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< Goblins Don’t Feel Cold >

When she first met that Goblin, Soyul was a 2nd floor adventurer.

The adventurer life that started anew in Soren after leaving Windham due to complicated circumstances wasn’t easy.

Because it was difficult to find a party.

‘Foxes are ominous, so no.’

‘Sorry. It’s not that we believe in this stuff a lot, but it still feels unsettling.’

‘Our party is already full.’

‘It’s not discrimination, but the Yoho tribe and us use magic differently, so it would be hard to match up, right?’

Every time she was rejected, her worries piled up like mountains, but at the same time she was also relieved.

Because in this kind of land, adventurers were as threatening to the Yoho tribe as labyrinth monsters.

Yoho tribe tails are traded on the black market as the highest quality fur.

Yoho tribe fox orbs are also traded at high prices on the black market as collectibles for the wealthy.

So Soyul, who had been carefully selecting adventurer parties…

“Wow, what a relief!”

Joined a 1st floor beginner party.

Looking at the Adventurer Guild’s labyrinth records, it was a beginner party that had only entered the 1st floor twice.

It was a party full of beginners to the extent that Soyul alone could easily subdue all three of them if needed.

“We’ve been on the verge of death every time we enter the labyrinth, so we were really worried this time too.”

The skinny human man carried a two-handed sword that looked somewhat burdensome on his back and rejoiced.

“If a 2nd floor adventurer joins us, that’s reassuring. What does it matter that you’re Yoho tribe? I’m a beastman too.”

The canine beastman wizard kept bowing his head.

“We’ll grow quickly! Let’s enter the 2nd floor together!”

The halfling female rogue was very happy about Soyul joining the party and jumped around.

“This time, labyrinth adventures will finally be stable!”

She realized something was wrong right after entering the labyrinth.

As soon as they arrived on the 1st floor, the three people suddenly started exchanging equipment with each other.

The skinny human man’s two-handed sword was easily held in one hand by the beastman, and the beastman’s wand went to the halfling. The halfling casually waved the wand and cast several buff spells, while the human man took out a knife from his back pocket as if familiar with it.

“Have you seen this? It’s called Leap Ambush-.”

The human man giggled and cut Soyul’s ankle Achilles tendon.

“Sorry. We’re actually not a 1st floor adventurer party. We’ve been to the 2nd floor over 50 times.”

The halfling wizard cast ‘Binding Vines‘ on Soyul, pinning her to the ground.

“But… But the documents said…”

“Of course we forged them. Since you’re from Windham, it was hard to find out, right?”

The beastman fighter touched the cheek of Soyul lying on the floor.

“I’m sorry to do this between fellow beastman subspecies, but you know, right? The world is originally cruel. What can we do? You ended up having three tails.”

While wiping away the tears flowing down her cheek.

“Someone’s buying them at a high price!”

He whispered in Soyul’s ear.

Soyul, paralyzed with fear, trembled violently, and the beastman raised his two-handed sword.

“They say one fox orb can buy two pieces of magic equipment. We have no choice if we want to go to the 3rd floor. Sorry.”

Papa! Gatpapa!

It was around that time when a strange green monster jumped out.

“Don’t move. All three of you.”

That rogue who had been clinging to the ceiling with Wall Walking was qualitatively different from 2nd floor small fries.

Yaaaaa!

And at the end of the corridor, an East Asian man was charging madly with his two-handed sword aimed.

“Give me that fox!”

He charged recklessly and swung his sword at the canine beastman, and though the beastman defended, his body was cut in half along with the sword.

“What… What!”

“This crazy!”

“Why are 3rd floor adventurers here of all places…!”

The shocked halfling wizard tried to run away but was hit by the Gatpa’s thrown blade and died, and the last one, the human rogue man…

“Shadow Leap!”

Barely escaped that scene and ran into the darkness.

But he didn’t get far.

A little later, he was dragged out from the darkness again.

Caught by a 2.6-meter tall Goblin.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Soyul still clearly remembers that ground tremor transmitted every time those giant feet stepped on the floor.

That first meeting with him was thrilling.

That Goblin wore a bamboo hat and was draped in a large straw raincoat.

In his hand, he gripped a club studded with iron spikes.

His blue-skinned face looked fierce.

