Chapter 15

The Return of the Genius Wizard

Plan B.

If the operation doesn’t go well, or if Backstab detoxifies after being hit by the poison arrow, this is the last resort to rush in.

I activate the Magic Armor scroll to block physical attacks while I personally hold Backstab with my body.

Then I get hit by the poison arrow to get poisoned together, and survive with a healing potion.

I’ve devised similar strategies many times when playing games.

If you don’t have teeth, you use your gums, right?

Without a warrior like Virtanen to tank, a squishy wizard has to make do somehow.

But……

‘Fuck, I didn’t know it would hurt this much.’

The pain of poisoning is beyond imagination.

It feels like pouring boiling malatang from a pot into my nostrils?

It’s as if the poison gas I inhaled is stabbing my heart, lungs, and blood vessels all at once.

“Kheuk.”

Backstab is also suffering from the same pain.

Blood vessels disgustingly bulged on his face, which was trembling right in front of me.

“……!”

But am I really drinking the healing potion properly?

It feels like everything is flowing back up.

The potion liquid is red and blood is also red, so I can’t tell if what I’m spitting out right now is blood or potion.

‘Let’s drink it all anyway.‘

I desperately bit my lips to avoid spilling that sloshing liquid.

“Caleb!”

Yernil’s urgent voice rushing over.

Gulp.

Barely one sip, I can feel the hot liquid going down my throat.

How much life force does a wizard have?

60.

Based on 0 health as the standard.

Mister Backstab’s physical attack power, which completely destroyed the egg in one hit, would be about 65.

“Caleb!”

Originally, when Backstab brought me here and stabbed me in the lower abdomen with a knife, I should have died instantly.

But how did I survive?

Gulp.

Before coming here, I ate eggs and dried beef.

The effects of these two foods are health +1 and health +2 respectively. Of course, it’s not permanent, but temporary doping.

Does that really work?

It does.

I confirmed it by eating food and going straight to bed for the past two days.

My health secured at 3 points would have been about 75, and I didn’t die from Mister Backstab’s basic attack.

And Backstab still isn’t dead either.

He’s really a guy with amazing vitality.

Is it because of his health stat or his level?

“ugh…..Ugh“

He lifted his dagger with his weakened hand and stabbed down at my chest again.

Kkaang!

This time it was also blocked by Magic Armor.

I also grabbed that bastard’s hair with my weakened hand and pulled hard.

This is exactly like a zombie fight.

I once dreamed of fighting with a class bully in high school, and it feels similar to that time. All the punches thrown were like cotton punches with no impact on each other.

“Cough.”

A handful of blood spurted from Backstab’s mouth onto my face.

“Ugh.”

I also spat a bowl of blood like a fountain on his face.

This is the fight of the strongest on the 1st floor!

‘How much damage does poisoning deal per second?‘

It varies by poison type, but for Venomic Spider’s poison fang, it’s 20 per second.

How much life force does a healing potion restore?

According to the game settings, the low-concentration healing potion I have restores 2 life force per milliliter.

So a 50mL sized potion bottle, slightly smaller than Seoul yogurt, recovers 100 when you gulp it down in one sip by double-clicking, according to the game settings.

Gulp.

Let me drink as slowly as possible. My life force has a maximum value of 75.

But I can’t die from poisoning, so I need to drink a little bit every second.

I have five bottles left after Backstab stole one.

If I drink four of those bottles, I can endure 400 worth of poison damage, and with the remaining one bottle, I can also treat the fatal wound from Backstab stabbing my lower abdomen. Originally, getting hit by this wasn’t in the plan, but I made a small mistake.

Still, I will survive. Backstab.

Gulp.

I finished swallowing the potion I was holding in my mouth and took out another bottle.

Backstab’s eyes went blank, unable to endure the fatal wound in his side and the poisoning.

Even that strongest exit boss has now reached the end of his life.

Beyond the corpse falling sideways, Yernil’s shout was heard again.

“Don’t die, Caleb!”

She was climbing up the ladder.

“The exit gate is open! Now we just need to get out!”

Her face was a mess, wet with tears.

“Let’s cross the gate together! Please don’t die!”

“We, we won……”

“Yes! We won! Don’t talk!”

“No…… This……”

I lifted up the healing potion.

‘Open this for me!‘

“Ah!”

Yernil quickly opened the cap and put it to my lips.

While gulp gulp drinking the potion, I let my body be dragged along by Yernil’s grip.

Yernil leaned my upper body against the wall at the end of the platform.

To make it easier to drink the potion.

Gulp.

It’s definitely easier to swallow the potion now.

Looking down while sitting, it’s quite a sight.

My clothes, I mean.

The ochre-colored slave outfit has turned red!

I hope this is from spilling blood and not from spilling healing potion.

Preferably Backstab’s blood, not mine.

Gulp.

Actually, all of this is an uncertain calculation in my imagination.

The calculation of enduring poison damage by drinking potions, I mean.

In reality, it might all be completely wrong.

