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Volume 13 Chapter 1 Part 3

The library was as empty as the first time we came here. It had been cleaned and organized, but it probably wasn’t used that often. Well, it’s not something I would use all that often myself, so I can understand it.

That, or maybe there really is another important room filled with classified documents somewhere else, and this one is just a façade meant to keep the prying eyes off the really important stuff? In that case, the people who might need access to them would go there and wouldn’t even bother to come here.

Hmm… is that really what this is about? Well, it’s the old hag we’re talking about, so it might not be out of the question. I can totally see her doing something like that.

「For now, just take a quick look around. If it turns out that you’d need to examine something more thoroughly, we can always make time to come here again later. 」

「I understand, master. 」

「In the first place, we don’t know if there is any information that needs to be examined here, so maybe we should focus on looking into something like that for today. 」

「Yes, I think that’d be the best approach as well. 」

After saying this, Sherry started searching through the documents. Roxanne, Miria, Vesta, and Rutina were also looking at the documents in the different sections of the library, but to be honest, I am not expecting all that much here.

No, it’s not that. Actually, in Roxanne’s case, it would be bad if she were to find some documents about a Labyrinths, because if there was information about how to conquer the Labyrinths more efficiently, Roxanne would definitely memorize it all and use it to quicken our exploration pace even more than she already does.

In fact, I suspect that she has all the information about how to conquer the Labyrinth of Nesco, which is the one we have been going to a lot recently, memorized in her head… no, scratch that. It’s more like a certainty than a suspicion at this point. This has to be the case, considering how far up she managed to guide us during our exploration of the Labyrinth of Nesco thus far. She wouldn’t be able to do that if she didn’t remember all the information about it, right?

Either way, this means that I can’t allow us to enter the Labyrinth of Nesco anymore, because Roxanne will definitely take us even further up. I need to find another Labyrinth for us to explore somehow. I hope there’ll be information about something like that hidden somewhere in here. In fact, maybe I should just go and make that clear for the girls.

「It seems that we can do as we like in the Labyrinth of Nesco for the time being. In other words, there’s no need for us to continue entering it right now. 」

「Is that so? 」

Yes, that is so. It’s not like we need to go in there. We don’t need to go in there. It’s better for us to not go in there as often as we’ve been going there until now. If it is at all possible, then I don’t want to go in there. It is my earnest wish for us to not go any higher in the Labyrinth of Nesco right now. Moreover, it would be best if we didn’t need to go there at all anymore.

No matter what happens, this is something that I am going to try to defend with unshakeable determination. Yeah, this is my current goal right now: convince them not to go to the Labyrinth of Nesco anymore.

「If there is information about a good labyrinth we could go to next in the library somewhere, please find it. You understand what I mean by that, right? 」

「Uhm… 」

「You understand what I mean by that, right? 」

「Y-Yes. 」

Sherry must have gotten the message. She is such a sensible person. She must have understood that I don’t want to be manipulated into going too far in the Labyrinth of Nesco by Roxanne. She might be able to memorize a lot of information by having just a quick glance at them, but she seems to be lacking a bit of common sense in anything that is not related to the exploration of the Labyrinths.

No… wait a minute… Thinking about it now, there is no way that the information about how to effectively conquer a Labyrinth would be stored in this empty library, right? Yeah, It doesn’t look like it. After all, if Rutina’s grandma possessed any documents or books describing effective ways of conquering Labyrinths, then she would surely keep them in that other location where she stores confidential information.

If it turns out to be the truth, then that would be the only thing that I could be thankful to her for… but I won’t.

As for the search for information: Roxanne and the others didn’t really flip through any documents properly like I expected them to, but simply stared blankly at the various documents in the room at their disposal.

They probably determined there was no information on how to clear the Labyrinths here after all. If there was, Roxanne would surely have rummaged through them with undivided attention. As for Miria and Vesta… I really don’t know about them, but what I did notice is that more often than not, they seem to follow along with Roxanne’s requests, no matter how unreasonable they might be. That is probably because thanks to her Estoc of Petrification, Miria will turn any of the monsters she’s fighting with to stone before they get a chance to really hurt her, and Vesta is going to be fine even if she’s attacked by monsters because of how naturally tanky she is.

In other words, out of all of my Party Members, Sherry would be the first to get into trouble if we ended up going too far up the Labyrinth. Thankfully, Rutina and I are in the rear guard in our current formation, so we should be able to do something about it if such a situation does end up coming to pass. Probably. Most likely. I hope so.

Moving away from Roxanne and company, I saw that Rutina, on the other hand, was poring over the documents with a serious look on her face, but I didn’t know if I should treat it as a sign of an incoming crisis or not.

「What about the Labyrinth that you showed me before?」

Just when I was about to ask whether she found some useful information, she started talking about something strange.

「The one… I showed you before? 」

「When you took me to Talikau, a stopover on the way to Grineer, you showed me a Labyrinth on an island somewhere, right? 」

「Oh yeah, that one. 」

We did go to a place like that, and she did say that it would make for a good target, so I wonder… I wonder if perhaps she managed to find some information about it? And if she did, should she be telling me about it so casually?

「Maybe there will be something about it here? 」 Rutina asked while, showing Sherry some kind of document.

「Hm… 」

「What is it? 」

「It’s a list of the Labyrinths that the Adventurers from the clan have entered to liberate. 」

So it is that kind of document, huh? Sounds rather important.

「Oh. So there’s something like that? 」

「Yes. It might be useful to us, since it wouldn’t be good if the Labyrinths that the clan wants to liberate would overlap with the ones that we would like to go to in the future. 」

「Hmm. Well, I guess that’s true. I see. 」

I see what Rutina meant by that, and I also see why that could be a problem; but personally I think it would be fine, even if we had to compete with each other. Besides, I think that if there was going to be some kind of rivalry related to the Labyrinths, it would be between the members of the different clans rather than the members of the same clan.

「Rather than worrying about a specific Labyrinth, we should be worried about the overlapping nearby Labyrinths. 」 Sherry explained to me while looking at the documents.

「The nearby Labyrinths? 」

「Well, when a Labyrinth on land that is no longer habitable is Liberated, the one who conquered it can obtain the land and the title of its ruler; but of course, the land needs to be a certain amount of distance away from the lands of other Lords. If you try to Liberate a Labyrinth that is too close to somebody else’s territory, it may not be possible to obtain the title for yourself. 」