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Like a newborn baby seeking its mother’s milk, Angela continued to suck on Kim Jin-Woo’s blood. Her dull, yellowish hair quickly regained its luster as it shone bright gold, and her sunken cheeks and eyelids regained their energy. Despite that, she didn’t stop sucking blood, and Kim Jin-Woo didn’t stop her either.

A very long time passed. Even for Kim Jin-Woo, who usually wouldn’t be shaken by anything, he was starting to feel dizzy and nauseated.

But at that very moment, Angela pulled her mouth from his wrist. Her plump, luscious lips left his wrist, and her cheerful voice followed suit. “Master!” She had looked as if she were at the point of no return just moments ago, but now, she jumped up and tightly hugged him, just as energetic as she had ever been.

“Where the hell have you been…” Her cheerful tone quickly disappeared. “Obviously, the blood contract is absolute, and I had to feel Master, I had to find Master…”

Kim Jin-Woo didn’t have to use his Eyes of Truth, as he could see with his very own eyes that Angela was genuinely delighted with their reunion.

“But I couldn’t feel Master; Master disappeared…”

On behalf of Angela, who was quickly left at a loss for words, Yoon-Hee stepped in to finish what Angela wanted to say. “Even after she came to the surface, she continued to look for Master. Even I was deeply moved from witnessing her devotion.”

It was something Kim Jin-Woo had already guessed. The moment Angela lost her connection with her blood-contracted master, she would have started dying rapidly. In fact, she had been on the verge of death when Kim Jin-Woo finally saw her, and the worst could have happened had he been a little too late.

Fuck. Having been held captive by the Grand Labyrinth, Kim Jin-Woo had forgotten all about the ongoing events on the surface, and he felt pathetic for doing so. Overcome with remorse, he continued to caress her golden hair.

“Afterward, my body became so weak that even though I was able to feel Master’s presence, I wasn’t even able to move to find you.” Angela could barely stop crying as she spoke softly about the past.

Yoon-Hee, who had been watching silently beside them, quietly moved away. Before she left the room, Kim Jin-Woo showed his thanks to her with a wink and said, “Well, I received help from her too.”

Yoon-Hee seemed slightly flabbergasted at his show of gratitude, and hurriedly left the room.

A long time after Yoon-Hee left the room, Angela proudly exclaimed, “Ah, that’s right. Master. Down gems! I found the whereabouts of the down gems!”

“Is that so? Where are they?” Kim Jin-Woo asked. Even though he had found a pile of down gems in the Underworld, his ears still perked up upon hearing news of down gems on the surface.

“It’s some kind of huge building. But the security was tight at the entrance, so I wasn’t able to head in,” Angela said.

“Sounds like the explorers are on guard,” Kim Jin-Woo remarked.

Angela’s stealth abilities that allowed her to move around by hiding in the shadows were so great that not even Kim Jin-Woo could find her without focusing completely on doing so. If the guards were able to detect her, that meant the building was most likely guarded by dungeon babies.

“Let’s rest a while a little longer before we head over,” Kim Jin-Woo said. It would be much more effective to see it with his own eyes than to hear about it a hundred times. Thus, he let Angela rest and left the room.

Yoon-Hee was waiting for him outside the room, and was about to say something when Kim Jin-Woo spoke first. “Seems like you still have some explaining to do.” His eyes were gleaming differently from before as he spoke.

“I can explain it.” Yoon-Hee was visibly embarrassed, as she seemed to be making an excuse.

“Yeah, you’ll have to explain,” Kim Jin-Woo remarked.

The energy of a labyrinth, which he had been unable to feel from the initial disconnect from the Grand Labyrinth, could now be felt more clearly than ever before. It was so powerful that it couldn’t be compared to the energy emitted by the insignificant labyrinth core he had planted. And Kim Jin-Woo was very much aware of the identity of that energy source.

“Why does the Party Hall exist on the surface?” he asked. His eyes were gleaming as he tried to understand why the labyrinth on the surface had disappeared, and in its place was the Party Hall’s energy.

***

Yoon-Hee got goosebumps all over her body from those words, which weren’t quite a threat, and yet sounded like one. She would have been less shocked if Kim Jin-Woo had stared at her with the usual blue streaks of light flowing from his eyes. But so far, he had yet to reveal them.

Nevertheless, she was still more crushed by his presence than ever. Was this the power of the Highlord? His mere existence was on another level. It wasn’t wild and ferocious, but a quiet suppression that crushed all other lifeforms below it. His presence alone was enough to destroy her willpower.

“I-I’m a half-blood. Although my mother’s blood flows within me, I can’t live without being connected to the labyrinth.” Yoon-Hee barely managed to open her mouth and explain her situation.

“There are many other half-bloods that came to the surface. None have said what you just said,” Kim Jin-Woo remarked.

Many half-bloods actively lived lives on the surface while hiding their origins, but none of them were reliant on a labyrinth like Yoon-Hee.

“That’s different. They and I are different beings,” Yoon-Hee said.

“Elaborate,” Kim Jin-Woo said. Was he feeling curious? Belatedly, his demeanor softened a little.

Yoon-Hee subconsciously stroked her neck gently, as if she were feeling suffocated. She continued, “Because I’m a slave.”

“What?” Kim Jin-Woo frowned at her unexpected response.

