"It's been a long time since last I came here." Eric said taking of his helmet after parking his bike beside the car that Vanessa was driving.

"You've been in the Labyrinth of Enkidu before?" Matthew asked getting off of the car.

"Yeah. I leveled up a lot here." Eric replied. "I got this helmet in there in fact." He added referring to the centurion helmet he wore.

"Hope your mother doesn't mind watching Katia." Vanessa said getting off the car.

"Mind? Mom was shinning. He wanted to meet Katia ever since I first babysat her. She loves children. She used to teach in middle school before going to high school. She'll love Katia. She's a very good girl." Matthew explained.

"That she is!" Eric said with a loud laughter and passing his hand over Matthew's shoulder. "And you're too old for her." he added menacingly.

"Eric. She's 7." Vanessa shook her head at him.

"Yes, but when she's 18 he'll be 29. Too old." Eric explained nooging Matthew's head playfully.

While Matthew struggled to get off from Eric's hold, Paula and Michael were already halfway through the parking lot of the Labyrinth of Enkidu.

That was the day they would dive in with Claudio and his team to survey the dungeon and see if Matthew had any effect on it.

Claudio was already waiting for them in front of the dungeon sitting by a table drinking tea. Behind him was the same elf woman from before, probably his secretary, in a lean dark suit. As soon as Claudio saw Matthew's party coming in, his eyes darted to Eric. Claudio fidgeted with his glasses and smiled.

"Welcome." He said getting up and opening his arms. "Glad you made it."

"Let's just do this." Vanessa said without acknowledging Claudio's empty courtesy.

Claudio laughed at her disdain and guided them inside the gate. There, a team of 5 researchers wearing lab coats had set up various machines to read upon the dungeon conditions. Claudio introduced them to Matthew's party.

"Matthew. We would like to set up some equipment on you to monitor your mana and vitals." Claudio said getting close to him.

Matthew took a few seconds to agree weighing the danger of letting them do that, but, by the end, he let them. He couldn't think of any reason not to. And who knew? Perhaps they would find something useful to him about his condition.

They took off his armor and his shirt and glued various sensors to his skin. Then, on a computer all his vitals were detected and recorded wirelessly.

"Great." Claudio said with a smile checking the data on the computer screen. "Now we wait here in the first room for the dungeon to reset and then we can start exploration."

It didn't take long. Claudio had planned everything very well and soon all the corridors that leaved the first room shut down with stone slabs. After a moment, 2 new corridors appeared with the stone slabs from the wall disappearing as the doorway formed.

"That's odd." Claudio said. "What's the probability of only 2 corridors appearing?"

"According to the data… 2,48%" One of the researchers said checking his notes on his phone.

"That's promising." Claudio exclaimed. "How's the reading?"

"Nothing abnormal." The researcher monitoring the data on the computer said.

"Shame." Claudio pouted. "Well. The lot of you can start then." He said turning to Vanessa who was clearly the leader of the party.

Vanessa sighed and look at the others.

"Which way?"

"Whichever." Eric shrugged.

"Left?" Matthew said without conviction.

"Left sounds good." Michael agreed.

"Yeah, let's go left." Paula also agreed.

"Then left it is." Vanessa said taking the lead.

That time things were different. They were not hyenaing. All traps and monsters would be in front of them. This dive would be very much harder then the ones before. Their attention was doubled.

The first enemies were Dust Devils that Vanessa and Paula defeated easily, while the others just watched.

Claudio had a notepad where he took annotations now and then with a pen. He didn't use electronics because he thought they were easy to hack into. With written notes, he could have more control who could have access to them.

Matthew peeked at his notations and couldn't understand a thing. He was either writing in another language or in some form of code that Matthew could never decipher.

"Curious, Matt?" Claudio asked with a half smile.

"Yeah." Matthew said ashamed of being caught peeking.

"This is nothing interesting. I'm just making notes about your strategies. But I don't think this will be useful in my research. You guys aren't doing anything different than other parties always do." He explained.

The first trap they found was an acid spray trap that Vanessa managed to disarm expertly. The acid spilled from its container in the wall and made a puddle on the floor that ate a part of the stone.

A few minutes later Vanessa found a secret door and a chest inside it. After investigating the chest for traps and finding none, they found a copper ring inside the chest.

"As per the contract." Claudio said. "Unless it is an item related to the crown, your party has the rights to claim it."

"You don't need to say that to me. I wrote the damn thing." Vanessa barked giving the ring to Paula for her to store in her inventory bag.

"I'm explaining to the rest of your party." Claudio gave Vanessa a false smile and she sneered at him.

When Lightning Lions appeared, Matthew faced them in melee combat creating space for the other 3 to attack them from a distance. It was an easy battle.

Eric was just watching from behind. He didn't want to help and get some XP that would go to the rest of the party. The XP he would receive would be too low to help him leveling up and the others would miss that XP for their own leveling. That was the main reason why high level adventurers didn't party with adventurers of lower levels. Eric was there to keep an eye on Claudio if the latter tried something bad against them.

"Oh look! I leveled up!" Paula exclaimed.

"Wow, great! Level 14, right, sis?" Michael asked.

"Yes. I'm getting Caller now. Increase my Pact skill. Lumi has been in her ethereal form quite a lot lately. I fear she can't maintain her physical form for long because I'm not powerful enough for her." She explained looking at the ring where Lumi rested in her ethereal form.

"You didn't say anything before." Matthew commented worried.

"I didn't notice until recently." Paula explained.

"We have few precedents of people having pacts with creatures much stronger then them." Claudio got closer to them salivating for the opportunity to learn something new. "Perhaps we can help investigate the effects of your level difference?" He offered.

Paula just scoffed and turned around giving her back to him.

Claudio chuckled at her could shoulder.

"Just trying to help." He shook his head.

They moved on a bit more and found a third type of enemy: minotaurs. Creatures with the heads of bulls and the bodies of men covered in fur. Their feet were hooves and their hands had only 2 fingers and a thumb. They were dressed in simple long skirts that went from their waists to their ankles, with bright colors, and with slim frills on the bottom that looked that feathers. Each of them held a different weapon.

That was a sign they were advancing well.

Eric stepped forward putting a hand on Matthew's shoulder.

"These are a bit above your level. Let me help." He said drawing his huge sword from his back.

That was the first time Matthew was going to see Eric fighting. A level 27 adventurer with a pure Warrior build focused on strength. He reminded Matthew of the Dullahan swinging his huge sword with ease as if it was made of feathers.

The force of Eric's strikes was a sight to behold. Each blow that landed on the minotaur's shield sounded as loud as a gun. And even after such blow, it seemed that Eric was not using all the strength he could. He was just weakening the minotaurs for them.

Michael killed one with an arrow through the neck. Vanessa killed other stabbing it on the back. Matthew killed the last from the trio that appeared in front of them with a couple of shots.

"Hope I didn't siphon too many XP from you guys." Eric said putting his sword back.

"No you didn't." Matthew said looking at his stat screen. "I leveled up."

"Me too." Said Vanessa.

"Really?" Claudio asked Matthew with his eyes sparkling. "I wonder how the readings of you leveling are! How does your Gacha skill work? Do you have to activate something?" He added getting closer to Matthew.

"No. It simply gives me a random class when I level up." Matthew said.

"And what class did it give you!" Claudio asked invading Matthew's personal space.

Despite their caution, no one told Claudio to back off from Matthew. After all, they were all also curious. So they just got nearer him and waited for his answer.

"Just a Caller." Matthew said trying to get some distance from Claudio.

"Interesting." Claudio said. "Very interesting."

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