After resting for the night, Gauss and the others got up early the next morning and left camp feeling refreshed as they entered the fourth floor.
"Clang-clang!"
"Clang!"
The moment they stepped out of the entrance, before Gauss even had time to look around, a clear chorus of metal striking metal rang in his ears.
He looked toward the source of the noise.
Directly ahead stood a wall of hedges, and the sounds were coming from beyond it. It was lively over there.
A number of spellcasters were floating above the wall, waving their staffs and hurling all kinds of spells into the open ground outside. Clearly, a battle was underway.
The sudden scene caught Gauss off guard for a moment.
Still, he didn't rush to act. He simply closed his eyes, and his powerful spiritual force flowed out of his body, spreading silently over the battlefield overhead.
He quickly saw what was happening.
Several adventuring groups were working together to kill an attacking monster force. Fighters were handling the front line, druids were growing hedges to split up the battlefield and control the monsters and beasts, while rangers, rogues, and mages supported from the rear and flanks.
It looked fierce, but Gauss knew it wasn't quite what it seemed.
Sitting casually on top of the hedge wall were several people with relaxed expressions. They weren't participating in the fight at all, just observing. Only one archer woman occasionally drew an arrow.
Seeing that, Gauss immediately understood what these groups were doing, so he had no intention of interfering. Besides, there were only two or three hundred monsters attacking. To him, that was barely worth mentioning.
He wasn't moving, but their arrival still drew wary looks from the adventurers staying in the camp.
Gauss glanced at the flags.
A stag banner, a lightning banner, and one marked with a handprint…
From those alone, he could tell these weren't the famous Golden Company or Thornheart from Barry. They were probably second- or third-tier adventuring groups from the Forest Capital, similar in status to what the Red Dragon Company would have been without him.
At the sight of the Red Dragon banner, most people looked puzzled, clearly unable to match it to any well-known Barry company.
Only a few people froze for a moment, as if recalling something, then quietly exchanged words with the companions beside them to confirm their suspicions.
By the time all of Red Dragon's members had emerged from the passage, the battle outside the hedge was already winding down.
Before Gauss could take the initiative to greet them, several people who looked like the leaders of the local groups stepped forward first.
"Welcome to the fourth floor of the labyrinth."
"I'm George Bell, Leader of the Ironhand Brotherhood."
"This lady is Melissa Dawson, Deputy Commander of the Lightning Riders."
"And this is Liam, Deputy Commander of the Stag Guard."
As he spoke, George's eyes naturally settled on Gauss first.
It wasn't hard to tell who the leader of this newly arrived group was.
"I'm Gauss, commander of the Red Dragon Company, from Falrim."
Gauss stepped forward and shook hands with the three of them one by one.
They didn't look surprised when he introduced himself. Clearly, after that brief exchange just now, they had already figured out who he was.
"About the battle out there," Gauss asked, glancing beyond the hedge, "do you need the Red Dragon Company's help?"
By then, the commotion had already died down quite a bit, so the fighting was obviously close to over. Still, it was the kind of question that had to be asked, and it gave him a chance to gather some information.
"Oh, you mean those monsters outside?" George waved it off casually. "Nothing to worry about. We're used to it. They attack in waves almost every day, especially at night. It's good training."
Gauss nodded.
Just as he had guessed, the higher-level professionals were staying out of it. The ones actually fighting were the weaker adventurers. It was deliberate training.
"Then I'm relieved. Commander George, if it's convenient, could you point out a place where my people can settle?"
Gauss had already noticed that the three local companies and the few other small adventuring teams here had naturally divided up the space around them. Even though his stay here would only be temporary, he still asked first to avoid any unnecessary friction.
"Someone!…"
George and the others had clearly already thought about it. Very quickly, they had someone mark out a vacant patch of land for the Red Dragon Company.
Once Gauss and a few of his teammates climbed up onto the hedge wall and looked beyond it, the fight was over.
