Chapter 825: Spiral District

"Ugh, you two have no idea how awful my day's been. First I got tossed into some endlessly expanding colorful space to hunt down a sealed monster, only to find out it was a colorful planet. Then I ran for my life and ended up in a place like this, and I might have to go back later..."

After a brief exchange, the three of them sat down in the restaurant, and Lin Ye recounted his adventures to the two women.

These two ladies were students from some prestigious academy, named Margaret and Little Spiral.

Little Spiral was the black-haired woman who had been standing behind Lin Ye earlier, though that might be a fake name, since she occasionally used the same term when talking to the spiral creature perched on her shoulder.

Earlier, she had been the one pressing that spiral creature against Lin Ye's back.

"I'm deeply sorry to hear about your ordeal. If there's nothing else, we'll be on our way."

Little Spiral pulled Margaret along with a very serious expression, preparing to leave.

"Sigh, students these days..."

Lin Ye sighed, pulled a wrapped spiral steak from his bag, opened the packaging, and took a bite.

"That's the spiral steak from Spiral Theme Park!"

Little Spiral sat back down in her seat.

"Since it was free, I had them pack some up as spare rations before I left."

Lin Ye took out two spiral steaks from his backpack and handed one to each of them.

"We can take you out of the Spiral Maze through the real exit, but it won't be free."

Little Spiral tore open the packaging and bit off half the steak in one go.

"Deal. One hundred trade points per person."

She clearly had some knowledge of Spiral City, so Lin Ye didn't mind hiring the two of them to escort him out.

"...Doesn't he seem kind of like a scammer to you?"

Little Spiral whispered to Margaret.

"I can pay half as a deposit upfront."

Lin Ye directly transferred one hundred trade points to the two of them.

"Hold on, we're not even certain we can get out. We can't accept these trade points."

Margaret rejected Lin Ye's mental transfer.

Little Spiral, on the other hand, unceremoniously accepted the transfer.

"No worries. You two should have equipment that lets you fly around here, right? If you have spare gear, just lend me a set."

Since they'd managed to get onto Spiral City, they definitely had flying equipment.

"Sorry, but we only have one set of flight gear between us. The airspace in the Spiral Maze is full of chaotically structured spiral voids, making flight equipment incredibly difficult to craft. We do have plenty of rope, though."

Margaret didn't hide their situation.

"That works too. You don't need to worry about me, I'll follow behind you. Just leave me a rope."

Since neither of them could use spiritual energy, Lin Ye only had the physical fitness of an ordinary person, making it hard to keep up with their pace.

"You're overthinking it. The layout of Spiral City is constantly shifting, so a rope only stays viable for a short while."

Little Spiral sneakily swiped Margaret's spiral steak.

"It's fine. We can wait for you to catch up before moving on to the next spot. But the deeper we go into Spiral City, the more dangerous terrain structures and spiral creatures we'll encounter. At that point, we can only look out for ourselves. We won't be able to help you."

Margaret hoped Lin Ye would think carefully before going deeper into Spiral City, since trade points were useless inside.

"Got it. I'll take care of myself."

Lin Ye actually had some means of self-preservation.

"Then let's move out!"

Little Spiral finished her spiral steak and jumped up from her seat on the spot.

Lin Ye followed the two of them out of the restaurant. This was a commercial street. The pavement beneath their feet moved slowly, and the buildings on either side of the road were also shifting their forms.

This city block wasn't a flat plane. The commercial street spiraled diagonally upward, cutting off at nearly a ninety-degree angle. Hundreds of meters above, there was another city block.

"There's a row of spiral voids up there. You need to loop around from the left side, there's a gap there."

Margaret put on a pair of black-rimmed glasses. These glasses allowed her to see many things invisible to the naked eye.

"Got it!"

The backpack on Little Spiral's back transformed, shifting into some kind of jet-powered flight device.

Lin Ye quickened his pace. He needed to climb up to the broken gap in the commercial street first, so he wouldn't waste too much time later.

Little Spiral took off straight from where she stood, nimbly passing through those spiral voids, and tied a rope on the block above.

The rope threaded through the spiral voids, swirling around a few times before dropping down below.

Margaret climbed up first, with Lin Ye following behind her.

Lin Ye climbed quickly, barely slower than Margaret. He could use technique to speed up his climbing and conserve stamina.

However, Margaret deliberately slowed her climbing pace to keep Lin Ye from feeling rushed.

The two of them successfully climbed up to the next block.

"Not bad, kid."

Little Spiral hadn't expected Lin Ye to climb that fast. She could tell his physical fitness was on par with an ordinary person.

"...How many more times do we need to climb?"

Even while conserving his stamina the whole way, Lin Ye was starting to feel tired.

"About a dozen or so. This is already the simplified route we worked out. If you can't keep up, we might have to take a detour, since the terrain here keeps changing."

Little Spiral and Margaret weren't first-timers to Spiral City.

"You found the exit?"

Lin Ye felt those fifty trade points were well spent.

"Nope. Last time we ran into a spiral behemoth and could only escape through a mid-tier exit. There are exits of all different tiers in the city. If you can't hold out, you can bail out anytime."

Little Spiral said casually.

"It's not that easy either. Dangerous terrain and creatures lurk near the exits. If you're not careful, things can go wrong quickly."

Margaret added a word of warning.

"Is that the exit over there?"

Lin Ye pointed at the public toilet in the distance.

A spiral creature was hiding inside, secretly watching them.

"That's right, looks like a low-tier exit. That spiral creature's strength is average."

Margaret put on her black-rimmed glasses to observe the situation over there.

"Watch me take care of it."

Little Spiral charged at the spiral creature with fierce momentum. Seeing this, the creature dived into the toilet and left Spiral City through the exit.

"They can leave through the exits too?"

Lin Ye hadn't expected it to just run off like that. He'd been planning to dissect the spiral creature's corpse to examine its body structure.

"Exits inside a Spiral Wonder only lead to the outside of the Wonder itself. They don't take you out of the Spiral Maze. But the real exit should allow direct departure."

This wasn't the first time Margaret had seen a spiral creature flee through an exit.

That was also why powerful spiral creatures made sure their prey couldn't escape through the exits.

"Also, exits inside a Spiral Wonder can only be used once before they relocate, even low-tier ones. But multiple people can use the same exit at once."

Little Spiral added.