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Volume 13 Chapter 5 Part 2

This was definitely not hasty.

「It’s Michio. 」

「Oh, Lord Michio, you are here. Come on in. 」

When I entered, the Duke of Hartz greeted me with a smile. He must have been working on something, and now that I’m here, he has an excuse to slack off. But that work of yours won’t disappear even if you put it aside, you know?

However, if he’s thinking about a difficult problem that makes you want to hold your head in frustration, this might be a good change of pace. Such a difficult issue would not be left to the Duke’s discretion. He would likely just push it onto Gozer and put a swift end to it.

「Right now, I was thinking about reorganizing the knights for the attack on Yezera. 」 Gozer told me what he was doing.

I don’t really understand, but he was probably allocating personnel somehow. It sounds like quite a difficult task. The Duke must have been pushing it onto Gozer for quite a while now. And because Gozer was handling it for him, Duke Harz will never grow as a person.

That’s just how I see it, Gozer. If you don’t resist it, it’s going to be forced upon you, and when you do it once, it’s going to be forced upon you forever. The Duke is a really sad manager of personnel.

「I see. 」

「The Yezera Labyrinth was the Labyrinth in the Selmar territory that didn’t seem like it could be completed in 50 floors; but contrary to our expectations, we received word yesterday that it hadn’t been liberated, so we must reorganize the people who were working on it. 」

They had been concentrating their people on the top floor in the hopes of defeating it within 50 levels; but it was too late, and after defeating the boss on the 50th floor, they had slipped through to the 51st floor. It seems that their plan didn’t work out and they are being forced to reconsider it.

「Well, let’s send the knights to the next Labyrinth that we think can be liberated after clearing 50 floors of it. 」

The Duke of Hartz said it so easily, but is it really that easy? In fact, Gozer seemed to want to say something. Happiness will escape you if you sigh, you know?

「We should pick someone who has become attached to the Labyrinth and really wants to liberate it. 」

There’s no way they’re going to find anyone like that. That being said, I know that I myself would never allow myself to become like that…. but who knows, maybe there are maniacs like that somewhere out there in the Duke’s territory?

「The other day, I spoke to you about supporting the subjugation of a Labyrinth on the fiftieth floor, but there’s an eldest son of a noble acquaintance who needs an intervention. After we dealt with the Yezera Labyrinth quickly, we were planning to concentrate our forces on the oldest and probably the most developed Labyrinth in the Selmar territory. But it doesn’t always work out the way we want it to. 」

He said it was the eldest son of a noble acquaintance, but in short, he’s probably the heir to the Duke of Hartz faction. If he wants to bring the next generation into his own faction already, it’s only natural that he’d support their first Labyrinth subjugation.

It was just as Rutina said: being the leader of a faction isn’t easy. At the very least, it’s not a matter of just letting the heir go to any Labyrinth where the fiftieth floor looks like it can be easily conquered. If the Duke can’t support the Labyrinth subjugation conducted by his relatives, they may as well try and switch sides to a different faction.

No. It’s not like he introduced and assigned the liberation of the Labyrinths of Janissari, Tsezegera, or Zermelo to his successor. Gozer didn’t say that either.

If the Duke can defeat a growing Labyrinth, the difficulty of the surrounding Labyrinths will be greatly reduced. That’s what he said. If he defeats the biggest Labyrinth in the Selmar territory, the difficulty of the other Labyrinths in the territory will be reduced. It’s a perfect place to introduce to someone as their first Labyrinth to be conquered.

If that ‘noble acquaintance’ of his is really skilled, he will probably assign the labyrinth with a lower difficulty to his eldest son. If that heir is a member of an insignificant faction with no skills to speak of whatsoever, he may be assigned a Labyrinth with a difficulty level that hasn’t been reduced.

For example, let’s assume that the heir is someone insignificant who was introduced to Zermelo’s Labyrinth, but it has 51 floors, so he may be in trouble. In that case, the next Labyrinth he might be introduced to will be the one with the lower difficulty after defeating the more advanced Labyrinth, unless there’s already an heir of a powerful noble who the Duke plans to be assigned there.

This is called the axiom of choice. (Doesn’t know what he’s talking about.)

It is true whether you add the theory that there was a person who should have been assigned to Zermelo’s labyrinth, or whether you add the denial of that theory. In other words, by appropriately dividing and reconstructing the person who should have been assigned, there will be two people assigned.

This is called the Banach-Tarski paradox. (Doesn’t know what he’s talking about) Gozer is also going to have a hard time with this.

「I see. Ah. But this is really bad timing. 」

「What do you mean by bad timing? 」

「Actually, we’ve finally managed to finish the Floor Boss battle on the 50th floor. And since you said you’d arrange for us to train for the Labyrinth liberation, I thought I’d take you up on your offer and ask for an introduction. 」

「The 50th floor… 」

If he already has it set-up with someone else, he may not be able to introduce us. He probably won’t be able to introduce me. He can’t introduce me. I hope so. Oh dear, what a shame would that be, right?

「You finished the Floor Boss battle on the 50th floor? 」

The Duke of Hartz asked for confirmation, but he should already know what floor I was on when I joined the Imperial Liberation Society, and there was also the commotion over Roxanne’s duel. Compared to that, the 50th floor news is a bit of a flop, but oh well, it can’t be helped now, since we have people who are trying to take us to higher floors.

「We were fighting on various floors from the start, and Rutina has become a valuable asset to my Party. 」

It’s a big deal that a Wizard joined us. Probably. I’m sure he would judge it that way. I didn’t tell him that Rutina had become a Wizard, but if she’s fighting at a level where she can clear the 50th floor with us, it should be quick for her to go from Villager to Wizard, so it wouldn’t be surprising If I said that she was a valuable asset to me.

「Well, well, clearing the 50th floor so fast is quite an achievement… 」

「Not the 49th floor, but the 50th floor? That was certainly quick. 」 Gozer also butts in to confirm.

Ah. I see, I see. I now understand what mistake I’d made. I had assumed that they would only introduce me to a 50 floor labyrinth after I’d cleared the 50th floor myself. I thought that the Duke said that if I could defeat a 50th floor boss in another labyrinth, I’d be able to defeat the top floor boss in a Labyrinth with a maximum of 50 floors and liberate the Labyrinth, and that once I’d cleared the 50th floor, he’d introduce me to a Labyrinth with a maximum of 50 floors.

But that was the wrong assumption. That wasn’t the case at all. He was saying that once I was able to defeat the Floor Boss on the 49th floor, he’d introduce me to a secondary labyrinth with a maximum of 50 floors where the difficulty had been lowered because the nearby main Labyrinth had been defeated, and then I could gain experience defeating a 50th Floor Boss there.

In a situation where one can clear the 49th floor but not the 50th floor, being taken to the waiting room of the Floor Boss by your sponsor so you can defeat the Floor Boss of the 50th floor (which is easier than fighting through the whole floor), allows one to pass the 50th floor relatively safely. It is good quality training, and one can gain experience in defeating Labyrinths from it; so the Duke mediates as a faction leader, and the recipient also benefits the Duke gives information about the labyrinths as the leader of his own faction, and both his faction and the recipients of the information could benefit from it’

That’s what he meant by what he said. In this world, once you get to the 40th floor, it would probably take years of training just to advance to the next floor normally.