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Early NBAA Vol. 8 Chapter 4 Part 3
🕑 Added 2024-12-28 14:29:05 +0000 UTCFull title: People Made Fun of Me For Being Jobless but Its Not Bad at All
Note: This part has not been TLCed yet, and might slightly differ from the public version. If you found any typos/mistakes, pls write them in the comment. Thanks.
Translator: Airis
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When they were about to move to the pedestal of the teleportation crystal, Reito was suddenly curious about the Goblin King and the Lizardman lying in wait, so he asked.
“Do monsters sometimes lie in wait for adventurers?”
“Monsters aren't stupid, so it's a common occurrence. It's not so strange, especially for the highly intelligent goblins and demons.”
“Is that so, it's a scary place…”
“It's a scary place. This place.”
“Ah, wait Reito! Aren't you going to collect the lizardman's materials?”
Dain stopped Reito. In the hall, there was a person clinging to the murdered adventurer, so Reito didn't feel like dissecting the lizardman's body.
“That's enough for today. We've got the materials, so let's go back now.”
“But you don't get lizardman materials very often, you know?”
“That's right. You defeated them, so you should collect them properly. There's no need to worry about them.”
“No, but…”
“You did nothing wrong. It's normal for adventurers to hunt monsters, dismember their bodies, and collect the materials. Especially if they're valuable monsters.”
Surprisingly, Shizune agreed with Dain's words. The others nodded in silence, as if they agreed with Shizune.
Reito turned his gaze to the lizardman's corpse and decided to collect at least the body.
“Here I go.”
He activated space magic and placed the lizardman's corpse in the black vortex. Living things couldn't be stored there, but corpses were a different story. He decided to dismember it later.
“Well, shall we go back?”
“Yes. But first, I want you to hear what I have to say.”
“What is it?”
“The way to the fifth floor.”
Shizune said, pointing to the teleportation crystal's base.
The base has three indentations that hadn't existed on the previous floors. The indentations were palm-sized, and it was said that if you put a special item inside these indentations, you could move to the fifth level.
“We weren't able to find them this time, but if we place three teleportation stones inside, we can travel to the fifth floor.”
“Teleportation stones? Can't we travel to the fifth floor like this?”
“That's impossible. Watch me... the fifth floor!!”
She said, placing her palm in front of the crystal, but the teleportation crystal only glowed for a moment and nothing happened, and then the glow faded.
“They don't react like that. If we want to move to the fifth floor, we need to place a teleportation stone in the holes.”
“You'll need three teleportation stones?!”
“Yes. And even if it activates, only one person can move. In other words, we'll need fifteen teleportation stones to move everyone.”
“That's crazy... We've been searching this floor for a long time and haven't found a single one.”
“That's why so few people can go to the fifth floor. In the first place, no one has challenged the fifth floor in the last hundred years and returned alive. That's why the fifth floor of the Tower's Great Labyrinth is shrouded in so much mystery.”
“No one?”
“Yes... According to her story, as long as the white dragon exists, it's wise not to go in.”
According to Honemin, she had challenged the fifth floor and encountered the white dragon, a species of dragon that guarded the Excalibur. It was the strongest dragon that had never been defeated in history, and even Shizune judged it dangerous to challenge it.
“Our goal isn't to conquer the Great Labyrinth, but to test our skills. Let's not take any chances.”
“That's right. Well, let's head back.”
“A lot happened, but it was fun, that it was.”
“That's true.”
“You guys are monsters... I'm so tired.”
Just being able to experience the first to fourth floors this time was a great achievement. This experience would be useful for the next challenge of the Great Labyrinth.
“Okay, let's go back then…”
“Clack, clack, clack...!!”
“Whoa?! What is this?”
As Reito and the others were returning using the teleportation crystal, a familiar strange sound echoed in their ears, and an adventurer in the passage behind them cried out in surprise.
When they turned around, they saw a suspicious person wearing a robe. His face was hidden by a mask that looked like a robed mask.
“What's up?"
“A suspicious person! A suspicious person has appeared!”
“It's coming this way!”
“No, that's... isn't it Honemin?”
Although her whole body was hidden, the sound of her bones creaking whenever she moved was heard. There's no doubt that it's Honemin.
