The Hero’s Brother Is Bound To Be Depressed

429 – Vague things

People can live with vague hope. As the saying goes, ignorance is medicine, most people act vaguely with the thought that it will end somehow. The steps that floated above my head aimed at that vagueness.

4 people died. But not even half of the step has passed yet. I am constantly feeling, both mentally and physically, that the level of difficulty is increasing step by step. If you don’t see it, you don’t know. If you don’t realize it, you conform. However, if you show them and open the way, people will be shaken uncontrollably.

That is why the adventurer’s head turned to the door that allowed him to escape from the labyrinth. If it weren’t for my help, the two adventurers would have blinked and died in the flames. I knew it myself. As time passes, death approaches you faster and faster.

The reason the adventurers don’t move even though they know that is because I’m by their side. They are the ones who witnessed Raelan killing her wounded comrade. The anxiety that the infamous Lily will not just watch over those who try to run away from the battlefield is holding them back.

I didn’t really care. We wanted someone to help us in the labyrinth, not a meat shield to replace us. So, without saying a word, I slowly turned my body. There was no way that a person whose job was to survive by being aware of its meaning would not know.

“… Thank you.”

“Thank you, thank you.”

As I was contemplating what to do next, looking at the backs of the two people bowing and approaching the door, another letter appeared before my eyes. Just as the remaining stages of the wave had been floated above his head, targeting vagueness, this time it seemed like a malicious ploy aimed at his desperation to tackle the life-threatening labyrinth.

[If a person with an area escapes from the labyrinth using the ‘door’, the area is transferred to another person nearby.]

It seemed like I understood the content of the text that came to mind at the same time. It was almost at the same time that the adventurer grabbed the door handle and the window of shadow materialized.

Knock, knock!

It was faster for the spear blade to pierce the adventurer’s head than for him to open the door and go out. I used spatial telekinesis to pull the body that fell inside the door towards me. To erase the traces of the spear, they drove the spear blade into the corpse with the pierced eye between the eyes and kicked the spear pole with their feet.

Two corpses with split heads were moved to their original locations using space magic. Raelan, who saw the floating words and came towards me, instantly grasped the situation and twitched one corner of his mouth.

“I’ll leave the door to my lord.”

Raelan returned to his seat, and I took out a bottle of water from the space storage and drank it. As I let out a long breath, the faces of the two people passing by me, saying thank you, faded away from my mind. Things that clung to my heart and didn’t want to fall off easily sank to the bottom.

In my heart, which was completely surrounded by desperation, there was nowhere for soft feelings like guilt to cling.

***

[49/100]

All adventurers who failed to reach the realm of transcendence died except for one. To my spear and the approaching monsters. Thanks to this, the area we have to protect has been reduced considerably. It seems like it would be better to start with a small number from the beginning, but it was the opposite from level 50 onwards.

From wave 50 onward, the reason why we had no choice but to increase the number of people, unlike Roel, who attempted the 4th floor alone, appears. At the time, I wanted to show the reader Roel’s strength, while also showing why Roel’s harem was essential for future battles. This is because there are more and more comments saying that Roel alone can kill the Demon King at this level.

I didn’t worry too much about the method. He thought he could make the cooperative game look like Roel was playing alone. The basic setting of the labyrinth is that it is a special place where one cannot move forward with strength alone. The place where such a setting was most evident was the 4th floor. Level 50 was the standard for changing from a defense game that simply prevented monsters from coming into a cooperative game.

Using that, I made Roel regret not challenging the labyrinth with the harem in a very childish way. No matter how strong a person was, he only had two hands, so all he had to do was keep creating situations where he felt regretful about not having enough hands.

If Flavia had been there, she would have been able to easily overcome this stage with her infinite magical power, but if she had Ellie, she would have been able to easily solve the problem with her magical knowledge… etc. The regret that it would have been easier if Ilya Rosaline and Bella were present was continuously expressed through the situation and Roel’s monologue, showing the reader that no matter how strong Roel is, he needs the help of the heroines in order to win.

Level 49 of the wave ended with piercing the head of an Orc knight wearing shining full-body armor. The second break came as the words [Maintenance Time] appeared before everyone’s eyes. However, unlike before, the timer did not appear above my head. People who didn’t know the reason were soon able to realize it.

The floor, which was glowing orange, radiated light and made the walls of the labyrinth adjacent to the area disappear. Thanks to this, the wall disappeared, creating a huge cavity. And then the walls of the labyrinth appeared again around the cavity, completely surrounding us. They are trapped in a dome-shaped structure. There was nowhere to go, but there was also nowhere for the enemy to come in.

A timer for 1 hour appeared above our heads, indicating that the labyrinth’s maintenance had been completed. Raelan took a step forward and explained before the others panicked due to the sudden change in environment without any explanation.

“The conditions have changed from simply protecting the area to a stage-type dungeon. “If you stop a monster, achieve a special condition, or solve a problem, you will move on to the next step.”

“Either it’s harder, or it’s easier than before…” “It’s probably one of the two.”

Raelan nodded and said to Valentine’s words.

“We recruited a variety of colleagues to prepare for something like this. Valentine and our wizard will be in charge of magic, and Colton from the Blue Magic Tower will be in charge of alchemy. When it comes to things related to monsters and dungeons, you can expect adventurers’ knowledge. If the rest of us take care of magic and other miscellaneous things, it will be easy to break through the levels.”

We already knew roughly what would happen on the fourth floor. It’s happening exactly as it appears in the novel. The same goes for the wavy phase that appears on top of your head in the middle.

However, it was not mentioned in the novel that if a door appears and someone escapes using the door, the area is transferred. Since Roel was alone, there was no reason for something like that to appear in the first place. From the beginning, Raelan took such variables into account and did not share the information we knew with others.

So everyone thought that the head of the Perlkus family was an excellent strategist. That is correct. Although it was a bit of a problem that most of the methods were so crazy that they had the word insanity in front of them. I found out halfway through that the reason why the adventurer, who had not yet reached the realm of transcendence, joined us was simply to avoid suspicion.

“If you don’t die too much, there won’t be a sense of crisis, and given Derok’s personality, he’ll think it’s strange and suspicious that things will be resolved so easily. Either live by clinging to his colleagues, or fail and become a corpse… “There is no harm to us.”

If the adventurers had just escaped without dying, it would have been a huge loss for us. Because the empty space they left will remain with us. But somehow, I got the feeling that Raelan was confident that I would be able to control it even if such unexpected variables arose. The twisted smile Raelan showed me clearly contained a faint sense of satisfaction.

***

I didn’t make food this time. There was a lot of packaged food stored in the space warehouse, and there was secret advice from Raelan to save ingredients for fear of what might happen in the future.

Still, packaged food that looked like it was just made was able to satisfy everyone. Even though Derok was afraid of me, he sneakily approached me and asked me a question about the space warehouse.

Of course, I didn’t reply at all, but it seems that the storage space where hot food can be taken out at any time seemed to be a more valuable ability than anything else in the adventurers’ eyes. It was understandable since the food issue was important in all situations, not just dungeons.

Because the wall was gone, the adventurers just lay down on the floor and rested. I was tired from constantly dealing with the enemies that came rushing in. Lamine was also sleeping between them. Some distance away, Valentine and Colton were meditating to recover their lost magic power. Raelan, too, must have consumed a lot of her magical power and was meditating alone.

Since I didn’t really need a break, I drank coffee with Ellie. Fortunately, her condition seems to have recovered, and Ellie is back to her usual bright self. While talking with Ellie, I refined my thoughts little by little.