Most of the Red Dragon Company were entering a labyrinth for the first time. As they marched through the lush "Emerald World" of Floor 2, they couldn't help constantly looking around at the surreal scenery.
Shrubs seemed to move. Vegetation wrapped around them from all directions. Even a single deep breath felt like it filled them—inside and out—with raw plant vitality.
But it wasn't just the view. On a deeper level, it was the omnipresent natural mana in the labyrinth, constantly stimulating their bodies.
Gauss walked at the head of the formation, controlling more than a dozen "water pythons" that slithered along the corridor walls ahead of the team.
Any monsters or beasts hiding in the grass were mercilessly strangled the instant a water python passed, leaving smears of blood across the ground and stone.
Enemies that tried to strike from the sides or rear were quickly dealt with by the rest of the company.
Floor 2 could produce terrifying threats like the adult spider-ghoul Gauss had once encountered, but the majority were still low-tier creatures and low challenge-rating monsters.
This was an oversized force for the floor: most of them were already professionals—and they had Gauss, a walking transcendent-tier combatant, leading them.
With that kind of momentum, they barreled into the first "restricted zone" before long.
Gauss narrowed his eyes, scanning the surroundings—and a slow smile tugged at his mouth.
There was something familiar in the air.
The location had changed. The scenery was mostly different. And yet he still caught the same feel.
He twitched his nose.
A foul stench was mixed into the thick herbal aroma—faint, thin, almost imperceptible…
…but not to someone with 15 Perception.
His eyes brightened.
Yes. That smell.
Ghoul bloodline…
In the next instant, he channeled Control Water, condensing a torrent into a massive sword held overhead.
It wasn't holy water—just ordinary water.
But in Gauss's hands, even ordinary water could become terrifying.
"CLANG—!!"
Three pale, knife-like legs swung down from different directions, chopping into the hard-water greatsword with enormous force.
Yet Gauss's grip didn't sink even a millimeter.
"Too weak…"
He lifted his head and met the gaze of three female-shaped figures sheathed in pale carapace.
They were spider-ghouls—upper bodies voluptuously humanoid with horns, forearms ending in blade-arms, lower bodies spider-like.
So it really had been a long time…
Gauss looked at one of them.
His memory told him: that one was the same creature that had once forced him into a corner with ease.
Back then, if she hadn't needed to herd him toward her juvenile kin as a "tool" to trigger their awakening, he never would've lasted as long as he did.
But the monster that once pressed on him like a mountain now posed no threat at all.
For a moment, Gauss felt oddly dazed.
Maybe he'd left too deep an impression. Even though over a year had passed—and even though Gauss's body, aura, and strength had changed drastically—the old spider-ghoul still recognized him at close range.
Her dead-looking eyes flickered, and a very human fear surfaced within them.
"Recognize me?" Gauss asked lightly.
His powerful spirit let him sense the emotions rippling through nearby life.
He chuckled.
Then the strength in his arms erupted like a tidal wave.
A white shockwave swept outward.
In the next breath, the three monsters—each far larger than him—were blasted backward together. They slammed into the ceiling wall with a heavy crash.
"Crack!"
That crisp sound was bone and shell fracturing.
"Drip… drip…"
Milky-white blood dripped down, leaving corrosive pits where it hit the floor.
Gauss stared up at the wounded spider-ghouls.
Even after being launched away, their fighting will didn't collapse—if anything, their eyes grew more cautious.
Behind him, Luna narrowed her eyes, puzzled.
From what she knew of Gauss, he should've been able to kill all three instantly.
The others were also uneasy, watching the corridors.
If the Captain was choosing not to end it immediately, then he had a reason.
Did these spider-ghouls hide some unknown danger? Or was something worse lurking nearby?
Only Alia smiled faintly and shook her head.
The one who'd once been driven to the brink wasn't just Gauss—it had been her too.
She could guess what was in his heart.
"We'll just keep watch. Don't bother Gauss," Alia said, offering no explanation.
Luna nodded. She'd been with Gauss long enough to know: Alia likely understood something only the two of them shared.
And with that thought, a tiny, uninvited thread of envy rose in Luna's chest.
She was the highest-level member of the Red Dragon Company on paper—likely top three in raw rank—yet she still envied Alia.
Alia was closest to Gauss. She looked younger, prettier, with noble elven blood.
And Luna herself—though a Level 9 warlock—was still far from Level 10, and the transcendent threshold at Level 11 felt even more distant.
She couldn't even be sure she'd ever reach it.
Luna sighed quietly.
"Clang!"
In the center of the fight, Gauss strolled forward as if on a garden path.
Each spider-ghoul had three pairs of legs plus blade-arms; together, three of them formed an airtight web of slashes.
But Gauss's water-forged greatsword calmly met every strike from every direction—as if he had countless eyes all over him.
Which, in a way, was true.
Under his overwhelming spiritual vision, nothing around him could hide.
Those "blindingly fast" slashes looked slow and soft to his perception and intellect—like someone had turned the world down to half-speed.
He could handle them effortlessly.
At its core, it was pure power disparity.
Only unlike last time, the roles had flipped completely.
Gauss suddenly felt bored.
These three adult spider-ghouls—averaging Level 4–5—couldn't threaten him in the slightest.
