A Perilously Dangerous Festival (8)
"What the hell is this...?"
Valkius was genuinely bewildered. Blocking the incoming boulder with a high-tier magic barrier? Fine, that was acceptable. Among defensive spells, it was one that consumed an unusually large amount of mana, so many mages avoided it. But it wasn't without users, thanks to its advantages—like being installable as a wall in a specific location and its ability to cover a wide area easily.
The barrage of magic bullets from the archer unit that wiped out the wisps was also understandable. Wisps were inherently difficult to target due to their speed and aerial maneuvers, but once you could hit them with area-suppressing attacks, taking them down wasn't that hard. And magic bullets themselves were among the most basic of spells.
The two of them avoiding traps by flying into the air together? He could somehow accept that too. The difficulty of flight magic was high even among high-tier spells, and applying it to others was even harder. Still, Valkius himself could do it. Though at this point, the comparison felt a bit off.
What he couldn't comprehend was just one thing.
"Just how much mana capacity does this person have?"
A single high-tier spell consumed at least a hundred mana at the lowest. In some cases, it could be several times that. Considering the average mana user's capacity hovered around a hundred, even the least mana-intensive high-tier spell would drain them dry in one use. Yet this person was using it to smash doors, destroy golems, block traps, and even fly.
Of course, there were prodigies with exceptionally large mana reserves. But even so, wasn't this a bit much?
Unable to contain his curiosity any longer, Valkius poured additional mana into the Labyrinth of Delusion panel, projecting a video feed of the two people moving through the maze.
[Oh, there's a treasure chest over here, Chrome. It looks like it needs a key. Should we just break the lock?]
"Don't break it! Find the key, you idiots!"
[That doesn't seem like a good idea. I've heard that forcing open treasure chests like this often damages the contents inside.]
"Yes, exactly! So look around! There's a wall with the same symbol as the one on the chest! Just press it and—"
[Then let's just take the whole chest. Fortunately, it's not ridiculously large, so it should fit in the bag.]
"Uwaaaaaaaaagh!!"
Valkius pounded his chest and roared. For a split second, the urge to abandon his post as labyrinth manager and storm out to give them a piece of his mind surged violently. But the mental fortitude he'd forged while enduring the unreasonable scoldings of his seniors as the youngest court mage kept his sanity intact.
He took several deep breaths before looking back at the video feed. A calm-looking black-haired beauty and a blond young man wearing a monocle.
"They do seem to be students, at least... It doesn't make sense for someone who's only been learning magic for half a year to have this level of skill. They must be the type who already had prior knowledge before entering the academy."
The Nahat Grand Duchy was practically a wasteland when it came to magic, and the Spero Kingdom didn't seem likely to have produced mages of this caliber either. That left the Empire or the Morian Kingdom.
'Come to think of it, I heard there was an imperial princess who showed incredible skill in a recent match against the military. I don't remember her name, though.'
He briefly considered the possibility, then shook his head. She didn't have the fiery red hair characteristic of the imperial family, and no matter how festive the occasion, there was no way an imperial princess of the Empire would be playing around in a place like this.
Valkius diligently scanned through the list of names floating through his mind, but then a sudden realization hit him.
Wait... are they actually going to clear it?
"No, they can't!"
If they really stole the prize that had been put on display purely for bragging rights—"Look at how amazing our prize is!"—his colleagues might actually try to kill him.
Feeling his life in danger, Valkius's hands began moving frantically.
With a heavy clunk, a square hole opened in the ceiling, and a sign hanging from a chain descended from it.
Congratulations on clearing the labyrinth! Please proceed to the exit on the left. Don't forget to collect your reward before leaving.
Lyla Everblaze Barhart looked at the fork in the path split left and right, along with the blatantly displayed sign, and spoke.
"It seems this is the end, Chrome."
"It would appear so."
I nodded, then turned to her.
"Then shall we go right?"
"The sign says left, though?"
She asked back, sounding either genuinely puzzled or as if she were testing me.
"That just proves how well-made this labyrinth is. It's only natural for there to be deceptive trap messages like this, isn't it?"
"Would they really go that far at a festival?"
"A normal festival doesn't threaten people with golems, Lady Lyla."
How dare they try to trick me. We ignored the sign and headed right. As expected, the labyrinth's layout began to change.