Honemin stopped in front of Reito and the others. She seemed to be in a great hurry, but she wasn't even out of breath. In the first place, she didn't have any internal organs, so her lungs were not strained.
“Katatatat…”
“She's trying to say something…”
“Reito, give her paper and pen.”
“I can't help it…”
Reito handed her a fountain pen and a notepad again, and she wrote masterfully as usual.
“I'm glad I caught up just in time. I was sorting out the warehouse and found some disguise tools, which helped me get here.”
“What's wrong? Did you come back because you wanted to join us?”
“Honemin is looking at me like he wants to be one of us... No, you're not. Do you want me to say that?”
“You got yourself on board..."
“That's not important. It's more complicated than that!!”
Honemin wrote on the notepad one after another in a panic, and the paper scattered on the ground. Gonzo couldn't stand to watch, so he picked up the paper and told her to place the paper she had finished writing on in his hand.
“Don't throw trash on the roadside.”
“Oh, sorry. Littering is a no-no, absolutely not. But listen to what I have to say instead!”
“Just write down the main points, just the main points!”
Even Reito, as expected, points out Honemin, who was pointlessly writing down random things in her notepad, and she nodded in agreement.
“Okay, from here on out, I'll just write down the main points. I found an injured person, and she’s about to die.”
“An injured person? Where is she?”
Honemin said in writing, but Reito and the others looked around, and they couldn't find anyone else besides her. However, she said she's evacuated to another location.
“I am currently having her rest at a nearby resting spot. But even if I tried to heal her, she was poisoned, so I can't heal her with the medicine I have.”
“Poison? A monster's poison?”
“Apparently she was bitten by a giant lizard.”
“Giant lizards?! They even exist in this Great Labyrinth?”
Hanzo exclaimed in surprise upon hearing the name, but the other humans tilted their heads, as if they've never heard of it before. Even Shizune and Dain have no idea what it's like, so Honemin explained instead.
“Giant lizards are monsters that mainly live in forests, and their saliva is mixed with poison. So if a person is bitten, they will be poisoned and eventually die.”
“There's a monster that is dangerous here!?”
“Even though it's dangerous, the poison itself is slow-acting, so if you give the person an antidote before the poison has fully taken hold of their body, they can recover.”
“So she's actually alive…”
“She was injured, but she managed to reach a resting spot and survived. When I found her, she had healed her injuries with healing potions, but she didn't have an antidote. As you can see, she doesn't need healing potions, so I couldn't heal her, and so I was looking for Reito and the others.”
“How did you find this place?”
“I haven't lived here for hundreds of years for nothing. I have the labyrinth pattern of this Great Labyrinth drilled into my head. I believed that if I kept my eye on the teleport crystal pedestal, I'd be able to meet Reito and the others.”
“Weren't you attacked by monsters?”
“That's where I took off my mask and revealed myself. They thought I was a skeleton, so I walked right past them.”
“As expected…”
Shizune was astonished at Honemin's explanation, but nodded in admiration. It's true that if there's no meat to eat, the monsters probably wouldn't attack her willingly.
“We have an antidote, can't we just give it to her?”
“No, it's been a while since she was poisoned, so there's nothing we can do with the antidote available on the market. That's why we'll take her to a special resting point in this Great Labyrinth. However, it's a very dangerous place, so I'd like you all to escort her. It wouldn't be a problem if I was alone, but if I take her there, the monsters will attack her…”
Reito turned his gaze to Shizune after hearing Honemin's words, and she sighed but nodded. The others seemed to agree, so they didn't say anything.
In the end, Reito and the others decided to go back down the passage with Honemin's guidance.
◆◆◆
“Please follow me. I know the structure and traps of this floor perfectly well.”
“But doesn't your memory get hazy as you get older?”
“How rude!”
Following Honemin, who was walking unhesitantly down the corridor, a few minutes later they discover a resting spot where no one was. A woman was lying in the center of the magic circle, and Reito cried out when he saw her.
“Mina?! Why are you here?”
“Oh, do you know her?”
“Ugh…”
The woman lying in the resting spot was Mina, an adventurer belonging to the adventurer's guild Hailstorm. Her whole body had turned green.
