Tartazan Labyrinth (2)
Blood Fiends—the bloodthirsty ghouls that guarded the labyrinth—came charging in as a pack.
But...
With a few flat, unhurried swings of Rudine Carlyle's sword, they were cut down without mercy.
Adina watched the scene with a face gone pale.
Uuugh...
Dozens of Blood Fiends had rushed in together, only to be grotesquely shredded by a handful of sword strokes. It was the sort of spectacle that had no place in the human world.
What shocked Adina even more was that the Blood Fiends' corpses, after dying so pathetically, quickly turned to black ash and were then absorbed into the ominous grimoire Luke Richter was carrying.
"Did I do well?"
"You did well."
"Really?"
"Yes, yes."
The two of them had pulled off such an absurd feat, and yet they remained utterly calm.
As though they felt no sense of danger at all, their steps were light and easy.
Only Adina, and no one else, was rattled by their inhumanly casual response.
Crazy people...
The man who read a cursed book as if it were nothing, and the man who had carried that book all the way here—neither of them was normal.
At the same time, Adina felt her curiosity only growing stronger.
Even for someone like her, who had lived a shut-in life since childhood, it was obvious that those two were no ordinary humans.
But Luke Richter—the man who had introduced himself as the Empire's hound—was suspicious in a way that went beyond mere eccentricity.
It was suspicious that he was managing the long-neglected Blackmore all by himself.
It was suspicious that he knew the location of a cave this ominous without hesitation.
And it was suspicious that he seemed to know the position of every trap, as though he could see the future.
Even so, the reasons she had followed a stranger all the way here were simple: she was afraid of being left alone, she was a little curious about who he really was, and, in the end, she had been drawn in by the mysterious power he wielded.
...What on earth is this man?
She had followed him out of a strange competitive spirit, but that did not mean she trusted him completely.
So she didn't bother holding back her questions.
"This place isn't an ordinary cave, is it?"
"No, it isn't. It's called a labyrinth for a reason."
"A labyrinth?"
"Right. You do know what a labyrinth is, don't you?"
Adina nodded.
She didn't know the details, but she had a rough idea. If a certain place was corroded by an aberration, its structure and nature warped, it lost its original form, and the whole space was transformed into a pit of endless chaos and darkness—such a den of demons was called a labyrinth.
"How do you know about a place like this?"
"Because I saw it."
"You mean you've been here often?"
"No. This is my first time."
"...Then where exactly did you see it?"
"Ah, there are such things."
So there was something after all.
Adina swallowed and went on.
"Then do you know the name of this labyrinth?"
"Tartazan."
"...Tartazan?"
She stared at him with curious eyes, for it was a name she had never heard before.
He was walking forward at a measured pace, his expression calm, when he said, "It was the name of a prison that existed in an age long forgotten."
"...?"
She could not make sense of a word of it.
"A prison? What did they lock up in it?"
"The progenitor."
"The progenitor..."
So a true founder, then.
What an absurdly grand title.
"What? Scared?"
"No?"
"If you're frightened, you can just hide behind me."
"...Nonsense."
—she said, even though she was already tucked behind his back with her ears perked up.
He was clicking his tongue at her thoroughly consistent cowardly behavior when—
"That..."
Up ahead, they had no choice but to stop before the thick mist that lay in heavy layers across the path.
It was so dense and dark that nothing beyond it could be seen.
And that wasn't all.
The pitch-black mist was surging like a torrent, and just looking at it made the scene feel deeply ominous.
What a load of vengeful spirits...
Since childhood, Adina had awakened her Spirit Eye, so she could see clearly.
At the center of that raging current, souls twisted together in a frenzy, tearing at one another and screaming.
The true nature of that thing was an aberration.
Among them, too...
"...an earthbound spirit."
Of course, earthbound spirits were among the lower and weaker kinds of souls, but if the maddened ones around them swarmed in with all their strength like that, there was no answer at all.
Trying to force one's way through that horrifying torrent of aberrations with a bare body was suicide.
She was just about to stop them when—
"Wait."
Before she could even speak, he stopped first.
Then what he did next was...
"Rudine."
"Mm?"
"See that door at the very end?"
"Mm-hmm, I see it."
"Just keep walking straight until you get there."
"Got it!"
"???"
He's insane.
Was he seriously planning to use his companion as a sacrifice and simply walk through there?
"Are you insane?!"
"What's wrong?"
"You're saying you're going to go through there?"
"I am going through."
There was no reasoning with him.
So she hurried to persuade him, but—
"!!!"
Rudine was already walking straight through the middle of the torrent as though it were nothing, and the eyes of the wailing spirits all turned toward her at once.
"N-no, don't..."
