Slave Harem in the Labyrinth of the Other World (LN)

Essentially, the thirteenth floor of Quratars Labyrinth really is a good place for us to earn money, because even if we dont sell all of the Drop Items obtained from the monsters that inhabit that floor, then we can always go for the second best money-making option that this floor offers us, and that is the option of selling the medicines made from the raw materials that I then change to healing items with the use of Herbalists Crude Medicine Creation Skill.

And just like I told to Roxanne and the other two, there is also an issue of possessing maps. Unlike with all of the other Labyrinths that we have visited up until this point, we have the map of all of the currently discovered and cleared floors in the Labyrinth of Quratar that I bought in bulk, so if only we wanted to, we could go as far as we want in the Labyrinth of Quratar just as long as well be able to defeat the Floor Boss on each floor after reaching it, but I think that with our current numbers as well as our levels and abilities, we should be able to advance a little bit further up without the need of grinding or increasing the ranks of my Party even further.

The question, however, is how far exactly should we be going? Even with the steady progress made possible by having a map and the right way pointing us towards the Boss Rooms right from the get-go, we are still bound to band our heads against the wall at one point or another. That, and there is also a matter of a natural limiter thats present in pretty much every Labyrinth: the possibility of death on every new floor that we are going to be arriving on.

Yes, with every new floor the enemies are only going to grow stronger, and as they are going to increase in strength, the possibility of some of them being able to kill either me or my Party Members is also going to increase, and that possibility of being wiped out is something that we have to avoid at all costs.

In the case of the Labyrinths for which you dont have a map, the optimal strategy that can always be used is the tried and true one of of exploring the entire floor until you eventually stumble upon the Boss Room, then defeat the Floor Boss and move up to another floor, and since youre naturally going to wind up fighting a lot of monsters on your way to the Boss Room, youre going to have to fight them whether you like it or not, meaning that youre still going to become stronger along the way, so the further explorations should be proceeding rather smoothly.

However, this time this rather handy approach cannot be utilized by us. Right now, I need to make a conscious decision of whether or not were going to be moving up to another floor, and my only wish he is that I could judge it properly without making a decision thats going to backfire horribly against us, but that risk is exactly what makes that choice so difficult to make. If it was not difficult, the Labyrinths wouldnt be hailed as the dangerous places that they truly are.

If only everyone could just go and easily determine what floor of the Labyrinth would be good for them based on their abilities alone, then that would make traversing them a hell of a lot easier experience than it actually is. For example, because I have my Durandal that can heal all of the wounds that I sustain and recover both my HP and MP from the fallen enemies, then I have never truly felt like my life was in danger while I was in the Labyrinths aside from the moments when my MP was almost drained and thus affecting my thinking processes, but that is exactly why I might just go and make a bad decision in regards to how safe its going to be for us on any given floor.

No one wants to die, that much should be obvious to pretty much anyone, and as always, the safety of both myself and my Party Members should be my biggest and most important priority when planning anything Labyrinth-related. But still, I feel like at times this desire to stay safe above all else might actually be blunting my judgement regarding that fact that as long as I continue to climb up, I will be able to increase my level and get stronger that much faster, and also that fighting tougher opponents means better Drop Items falling from them, which directly translates into us getting more money to spend on our daily needs and/or increasing the ranks of my Party with the new members of my harem. In light of all of that, I think we should still be perfectly safe if we only advance one floor for now..

Yeah, right. Such a nave way of thinking is exactly why people tend to get too confident in their own abilities which then leads them into making careless mistakes that can ultimately lead to them losing their lives because they thought they were ready for anything that the Labyrinth might be throwing their way, while they were in fact not ready in the slightest.

That is why Labyrinths are such dangerous places that cannot be underestimated no matter what. While going into them, you have to be careful at all times, or else youll be finding yourself dead and absorbed by the Labyrinths to become their nourishment before you know it.

After finishing the breakfast that the girls prepared while I was talking to the Duke and Gozer in Bode, we then entered the Labyrinth of Quratar, starting off from the fourteenth floor this time, where the native enemy was a Hat Bat, whom we have encountered shortly after when I asked Roxanne to guise us to the place that only had one of it.

Just as you mightve expected from its name, Hat Bat was actually a giant black bat, so black in fact that it was genuinely difficult for me to see it in the dim lights of the Labyrinths corridors. And by the way, if it could just hover in the air with its wings all folded, then it would be looking like a black bowler hat.

Water Ball!

Since according to Sherrys information Hat Bat was weak against Water Magic, I decided to shoot a single Water Ball at it for the time being to see if its going to do any kind of good damage, but.

Ugh, damn it.

Although I specifically closed the distance between me and the Hat Bat a little bit more than usual and shot a single-target Spell at it for the maximum amount of accuracy possible, the Hat Bat still managed to dodge my Spell and emerge from it completely unscratched, and then it suddenly changed its altitude and began to get closer to me, so I switched to Wind Magic and shoot two consecutive Breeze Balls at it, but just like the first time, it also managed to avoid the Spells that I launched at it this time. Damn, I thought that Wind Magic was supposed to be effective against flying creatures, but no one told me that theyre going to be so good a dodging it!

The movements of the Hat Bat are fast. Much faster than I could have ever expected. And if thats the case, then maybe I should try to actually come even closer to it in order to not allow it to have any space where it could move away from my Spells flying towards it?

The third Spell that I tried hitting it with was Earth Ball, and thankfully, this time the attack was a success. Now that I know what I have to do and how to fight this enemy, I ordered Roxanne, Sherry and Miria to switch their positions. Roxanne stood in the front of the Hat Bat while Miria and Sherry surrounded it from both of its sides. In the meantime, I position myself diagonally to the side of Roxanne so that I can keep my allies out of the harms way in case that my magic attacks missed again. Since my spells are all pretty powerful, hitting Sherry or Miria with them, even if done unintentionally, would definitely have catastrophic results.

Oh, and by the way, I have still yet to acquire the Chant Omission Skill back for myself, so every time that I want to use magic I have to shout its name out loud with all my might, and I think that might be whats making it easier for the Hat Bat to avoid my attacks towards it. After all, even if bats are blind or mostly blind, their hearing is excellent as a result.