Whether the potion’s recovery amount is really 2 per milliliter, whether I can really endure 100 worth of damage by drinking this potion slowly, whether the poison arrow’s poison damage is 20 per second and lasts for 20 seconds – I don’t know.

None of it has ever been verified.

Maybe even after drinking all these potions, I’ll still die from poisoning.

Gulp.

But is there any other way?

Gulp gulp.

No choice but to swallow.

The potion bottle visible in my blurred vision was almost empty.

There can’t be gaps between potion drinking.

I took out the third potion bottle.

“I’ll do it for you!”

Yernil quickly opened the potion and put it to my lips.

“Omg……”

Poisoning is fucking painful, really.

I’m sorry to all the countless characters I poisoned when devising similar strategies in games.

I didn’t know you guys would be in this much pain.

“You finished it! Drink this too!”

Yernil opened the fourth healing potion and put it to my lips.

“Kheuk……”

Now I’m almost drinking by inertia.

I’m going to fall into the status ailment [Drug Addiction].

Still, it’s better than dying.

How many seconds has it been since I got poisoned?

“Heuk heuk…… Caleb.”

Yernil was sniffling while holding the last potion, waiting.

“You can’t die…… Please……”

“It’s okay……”

I can answer!

Oh.

Earlier I didn’t even have the strength to speak and was about to see my deceased grandfather.

“I’m…… I’m alive.”

I’m confident that I’ve endured it.

Suddenly my mind gradually cleared and the pain subsided.

Though I’m still battered all over.

“This is the last bottle.”

Yernil held out the potion.

I can clearly see the red liquid in that potion bottle.

My vision that had been blurred until just now has recovered.

I drank half of the last bottle and poured the other half on the wound in my lower abdomen.

It stings amazingly, like applying Albochill to gum inflammation.

“Haah.”

I caught my breath and stood up with Yernil’s support.

“Good work. You hit the last arrow well too. Yernil.”

Then Yernil suddenly burst into tears as if overwhelmed by emotion.

She went down toward the exit gate while sniffling and crying. Confessing the complex feelings when firing the last arrow.

“Actually, from below I couldn’t be sure if the arrow would hit because it was blocked by the platform.”

That would be the case. Mister Backstab probably had that in mind when using Shadow Leap too.

All types of ranged attacks suffer from lowland penalty when shot from bottom to top.

And if blocked by the wooden floor of the platform, the shooting angle gets cut off so you can’t hit at all.

Backstab probably brought me up to the platform targeting that.

But……

‘I had Yernil’s level 5 special ability set to Curved Artillery.‘

That’s why I was confident you would hit well. Yernil.

“Good shot.”

“Let’s cross over now!”

We came right up to the exit gate.

“Wait a moment.”

I still had things to do.

“There are two spots left in the gate. Let’s take them.”

***

At the tavern ‘Mice of the Beer Barrel’, Virtanen clocked in for work today too.

Today Zikal was with him too.

“One cup of catnip tea. Please.”

Beastman thief Zikal sip sip drank catnip tea, while Virtanen gulp gulp drank beer.

“Puu-.”

5th floor wizard Clarence smoked a cigarette.

“You don’t drink alcohol but you smoke cigarettes. Isn’t smoking worse for your health?”

The bartender asked.

“Cigarettes are stimulants that help with magic implementation, but alcohol is a sedative that dulls the senses.”

There was a reason Clarence was at the tavern without even drinking. Emma would bring a revival scroll soon.

Of course, there was no doubt about the quality of scrolls made by Nataniel Temple, but since it was a matter of his brother’s life, Clarence wanted to check personally.

‘The additionally requested scroll comes out today, and we enter the labyrinth around 5 AM tomorrow. We search for Abisson, revive him, and bring him out.‘

Abisson was taken by the Black Hornet. Since it’s the strongest monster reigning on the 1st floor field, paradoxically, we can guarantee that Abisson’s corpse will be safe.

This means there’s no creature other than the Black Hornet or its larva that would damage the corpse.

Calculating backwards from the eating speed, perhaps two legs might be missing. But if it’s just that much, it’s within the range of resurrection.

The problem is what comes after.

Since he’ll be in a severely injured state, the pain will be tremendous the moment we resurrect him, and movement will be difficult.

The priest will use pain relief magic and regenerate him as much as possible, but much more time will be needed for proper movement.

‘I’ll have Virtanen carry Abisson, have the priest heal him, and I’ll lead the way with Zikal as a guide, killing everything and clearing the exit room.‘

Clarence planned it that way.

‘I hope something like Backstab doesn’t appear as the exit boss.‘

Of course, even if Backstab flies and crawls, since the level range is different, he wouldn’t be a match for Clarence.

‘But still, rogue types are troublesome.‘

If he gets hit by a Leap Ambush and his concentration breaks, it becomes tricky.

And in the worst case scenario.

If Backstab attacks Abisson and kills him.

