Labyrinth City Orario. Northwest Main Street.
This was a road wider than any of Orario's other seven main streets.
That was because the foot traffic on this street was always the heaviest, and almost all of it was adventurers.
Northwest Main Street, generally also known as Adventurers Way, was lined with countless shops and stalls, and these shops and stalls were basically all tied to the adventurer trade.
Weapon shops, item shops, taverns, the kind of stores adventurers couldn't do without were packed in row by row. Even the side alleys and back alleys were crammed with old, peculiar shops. They looked suspicious, but the business they ran was tied to adventurers too.
That was because this street was where the Dungeon's governing body sat: the Adventurers Guild.
The Adventurers Guild was both the organization that managed the Dungeon and the steward of Orario itself, holding full authority over the Dungeon, the Familias the gods had founded, public order, and economic development. In other words, it was Orario's official institution.
Anyone in Orario who wanted to explore the Dungeon had to go through the Guild for all manner of paperwork and assistance. Becoming an adventurer required registration with the Guild, and all the major Familias were even obligated to provide the Guild with a portion of their members' information, such as their Levels. Otherwise it counted as a violation, and the Guild would come after them. Light penalties meant fines. Heavy ones meant being issued Missions that had to be completed. That was how much power the Guild wielded in this city.
The Guild also required adventurers to sell the magic stones they obtained from killing monsters back to them, so every adventurer made frequent trips to the Guild.
Given all that, Northwest Main Street, home of Guild Headquarters, naturally saw a great deal of adventurer foot traffic, and the many shops that catered to adventurers as their customer base naturally chose to set up here. It turned the street into one belonging exclusively to adventurers, making the name "Adventurers Way" well-earned.
The time had just passed eight in the morning. A lot of adventurers headed for the Dungeon during this hour, so the avenue was full of adventurers getting ready for Dungeon exploration.
There were Beast Humans shouldering greatswords walking into weapon shops, Amazoness warriors bustling in and out of item shops, and any number of Supporters with packs on their backs trailing along behind adventurers. The whole place had a lively bustle to it.
Leo was here too. With his short sword and small shield strapped on and two little pouches at his belt, mixed in among these adventurers each with their own gear, he was decidedly inconspicuous.
He brushed past a group of adventurers in heavy plate armor and arrived in front of the Guild Headquarters built alongside the street.
It was a temple constructed of white pillars, an exterior that could only be described as solemn. A spacious front courtyard with a monument lay before its great doors, and you could see plenty of adventurers passing in and out, forming a thicker crowd than anywhere else.
"The Pantheon..."
Leo looked at this temple-shaped building that went by that name, then after a while stepped inside.
To enter the Dungeon, he had to register with the Guild as an adventurer.
The Guild, which singlehandedly managed Orario's affairs, also had full charge of the Dungeon and everything connected to it. Beyond adventurers, who gained a degree of standing and protection by going through the registration process here, anyone wishing to register as a resident of Orario also had to do so here.
On top of that, in order to use the gains pulled from the labyrinth to develop the city, the Guild actively shared all manner of knowledge and intel about the Dungeon with adventurers, and would assist on the exploration side as well. So when tackling the Dungeon, a trip to the Guild was indispensable.
Once Leo walked into Guild Headquarters, the Pantheon, the first thing he saw was a hall vast enough to hold a great many adventurers.
Off to one side of the hall stood a bulletin board, and an exchange for trading in magic stones. The most numerous fixtures were rows of counters, each manned by a Guild employee. Plenty of adventurers stepped up to inquire about something or other, and in front of some of the beautiful Elven female employees in particular, adventurers had lined up in long queues.
Elves were a race famous for producing handsome men and beautiful women. When Leo had first arrived in this world, his eyes had been caught by the strikingly beautiful Elves too.
Elves were also a born magic race. No one of Elven blood was incapable of using magic.
Thanks to that, Elves were welcomed by virtually every Familia. You could say that any Elf who came to Orario was bound to be courted and warmly invited by all the major Familias. Even Loki Familia would rarely turn down an Elf hoping to join, even one who, like Leo, was a complete rookie without any Status to their name.
If anything, since a certain goddess's favorite thing in the world was pretty girls, Loki Familia was overflowing with beautiful Elves. Even Riveria, a High Elf, was part of the Familia, which gave some idea of just how many Elves were in Loki Familia.
Over the past year, Leo had grown used to seeing beautiful girls of every kind, not just the naturally lovely Elves but stunners like Ais who could give a goddess a run for her money. His tolerance for beauty had risen quite a bit.
So Leo ignored the counters with the long lines in front of the beautiful Elven employees and headed for the counter of a Human female employee.
There were people in line here too, just not many. After waiting around five minutes, it was Leo's turn.
"Hello, how can I help you?"
The Guild employee asked in a sweet voice, with a smile to match.
"I'd like to become an adventurer. Could you register me?"
Leo stated his business plainly.
"Of course."
The woman was clearly used to handling this kind of request. Keeping her smile, she pulled out parchment and a quill pen and began registering Leo.
"Your name?"
"Leo Eligos."
"Age?"
"Sixteen."
Leo answered without batting an eye.
He was, of course, older than that, but after crossing over his physical age really had shrunk to fifteen. That was the bone age old man Gareth had determined when he'd examined him, and Loki had picked up on his physical age being only fifteen too. A god's powers of observation went without saying. So giving this age wasn't really a lie. Even saying it to a god's face, she wouldn't catch him in a lie.
The female Guild employee didn't doubt him either and continued.
"Level?"
"Lv.1."