Seeing his reaction, Yoon-Hee clenched her teeth as she continued her explanation. “The Deep Floor Counts aren’t foolish enough to blindly believe even their own kind. Although Denarion is my biological father, he never completely trusted me. No, he trusts no one, not even me. He doesn’t even trust his pure-blooded successor.”

It wasn’t an extraordinary story. It was only natural for not only the Deep Floor Counts, but also every Underworld being to mistrust others. But none were as terrible as the Deep Floor Counts, who even cast curses on their own kind.

“This is that proof,” Yoon-Hee said, showing Kim Jin-Woo a mark on her skin.

“That is…” Kim Jin-Woo trailed off.

“The Successor\'s Mark. But it’s something that none of the successors are proud of,” Yoon-Hee continued. The faint stigma engraved on her skin was like an old, ugly scar. “If we reject the will of the Operator, a terrible curse will start to rot our bodies. This is what we call the Stigma of Slavery.”

This time, even Kim Jin-Woo was truly surprised and could barely keep his mouth closed.

Yoon-Hee smiled self-assuredly as she looked at him and continued, “The only way for me to escape the effects of this curse is for either me or Denarion to die, or for me to go somewhere out of the range of the effects of the curse.”

So that was how it was. No wonder she was so glad to see the sun on the surface.

“And I wanted to start afresh, far from the reach of the curse,” Yoon-Hee concluded.

If Yoon-Hee wanted to build a labyrinth for herself on the surface, Kim Jin-Woo saw no reason to stop her. Although it was a waste of the effort he had put in thus far, there was no place for the Party Hall on the 9th Floor, where the uncontrollable monster called the Grand Labyrinth resided.

Not to mention that he couldn’t force her to bow to his will and return to the Underworld. If what she said was true, she had no choice but to play according to Denarion\'s intentions. And the Eyes of Truth told him that she was telling only the truth. Now that things had gone this awry, it was probably mutually beneficial to them for her to stay outside of Denarion\'s sphere of influence.

Despite all this, he couldn’t fully support her decision. That was because the Terrans on the surface were as insidious and cunning as the Underworld beings, or perhaps even more so.

If she had been residing under his previously planted Labyrinth Core, the story might have been a little different. But the energy of the Party Hall, which had already been quite significantly upgraded, was too strong. Kim Jin-Woo couldn’t help but feel that the humans might be able to eventually discover the existence of the Party Hall.

“I didn’t mean to deceive you about the succession rights or anything. Also, I wasn’t lying about it either. Just because I have the Stigma of Slavery doesn’t mean I’m really a slave. In fact, my right of succession is still in effect,” Yoon-Hee said. In the end, she hadn’t run away. If she wanted to, she could have easily abandoned the weakened Angela and hid somewhere on the surface.

“Please help me.” Yoon-Hee got on her knees as she begged in earnest.

Yoon-Hee was a slave bought at the auction house, but also the heir of Denarion of Nightmares, and an Underworld half-blood who had the blood of a Terran. All those complicated relationships aside, at that moment, all Kim Jin-Woo could see in her desperate look was himself. An infinitely weak and pitiful being struggling to escape the Underworld. That was his past self, and the present Yoon-Hee.

“Is that the price for saving Angela’s life?” Kim Jin-Woo said. Although Angela had yet to fully recover, she was able to sustain herself until now through Yoon-Hee’s blood.

Kim Jin-Woo had already decided to help Yoon-Hee, but he needed more justification. That was his mindset for living in the Underworld, and the life manual he stuck to. It wasn’t an unconditional gesture of goodwill, but a reciprocal relationship. He wanted to define the relationship clearly, even if it felt somewhat forced.

“Okay, I’ll help you, at a cost,” Kim Jin-Woo said. Of course, it wasn’t going to be free. The amount of help Yoon-Hee was going to need was more than the cost of Angela’s life.

“If it’s anything I can do, I will definitely pay it,” Yoon-Hee said as she bowed her head. The Eyes of Truth revealed that there was no hint of a lie in her words. Ironically, for someone whom Kim Jin-Woo didn’t even have a Vassal’s Pledge contract with, she had proven to be the most sincere in her loyalty.

“I’ll call for someone soon. It’ll sound rather counterproductive considering what you’re trying to do, but having someone bury your labyrinth will help to keep unwanted eyes away.”

It would require a bit of effort, but Kim Jin-Woo didn’t think too much of it. With Yoon-Hee and the Party Hall, he was confident that he could achieve more than he had expected. Her Party Hall could be a good resting spot for him to recover until he could rein in the Grand Labyrinth, a monster that was currently beyond his control. In the worst case scenario, it could also be the basis for him to start all over.

“Thank you,” Yoon-Hee said earnestly.

Kim Jin-Woo was immersed in thought, but he snapped back to reality upon hearing Yoon-Hee’s words. It was strange to see her looking at him with such a friendly smile on her face, but he didn’t hate it.

However, he reluctantly accepted her gratitude and said, “It’s nothing much.” He added, “Also, I’ll build my own labyrinth beside your Party Hall.”

Luckily for him, he had one more Labyrinth Core remaining that had escaped the gluttony of the Grand Labyrinth.

He had saved this Labyrinth Core for the past year expecting the worst case scenario, and now, he was ready to properly develop the core to its fullest potential.