Logistics people were already harvesting monster materials. Some adventurers were sitting on the ground, gasping for breath. Priests were moving through the field, treating wounded teammates.
"Bite down and bear it—I have to pull the arrowhead out first."
"Okay!"
"Ahhh! That hurts!"
The pain of pulling out an embedded arrowhead was often much worse than getting hit in the first place.
Partly because once the fight ended and the body relaxed, the adrenaline faded and pain became sharper. And partly because barbed arrowheads caused secondary damage when removed.
Fortunately, once the arrows were pulled out, the healing priests immediately cast healing spells to stop the bleeding and dull the pain.
That was the value of medics. They might seem unremarkable, sitting quietly in the back during battle, but no experienced adventurer would ever resent them.
Almost all low-level adventurers got hurt in combat. Without timely treatment, the result could be anything from poisoning and infection to lingering pain for weeks, seriously affecting future exploration.
After a simple first round of treatment, the wounded were carried into tents on stretchers for further care.
With that kind of support, injuries that would normally take weeks or even months to heal could recover in a day or two.
Of course, that was only the kind of treatment an adventuring company could provide. Lone wolves or parties without healers had to rely on others' goodwill, pay a hefty fee, and even then only if the priests had time.
After all, priests attached to a team had to finish treating their own people before taking outside work.
Gauss glanced across the field. There were quite a few wounded, and two or three dead.
Yet the three company leaders and deputy commanders beside him all looked perfectly calm. Clearly, they had long accepted this kind of loss as part of training.
They could have stepped in and ended the fight earlier, but instead they had stood by and let their people bleed it out.
Gauss now had a clearer idea of just how hard-hearted other adventuring companies could be.
Still, he didn't say anything. He simply kept chatting with them.
"So Commander Gauss is from Falrim. That's a lively place. The Adventurers' Guild there is more impressive than the one in our Forest Capital."
"But Falrim's a long way from here. Your Company is the first Falrim adventuring company I've heard of arriving this early."
"Maybe it's because our numbers are small and we can move faster."
"…"
As they chatted, Gauss gradually got a better picture of the adventurer situation on the fourth floor.
At the moment, the first exploration wave was still on the fourth floor. No adventuring company had reached the fifth floor yet.
Partly because it had taken time to get from the first floor to the fourth. Some companies had only arrived yesterday, while these three had already been on the fourth floor for several days.
They had done some exploration of the surrounding area, but in the last two days they had pulled their main forces back to rest.
A few other companies were still out exploring the fourth floor.
According to them, the environment on the fourth floor was drastically different from the first three. The monsters were stronger, and no longer scattered mobs. They acted in organized groups and launched coordinated assaults on adventurer camps.
That had caused a fair number of casualties when the first groups arrived, and things only improved once they fortified the entrance camp and organized defenses and watch rotations.
Even so, it was still troublesome. Monster raids on the scale of two or three hundred happened constantly—like the one this morning.
They liked to attack when most of the camp was resting. Wave after wave, endless.
And not just this large base camp. Even temporary camps set up by exploration parties deeper inside were frequently harassed by coordinated attacks. The monsters threw themselves at adventurers like moths into flame, as if they had all-seeing eyes.
Of course, everyone knew the real mastermind behind it all was the fourth floor's lord creature.
Gauss kept a straight face as he listened, but inwardly he was even more pleased.
He wasn't worried that the monster servants obeyed the lord so thoroughly. On the contrary, he would have been more annoyed if they weren't obedient enough, or if they broke and ran after only a little killing.
He liked enemies with backbone.
The only pity was that there were too few of them.
The camp had only been attacked by a few hundred monsters that morning, and the other adventuring companies needed those monsters too—for training and loot. That meant he couldn't just take them all for himself.
For most adventuring companies, this kind of medium-sized raid was perfect. Large enough to train their people and generate materials, but not so large as to cause severe losses.
Outside the camp, raids got even smaller.
So in the end, he still had to find that lord.
