Chapter 39
Chapter 39
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 39
Chapter Title: Clash with the Minotaur
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“What… is that…?”
Eugene narrowed his eyes as he stared at the Templars piercing through the darkness from a distance.
“Did you see something?”
“The Templars all swallowed something like mana stones together. But right after eating them, their condition started changing weirdly.”
Romari let out a sigh as Eugene described the Templars’ altered state.
“It looks like they took anti-mana crystals.”
“Anti-mana crystals? Ah… right.”
He had heard of them before.
Anti-mana crystals were something secretly produced by certain churches or mages—a kind of drug made by subjecting purified mana crystals to a special additional process.
They rapidly restored the user’s stamina and drew out potential they wouldn’t normally access, or so it was said.
However, the side effects were severe, so most churches strictly forbade them, and both producers and users faced heavy punishment.
“I thought something was off when three knights said they’d take down a beast like a Minotaur. They really came prepared.”
“Yes. It’s not quite one-against-a-hundred, but they’ll be much stronger than usual for a couple of hours. They might actually take down a real Minotaur.”
“Hmm, I doubt it.”
“Pardon?”
“Just a feeling. Anyway, did you find the trail?”
“Oh, one moment.”
Romari rummaged inside her robe and pulled out a red pouch, then slipped her hand into it.
“……. ……. ……. …….”
She murmured an unknown language in a low voice, then swung her hand to scatter red sand into the air.
Shhh!
The red sand moved in one direction as if alive, and Romari led Eugene after it.
The sand soon flowed into the passage where the Templars had vanished moments ago.
“The red sand isn’t scattering—it’s all heading one way. That means Sir Galpredic and his team went that direction. If not, the sand would have split into two paths.”
“Raccoon eyes seem right. Water aura’s strong only over there.”
“Fascinating.”
Romari beamed at the approval from both the mage and the spirit.
“Thank you. If I may explain about our Pilgrim school, we have various spells for…”
“Enough. Let’s move.”
“…Yes.”
Romari’s face fell as she hurried after Eugene.
* * *
The trail of red sand was long.
Occasionally, some of the sand split off into complex branching passages, but the main flow headed toward the area thickest with metallic energy.
Thanks to that, Eugene’s group easily tracked the missing Templars.
After about twenty minutes of navigating the intricate maze, they emerged into a vast space as wide as the plaza they had used as a camp.
An oval chamber lined with fiery orbs along the walls—not ordinary torches—resembled an arena built for monsters.
“In the name of God!”
“You wicked fiends!”
“Raaargh!”
The Templars were locked in a desperate battle, surrounded by hordes of monsters, while a bull-headed, muscular beast sat on a massive stone throne overlooking the fight like it owned the place.
But Eugene’s gaze wasn’t on the Minotaur.
“S-Sir Eugene…!”
“M-Master! That’s…!”
Hanging beside the throne, drenched head to toe in blood and bound tightly with iron chains, were humans—one of them Galpredic.
* * *
“……?”
The Minotaur, who had reigned as one of the labyrinth’s lords for ages, suddenly felt an eerie sensation.
Unlike the brash young Cyclops that had provocatively challenged it from another sector for years, this was a different feeling. The beast rolled its bulging eyes.
In the darkness across the arena, a pair of small but intense red lights gleamed.
The tiny human beside it was annoying too, but the Minotaur especially disliked the intruder with those red eyes.
No being—not even the other high-tier monsters who ruled the labyrinth with it—dared look at it with such eyes.
“Groooarrr!”
The enraged Minotaur bellowed.
“Kyaaak! Kekekeng!”
The monsters responded, charging the Templars even more ferociously, heedless of death.
“Urk!”
“You damned spawn!”
The Templars, bravely fighting with the forbidden power of anti-mana crystals, soon fell into a defensive struggle.
They had slain so many, yet multiples more remained.
Worse, their target Minotaur merely watched their battle like child’s play.
Soon, greater rage and despair than their faith overtook them, and as their mental strength waned, the anti-mana crystal effects began to fade.
“Arrrgh!”
One Templar dropped his sword, screaming.
“Robin!”
“You bastards!”
Watching their brother-in-arms torn limb from limb by dozens of fiends, the two remaining Templars roared.
But they too met their end against the wave of monsters.
“Kyaaak! Kekekeng!”
As the monsters began to howl in victory—
Boom boom boom boom!
The arena floor cracked open as if the Templars’ god had finally answered late.
“Kyak!? Kieek!”
While over twenty fiends flailed in the fissures, a vampire clad only in weapons—no armor—dashed out.
* * *
“Hah, hah.”
Romari, having cast her most powerful earth spell, hid in the shadows near the arena entrance as Eugene ordered.
A mage’s most vulnerable moments were preparing a spell and right after casting it.
That was why mages rarely traveled alone.
Yet Romari always had—until now.
She could briefly mind-control three or four ordinary humans or monsters.
But after casting an unfamiliar earth spell, she was powerless now.
All she could rely on was the Origin vampire masquerading as a knight, for reasons unknown.
‘Please, please. Even if you die, finish the chimera first!’
