Chapter 6
「In the end, all I could give you, Father, was a single drop of blood.」
「No. Your blood was an enormous help to me. So straighten your shoulders, Demian.」
「The next time you visit the sanctuary… I will prepare a far more valuable gift than today, Father.」
Even up until the very moment I left the sanctuary, Demian looked deeply reluctant to see me go.
Perhaps he had interpreted my words—that it had been a great help—as mere courtesy to make him feel better about his shoulders slumping.
He kept emphasizing, with great determination, that he would prepare something good for our next meeting.
So while I found his apologetic attitude both touching and frustrating at the same time.
<Authority of Growth>
Saying it was a huge help wasn’t courtesy or anything of the sort. It was 200% pure sincerity.
The <Authority of Growth> was, as the name implied, a fraudulent trait that exponentially increased the owner’s combat power.
• All stat categories have been unified into “Rank (æ ¼).”
• “Rank” multiplies all stat performance by 3× compared to before, and growth rate is also increased by 3×.
‘Getting this already is insane.’
“Rank” encompassed every stat—strength, agility, stamina, and so on.
Not only did it cover them all, but as the system description stated, the performance was far superior.
Compared to another player of the same level, someone with <Authority of Growth> was literally three times stronger.
And since the growth rate was also tripled, the gap with those who lacked the authority would only widen even more dramatically over time.
‘There’s no better gift than this. Demian Abel, you stubborn bastard.’
This was originally an opportunity that could only be obtained in the late game.
It was the reward Demian received after reaching the threshold of Sword Master and completing an errand for one of the highest-ranking Constellations.
And yet I had gotten it just by sucking a single drop of his blood.
‘Well… of course, I did have to endure bone-shattering, teeth-chattering agony during the absorption process.’
But when you compared it to the ordeal Demian had to go through in the original game to earn this, my version was SSS-grade cost-performance.
Look at this.
[You have defeated ‘Night Troll’!]
[Level up!]
[Level up…]
A Night Troll—something that normally required at least level 15 to hunt—was something I had just casually taken down.
Because I had killed an enemy far above my supposed level, I even gained two whole levels.
Even I was dazed by how ridiculous it was.
“H-Hiiik…”
How much more shocked must this guy be—the one who had nearly died?
I extended my hand toward the nameless middle-aged adventurer.
“Are you all right?”
“Y-Yes…”
Even as the adventurer took my hand and shakily stood up, he still looked completely out of it.
Well, yeah. If I had witnessed some pale stranger twisting the head off a house-sized troll with his bare hands, I’d have lost my mind too.
The adventurer—who had been staring at me like I was some monster worse than the troll—finally came to his senses and bowed deeply.
“T-Thanks to you, I managed to keep my life, young master. My name is Hans. May I ask your name…?”
“Ruth.”
“Ah, yes…! If you hadn’t saved me, I would have ended up like my comrades over there. And this is…”
Hans hurriedly rummaged through his belongings and pulled out a small coin pouch.
“It’s meager as compensation for a life, but please accept it. This is every last coin I’ve saved from my adventuring days.”
“If you give me all your savings, what are you going to live on from now on?”
“I’ll just head back to my hometown and help my father with the ranch work, haha.”
“You’re quitting adventuring?”
“I was already sick and tired of this aimless wandering life.”
It seemed the brush with death had finally made up his mind.
In any case, since he himself had declared he was done with adventuring, this made things much easier for me.
“…….”
My gaze, which had been lingering on the coin pouch, slowly shifted to Hans’s armor.
Pinned to the left side of his chest was a copper badge.
The “badges”—divided into gold, silver, and copper—represented an adventurer’s rank.
But you couldn’t just walk into a village guild and get issued a badge the moment you declared yourself an adventurer.
‘Even the lowest copper badge is only given to those who have proven a certain level of skill and achievement.’
In short, obtaining even a copper badge normally required going through quite a troublesome process.
Under normal circumstances, that is.
“I’m fine with money.”
“Huh? Ah… Please don’t worry about it. If you accept even this much, it would put my mind at ease.”
“No. What I meant was—I’d prefer if you repaid me in a different way, not with money.”
“I-Is that so?”
Thinking I had performed a selfless act of kindness, Hans scratched the back of his head awkwardly.
I wasn’t exactly strapped for cash either. The gold I’d taken from the Star Hall safe yesterday was enough to live comfortably for at least half a year without working.
