I had to get a grip.
If I lost consciousness now, it was all over.
"Haaah... Cough, cough!"
I forced my eyes open.
Total darkness pressed in on me. My entire body throbbed with a dull, heavy ache, as if I'd been beaten black and blue.
The ground had stopped shaking. The Great Upheaval was over.
The Labyrinth had been completely reshaped.
Where the hell am I?
This wasn't the Botanical Garden we'd entered. The lack of overgrown weeds confirmed I'd been tossed somewhere else entirely.
Should I light a torch?
No. Monsters might swarm the light.
I couldn't risk a flame without knowing which floor I was on.
Map Creation.
I activated the skill to survey the terrain. It would give me a rough layout of my surroundings without needing to expose our position with light.
Definitely a new area. At least the fourth floor, I'd wager.
I'd been down to the third floor before, so I had a decent mental map of those levels. This place felt completely foreign.
No, wait. The terrain shifts entirely after a Great Upheaval. It could still be a floor I've visited.
Still, there were no plants. Even if an Upheaval changed the landscape, it rarely changed the fundamental theme of a floor.
I haven't been thrown into the deep zones, have I?
I'd heard that breathing became difficult in the abyss. If you ventured too deep before your Mana Adaptation was complete, the air itself would reject you—a natural level restriction.
But I was breathing just fine.
I'd undergone Mana Adaptation five times, making me roughly level five. In the grand scheme of things, that was nothing. Below the fifth floor, I'd start to suffocate.
Maximum fourth floor. Minimum first.
We were still in the upper levels. That was a relief, at least.
"Ugh... What... what happened?"
As I was gauging our situation, the Young Lady lying beside me groaned and opened her eyes.
"W-what? I can't see anything! Hello? Who's—mmph! Mmmph!!"
"Shh. Calm down. It's me, the porter."
"Mmph?"
"Don't make a sound. If we draw monsters, we're both dead."
"Ugh...! Phew. W-what is this? Explain yourself."
"It was a Great Upheaval."
"A Great Upheaval? What's that? I'm... I'm scared..."
"First, stay calm. A Great Upheaval is..."
I gave her a brief rundown of what I knew. As I spoke, her anxiety only seemed to grow.
"What? I never heard of such a thing! Oh, what do we do? Someone will come to rescue us, right?"
"They might, but the chances of a successful rescue are slim."
"What!?"
"We have to get out on our own," I said firmly. "The terrain has shifted, making all previous maps useless. A rescue team wouldn't even know where to start looking, and they probably don't even know we're missing yet."
A search party would eventually be formed, but there was no telling when. And in a shifting maze, the odds of them stumbling upon us were astronomical.
We're on our own.
I had enough food, water, and supplies in my Aether Pocket to last thirty days. More importantly, I had my internal map to navigate this twisted mess.
"You... how are you so calm?" she whispered.
I suppose my pragmatism looked like composure to her.
"You have to be calm to survive. If you panic, the Labyrinth will devour you."
"Devour me?"
"The Labyrinth is alive."
That was the reality of this place. It was a monster, always waiting to swallow intruders whole—a malicious entity that feasted on fear and despair. It was a place that mocked those who laughed or dreamed of the future, rejoicing in the desperate struggles of those trapped within its walls.
Some sorcerers even claimed the Labyrinth possessed a consciousness. Looking at how it operated, they probably weren't wrong.
In this place, the optimists died first. The cold-blooded realists lived.
"Can you stand?"
"Yeah. My body is fine."
"Then let's find a way out."
"W-wait a minute."
"Yes?"
"Um. About..." She stammered, struggling to find the words. "The others. The ones who disappeared. Can we find them?"
"Excuse me?"
Was she serious? She wanted me to go looking for people who could be anywhere in this restructured hell? We didn't even know what floor we were on.
It was an absurd request. She should have been grateful I hadn't abandoned her already. Asking for more was pushing her luck. If she had any sense, she'd shut up and follow me.
"Look, Young Lady. I don't think you understand—"
"Wait! I'm not asking for a favor. I'm offering a quest. A designated quest."