His eyes were piercing, his nose prominent, and his jawline was developed.

“Fox.”

He threw the human rogue, who was trembling with fear, onto the floor.

“When joining an unknown party alone in Soren, try to join parties with ‘priests’ if possible.”

“P-please spare… Gah!

The Goblin pinned down the rogue with his iron-like foot.

“Or parties of fellow Eastern subspecies like us.”

Kwaaang!

The club he brought down with full force crushed and shattered the human man’s upper body.

The upper body disappeared!

“Red, red.”

That Goblin was a famous figure among 3rd floor adventurers.

A Goblin surrounded by endless ominous and unlucky, mysterious and terrifying rumors.

Gildal.

“A pretty flower has bloomed.”

He shook off the blood from his club and smiled faintly under his bamboo hat.

“Come to the 3rd floor with us. Fox. We’ll protect you.”

The Goblin took off his large straw raincoat and covered the shoulders of Soyul, who was trembling with fear.

Inside that raincoat, bare skin was revealed.

Gildal was practically naked. He wore only a large sackcloth-like underwear.

“Hey, you’re almost completely undressed yourself?”

Hijikata said incredulously.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“Goblin don’t feel cold.”

Though he said that, Gildal’s teeth were chattering.

Despite his fierce face and build, he was a funny man.

“……”

Soyul’s fear suddenly melted away like snow.

Her body, which had been trembling like an aspen tree, slowly calmed down.

That raincoat was warm.

***

“Goblin don’t feel cold…”

Hijikata finished the story with a stern expression.

“Ridiculous. That guy Gildal, he came back and caught a cold. Of course it was bravado. He gets extremely cold. Almost as much as cold-blooded Gatpa.”

The stone floor of the 1st floor is cold, but it’s nothing compared to the snowfield of the 3rd floor.

When Soyul was captured and trembling back then, it wasn’t from cold but from fear.

Hijikata went to find Gildal with medicine and scolded him for his stupid bravado, but Gildal just laughed.

‘But she stopped trembling when I covered her with the raincoat, didn’t she?’

Paradoxically, the person strongest against the 3rd floor cold was Soyul.

Because she had cold protection magic.

Soyul learned that Gildal was very susceptible to cold. She paid even more attention to Gildal’s cold protection magic.

Ironically, that magic was also the cause of the tragedy.

“On the 3rd floor, we got into a dispute with another party. Those bastards lost their cold protection measures and asked Soyul for magic.”

This kind of service transaction is common in labyrinths, but Hijikata’s party is a bit different.

They can’t do credit transactions.

Because if those bastards go outside and claim they don’t know about it, that’s the end of it.

The security headquarters or Adventurer Guild don’t really care when Eastern parties suffer unfair treatment.

Gildal’s party demanded immediate payment in magic stones for the service fee, and the other party refused it, and the dispute gradually escalated, and another party that disliked Gildal also joined in.

Then the hot-tempered human warrior of the opposing party, who had gained numerical superiority, crossed the line.

‘Fucking fox bitch. I could just skin your fur and wrap it around my neck, should I do that instead?’

Don’t you dare threaten our party member in front of me, Gildal shouted loudly, and it turned into a physical fight, and though the opponents numbered eight, Hijikata’s party won.

“Gildal killed four people by himself.”

But that’s when he disappeared.

“After fighting frantically, when we looked back, there were only four corpses crushed by Gildal’s club, and Gildal was gone. We couldn’t find him in the end.”

Soyul cried the entire way back.

‘There are only 3 minutes left now.’

Constantly calculating the remaining duration of the cold protection magic left on Gildal.

“So I can’t leave Gildal in a place like this. This place is…”

Hijikata steeled his resolve.

“Too cold.”

Since Hijikata looked the most human-like in that party, he served as party leader, but everyone actually knew.

The real leader of that party was Gildal. He was a great tree that discriminated Eastern subspecies could lean on. He was like a moving fortress.

“I absolutely can’t leave him here. If he can’t return to being human, I’ll kill him. I’ll take his corpse and give him a proper funeral. And one more thing.”

It can’t end there.

Now Hijikata couldn’t be satisfied with just that.

“Antonelli, I’ll definitely kill that undead bastard.”

“……”

Aimus and Mister Backstab exchanged glances with complicated expressions.