“Then what should I do for you…?”
As Hans trailed off, I pointed at the copper badge pinned to his chest.
“Since you’re retiring from adventuring, you won’t need that badge anymore, right?”
“Huh? Ah, yes… I suppose so?”
“I’ll take that as payment for saving your life. Use this money as pocket change to help with the ranch work.”
The first step in my plan to resolve the blood ki supply penalty
Was to conquer <Predator’s Labyrinth>.
And according to imperial regulations, only adventurers with at least a copper badge were permitted to enter <Predator’s Labyrinth>.
***
The reason I headed straight to Tailve Forest the moment I left the sanctuary.
Of course, part of it was to test just how much stronger I had become thanks to <Authority of Growth>,
But the biggest reason was to confirm whether <Predator’s Labyrinth> existed in the exact same location as I remembered.
‘It was still there.’
Somewhere in the eastern part of Tailve Forest, hidden in a crevice between rocks.
When I went to check, thankfully, it was exactly where I expected: the stone doorway leading into the labyrinth.
The only variable was that something else had been added.
‘A barrier.’
When a barrier is placed at the entrance of a labyrinth or ruin, it means the “conquest rights” have already passed into someone else’s hands.
Whenever a labyrinth falls under someone’s claim, the church dispatches priests to set up a barrier around the entrance in advance.
It serves as a warning.
A clear sign that no one except the authorized party with conquest rights may enter the labyrinth.
‘If I used that skill from the <Blood Link> list, I could probably break the barrier…’
But doing so would leave traces.
The instant someone tampers with the barrier, their mana signature or personal information is transmitted in real time to the priests.
Illegally seizing a labyrinth that already has an owner is a serious crime.
I didn’t particularly care about guilt, but I had no intention of becoming a wanted fugitive from day one.
‘No helping it.’
Still, I could take comfort in the fact that the labyrinth hadn’t been conquered yet.
To obtain the thing I needed to resolve the penalty, I absolutely had to enter <Predator’s Labyrinth>.
Even if it meant swallowing my pride and putting on a thick face.
Clack—.
The place my feet carried me to was a certain tavern in <Roadale>.
Tables laden with liquor and food; rowdy travelers and adventurers laughing and shouting; the sound of a pianist hammering away at the keys in the corner…
The moment I pushed open the swinging doors, the scene of revelry unfolded before me. I calmly scanned the crowd, observing their appearances.
And soon enough, I spotted her.
‘That woman.’
A red-haired woman built like an ox, with a long scar running down her cheek.
Glenda, the leader of the Glenda Adventuring Party.
According to the information I’d confirmed at the adventurer’s guild, she was the one who had purchased the conquest rights to the labyrinth.
A little extra coin slipped to the waiter had gotten me not just her name, but everything else: the scheduled conquest date, the fact that she and her party drank here every night, and more.
Having confirmed Glenda’s location, I walked straight to the bartender.
A short while later.
“Captain, aren’t you drinking too much? We’ve got the conquest tomorrow.”
“Hahaha! Pete, you worry too much. Do you really think this Glenda would let a little hangover slow her down against some monsters…?”
Ssk—
Suddenly, a glass of whiskey was placed in front of Glenda, cutting her off mid-sentence.
It was the one I had ordered.
“With your skill, Glenda, I’m sure a few more glasses wouldn’t make a difference.”
“Hm…?”
Glenda looked up at me with a bewildered expression.
She silently scanned me up and down, tilting her head before scratching her cheek and asking,
“Uh, hey, kid. Do we know each other?”
“No, this is our first meeting. And the drink’s on me.”
“A stranger suddenly buying me whiskey? Has my name already spread to a big city like this? Hmm… I doubt it’s that famous yet…”
The relaxed atmosphere around her instantly sharpened.
Her party members, who had been sitting with her, all turned wary eyes toward me at once.
It made sense—they’d be suspicious of some random kid who walked up and casually dropped their captain’s name.
Before any unnecessary suspicion could build, I cut straight to the point.
“I heard you’re planning to conquer <Predator’s Labyrinth>.”
“And where exactly did you hear that…?”
“I’d like to join that conquest, if possible.”
The moment those words left my mouth, silence fell over the table.
And then…
Pfft.
The party members began snorting one by one.
Glenda stared at me in utter disbelief for a moment before clutching her stomach and bursting into loud laughter.
