‘How?’

Holding the Goblin’s arm, Damian’s eyebrow unconsciously rose as his mouth opened up slightly. That was just how surprising it was to find a mechanical wristwatch tied to a primitive monster.

A digital watch would have been weirder, but any watch’s existence in this Labyrinth was extremely confusing, especially one that was still actually working, only the glass cover was broken.

‘It’s not the Den’s problem.’

Taking a quick look at the other Goblins, Damian found no other items that didn’t logically belong there on their bodies.

The chances of this specific Goblin falling from the future was abysmal, so Damian’s only guess was that it had picked it up from somewhere.

The real question was how it got to the Labyrinth in the first place.

“Iris. Do you know what this is?”

{...Is this a miniature pocket watch? It’s my first time seeing something like this. I have only seen one of those big watches in Father’s hand.}

Iris looked interested at first, but she lost interest quickly. From the looks of it, the concept of a wristwatch didn’t to be present in this world.

Although Iris’ words as a recluse weren’t exactly reliable, Damian found the watch to be too similar to Earth’s style. Fewer people wore them these days, but they were still around.

‘Is it possible that someone from home fell here somehow?’

The Goblins and Hobgoblins weren’t a part of this world’s ecosystem. To Iris, they were otherworldly creatures just like Damian himself.

Considering the Gates’ appearance on Earth, it wasn’t so far-fetched that someone fell into the Labyrinth through one of those Gates.

However, even just this hypothesis made Damian strange. It was like things weren’t real before and they were just starting to be.

The suspension of disbelief that had got him this far was starting to crack, but Damian decided to hold it all back together with one thing.

Take a deep breath!

‘Nothing really matters.’

The truth didn’t matter. Damian was so stuck here that even death couldn’t liberate him. The only way to get out was to go through with this, and he was just going to do so.

All while trying to have some fun in the middle!

‘Let’s open them up!’

The only thing better than achieving a quick victory was earning more jackpots. Being less tired and capable of using more Aura Slashes, Damian got through all four of them in under 15 minutes!

‘It’s so much better having an actual watch.’

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Trying to blindly estimate time while being in a place that looked to be underground was basically just a game of guessing.

Unless Damian compulsively counted the seconds he spent doing whatever he did, just not knowing the time was better.

Damian was still trying to forget about some possibilities, but he still put on the wristwatch as quickly as possible. He now had a way to quantify this tedious life into units!

While knowing that he had to live here for a while was bad, it was worse to not know how much of it was already over!

Considering that Fate’s Guide had its daily log system, Damian thought that the Plot Armor System would have something similar, but it was unresponsive.

By this point, it was obvious that the System wasn’t sentient. Aside from the things he discovered based on the game, he couldn’t ask for more convenience.

However, with the wristwatch’s help, Damian could now personally add this feature.

If he were to discard Day 0 and its unknown length which symbolized the tutorial, then this was Day 1. It was just slightly over 1… Which Damian decided would be PM.

From now on, he could log daily events into his memory. As limited and unreliable as that could be, it was still better than nothing.

‘Perfect first entry.’

For example, the first thing that went into Damian’s Day 1 log was a perfect 4 out of 4 jackpot. Not only were they understaffed and lacked a leader, but each and every Goblin gave him a Life Stone!

After being hit by a full-attendance Den right from the start, Damian was definitely happy to stumble into this one, and there was only one way to make this better.

‘Power up time!’

Although five Life Stones was less than last time’s absorption session, Damian was trying to keep up the mood.

Besides, he did want to see how far the efficiency would fall with fewer stones.

Damian needed no instructions this time around, he sat down cross-legged and got to work applying his Aura hooks. The foreign energy particles felt smaller, but they were eaten up by Damian’s Aura anyway.

[ Aura +1 ]

Flowing towards their ultimate destination, they quickly became part of the constantly moving Aura Ring.

[ Aura +1 ]

[ Aura +1 ]

Unfortunately, not only was the stream cut short much earlier, but Damian’s gains were almost half as much.

‘I should probably save up some more.’

While it wasn’t like Damian was expecting another advancement, it was still a less exciting session overall.

Now that he had the ‘less’ experience, Damian now wanted to find out how high he could go with the number. He was going to stack Life Stones to the limit!

Everything was blood pumping up to this point, but once Damian started trying to loot this place further, he understood that there was no such thing as a perfect room.

Aside from the knives on the Goblins’ bodies, there was nothing else of value. While he did obtain the wristwatch as a bonus, this was just a farming room.

That being said, grinding some FP and Aura was just what he needed, so Damian wasn’t complaining either.

“Want to chat a bit while we rest?”

Damian wasn’t exhausted to the point of falling asleep, but he still decided to refresh and regain the stamina that he spent. Just two more points in Constitution didn’t mean that his stamina was infinite.

{Sure?}

Of course, rather than awkwardly trying to avoid each other’s gaze, Damian decided to spend that time building some more rapport with Iris. The more comfortable they got with each other, the better.

‘Save.’

Finally, after recovering to a passable point, Damian took a small sip of water before saving. As necessary as it was, the last Save Point sucked, this was much better!

‘Now then, shall we pick up the pace?’

Now that the Labyrinth was starting to grow more familiar, Damian hoped that he could finally hop on the first smooth rising curve.

It was time to start the Initial Growth stage!