Then things would really get complicated. Would the Nataniel Temple permit an emergency additional disbursement of resurrection scrolls? When we’ve already used two sheets?

‘Should I have Abisson wait outside the exit room entirely?‘

Just as Clarence was desperately formulating a strategy to rescue Abisson in his mind.

“Everyone!”

Priest Emma burst through the tavern door with a bright expression and waved the resurrection scroll.

“We got it! It’s the resurrection scroll!”

“Great!”

Clarence jumped up.

“Let me see it once. Of course, you’ve already inspected it, Priest… But…”

“Before that, let’s go to our labyrinth management office first!”

Emma said something unexpected.

“They say the 1st floor exit gate is open right now!”

“What!”

“The exit gate!”

Virtanen and Zikal simultaneously bounced out of their chairs like springs.

Beer spilled splash splash from the beer cups that were knocked over, making the bartender complain.

“Are you rookies or what!”

Zikal shouted.

“Are you certain the open exit gate is the ‘1st floor’?”

Clarence reconfirmed the information.

“That’s what they say! Let’s go quickly, everyone!”

“Let’s go right now!”

“Are we really getting ripped off 9,500?”

“Those guys are good enough to be suckers. And it’s 8,000! We have to subtract the spider corpse price.”

“Let’s go!”

Clarence followed them as well.

***

Labyrinth guild underground management room.

The 1st floor exit gate had opened a while ago, but no people were coming out from inside.

“I hope it’s a slave team this time.”

Scarlett, an instructor from the Magic University who was spending boring time sitting in front of the gate, stared blankly at the gate with her chin propped up.

“Haaaa!“

While yawning long.

Among the slave teams the Magic University deployed this time, none had succeeded in escaping yet.

According to rumors, there was supposedly one crazy monster who could do Chantless and Ultra-high-speed casting.

‘As if that makes sense.‘

Scarlett couldn’t believe that nonsense until she saw it directly.

“Did someone come out!”

Just then, she heard the shout of dwarf Virtanen, the source of that nonsense.

Virtanen’s party members rushing down to the basement making thud thud noises, and behind them…

“Clarence?”

Clarence, a 5th-year graduating student from the Magic University, also appeared.

He’s a famous newcomer who’s been raising his stock by being active on the 5th floor of the labyrinth recently. He’s also a student the professors are desperately trying to recruit for graduate school.

“Hello, instructor.”

“Ah. You came to see if Abisson might come out?”

Scarlett asked.

“That’s right. Of course, I’m not getting my hopes up too much, but…”

“Someone’s coming out!”

Zikal pointed at the gate and shouted.

Finally, something was coming out from beyond the exit gate.

“Finally coming out!”

Scarlett was delighted. She had waited a whole 5 minutes after the gate opened. What on earth were they doing inside?

“Let me see who it is…”

Scarlett, who had stuck her head close to the gate, screamed and fell back.

“Kyaaaa! What is that!”

Because a slightly decomposed corpse had popped out from inside.

And that corpse was a face everyone here knew.

“Abisson!”

“It’s Abisson!”

Clarence’s eyes doubled in size.

The entire Virtanen party shouted with joy and emotion.

Although it was slightly decomposed and missing one leg, it was Abisson.

“No way! Could it really be that Caleb…!?”

Emma covered her mouth.

Kwa-kwa-gwang!

Then the gate began to spew forth again.

What came out from there was…

“Is that you, Caleb!”

Contrary to Virtanen’s hopes, surprisingly, it was another corpse this time too.

The corpse of a fully armed rogue.

“Damn! What is this?”

“Wait a minute.”

This time the shock was a hundred times greater than with Abisson.

To 1st floor adventurers, that face was like a legend.

“No way…”

Everyone’s complexion turned pale blue.

“Mister Backstab…?”

The recent strongest on labyrinth 1st floor, who even performed more than his share in 2nd floor parties.

Who defeated Black Hornets alone and protected his party members.

And who suddenly disappeared at some point.

The adventurer that 1st floor parties worried about, saying they’d really have bad luck if they met him as an exit boss. That strongest rogue had come through the gate as a corpse.

With the Labyrinth Master’s slave mark carved on his forehead.

“They… Caught Mister Backstab?”

The instructor’s voice trembled.

“No, wait a minute. Does this make sense?”

Unlike monster corpses like Venomic Spiders, possessed adventurers are treated as ‘one person’s worth’.

If they come through, it means the collapse of the exit gate accelerates.

Four people can come out through the exit gate, and if two corpses were pushed through, then only two people can cross over now.

What does that mean?

“Not a 4-person party, not even 3-person. A 2-person party… Caught Mister Backstab?”

The entire labyrinth guild basement fell into great chaos.

And Clarence recalled the legendary-like wizard he had heard about from Virtanen.

“Chantless… Ultra-high-speed casting…”

Wasn’t the party led by that wizard a duo?

Kwa-gwang!

The gate’s color began to change from yellow to red.

The third escapee was coming out.

The genius wizard appeared.