“Pfft! I was wondering what kind of nutcase this was, but turns out it’s just some clueless kid who doesn’t know how the world works. Hey, kid… don’t you even realize how ridiculous what you just said is?”
“…….”
“You literally just said it yourself—we’re meeting for the first time. Logically speaking, why the hell would we let some stranger we met today join our labyrinth conquest? Kid, if you thought one glass of whiskey was going to get you anywhere, go suck on your mom’s—”
Glenda, who had been waving her glass mockingly, suddenly shut her mouth and froze.
Jingle, jingle, jingle.
In the renewed silence, the soft clink of gold coins I placed on the table rang out quietly.
A total of 50 gold.
More than enough to change the expressions of a group of copper-badge adventurers.
“Since I know this is an unreasonable request, I’m showing my sincerity.”
“S-Sincerity…?”
“If you let me join the labyrinth conquest, that’s the only condition. You can divide the conquest rewards however you like, Glenda.”
Conquest rewards? Compared to the value of the thing I needed to obtain inside the labyrinth, they were practically free.
I had almost said I didn’t need any share at all, but I held back—saying that would make me look way too suspicious.
“…….”
The bright golden gleam of the coins illuminated Glenda’s and her party members’ faces.
A few of them visibly swallowed hard.
50 gold was more than the combined rewards from several labyrinth runs.
And all they had to do to get that fortune was let a scrawny kid tag along.
It was only natural their mouths would water.
But.
“Ha, fuck. I almost fell for it. Hoo…”
Glenda squeezed her eyes shut, slapped her own cheeks a couple of times to snap herself out of it, then looked back at me.
“Judging by how casually you’re carrying around this kind of money, I’m guessing you’re some spoiled rich young master who decided to play adventurer… Want a piece of advice? No amount of gold is worth more than your life.”
“…….”
“No matter how many dozens or hundreds of gold you have—if you die inside the labyrinth because of dead weight, what good is any of it?”
In short: they couldn’t afford to bring along someone whose skills hadn’t been verified.
A perfectly reasonable line of thinking.
Glenda’s suspicious gaze fixed on the copper badge pinned to my chest.
“To be blunt, I’m even suspicious of that badge. You probably bought it with money or pulled some other trick to get it.”
Shockingly, she was right.
But I didn’t let my expression waver and kept going with a straight face.
“I earned this badge with my own skill.”
“People who say that always have soft hands with zero calluses and no trace of mana. You don’t look like a mage either. Do we look like idiots to you just because we’re drunk?”
Glenda downed the rest of her whiskey in one go, pushed the gold back toward me, and waved her hand dismissively like she was shooing away a fly.
“If it were anyone else, I’d have beaten the shit out of them for talking nonsense. But because of the whiskey, I’ll let it slide this once. Now get lost, kid.”
“At the very least.”
When I didn’t back down and opened my mouth again, Glenda glared at me with clear irritation.
However.
“If I can prove I took down a Night Troll single-handedly, would that satisfy you, Glenda?”
The moment those words left my lips, silence fell once more.
And this time it wasn’t just their table—
The entire noisy tavern went dead quiet.
Soon after.
“Pfft! Puhahaha! Did you hear that guy? He says he killed a Night Troll all by himself!”
“A Night Troll that even three silver-badge adventurers couldn’t handle—and he did it alone? Go get some meat on those bones first, twig-boy!”
“What a bold-faced lie. Even a passing dog wouldn’t believe that shit.”
Mockery, ridicule, and roaring laughter erupted from all directions.
But Glenda’s party, on the other hand, was starting to look genuinely pissed off.
“You little shit, you really are something—”
“Enough, Captain. Guys like this only learn when they get their ass kicked.”
The man sitting across from Glenda—Pete—shot to his feet.
Built like a boulder just like her, Pete was a hulking giant.
“You wanted in on the labyrinth conquest, right? Then prove your strength. Not with your mouth—with your body.”
“…….”
“Follow me outside, you cocky little bastard.”
Pete strode over and roughly grabbed me by the collar, clearly intending to drag me out of the tavern himself.
‘This is starting to piss me off.’
I reached up and gripped Pete’s wrist—the one holding my collar—in return.
And then.
Crack—!
“…?!”
With nothing more than a flex of strength,
Pete collapsed to his knees like a man who had forgotten how to walk, drooling uncontrollably.