She seemed to have fainted, as she groaned with a pained expression on her face with her eyes closed.
Everyone rushed over in a panic.
“Why is she here? Could she have followed us alone?”
“What a crazy thing to do...Mina!”
“Please calm down. The poison is starting to take hold in her body.”
Reito called out to her, but she showed no signs of regaining consciousness. They had to treat her quickly, but it seemed like the poison of the giant lizard couldn't be cured with normal antidotes.
“Let's move her first. Ah, don't touch the green parts. It hurts a lot.”
“Whaaaaaaaaa?! You should have said that earlier!”
“And don't give her too much impact when carrying her.”
“Got it.”
Reito wrapped Mina's body in cloth and carried her on his back, and gave Honemin the next instruction. She approached the wall surrounding the resting spot and pointed to a light-colored brick.
“Look at this. This brick is the key to opening the secret passage”
“Secret passage?”
“Watch me... Wh-!!”
The moment Honemin grabbed the brick and pulled it, it was easily pulled out and removed. Immediately afterwards, the entire brick wall began to move, splitting to the left and right and opening up a new passageway.
"Wow... so there's a mechanism like this."
“...I've never heard of it before.”
“That's amazing.”
“This labyrinth has lots of hidden passageways like this. However, most of them lead to traps, so please avoid using them when I'm not around.”
“Ugh…”
Proceeding through the newly created passage, Reito and his friends search for a place where they could cure Mina with Honemin's guidance.
Honemin said that if they could reach a place she knew, there was a chance that they could save her from the poison of the giant lizard.
“In addition to normal resting spots on each floor, there are special resting spots for healing injuries and abnormal conditions. On the third floor, there is a resting spot where green medicinal water springs up.”
“That place, huh?”
Reito remembered the resting spot inside the rock mountain they stopped at on the third floor. It seemed that Reito and his friends had accidentally discovered the special resting spot that Honemin spoke of. Furthermore, it seemed that there were resting spots that produce better healing effects the higher the floor you go to.
“On this floor, there is a resting spot that will restore your stamina and magic, but you can't save Mina there. So let's head to the resting spot on the fifth floor.”
“The fifth floor?!”
“You... do you know the way to the fifth floor?”
Unlike other floors, you would normally have to use a teleportation stone to get to the fifth floor. But Honemin knew another way to get there.
“Up ahead, there is a special teleportation crystal that leads to the fifth floor. However, be careful, if you use this teleportation crystal, you don't know where you will be transported to on the fifth floor. If you're lucky, you may be able to teleport to a place with a resting spot... but if you're not, you may be transported to the White Dragon's territory.”
“Seriously?”
“So, just to be on the safe side, I'll give this to everyone. Use this to escape in case of emergency.”
“This is…”
Honemin took out a clear crystal ball from under her hood and handed it to Reito and the others.
It looked like a normal crystal ball, but inside there was a pattern like a magic circle floating. When Reito saw it, he realized that it was the teleportation magic circle that was also engraved on the crystal tag that Maria used.
“Could this be a teleportation stone?”
“That's right. With this, we can teleport outside or move to another floor.”
“These are teleportation stones that I've collected over the years. By the way, the one that Dain has is the one I found in a pile of monster feces.”
“What?”
“I washed it properly.”
~
After that, Reito and the others went through the passage and arrived at a hall with a different atmosphere than before.
The magic circle at the resting spot was engraved on the floor, and a teleportation crystal was floating in the center.
Compared to the one they had found earlier, this teleportation crystal was about one size smaller. There was no pedestal or anything like that.
“This is the teleportation crystal that only connects to the fifth floor. Let's use this to move to the upper floor.”
“The fifth floor... the floor where the legendary White Dragon lives.”
“If you encounter the White Dragon, run away without hesitation. In that case, please send Mina to the city's treatment center immediately... I hope they can make it in time.”
“Ugh…”
Reito turned to face Mina, who he was carrying, and noticed that her complexion was paler than before, and decided that there was no time to waste. When everyone prepared themselves, Honemin, as the representative, placed her palm on the teleportation crystal and announced the name of the floor they were going to.
“Fifth floor!!”
