Hounds of the Labyrinth (4)

It could, of course, simply have been a box where the goblins stored their goods, but the odds of that seemed slim.

They hadn't even managed to lead us into a minotaur ambush, after all.

A treasure chest guarded by goblins?

Given everything the Tower of Trials had thrown at us so far, it was, naturally enough, a scenario I found hard to swallow at face value. Any climber with half a brain would smell something fishy.

"Suhyeok, you know about mimics, right? Monsters that pretend to be treasure chests..."

"Yeah, I think I get it. I've seen them in old games. You try to open the box and—bam—it lunges out at you, right?"

"Uh, yeah. Exactly."

"Then I'll just deal with it myself."

Leaving the party behind ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me, I slowly closed in on the box.

A monster masquerading as a treasure chest—a mimic. It was my first time facing one.

But what tricks could a mimic possibly play on someone who already knew it was a monster and approached it anyway?

I was walking toward the box without a second thought when a sudden doubt struck me.

Hadn't I figured out it was a mimic far too easily?

Easy was one thing—this was too easy. What if it was actually a real treasure chest? Or maybe just a pile of the goblins' random junk.

If anything, the strangeness was how unlike the Tower so far this whole setup was.

It didn't help that no notification window had popped up over the box either, which left me even more on the fence.

Hmm. Whatever. Not worth agonizing over.

Whether the thing held real treasure, held junk, or was itself a monster—smash it open and I'd find out, wouldn't I?

It wasn't as if a chest had to stay in one piece for the treasure inside to come out, right?

For all that this was the Tower of Trials, anything less reasonable than that would be truly absurd.

Two meters remaining. The monster could bolt out at any moment. I couldn't give it the slightest opening.

I picked up the pace. Right foot, left foot—and brought the axe down with everything I had.

Crunch—! The box, just beginning to yawn open, split clean in half, lid and all.

"Kieeek..."

Leaving only the fading echo of its shriek behind, the mimic tore in two and died.

From between the shattered halves spilled thick blood, along with the mimic's spindly little corpse, tumbling out in a heap.

I turned my gaze slowly back toward the party members trailing behind me.

"It was a monster after all, like I said. The mimic's dea—"

"S-Suhyeok!"

Mid-sentence, as I was announcing the end of the fight, the old man's eyes went wide and he jabbed a finger at something behind me.

Huh? What's his problem? The mimic's dead.

Whipping my head around, I caught sight of a small treasure chest scurrying away at high speed.

What the—it hadn't made so much as a whisper of movement?

It must have slipped out of the mimic's corpse while I'd been turning my head.

A squat little treasure chest went tearing down the labyrinth corridor.

Somehow, I felt with total conviction that I could not let it get away.

A small treasure chest that had sprung from the mimic we'd just killed. It looked anything but ordinary.

"Suhyeok! You have to catch that thing!"

Ha Heijeong's urgent shout slammed into my ears—and I was already moving. I'd made up my mind to catch it from the moment I saw it; I kicked off before her words had even finished landing.

The little thing was faster than I'd expected, but not faster than me. Another moment or two and I'd have it... though couldn't I close the gap just a bit quicker?

If more enemies popped out in the meantime, things could get messy.

I could carve my way through monsters without breaking stride, sure—but I'd be split off from the party.

And if a fork in the path showed up, finding them again would be a nightmare.

That was when the Essence of Lightning flashed into my mind.

Until now, I had only ever used it the crude way—releasing bolts of lightning outward.

In truth, the Essence of Lightning couldn't possibly be a skill that did nothing but fire lightning. If it were, it would have been called "Lightning Discharge," and it wouldn't have cost nearly so much.

It was the essence of lightning, after all. Only the poverty of my own imagination had been holding it back.

Well—I'd never tried it like this before, but...

Starting with my legs, pumping back and forth at full speed, I wrapped lightning around my entire body.

This wasn't the casual draping I did over my weapon when I swung it.

Faster. A little faster still—until my legs, until my whole body, became lightning itself.

In an instant, the scenery before my eyes changed.

Whoa?

I had skipped across space. I hadn't literally done so, of course, but that was what it felt like.

Something crackled through me—thrilling—and at the same time a wave of exhaustion crashed in.

I burned through almost all my mana.