A rumbling sound, like something collapsing. The walls on both sides of the passage cracked and crumbled. I shouted,
"Lady Lyla! Wind, please!"
She moved her hand, and both our bodies floated into the air before shooting forward like arrows. Right after, a swarm of golems burst through the collapsing walls. They had probably intended to surround us completely, but our sudden burst of speed seemed to have foiled their plan.
The golems that had lost their targets—or perhaps reflecting the anger of whoever had missed us—over ten of them began chasing us all at once.
Her black hair whipping in the wind, Princess Lyla said,
"Just so you know, Chrome, even I can't handle that many at the same time. Even if I block them with a wall, they'll break through quickly."
"Don't worry about that. Just adjust our direction a little. Make it so those things come at us from the front."
The moment I asked, my body—which had been pushed along by the wind—spun a full 180 degrees. I pulled out a bunch of glass bottles I'd prepared in advance from Thoth's Bag and hurled them all to the floor.
The glass bottles shattered with a loud crash, scattering their contents. The lead golem, charging furiously to catch us, stepped right on it.
It looked just like a comedian slipping on a banana peel onstage. The special oil, which I'd altered through alchemy to change its properties, displayed its performance without restraint. The golem's massive body lost its balance and toppled over.
Since the one in front had fallen like that, there was no way the ones following behind would be fine. They crashed into each other, tangled up, and turned into a massive heap of pursuers. They were famous for their toughness, so they probably wouldn't break from this, but tying up their feet for a moment was more than enough.
We reached the exit at the end of the passage and stepped outside. This time, it really was the goal.
After escaping the labyrinth, we met a man who appeared to be the administrator of this facility. He looked to be in his early to mid-thirties. The man, who somehow looked rather pale, offered various excuses.
"So what you're saying is, you can't give us the reward?"
"Ah, well. It's not that we can't give it to you exactly, but it's an extremely delicate item that might be difficult to handle. So we'd like to offer you something equivalent instead. How about a hundred gold coins?"
'As expected.'
In truth, I had cleared this event in my previous life as well. Back then, the administrator had appeared with all sorts of reasons to refuse the set reward and forced the player to choose by offering gold coins and other items instead.
If you asked whether this was an absurd rip-off, the answer was no. One gold coin was enough for a single person to live on for a year, so offering a hundred was quite a substantial reward.
"No thank you. Please give me the original reward."
But that was only when measured against other templates. As if I'd let him wash his mouth with a hundred gold coins in front of a prodigal son like me.
"Ah, um. Listen here, student."
His tone changed.
"This is supposed to be a joyful festival, isn't it? There's still one more day left in the operation period of this labyrinth, and there are plenty of people eager to challenge it. We can't possibly tell them right in front of their eyes that 'the first-place prize has already been taken, so we can't give it out.' Don't you agree?"
"Then you could simply give me the prize and replace it with another one. Even with a hundred gold coins, there would still be more than enough challengers."
"I'm asking you nicely here. Just let it slide this once. If a hundred gold coins isn't enough, how about a hundred and fifty? That's quite a fortune!"
"My answer remains the same."
The man's face twisted dramatically.
"Hmph. I didn't want to go this far, but... Do you know that this labyrinth was prepared by the Empire? I am—"
"—Who are you?"
This time, the reply didn't come from me.
"I can't imagine what kind of incredible person you must be to behave so rudely toward a guest who is simply demanding their rightful compensation at an event celebrating the founding anniversary."
Her voice was clear, pleasant to the ear, yet stern. Perhaps sensing the instinctive pressure, the man turned his gaze.
"Wh-what? You are—"
"I believe I was the one asking the question."
The man's eyes, which had narrowed in displeasure at having his words cut off, suddenly widened like saucers. Was he wrapping his body in mana to purge the effects of some drug? The black color that had dyed his hair rapidly regained its vivid red hue, and his slightly distorted facial features returned to their original shape.
The red-haired princess spoke.
"I, Lyla Everblaze Barhart, Imperial Princess of the Barhart Empire, ask you this. Who exactly are you, and what position do you hold, that you dare behave in such a manner?"
Watching the man's face turn deathly pale in stark contrast to Lyla's red hair, I thought to myself:
As expected, the best way to deal with a superior is to bring in a super superior. May you rest in peace.