Fortunately, he wasn't completely without clues. In the map crystal sphere, in addition to the floor layouts and entrances, from the fourth floor onward there was a red beast icon marked on the map.
He guessed that was the location of the fourth floor lord.
The trouble was that the fourth floor map was extremely broad and empty. Without precise coordinates like his, finding a deliberately hidden monster in that dangerous forest and cliff terrain would have been no easy task.
Most likely the few adventuring companies currently out exploring were searching for that lord as well.
According to the Adventurers' Guild's experience with other dungeons that had lord creatures, the entrance to the next floor only opened once the lord of that level had been formally killed.
That was why these lord monsters, despite being strong—usually the strongest creature on the floor—still preferred to hide and let their underlings grind down the intruding adventurers.
Of course, the information George and the others shared was all public knowledge about the fourth floor. As for more valuable information—monster distribution, route maps, private reconnaissance—they didn't volunteer it, and Gauss didn't ask. That kind of thing was sensitive.
Not that it mattered much to him.
He had the crystal sphere.
…
"Commander Gauss, aren't you going to rest in camp first? Maybe send people out to gather some map intel?"
George Bell of the Ironhand Brotherhood and Melissa Dawson of the Lightning Riders couldn't help offering the advice when they saw Gauss already beginning to organize his people to move out again.
Even the first time they had come to the fourth floor, they had first used the entrance area as a base, sent out a dedicated scout team, and mapped the nearby terrain before setting out themselves. That way, if anything went wrong, they could immediately fall back to the third floor.
"Thank you for the advice."
Gauss shook his head.
George opened his mouth as if to say more, but swallowed the words.
Watching Gauss walk back toward his people, George and Melissa exchanged a glance and both shook their heads discreetly.
Clearly, though they didn't say it out loud, they both felt this young commander was being far too reckless.
Even after the conversation, even after learning a little about him and hearing about his unusually strong combat ability, personal strength and sound command judgment were not the same thing.
A force of over a hundred people marching through an unfamiliar environment was inherently vulnerable. The longer the column, the more chances the hidden monsters had to launch ambushes.
And even putting monsters aside, the maze-like terrain itself was dangerous—dead ends, hidden mechanisms, obstacles, the ever-present risk of getting lost. For high-level adventurers, these weren't fatal, but for low-level professionals, a single mistake could mean death.
"This Commander Gauss is far too cold-blooded toward his own people."
Only after he was gone did Melissa sigh and say it out loud.
In her eyes, this was exactly the sort of leader who treated subordinates' lives as disposable—pushing for progress and using their lives to chart the map.
George nodded in agreement.
To be fair, they understood that not every company commander was as protective of their people as they were. Plenty would never bother falling back to rest.
That thought even gave them a faint sense of moral superiority.
"Caw."
"Caw."
Seeing the ravens scatter outward, Gauss turned to Alia and said, "Have the ravens keep close watch on the formation. No one gets separated."
"Don't worry. I already told them."
Alia gave him a reassuring gesture.
Above the column and moving along both flanks, tiny clay spiders—no larger than a palm—could be seen crawling at great speed.
These small clay constructs had already saved the company a huge amount of scouting and trap-clearing time.
They had gone ahead long before the main force arrived, triggering the mechanisms in advance.
So when the Red Dragon Company later passed through, they only needed to retrieve the clay, move the trap pieces aside, or avoid the triggered hazard entirely.
"Watch your step—there's a pit here. Don't fall."
"Careful! Careful!" the ravens repeated overhead.
"Got it, squad leader."
A red-haired swordsman, hearing the warning, deliberately glanced into the trap as he passed. Looking at the deep shaft below, he felt a chill of relief.
He was lucky to be in the Red Dragon Company.
If he hadn't been, he might already have died several times on the way here.
He had seen the injured—and the dead—at the camp earlier.
That only drove home the truth: not every adventuring company worked as hard as the Red Dragon Company to avoid meaningless casualties.
I'm really lucky…
(Changes: Company Captain –› Company Commander)
~~~
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