A quest. That meant money.
"What are the terms?"
"While we make our way up... I want you to look for my companions. It's not an obligation. If you see a trail or a sign, just check it out. I'm not asking you to go deeper to search. Just... keep an eye out on the way."
"Hmm."
A search-and-rescue mission only if they were along our path.
"And the reward?"
"Twenty gold coins for every companion you find alive."
Twenty gold per head. That was a damn good price.
It wasn't a mandatory rescue; it was a bonus for a search I'd be doing anyway. I just had to keep my eyes peeled. No penalty if I found nothing, and a massive payday if I did.
"What if they're dead?"
"If you recover their bodies, I'll pay ten gold coins each."
"Acceptable."
With my Aether Pocket, hauling bodies was easy. I could earn ten gold just by bagging a corpse. It was a win-win. I was already planning to scavenge any adventurer remains I found anyway.
The Central Cathedral pays a bounty for adventurer corpses.
The Cathedral would resurrect them and then slap them with an astronomical bill. Those who couldn't pay became debt-slaves, sold off to the mines or the Cathedral's labor camps. It was the dark underbelly of the Labyrinth City.
Regardless, the Young Lady's offer was fair.
"And one more thing," she added.
"Yes?"
"If you get me out of here safely, my father will reward you personally. I promise. Also, keep a list of every item you use for my sake. I'll compensate you for everything."
She was desperate, trying to ensure I wouldn't dump her the moment things got hairy.
She's sharper than she looks.
I'd pegged her as a naive noble playing at being an adventurer, but she had the survival instincts of her class. She knew that in the Labyrinth, companions were often the first things discarded when life was on the line.
"Fine. But a quest this important needs more than a verbal agreement."
"Of course. Here, take these."
She handed me her adventurer's plate and her family's signet ring. In the city, we'd use a notary, but here, these were the ultimate collateral. Handing over her family seal was a guarantee she'd keep her word.
The Lionel family. They're loaded; they won't miss a few gold coins. Just bringing her back alive will be a massive windfall.
I stowed the plate and the seal in my Aether Pocket. Adventurers didn't work for free, but they worked damn hard when the price was right.
"I will see you safely to the surface, Young Lady."
"Good. I'm counting on you, porter."
Her combat ability was effectively zero. At most, she knew some basic utility skills like lockpicking.
I'll have to do all the heavy lifting.
I pulled a sword and shield from my Aether Pocket. They were basic gear, but they felt right in my hands—the tools of a man who had spent far too much time in the dirt of the Labyrinth City.
"Young Lady, take this."
"A spear? I have a dagger."
"Daggers are for experts or the desperate. You'd be dead before you got close enough to use it. Beginners need reach."
A spear was a simple tool. Even a peasant could use one. You just had to keep the enemy at a distance and poke. A lucky thrust to a vital organ was just as lethal as a master's strike. I didn't need her to be a hero; I just needed her to keep the monsters off me.
"Too much light attracts monsters, but walking in total darkness is suicide."
A full party would use torches, but since we were underpowered, we needed to stay low-profile.
"What is this?" she asked as I handed her a small vial.
"Fairy Powder. Shake it, and it glows. Do it periodically."
The blue powder inside the glass bottle emitted a soft, dim light when agitated. It was perfect for when you needed to see your feet without announcing your presence to every predator in the vicinity.
"I heard this stuff was expensive."
"I'm a porter with an Aether Pocket. I come prepared."
"Right. Of course."
A porter was the lowest rung of the Labyrinth City's social ladder, but an S-rank porter with a spatial storage skill earned more than most high-level knights. I had enough wealth to stockpile survival gear for exactly this kind of nightmare.
"Alright. Let's move."
I shook the Fairy Powder, and a soft blue glow filled the corridor. It wasn't much, but it was enough to see the path ahead.
Avoid encounters. Stay quiet.
If we got hurt in a pointless fight, we were finished. In the Labyrinth, a single slip-up was a death sentence.
Don't get nervous. Just get out alive...
If I survived this, I'd finally have enough to buy that slave.