I hadn't controlled it in the slightest. If my body had a mana tank, it felt scraped utterly empty.

In exchange, the pounding of my heart rang out vivid and clear in my ears.

I couldn't regulate the speed yet, couldn't regulate the mana either. But if I could use this in the middle of a fight...

Just imagining it made my pulse race. Hold on.

Not the time for this. Later. I'd think about it later.

The small treasure chest that had been in my sightline was gone.

I spun around frantically and there it was—the squat little thing charging straight toward me at full tilt.

It hadn't noticed me, apparently; it showed no sign of stopping even with me standing dead in its path.

I snatched it out of the air with a lightning-fast grab.

"Kii-!? Kiiit!"

From the little treasure chest no bigger than my fist, limbs poked out and flailed wildly.

Through the slightly parted lid, a pair of bean-sized eyes glinted sharply.

Hm. Cute-looking thing... but what on earth is this guy supposed to be?

Probably the mimic's offspring? It looked similar enough, and it had come bursting out of that thing's corpse.

"Haah... hah. Suhyeok! Got it?"

Panting, Ha Heijeong jogged up a beat later.

Huh? Why is she alone? Where's the rest of the party?

"Yeah. Where's everyone else?"

"We had things to talk about. I told them to go see if anything dropped from the mimic's corpse."

I turned my gaze into the distance—sure enough, the others were busy rifling through the dead mimic's remains.

It was shaped like a treasure chest. Maybe killing it would make it spit out an item or something?

"Whew, thank god. Baby mimics are not easy to catch. That just now—you used the Essence of Lightning, didn't you?"

"Mm. Figured it might work like that too."

"Nicely done. I was wondering when you'd start finding new uses for it—you handled it on your own. Honestly, I was planning to drop you a few hints on this floor if you didn't. The essence is yours to use however you see fit. Don't put limits on it."

"Don't put limits on it... got it."

Right. So Ha Heijeong did know how to use it. I gave a small nod at her advice.

She was right—I'd been using it far too one-dimensionally.

In the next Waiting Room, I'd have to sit down and really think through other ways to apply the essence.

"That said—this baby mimic. Is it actually something good?"

"Kiiit! Kiit!"

I held the baby mimic up in front of her face.

Whether it meant to attack her or not, the thing thrashed its limbs every which way. It never came close to touching her, but at the sight of it Ha Heijeong burst out laughing.

"Pfft. ...Yeah, it's definitely a lot cuter than the adult ones."

"You can use this thing as an inventory."

"An inventory?"

"You put items in it. And money. You've played games, you know what that is."

"Obviously. But isn't this a monster? Can you really use it like that?"

"Yep. The adults are too heavy to lug around, and they're so aggressive by nature you can't train them at all. The babies, though? Totally trainable."

Ha Heijeong took the mimic from my hand and gave it a rough shake.

The baby mimic, which had been letting out its bizarre shriek, went quiet—apparently having fainted.

Its flailing limbs had retreated neatly back inside the box, yet there was no visible hole anywhere on it.

How on earth do those limbs come out of there?

"Anyway, knock it out like that, and in the Waiting Room you buy a... mimic collection box? Storage box, was it? Ugh, it's been so long I can't remember. Point is, you buy one of those and transfer the mimic into it."

"So I take it out and put it in that box?"

"Yep. Then it can't open on its own and it won't grow any bigger. You get a real, honest-to-goodness inventory."

"Ooh..."

Well, if that worked out, the sword and shield rotting away in my Waiting Room were going in first thing.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Hm, and the loot we picked up while fighting, too?

Ah—no, I probably wouldn't need that. The system didn't let you sell things back to the shop anyway.

As if reading my mind, Ha Heijeong picked up the thread.

"Pffft, I can practically hear you thinking. Look—you can take all the combat loot with you too. You'll need it on the 10th floor."

"The 10th?"

"The 10th floor is a rest stop. Every ten floors—the 10th, the 20th... they're all floors for taking a breather. You can sell stuff there too."

"A rest stop. That's why you said there'd be no fighting last time. So if we sell things there, they turn into achievement points?"

"That's right. The exchange rate's a little worse than buying, but it beats getting nothing. Or you can pay for equipment checks and repairs with loot instead of points, if you'd rather."

"They do equipment checks and repairs?"