“But Caleb will probably gather the party and suggest escaping to the 2nd floor.”

“Yes. I know. That’s right.”

Hijikata said.

“Because that’s the recommended response when a monster wave breaks out. Please escape to the 2nd floor. If possible, please take Soyul or Gadozumi with you.”

Hijikata gripped his sword handle tightly.

“I’ll fight alone if I have to.”

***

What?

When I arrived at the cave, Aimus and Mister Backstab were making death faces.

“Caleb… Are we going to the 2nd floor now?”

“Why?”

“No, I just, well… My personality is twisted, so getting beaten by that bastard Lich and just leaving feels annoying. I want to pay him back too.”

“Pay him back?”

“No, never mind. Boss. I was just talking. Let’s go out. Going out is right. By the way, Hijikata says he won’t go…”

“We can’t get out to the 2nd floor.”

Then Aimus, Mister Backstab, and Hijikata simultaneously jerked their heads up.

“What do you mean?”

“The 2nd floor gate has probably already been occupied.”

“What?! But it hasn’t been long since the Monument was occupied!”

Mister Backstab shouted.

“Isn’t it supposed to be the exit room after the Monument?”

“That’s right. But this time the order has changed.”

This time only, the exit room is third.

Why?

“Because Antonelli became an exit boss in front of the 2nd floor gate.”

Originally, two exit bosses don’t exist simultaneously in a labyrinth.

The appearance of a new exit boss means the existing exit room was cleared.

“The labyrinth mistook the point where a new exit boss was born as a new exit room.”

“Is that… Possible?”

It was possible.

Even in the game, I hadn’t experienced such a special situation many times, but here it was exactly the same as the game. I’m certain.

“As evidence, we didn’t encounter a Monster Wave while coming from Gildal’s exit room to here.”

I was very careful thinking we might run into guys coming to occupy the exit room, but we didn’t see any hide nor hair of them.

They probably all went to occupy the area in front of the 2nd floor gate.

“Conversely, this means that while an exit gate exists inside the exit room that Gildal vacated, there’s no guarantee we’ll get there safely.”

Because the next wave will break out while we’re going there.

“But don’t worry too much. We can survive without going up to the 2nd floor.”

“How… How?”

“By activating the Monument here and killing the Lich.”

I expected them to be frightened or flustered by this absurd proposal, but surprisingly all three looked fine.

They even seemed to like it?

“We don’t have time, so listen carefully.”

I showed three coins and briefed them on the strategy.

And I received Hijikata’s message transmission wand and sent a note to Yernil.

[This is Caleb. I’ve joined up with Hijikata’s team. We’re going to where Yernil and Gadozumi are. Come out when we signal. After that, we’ll head for the snowy mountain peak. We’re going to activate the monument. The 2nd floor gate has already been occupied.]

***

“Is he insane?”

Gatpa Gadozumi was breathless looking at the note Caleb sent.

“This guy has lost it!”

“Why?”

“Why? Elf, get your head straight!”

Gadozumi shook Yernil’s shoulders vigorously.

“He says he’s going to activate the Monument!”

“He must have solved the code!”

“Even if I believe he solved it, which is hard to believe, activating the Monument still doesn’t make sense! Why? Because there are a thousand monsters spread across the mountain peak!”

Gadozumi shouted.

“You have to put the correct answers in three boxes! Even if Caleb has all three correct answers, how is he going to put them in the boxes? Do you think a thousand monsters will just watch until then? If that were the case, why would we be trapped here!”

“That… Is that so?”

“Of course!”

“Then what do we do?”

“What do we do…”

Gadozumi looked down again at the terrible sentence at the end of the message.

[…The 2nd floor gate has already been occupied.]

“There’s no way.”

Now there’s no escape route.

Going out now to search for exit rooms is equally suicidal. If the 2nd floor gate is occupied, the exit room would be occupied too.

“Damn. Damn. Damn!”

Gadozumi knocked his bald head.

“We’re finished…!”

“Caleb must have some method. Let’s trust him once!”

“For such a method to work, we’d need a powerful aggro-puller strong enough to draw all the attention of the monsters on the peak to one side. But who’s going to take that role?”

Pop!

Another note flew to Yernil.

[Now. We’re charging in. Gildal is also heading up there.]

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