Slave Harem in the Labyrinth of the Other World (LN)

Volume 3 - Ch 4.04

Here on the fifth floor, I would presumably have to use five shots of magic to defeat a single enemy, making it even more counterproductive. And if all of that was not enough drawbacks, we are back to the subject of people. If there is even the slightest possibility of someone already being there or going there and seeing me use magic, then that is a risk that I absolutely cannot and will not take.

*Sigh* I was hoping that what Roxanne said about number of people dwindling around the fifth floor will turn out to be true, but once again I have received a grim reminder that reality is often disappointing. Well, no use crying over spilt milk I guess. Maybe the situation will improve as the day goes on, but right now, during the early morning, it looks like there is little else we can do in here. If we want to do whatever we want without worrying about anyone butting into our business, then we will have to change places.

Do you think that just one piece of Coral Gellatin will be enough to glue one carpet to the wall in a way that it wont detach itself from it after a few hours?

I think the amount we have on us right now should be just enough for a single carpet.

Well in that case, there is no reason for us to be overdoing things if we absolutely dont have to. Lets go to the Veils Labyrinth for a bit and then lets go back home so we can grab a bite to eat, shall we?

Sounds good to me.

If I dont want us to be seen, then there is no place better for it than the Labyrinth in Veil. Its almost completely empty, and we have never once bumped into any other Parties as long as we were going there. Truly, the Labyrinth of Quratar should borrow a page or two from the Veil one in that regard. If only it was to be like that, then our lives would be much simpler. By the way, I hope I dont have to spell it our for you, but the plan to go find a carpet in the Imperial City has been postponed until after we eat breakfast. For the time being though, we will spend some time on the fourth floor in Veils Labyrinth, fighting against Minos, since I want to get used to fighting them some more. We could have gone to the fourth floor of Quratars Labyrinth to fight against Cheap Sheep, but I prefer Minos from Veils Labyrinth because they are much more straightforward and easier to deal with. At least with them I do not have to worry about them whipping unknown Skills out of their asses.

To change the subject to something less triggering: I am wondering what kind of carpets are they going to be selling in the Imperial City.

There was no carpet-selling stores in Veil, but from what I saw back at Alan the Slave Merchants shop, they are not all that different from what I was used to seeing back in my old world. In that case, the thing that I have to be wary the most of would be the price of carpets. As per the rule I have made for myself, I want to limit the needless spending of my money as much as possible, and that goes especially for the gold coins, the most valuable that this world has to offer. So for the good of my wallet, I sincerely hope that I wont have to bust out gold coins just to buy a single carpet.

After we got back home and finished eating breakfast, Roxanne and I made preparations to go carpet-shopping in the Imperial City.

We went out to the wall portal in the Adventurers Guild in the Imperial City. There are tall buildings on the other side of the road. The Adventurers Guild was also a magnificent building, with tall side-buildings on either side of it.

Although it is tall, there are no buildings that look like they would have more than five or six floors, and they were all made with the same type of brown brick, making me feel as slight sense of intimidation and oppression whenever I looked at them. It feels like I was in lost in ancient Rome or Baghdad, even though I was never in neither of those places, only seeing them on tv and in pictures.

The road in front of me is wide and straight. I remember reading in a history book that the medieval cities were made up of intricate roads that did not allow the enemy to easily pass through them in cases of invasions, but apparently the Imperial City took a different approach than that.

It is my first time being here while not having any kind of urgent business to attend to, but this city is definitely an impressive one.

Could not have said that better myself. And the roads here are all wide and as straight as they could be.

If my memory serves me correctly, then I think all of the roads here in the Imperial City were designed that way as a part of a series of countermeasures against a monster or demon attack. After all, with the streets like that, you can spot any potential threat as it approaches from miles away, and that would not be possible if the streets and buildings were designed in a different way.

Ahh, so it is actually because of a practical reason like that? I see, that definitely makes sense from a city planning point of view. Come to think of it, Imperial City is the third city that I have visited for now, and so far all three cities had a different layout: Veil was constructed like a grid or a Go board (TL Note: Go an abstract strategy board game for two players in which the aim is to surround more territory than the opponent. Similar to Othello but with bigger, 99 board where the pieces are placed on the boards lines) and Quratar has roads that expand radially from the Labyrinth that acts as the citys center.

The layout of the capital was certainly designed by a clever man. Just as Roxanne said, with the street so straight and wide you can see really far away. With streets like these, there is no way that those standing on guard duty would not be able to notice any threats to the citizens like monsters wandering inside of the city after they wound up there from beyond the defensive walls or getting in through the occasional cracks and holes in it. From what I managed to gather from my observations it does not seem like the empire is in a state of war with any of its neighbors, but such a layout of this city was definitely not meant for the peaceful times, or at least that is what my gut feeling was telling me. People may talk all they want about countermeasures against the swarms of monsters, but this setup is also an ideal one to handling the threats of the human variety. If anyone was dumb enough to attack the capital openly, they would definitely not go very far before being wiped out from afar.

Is that so? Well, since we are already here and there is nothing rushing us, do you want to go on a casual stroll?

During our stroll around the Imperial City I managed to confirm what kind of shops were there and what exactly were they offering.

Aside from the monster/bandit security angle, there was one additional benefit of having wide roads that were pretty tightly secured: with such an open road, the probability of getting pickpocketed should be extremely low. Maybe I am overthinking this, but even with the most of my silver and gold coins stored in the Item Box, I cannot feel completely safe without knowing for sure that there are no ways for thieves to pickpocket Item Boxes. Until I confirm that with one hundred percent certainty, I will walk around crowds of people with the highest level of vigilance maintained.

As for the shops, most of them were gathered around the Capital Citys Adventurers Guild, which has to act as the main landmark of the downtown area.

Most of the shops in Quratar were made with the intention of Explorers being their target demographic, and as a result of that, they were lacking in variety of the products they had to offer. The only things they had to offer were miscellaneous goods and daily necessities as well as the basic weapons, armor and groceries. All in all, they got you covered as far as the basic items went, but little else besides that. In comparison, the shops here in Imperial City seem to be a bit more casual.