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

I also killed Bandits when I was gathering money for Roxannes purchase, so its not like I am not familiar with killing other humans, but this doesnt mean that I want to make it my profession.

Besides, I dont want to put Roxanne, Sherry and Miria in any kind of danger. If its one-on-one, however, I cant imagine Roxanne finding herself in trouble. Sherry has also leveled up quite a bit, so she can probably hold her own against low level Bandits. My biggest concern here is Miria, who has only recently joined our Party.

Well, we dont even know yet if hes actually a Bandit or not. He may be someone who happened to be at the same location for three days straight, so we have to confirm it first. I can use Identify for that. I can Identify immediately if hes a Bandit or not.

With Roxannes nose, Mirias eyes and my Identify, we dont have to be worried about him catching us by surprise, and if his level is going to turn out to be too high for us, well just run away.

Miria, are you really fine with it?

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Yes, desu.

When Roxanne translates, Miria nods.

Is it really alright to confront this Bandit? These three seem to be brave enough to do it, at least.

Okay then. Ill go ahead. If I raise my right hand with sword, its the signal to attack. If I raise my left hand, its the signal to retreat.

I decide on the signal to retreat if something goes wrong, pull Durandal out and head to the location of the Bandit. It would have been easy if I could just use Meteor Crash on him. However, for better or worse area of effect attacks seem to inflict damage only upon monsters, and not humans.

I prowl through the cave cautiously so as not to alert him of our presence.

Im sorry, master, but there seems to be a hidden room ahead. Earlier, I thought that there was just one person there, however, if the smell is from the other side of the door, then there may be more than just one enemy waiting for us ahead.

Roxanne apologizes to me. Shes right, at first glance, theres no one visible all the way to the end of the cave.

The thief seems to be on the other side. And not just one, if Roxannes words are to be believed.

I cant use Identify from where I currently am because its too far. But without it, I wont even be able to go to Gozer like this. If nothing else, I at least need to confirm whether or not we are really dealing with Bandits here or not. Because of that, Itd be better if theyd be located some distance away from the door, instead of standing right next to it.

Everyone, get behind me. Roxanne, you take the rearmost position.

With Durandal in my hands, I lead from the front. In Labyrinth, its not unusual to hold a weapon at the ready due to the possibility of monsters attacking you at any moment, so I dont think that were going to be looking all that strange. I walk to the end of the cave, and the door slides with a rumbling sound, and when it finally settled down, it revealed a way into a small room..

. Where there weresix Bandits inside.

In the small room off to the side of the main cave where we currently are, six Bandits were lying in wait. Thankfully, upon closer inspection I noticed that their levels were actually not that high.

Four of them had their levels above Lv.10, and the last two had their levels somewhere above Lv.20, so I think that we should be able to handle them if a battle breaks up, but now that I know what their levels actually are, then this begs the question:

Can a Party consisting entirely of Bandits at such levels really make it to the twelfth floor without being killed by monsters in the process, and even if they do, can they really hope to defeat other Parties that come to the twelfth floor? Because if I were to be completely honest with you, then I dont think so at all.

The maximum Party size is six people, so it would be six vs six it there were six opponents in the other Party that theyd have to face. It would work to their advantage if theyd only have to deal with one-on-one fights, but not against entire groups of enemies.

Even if they managed to catch us by surprise, we should still be able to slaughter them all without any major difficulties.

If we counter-attacked them desperately enough, then the difference of two people shouldnt even matter, because if theyd have sustained heavy losses and the battle took too long, they wouldnt even have the time to loot anything off of us, and if they cornered us, we could probably get out of it if we resorted to simplistic, reckless violence.

However, these Bandits seem like a coolheaded bunch, even more so since they can lay in wait with an ambush for an entire day in the Labyrinth, but even then, I doubt that just these six people could rob entire Parties on their own. Maybe they actually have more people on standby and theyve simply divided themselves into few smaller groups in order to prepare a more successful ambush? Or perhaps theyre still not ready with it since its still a relatively early morning?

But because of that, theyve already lost their chance of launching a surprise attack against us.

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When we approached them, one of the Bandits said something to me, but since it was not in Brahim language, I couldnt understand what he was talking about at all.

When I gave him a confused look, a Lv.28 Bandit approached me instead.

Good morning. The Boss Room is through there. We are going in after we take a little rest first.

He gestures for us to pass on his left. He is the one with the highest level among the six Bandits, and he seems to be able to speak Brahim fluently. For the time being were doing like he told us to, and entered the room while watching them all carefully.

As soon as we entered, the remaining Bandits split up.

Oh crap! That move that they did just now, it didnt look like anything spontaneous. It looked like a move theyve trained countless times before!

The Bandits move quickly, and spread through the room. We werent really surrounded by them, but rather, it was as if theyve formed a cautious, distant cycle around us. This is actually working to our advantage, since they cannot hold it against us if were going to be cautious of them if theyre being cautious of us this entire time.

That being said, killing all of those Bandits quickly without raising any kind of alarm might prove to be rather difficult, because due to their numbers and how they are so spread out, I wouldnt be able to reach all of them with Durandal in time to dispose of them all quickly enough.

If a battle started right now, right in this moment, how would it proceed?

Their levels is low, so I could probably kill two of them straight away. Im not sure about a third person though. By the fourth person slain, it would be impossible to catch the rest of them off guard.

Also, if we were to fight them in this room, it is more than likely that Sherry, Roxanne and Miria would end up drawn into a one-on-one battles with the Bandits, and while I am sure that none of those three would lose, I cannot say with absolute certainty that we would win without any casualties on our side.

First and foremost, I should avoid dragging those three into unnecessary danger as much as possible, and in order to do that, maybe I should start with trying to hear what the Bandits are saying to each other? Theyre speaking awfully quietly, but if I just strain my ears I should be able to hear them.

Thank you for the information. Well be going on ahead then.

We moved to the left where the Bandit gestured us to go, and that is when I noticed that Bandits were actually standing in the positions that would allow them to block the other passageways, but other than that, nothing about their behavior was indicating that they were about to attack us.

I see. I think I understand the strategy that the Bandits have adapted here.

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