Huddled in the darkness, Romari panted raggedly as she watched the arena.
“……!”
Then she froze in shock.
Eugene’s spear throws and sword swings weren’t refined like a typical knight’s. Only feral savagery and instinct emanated from him.
Yet every attack was lethally precise.
His pitch-black nails, extended nearly a meter, sliced through monster hides and bones, pulverizing them.
“Kyaaaak!”
Eugene’s eyes blazed like torches amid the spurting fountains of blood.
Blood and death swept through like a storm.
Monster shrieks and screams mingled with crimson sprays, turning the arena into hell.
Moments later, only two remained standing in the oval arena.
“Groooarrr!”
“Kyaaak!”
The labyrinth’s lord Minotaur and the progenitor vampire knight charged at each other.
* * *
Whoosh!
The Minotaur swung its two-meter mace.
Boom!
Eugene narrowly dodged and leaped off the mace head embedded in the ground.
In that instant, Eugene vanished completely.
“Gruk!?”
Even in fury, the startled Minotaur unleashed its fear aura.
As a long-time labyrinth ruler, it firmly believed the vanished foe would react to the aura.
But the Minotaur, born and raised solely in the labyrinth, knew nothing of the intruder’s true nature.
Nor that a powerful Origin vampire or equivalent shrugged off high-tier monster fear auras.
‘I can do this!’
With invisibility overlaid on his Black Scale Mail and all abilities maxed out, Eugene overcame the fear aura and plunged his sword into the Minotaur’s shoulder.
Crunch!
The nameless dwarf blacksmith’s masterpiece, empowered by vampire superhuman strength, carved through the beast’s tough hide and dense muscle like cheese.
“Groooaaarrr!”
The Minotaur howled in agony as flesh tore and bone snapped.
Even high-tier monsters felt pain and fear.
For this labyrinth Minotaur, it was a first.
“Gruk! Groar!”
Mad with pain and confusion, it thrashed wildly.
It swung its mace guided by instinct and keen smell—but hit nothing.
The mace’s force shattered the hard floor into scattering chunks.
“Gruk!?”
Then, its high-tier instincts detected a faint but sharp danger.
The Minotaur swung its mace backward with all its might.
Crack!
It grazed something.
But before joy could set in, a thin, sharp something pierced its thick neck.
Crunch!
Eugene sank his fangs into the Minotaur’s nape and wrapped both arms around its neck with all his strength.
The panicked Minotaur slammed its massive body to the ground.
Crunch! Thud!
Its weight—greater than any foe Eugene had faced—brutally crushed him.
One thigh flattened, snapped ribs lacerating organs—it all registered vividly, yet Eugene kept sucking blood.
The high-tier monster’s blood ceaselessly regenerated his ragdoll body.
Even giants had finite blood.
Less than a minute later, the Minotaur—half-drained—grew weak.
“Grooo…”
Its convulsing bull-headed bulk stilled at last.
Moments later, Eugene—half its size—staggered to his feet.
Drenched in monster blood and fluids over his Black Scale Mail, he was a horrific sight unfit for open eyes.
“Grrr!”
His eyes fully crimson, Eugene spread his arms wide.
No one taught him—it was vampire instinct.
The blood filling the arena responded.
Shhh…
Puddles of monster blood boiled like lava across the floor, then rose as red mist.
The swirling crimson fog surged into Eugene’s body.
Crack!
Misaligned bones and muscles swiftly realigned.
His dim gaze reignited to deep red, his toned, balanced form restored.
“Groooaaar!”
The reawakened vampire roared in triumph.
Only two witnesses.
“Long live Lord Eugene! Blood Count? Dark Count? Nah! Aim for Demon King now! Keeheeet!”
“Master Bellopa. This unworthy disciple has beheld the true Pilgrim today.”
Just the low water spirit and the mage who inherited spells from the Origin vampire.
* * *
With all that blood gone, leaving only monster corpses, the arena was eerie.
Amid it, Romari’s eyes sparkled like rotten fish as she gathered mana stones.
Eugene, rearmored, freed Galpredic and the mercenaries from the chains and checked on them.
“Big bear dead? Hiiiing!”
Mirian pouted, but Eugene shook his head.
“The others are gone, but Galpredic’s still breathing.”
Stubborn vitality or lingering attachment to life—Galpredic miraculously clung on.
But his state suggested he wouldn’t last long.
“Romari, come here.”
“Yes! Sir Eugene!”
She rushed over.
“Can you save him? What if we feed him a mana crystal?”
“One moment.”
Well-versed in healing as a monster-handling Pilgrim mage, Romari examined Galpredic closely.
“I’m sorry, but this knight is beyond saving. Even a top-grade mana crystal won’t help.”
“Hmm.”
It wasn’t sappy friendship or anything.
But Galpredic had profoundly shifted Eugene’s view of knights—an unforgettable figure.
Letting him die like this felt regrettable, uncomfortable.
“Um… if I may humbly suggest?”
“What?”
Romari glanced at Galpredic cautiously.
“Not much is known about Origins, but I hear they can turn even the freshly dead into vassals.”
(To be continued)