freely was enough.
Returning to the Hestia Familia, Lynn headed toward Hestia's room to discuss opening the branch restaurants with her.
However, after expanding his perception to investigate, he found that Hestia wasn't in her room but was in the reception room instead.
And besides Hestia, there was another acquaintance in the reception room.
"Wallen-something-kun! I'm warning you for the last time, stop coming to our Familia to harass Lynn!"
"...Why?"
"There aren't that many whys! In short, you're not welcome!"
"But I want to get stronger."
"Give up! You'll never catch up to Lynn!"
"It's okay, I will work hard."
"Tsk, you're so annoying!"
The conversation in the reception room was not very friendly.
When Lynn arrived, Hestia was like a cat with its fur standing on end, constantly hissing at Aiz.
Aiz, on the other hand, tilted her head in confusion but still answered every one of Hestia's questions, which made Hestia quite frustrated.
"Lynn! You're back just in time!"
Seeing Lynn walk in, Hestia's eyes lit up.
"Quick, kick this thick-skinned fellow out!"
"Why are you asking me to do it?"
"Well... she said she prepared money."
Hestia hesitated for a moment before giving the answer.
Aiz had come here, naturally, to find Lynn.
Any other time, Hestia would have kicked her out long ago, but this time Aiz had shown a lot of sincerity.
Knowing that Lynn liked to make money, no matter how much Hestia resisted, she could only reluctantly welcome Aiz into the reception room.
"Apprenticeship fee."
Aiz handed several hemp sacks at her feet to Lynn.
A series of clattering sounds came from the sacks. Lynn opened a bag and glanced inside.
Besides Valis, the sacks were filled with a large amount of adventurer equipment, as well as magic swords and various magic items.
Although he didn't know the quality of these magic swords and items, the sheer quantity meant they were worth a considerable price.
"Where did you get these things?"
"Picked them up in the Artificial Labyrinth."
"Picked up? All of them?"
"...Some were spoils of war from interrogations."
Yesterday, after taking down the Artificial Labyrinth, Finn ordered them to search the place for any stragglers.
Imitating Lynn's lightning field, Aiz spread out the wind of her Tempest and caught several hidden members of the Dark Faction, finding the places where they hid their money through interrogation.
Although the obvious warehouses had already been looted by Lynn, the members of the Dark Faction knew the principle of 'a wily hare has three burrows' and had hidden a lot of money privately.
With the help of Dark Faction members to lead the way, she used keys to search room by room. Relying on her LV6 physical stats and the enhancement of Tempest, she really did find quite a few good things.
"This collar can control Dungeon Monsters."
Aiz picked up a collar from the sack: "An LV2 thug used this to control deep-floor Monsters. Finn said it has great strategic value and can be used as an apprenticeship fee."
Lynn took it and looked it over.
Not surprisingly, this thing was the item Jura used in the original story, and its effect was indeed quite good.
However, items used to enslave Monsters, no matter which direction they were researched in, easily became dangerous objects.
"That guy Finn is quite clever; knowing he couldn't use it himself; he threw it to me to handle."
Lynn tossed the collar back into the sack: "I roughly understand your intent, but I don't have anything to teach you right now, unless you want to learn close-quarters combat from me."
Aiz hesitated: "That method from last time that significantly increases strength..."
Lynn interrupted: "Have you talked to Finn about it?"
Aiz: "Not yet."
Lynn: "Then let's skip that plan. I have some things to research lately and don't have time to play War Games with you guys."
Aiz lowered her small head and fell into silence: "..."
She also wanted to get stronger quickly like Lynn.
But geniuses and cheaters are different.
It was as if there was a pathetic, thick barrier standing in the middle; no matter how hard she worked, she couldn't catch up to him.
"There's no need to be so disappointed."
Hestia pulled out a bag of fried potato balls from somewhere.
"Wallen-something-kun (munch munch), do you have some kind of obsession that makes you work so hard to get stronger (munch munch munch)?"
"I want to kill the Black Dragon," Aiz replied.
"Black Dragon? I see." Hestia paused her movements, understanding Aiz's situation.
In fact, similar cases were not uncommon.
As the source of chaos in the lower world, the Black Dragon's rampage had left countless people displaced.
Among the First-Class Adventurers of Orario, many held more or less of a grudge against it.
"Since you want to kill the Black Dragon, I have a better way."
"A better way?"
"Yeah, paying so much in apprenticeship fees will at most increase your stats a bit; Level 7 is still far off."
"Instead of wasting time, why not go to the Dungeon to earn money and post a commission for Lynn, letting him kill the Black Dragon for you?"
Let Lynn take action?
Aiz's gaze was dazed; for a moment, she was tempted.
But soon, she suppressed the tremor in her heart.
"I want to take revenge personally, or at least participate in the battle."
"Alright then."
After all, since it involved a life-and-death vendetta, Hestia didn't feel right making sarcastic remarks at this time, leaving the choice to Lynn.
Facing the gaze of the two, Lynn closed his eyes and stood still like a statue for several minutes.
"Lynn?"
Hestia tilted her head in confusion.
What's the situation? Did he fall asleep?
Just as Hestia was about to lean in and take a look, a powerful aura suddenly emanated from Lynn's body.
"Eh?" Hestia seemed to realize the seriousness of the situation: "Lynn, you couldn't have..."
"I can only say, those who know, know."
Lynn nonchalantly withdrew the aura back into his body.
Looking at Aiz, who still didn't know what had happened, a smile appeared on his face.
"You're in luck; I have something to teach you now."
...