So he stopped holding back.
The force in his hands and the speed in his steps fully surfaced.
Boom!
A clean, straight line of blood appeared across one spider-ghoul's blade-arms.
White fluid poured out as both arms dropped to the ground.
Then her three pairs of legs were cut away in an instant. Reduced to a wriggling spider-pig shape, she dragged her bloated body helplessly across the floor.
Before the other two could react, a bloodline appeared at each of their waists—then their upper bodies slid off smoothly and hit the ground.
Gauss stabbed their lower abdomens.
They died in the blink of an eye.
He left the last one alive—not out of mercy, but to "learn" the species more thoroughly so he could later use Locate Creature to track their kind.
Not killing them immediately had been partly nostalgia…
…and partly calculation.
When he explained that reasoning, Luna and the others accepted it without question.
Only Alia met his eyes and gave a tiny, playful blink.
Gauss just smiled and said nothing.
Once he'd refreshed his sense of spider-ghouls, Gauss used Locate Creature and quickly traced more of their nests.
Some were adults. Most were juveniles—or even still in egg sacs.
He showed no mercy, hunting them down one by one.
Adult spider-ghouls consistently sat at Level 4–5—never above, never below.
When the locator spell could no longer catch even a trace of [Spider-Ghoul] nearby, Gauss finally stopped.
"What is it?" Alia asked.
In her mind, Gauss was "getting revenge."
From how he'd hunted man-horses earlier, she'd guessed Gauss paid special attention to races that had once caused them trouble—so this relentless spider-ghoul purge made perfect sense to her.
"They're all cleared," Gauss said, dismissing the spell.
But his thoughts were still on the spider-ghouls.
Even though he carried a purple-quality racial talent derived from them—Second-Stage Ghoulification—strictly speaking, this was his first real opportunity to learn the species beyond that one desperate chase.
He considered himself knowledgeable about monsters.
Yet spider-ghouls were still wrapped in fog.
They weren't weak at all. They only looked weak because Gauss had become overwhelmingly strong.
A Level 4–5 monster could easily wipe a village.
And with their agile movement and war-machine bodies, they were among the most dangerous individuals at their tier.
But that wasn't what troubled him.
What bothered him was how standardized they were.
Most monster species didn't stabilize so cleanly at a fixed "adult" strength.
Even goblins ranged from adults that a farmer could beat to warlords that could ravage a town alone.
That range was normal—just like humans ranged from nobodies to legends, shaped by talent, upbringing, resources, and experience.
But spider-ghouls?
"Feels like a species that was designed," Gauss murmured, looking down at the twitching remains.
"Grow up—and you become a soldier with guaranteed combat power."
And far stronger than any normal soldier.
If they truly were engineered, then the civilization that made them must've been unimaginably powerful… and whatever they were made to fight must've been even worse.
"Was it you?"
Gauss remembered the insect-people phantoms he'd seen around the arena the first time he entered the labyrinth.
That looked like a civilization from absurdly ancient times—yet he'd never found useful historical records about them.
Before humanity ruled the continent, there had been the elven age… but could there have been something even earlier?
If spider-ghouls were their creation, then maybe Timber Labyrinth—and labyrinths across the continent—were their handiwork too.
Thoughts flickered through his mind like lightning.
The Guild's research said labyrinth monsters were hard to "exterminate." Even if you cleared an area, monsters would replenish after a time from somewhere unknown.
Still, Gauss didn't have time to wait for respawns.
He set the mystery aside and led the company toward the next restricted zone.
His kill count climbed rapidly.
After all, Floor 2 was a monster's paradise. Spider-ghouls weren't the only predators hiding beneath that "peaceful" green.
…
Total Monster Kills: 37,771
And more than his kill count rose—his Second-Stage Ghoulification also leveled up.
Racial talents had both quality and level.
An awkward comparison: quality was like spell tier, while level was like spell proficiency.
A talent needed both to truly become strong.
And to raise a talent's level, he needed to kill the species it came from.
Before, he'd only been able to raise his ghoul talent by spending elite points—pushing it from Beginner to Elite.
Now, inside the labyrinth, by killing adult spider-ghouls plus their young and eggs, he gained massive experience.
The talent's level bar surged visibly.
From one-third… to two-fifths… to three-quarters…
Until Second-Stage Ghoulification finally reached Commander-tier, matching Feast and Dragonseed—both previously raised through goblin-linked kills.
His control over Ghoulification changed dramatically.
At Commander-tier, the talent became far more flexible.
He could choose how much of the ghoul form to manifest, and could switch freely between first and second stage.
That kind of control mattered.
Power wasn't always "more is better." Being able to dial it up and down at will was often more important.
He knew Timber Labyrinth held plenty of spider-ghouls.
Maybe he could push the talent even higher here.
After moving deeper through Floor 2, he stopped in an empty chamber.
At the edge of his vision, the green pavilion stood there quietly—still present.
"Lock down this chamber. Don't let outsiders in."
Most adventurers wouldn't leave the safe routes to wander into restricted zones, but to avoid rare interruptions, the Red Dragon Company still secured the area.
That was the advantage of a real company.
With over a hundred bodies, they could seal a zone completely. Even if curious adventurers passed by, the intimidation of an adventurer company would make most people back off before doing anything stupid.