Through this back-and-forth, she was quickly writing down Leo's information, and she didn't ask his gender, which pleased Leo a little.
Back when he'd handled paperwork in his other world, Leo had run into employees who'd asked his gender with a perfectly straight face, and the formulaic procedure of it had sometimes left him wanting to ask, Do I really look that girlish? You can't tell if I'm a guy or a girl?
In this respect, Guild employees had a good eye. They didn't insist on going through every checkbox by rote, and tried to keep things efficient, sparing everyone's time.
Then she got to the key question.
"What Familia do you belong to?"
At that, Leo paused.
Then, expression flat, he answered.
"Loki Familia."
The moment the words were out, the female Guild employee snapped her head up.
"L, Loki Familia? You're with Loki Familia?"
The professional smile vanished from her face, replaced by sheer astonishment.
Her voice couldn't help rising a notch, drawing looks from the other clerks and from adventurers handling business nearby.
"...Could you not make a scene, please?"
Leo spoke up, a little exasperated.
"S, sorry!" The woman caught her own slip and bowed hurriedly. "I, I had no idea you were from that Loki Familia. I'm so sorry!"
It wasn't just the employee. The people nearby who'd picked up on the commotion started chattering too.
"A newbie out of Loki Familia?"
"Looking at his gear, he's gotta be fresh out of the gate, right?"
"Since when does Loki Familia take on raw newbies like that?"
"Someone's gonna have to dig around on this one..."
Sure enough, Leo became the center of attention.
In Orario, or anywhere in this world for that matter, the words "Loki Familia" carried that kind of weight.
The premier Familia of the city, one of the strongest Familias, one of the Two Great Powers. Wherever its people went, they drew eyes.
That was exactly the part Leo found tiresome.
But he didn't show it. He went on through the registration with the same flat face, and only once it was finished and he was officially an adventurer did he leave the Pantheon, bathed in stares the whole way out.
"Finally done with the preliminaries."
Leo let out a breath and turned his eyes toward the city's center.
There, Babel reached straight up to the heavens, quietly giving off an astonishing presence and pressure, impossible to overlook.
"Let's go."
Leo looked at it for a moment, then set off down the main street toward that towering colossus.
The walk took a full hour.
An hour later, Leo arrived at the heart of the sprawling city, the great plaza where Babel stood.
The crowds gathered here were even thicker than those on Adventurers Way.
Adventurers in full kit walked toward Babel on their own or entered in groups. Some had grim faces, like they were heading off to a brutal battlefield. Others were beaming, like they were off to hunt for treasure. All the colors of life on display.
That was only natural.
Beneath Babel lay one of the world's Three Great Wonders, the source of the ferocious monsters scattered across the entire continent: the Dungeon.
Labyrinth City Orario was a fortress city built around this labyrinth. Its original purpose had been to hold back the monsters that ceaselessly poured out of the Dungeon, and Babel was the skyscraping structure that served as the lid on it.
Leo followed the flow of people into Babel and came to a circular space.
It was unusually broad, easily able to hold thousands of people. The whole place was decorated in a temple style with a noble air, looking very much like an altar for offerings to the gods.
The wide circular space was done in blue and white, ringed by pitch-black steles inscribed with the names of various adventurers. Thick, long pillars stood at even intervals, and the ceiling was a delicate painting of the sky, as if you could see straight up into the open heavens.
But the thing that drew the eye here wasn't the pitch-black steles with the adventurers' names, nor the delicate sky painted on the ceiling. It was a large hole at the center.
The hole was about ten meters in diameter, shaped overall like a thick cylinder, and built into its walls was a massive spiral staircase that wound downward, deep into the earth.
The adventurers who came here were all descending that silver staircase. Leo joined the crowd and made his way down, eventually arriving at an underground space where evenly spaced paths formed a clean, orderly grid.
The walls and ceiling were dyed pale blue, and the paths stretched off in every direction, forming all the forks, crossroads, and gentle downward slopes the eye could pick out. A full-on subterranean labyrinth.
Standing at the entrance to this underground labyrinth, Leo felt a tangle of emotions stir.
This was Floor 1 of the Dungeon. The floor closest to the surface, the safest of all.
"A year. I'm finally seeing this place again."
A year ago, this was where Ais had carried him up to the surface from.
After that, Leo hadn't come back to the Dungeon.
Until today, when he was finally back.
"This time, no one's going to clear the way for me."
"This time, no one's going to protect me."
"I have to make my own way here, fight here, kill here."
Leo worked himself up to it, and his emotions soon settled.
He picked one of the many forking paths and started walking, gradually peeling away from the flow of people, going deeper into the labyrinth while becoming a solitary figure.
Down here, fellow adventurers were no longer just comrades but competitors, and could even be... enemies.
The number of monsters in the Dungeon was finite, and they only respawned at intervals. As long as monsters were the target of your hunt, you were bound to run into situations where people fought over them. There was even the chance someone with bad intentions would come rushing out to make off with the spoils on your person. You couldn't guard against everything.
So once you were in the Dungeon, unless it was someone you trusted, or comrades from the same party or Familia, few people were willing to throw their lot in together.
Leo deliberately kept his distance from the crowd and walked the pale blue corridors alone.
It wasn't long before his footsteps came to a halt.
"Kii..."
Ahead on the path, a small figure shook into view from out of the darkness.
Off-color skin, pointed ears and sharp fangs, a vicious face, vicious eyes, and clawed hands.
Anyone who'd ever watched an isekai anime would know this shape. Some even hated it down to the bone.
"A Goblin..."
Leo murmured under his breath.
"Gyaak!"
The small monster gave a shrill cry and lunged straight at Leo.