Witch Taming System-Chapter 20: Labyrinth Dive [2]

Lancel moved through the labyrinth’s narrow corridors.

He had been assigned to scouting duty. His task was to map the pathways ahead and report back on anything unusual.

Thankfully, he wasn’t the only one sent forward.

Two other scouts had been dispatched alongside him. With three of them covering different routes, mapping the labyrinth became far more efficient. Each of them could take separate branches before eventually looping back to the main party.

The labyrinth itself was exactly what one would expect.

A maze.

Rough stone walls stretched in every direction. Moisture dripped from the stalactites, making certain sections of the wall slick to the touch. The air was cool, as expected from a place that never saw sunlight.

Occasionally, the corridors widened before splitting again into multiple directions of dead ends, sharp turns, and, if fortunate, intersections that led deeper into the darkness.

Lancel carefully stepped over a loose rock as he continued forward.

Then, all of a sudden, his foot caught on something.

"Ah?"

His body lurched forward, and he stumbled, barely managing to catch himself before falling flat onto the stone floor.

For a moment, he just stood there dumbfounded, blinking his eyes.

"...Yeah."

It was safe to say that Lancel was washed up.

This was exactly why he had decided to work as an adventurer again, at least for a while. He needed to temper his body and regain the instincts he had lost during the past year.

In the past, Lancel could confidently say he had been a respected adventurer.

Now, he wasn’t even sure he could move the way he once did.

He could have taken a simpler solo subjugation request to ease himself back into things. But the pay for those jobs was miserable, and the effort wouldn’t have been worth the time.

This extermination expedition, on the other hand, gave him a certain margin for mistakes.

First of all, there were twenty-three other adventurers here.

With numbers like that, there was plenty of room for error.

Second, this wasn’t Lancel’s first time entering a labyrinth. He already knew the basics of navigating one such as what to avoid, what to watch for, and when to retreat.

That experience alone would make things much easier.

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Host: Lancel

Rank: Familiar

Level: 4

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Primary Attributes

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Strength: 3.5

Vitality: 3.1

Mana: 1.1

Agility: 3.9

Endurance: 3.7

Resonance: 0.9

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Through a few small tests here and there, Lancel had already discovered something important.

His attributes were directly tied to his level.

Whenever one of his attributes reached a certain threshold, the system would treat it as a breaking point. Once that threshold was crossed, his overall level would increase accordingly, giving him rewards.

It didn’t matter which attribute it was.

For example, if his Strength and Agility both rose past their respective thresholds, his level would increase. If Mana reached a breaking point together with Endurance, the result would be the same.

The system didn’t seem to favor any single attribute.

As long as the growth was sufficient, the level followed.

In other words, leveling up wasn’t about killing monsters or gaining experience in the traditional sense.

It was about pushing his body and abilities beyond their limits.

In any case, Lancel had also noticed another pattern.

Quests tended to appear whenever he encountered certain situations or people.

And inside a labyrinth?

Encounters were practically guaranteed.

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[Special Objective]

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Condition:

∎ Subjugate 50 Labyrinth Dwellers (0/50)

Reward:

∎ Attribute Points +1.0 (Attribute Allocation Privilege)

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Attribute Allocation Privilege?

Didn’t that mean he could freely decide which specific stat would receive the increase?

Moreover, 1.0 was not a small number at all.

If he placed that point into Mana, his total would rise to 2.1.

At that level, Lancel would finally possess enough raw power to cast an actual spell of his own that wasn’t borrowed from Faust or Ishtar.

And if the grueling mana control training Faust had forced him through truly paid off, he might even manage two casts, maybe even three.

The reason he had never been able to cast a proper spell before was simply that his mana refinement had been terrible.

Every time he tried to form a Hexencircle, the mana would destabilize and burst apart before the spell could even take shape.

But now things were different.

After weeks of instruction under Faust, Lancel could feel the change in his control.

It was still rough.

But it was no longer impossible.

"...This should be good enough."

Lancel had decided he had mapped out enough for the first day’s expedition.

Through experience, he had already learned how to move through labyrinths without leaving obvious traces.

Lancel relied mostly on memory and a few subtle indicators he had left behind, such as marks that were placed in locations that would be easy for him to recognize later.

At the same time, he memorized several key spots along the route and key landmarks that made navigating back much easier.

All while carefully avoiding the watch of the labyrinth dwellers.

Labyrinth dwellers were simply the term adventurers used for monsters that lived inside labyrinths.

Fortunately, those creatures relied heavily on scent.

Before setting out, the scouts had purchased a pouch of Mushroom Dust, a powder commonly used by experienced explorers.

When spread lightly over the body and clothing, the dust masked the human scent almost completely.

As long as he avoided direct contact with any monsters, they wouldn’t detect him.

In other words, as long as he kept his distance and stayed quiet, the labyrinth dwellers would never set their sights on him.

As Lancel finally regrouped with the party, he immediately realized something.

He was the last one back.

"Hey. Good work. We were about to start wondering if something happened to you."

Lancel shook his head and brushed a bit of stone dust from his sleeve.

"Nothing like that," he said. "Just took a longer route."

The others had already gathered near a relatively open section of the corridor, waiting for the scouts to report. l

One of the other scouts crouched down and spread a sheet of parchment across the ground.

"Alright," he said. "Let’s see what we’ve got."

Lancel stepped forward and pulled out his own rough sketch. It wasn’t a perfect map, but the major corridors and intersections were clearly marked.

The second scout did the same. For a moment, the three of them compared their notes.

"Alright. Talk me through it," one of the adventurers said.

The first scout pointed at one side of the parchment.

"This corridor loops around and reconnects here," he explained. "Dead end past this corner, though."

The second scout traced a finger along another path.

"I found a wider chamber about three turns down this direction. Looks like a nest site. I didn’t get too close, but there were at least fifteen dwellers."

"fifteen?"

"Maybe more. Hard to tell."

Lancel placed his own map beside theirs and pointed toward a narrow passage he had drawn.

"This path continues deeper," he said. "There are three intersections before it branches again. But I haven’t seen any large chambers yet."

The scouts began adjusting the parchments, aligning their sketches together until the rough shape of the labyrinth’s first section began to form.

Piece by piece, the map slowly came together.

"So far, it’s not too complicated. Just a lot of branching corridors."

"For now."

Lancel leaned back slightly and crossed his arms.

The labyrinth was still mostly unexplored since this was only the outer layer.

Which meant the deeper sections would probably be far worse.

Still, the first day’s progress wasn’t bad.

"Let’s clear out this area."

The leader leaned forward and tapped a section of the newly pieced-together map.

It was a relatively contained portion of the labyrinth. Several corridors looped around into one another before eventually reconnecting with the main passage the expedition had used to enter.

"If we start here, we can sweep through these corridors and push the monsters back toward this chamber."

One of the scouts nodded as he studied the layout.

"That should work. The passages narrow around this turn. If anything tries to escape, it’ll have to pass through there."

"Good. We’ll establish a temporary checkpoint. Then after that, we move deeper tomorrow."

The group exchanged glances.

It was a simple plan.

Clear a controlled section first, secure the area, then continue advancing.