“Ugh.”

The first thing that Damian felt when woke up was his tense back muscles. Sleeping on the ground left him all sore!

Damian remembered lazily doing that before, but the uneven rocky ground couldn’t be compared to the flat surface floor in his house. To make it worse, he hadn’t taken off the uncomfortable armor either.

‘Never again…’

Although there were some rags that the Goblins used for sleep. Not only were they useless, but Damian had to use them all to wipe the scattered blood.

As for the armor, Damian made a last-second choice not to take it off before passing out. While the protection it provided was questionable, it at least protected him from getting injured by the rocky ground…

Taking it off and letting it fall apart into a pile of scraps didn’t seem like the right option either.

‘I hope.’

The many problems that Damian had to find a solution to had now increased by one. Considering everything, proper sleep seemed like an impossible luxury.

‘At least I can catch my breath now.’

While he didn’t know how long he had slept and felt pain everywhere around his body, Damian was relieved at achieving his primary goal, recovering his stamina!

Raising his back, Damian took out one of the torches to remove the veil of darkness. Thankfully, things kept in the Inventory maintained the state they were stored in, so the torch was still lit when he brought it out-

“Agh!”

However, as soon as his eyes adapted to the light, a pair of light-blue eyes appeared right above the flames, jumpscaring Damian into falling back.

“...Iris?”

It was shocking at first, but there was only one person around Damian who possessed such eyes. For some reason, Iris had been staring at him as he slept in the darkness.

{Sorry. I was just waiting for you to wake up.}

When Damian called her out, Iris’ completely focused face broke into her usual fluster. At the very least, it seemed like she had no intention of scaring Damian as soon as he woke up…

“I… See. Hang back a little further next time.”

{Sorry…}

As usual, Damian felt a sense of uncomfortableness resulting from the strange link between him and Iris, and the way it worked. He truly needed to ease the tension soon enough.

“So, is there something that you want?”

{Yes. I gave it plenty of thought like you asked me to, and I believe I can come to terms with whatever the truth is. Can you-}

“Of course.”

In all honesty, Damian didn’t expect Iris to recover from her shock this quickly, but he was more than willing to explain everything as he understood it.

“You see, your body is a bit special. It needs…”

Trying to frame it as nicely and concisely as possible, Damian adjusted his posture to a cross-legged one before laying out the reality to Iris in hope she could move on.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

{So, it’s not because I was incompetent, but because nobody gave me a chance?}

They had to exchange words a few times before Iris got the complete gist of it. Just as anyone would expect, she was perplexed by the absurdity of her talent as her mouth stayed open out of speechlessness.

Of course, the chance that Damian was making things up crossed her mind, but Iris paid it no heed. Compared to her pathetic self, he was the one that showed her the impossible.

At this moment, she wouldn’t hesitate to believe him over herself.

“I know it’s messed up, but all people have to face some hardships, some more than others. At least in your case, there ended up being a way out.”

Damian didn’t really know why he was suddenly being so philosophical, but it felt like the right thing to say for some reason.

{...Thank you.}

“No need. Our fate is already tied together, helping each other is the least we can do.”

Receiving a positive reaction before Iris returned back to contemplative silence, Damian finally propped himself to stand up before hanging the torch back in its place.

He wasn’t sure whether this was day or night. Nonetheless, to him who had just woken up, this counted as a new day. He needed to prepare for its start in the best way possible.

‘I am a little bit hungry.’

Eating was the least of Damian’s worries when his life was flashing by every second, but after an assumed night of sleep, his stomach was starting to protest. It was asking for breakfast!

Thankfully, although the Den itself was empty, the place that the Hobgoblin had come out of didn’t disappoint.

While the area beyond the tight passage wasn’t even as large as a quarter of the outer Den, it held abundant loot!

‘Inventory.’

Considering that water was still the main basis of life, Damian took out one of the two rock jars that he found in the inner Den and took a moderate gulp after sitting back down. Only then, did he turn to the weird jerky which he found even more off inside.

‘This should be safe to consume, right?’

[ Beef Jerky: The preserved meat of a Minotaur. ]

Despite coming to another world’s Labyrinth, Damian was pleasantly surprised to find out the first foodstuff that he found was actually beef.

Although there was still the risk of it having a bad taste, Damian forced a quarter of the jerky into his mouth.

‘Not bad.’

There turned out to be no reason for worries in the end. Though a little salty, the jerky tasted good enough that Damian threw the rest of it into his mouth.

‘It’s too good of a coincidence, but I will take it.’

The fact that those savage Goblins somehow had proper water jars and managed to preserve meat so well felt strange to Damian.

It felt like everything was illogically inserted to make the inner Den into a proper loot room. That being said, Damian didn’t mind it at all.

‘They could have got it from somewhere.’

While a Minotaur was usually considered one of the toughest monsters in a Labyrinth, if not the final boss of it. Damian could think of many ways that its meat would fall into the hands of Goblins.

They might not be strong enough to take a Minotaur down, but they could have waited after another strong monster hunted it down and brought back the scraps for preservation.

Although the ones that Damian saw looked stupid and hateful, Goblins were usually associated with cunning and resourcefulness. It wouldn’t be strange if they learned how to preserve meat through adaptation.

‘That thing is also great.’

Aside from food and water, Damian also found a much smaller jar that contained the poison that Goblins applied on their knives. Such an effective weapon was also bound to prove helpful no matter the circumstances.

Unfortunately, however, there were no more weapons inside other than a couple of unsharpened knives. The only worthy piece of armament that Damian had earned from the Den was the Goblin Bat followed by the shortsword.

Naturally, he still kept all the knives in his Inventory for the sake of the future.

‘It must smell deadly in there.’

Now that he was wide awake, Damian wanted to take another look inside the inner Den to see if he had missed something, but it was too late for that.

In order to keep any possible predators away, Damian had dragged the corpses inside after taking everything that was useful before sealing the passage back…

‘There should be nothing more anyway.’

Choosing to keep his subjective optimism, Damian stood back up again and did a few stretches before taking the torch back into his hand.

Since there was no chance for him to take a proper rest anyway, he might as well proceed forward so he could end the task as soon as possible!