"Yep. Okay, enough—we'll pick this up later, let's head back. We've been gone too long; people will start wondering what we're talking about. I'll fill you in on the rest on the 10th floor."

The words were barely out of her mouth before Ha Heijeong tossed the mimic back at me and turned away.

So now I have to carry this thing around? This is going to be a pain...

"Oh, and one more thing—from the 11th floor on, it's back to solo floors. Start bracing yourself, no rush. Judging by the tutorial, the difficulty might scale differently when you're alone again."

"Huh?"

Solo floors from the 11th on?

I asked her to repeat it, but Ha Heijeong just pretended not to hear and kept walking toward the others.

Well, I'd find out when I got there. If it played out the same as everyone else's, I'd clear it easily enough—and if the difficulty did scale differently, Ha Heijeong wouldn't know either way.

In the end, I'd just have to walk into it headfirst myself.

Meanwhile, this mimic is the problem.

Where, exactly, was I supposed to put this thing?

My eyes drifted to the goblin assassin's belt I'd picked up back on the 1st floor.

I hadn't touched it since I got the mace. I kept a dagger stowed in it, sure, but between the mace and the axe I'd never had any real use for the belt—and now, after all this time, a use had finally turned up.

I stuffed the baby mimic into the crossbow bolt pouch hanging off the belt.

Oh—it fit like it was made for it. Surely it couldn't wriggle back out of that?

Worried it might escape, I pushed it in even deeper, then turned to follow Ha Heijeong back toward the party.

The old man was in the middle of rooting through the mimic's corpse.

"Anything good, sir?"

"Ehhh, just a few gems and some beat-up old weapons. It must've been sitting with those goblins so long there's nothing decent. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Say—did you catch that little rascal?"

"Yep, it's in my bolt pouch. I figured it might work like an inventory, so I'm thinking of bringing it along."

"Ooh, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠now that's clever. I think I read about people using mimics like that in a novel somewhere? Well then—shall we try stuffing these in first?"

The old man beamed and held up the battered old weapons.

Hm. I'm not sure any of that junk could sell for anything, though...

The old man's eyes were sparkling bright, gleaming with pure curiosity.

He didn't so much want to keep the junk, I realized, as he wanted to try using a mimic as an inventory at least once.

There was no ignoring a man with eyes like that, so I pulled the baby mimic back out and showed it to him.

When I cracked the little chest open, a soft black darkness filled its interior.

"Oho! So this is the baby mimic. The big ones looked so freakish, but you can't see a thing in here. Is that because it's a baby?"

So this darkness is the mimic's true body. Not nearly as cute as the limbs that had popped out of it earlier.

No eyes to be seen—just a shapeless silhouette of dark.

"Let's start with these."

The old man gathered up the junk and began stuffing it into the box, item after item vanishing without resistance.

Apparently things could go in even while the mimic was knocked out.

"Oh, that went in too?"

"It really does, huh. And a lot of it."

"Dad, aren't you putting in way too much?"

"Aw, it's fine. See? It all fits."

So this tiny box held this much? Worn-out weapons, even the leather armor the goblins had been wearing.

How many items had he crammed in already?

In the middle of our marveling, the mimic abruptly came to its senses.

Inside the box, a pair of tiny eyes flared bright.

Hm. Those eyes look... off.

"Kieeeek!"

"Aigoo!"

The baby mimic spewed everything out in one glorious heave.

Out of the darkness poured every last piece of junk we'd stuffed inside.

Well, that figured. I'd told him he was putting in too much. I should have reined him in halfway...

Huh? For an instant, amid the shower of spilling junk, a flash of gold caught my eye.

I shot my hand out and snatched it—a small golden key landed in my palm.

The moment I squinted at it, a notification window popped up.

A key connected to a hidden room, most likely. Obviously it would be, right?

I looked up—and the rest of the party was staring back at me, mouths hanging open.

"Haha. It really does look like it's tied to the hidden room. Though I suppose it's useless if we can't actually find the room..."

Even Ha Heijeong wore an expression of sheer disbelief.

We'd shoved a pile of random junk into a box, and out came a key to the hidden room. Even I didn't know what to say.

How does that even make sense?

...Either way, this was entirely the old man's doing. I wanted to salute his curiosity. Applause, applause—the old man is the greatest!