A wave of savage intent far greater than expected surged outward.
Then the spirits, tearing at one another in their attempt to possess the flesh of the living, threw themselves at Rudine.
—Kieeeeek! Kieeeeek!
Every spirit that tried to possess her was torn to shreds.
There were no exceptions.
Luke Richter watched it all in silence and...
The shattered fragments of the souls were sucked into the Book of Pindal as if pulled by a whirlpool.
The book, having absorbed the fragments of those spirits, gave a satisfied hum.
"Performance is solid."
I had to nod at that.
Rudine was, without question, the finest mine-clearer imaginable.
How could some earthbound spirit possibly beat the Heavenly Slaughter Star?
Of course this was the result.
If an earthbound spirit was low-ranked, then the Heavenly Slaughter Star was divine in rank.
There was no way any blood-crazed ghoul could ever possess her.
Operation: Go, Rudine!
It had worked again.
"M-mad..."
Adina muttered with a worn-out face.
I didn't have time to explain everything one by one, so I took the lead again.
"What are you standing there for? Come on."
My steps were light.
That was only natural, since I was finally close to the end of the labyrinth.
That was easy.
This cave, divided into three sections, was a labyrinth formed by the corruption of the souls of vampires imprisoned in Tartazan's crypt.
Having read the original work, I knew the route perfectly.
All I had to do was break the core of the one sealed in the final section—the progenitor Arcantila.
The method itself was simple, but the process was anything but easy.
It was the sort of labyrinth that demanded every possible preparation before you entered it.
But...
Rudine, you're the best.
Yes, none of that was necessary.
As long as I had Rudine, that was more than enough.
When we passed through the door, a coffin came into view in the center of the empty space.
It was the labyrinth's final gate, and the place where Arcantila's true body was hidden.
I walked forward slowly and stopped in front of the coffin.
Staring at it for a moment, I quietly reached out and opened the lid.
Creaaak.
The instant the metallic sound rang out—
"!!!"
Shhhhhh!
An unholy force pressed down on the space, and some unidentified blood-red liquid poured from the ceiling, flooding everything with blood.
The blood that flowed down quickly pooled, covering the stone floor and turning it slick and muddy.
Tsk. The smell of blood.
I could feel the temperature around me growing colder by the second.
Then something bizarre happened.
The blood, rising higher and higher, began flowing backward into the coffin as if it had a will of its own.
Clunk! Clunk!
The coffin shuddered.
The surging wave of blood wrapped around the rattling coffin.
And just as the flood of blood was being drawn back inside, a low roar rolled out.
Arcantila.
A beautiful figure with long white hair in wild disarray revealed itself.
If I left him like this, he would recover consciousness.
So I...
Rustle-rustle.
Spread the Book of Pindal that I'd brought from the entrance out across the floor.
Then I took out the dagger I'd prepared and gripped it in reverse.
"Hoo."
Crack!
I stabbed.
Crack! Crack-crack!
I stabbed, and stabbed again.
The reason I'd gone to the trouble of bringing the Book of Pindal all the way here was simple: this cursed grimoire was the labyrinth's core.
And so, when I drove in the final blade—
"!!!"
Whoosh.
The flames of hell engulfed the grimoire.
And then—
—Aaaagh!
Arcantila's form, which had just begun to awaken, started to melt away.
He was glaring at me as though I had personally wronged him, but I didn't care.
Dungeon rushing was the virtue of a seasoned veteran.
Kugugugugu...
The ground shook.
It was the aftermath of the core that formed the labyrinth's foundation being destroyed.
—Damn it... you... ignorant... livestock...
"Go choke on it."
—You cursed... wretch... who... are... you...
"As if I'd tell you?"
I snorted and got to my feet.
Just as I was about to leave the area—
"Luke!!!"
Rudine came running toward me, her face startled.
Adina was just as flustered as she hurried over.
"Luke, huff...! Richter, huff...! What on earth did you...!"
And then Arcantila, hearing that...
—Luke... Richter...
He muttered my name.
—I won't... forget...
Leaving behind those final words,
—I will surely...
He vanished.
Without leaving even a trace behind.
"I'm exhausted."
Meanwhile.
The masked man handed a stack of papers to a woman.
Their organization was the Shadow Society, an intelligence and assassination network that controlled the Empire's back alleys.
"You did—"
The woman who took the documents had just begun to nod when her neck gave a sickening creak.
"...Luke Richter..."
"Boss?"
"I won't... forget..."
"???"
With no explanation at all, her entire body burst apart and she died.
It wasn't just her.
The bloodbound servants of the progenitor Arcantila, hidden across the continent and waiting for their chance, those who had concealed themselves in the criminal underworld by pretending to be ordinary humans—they all exploded and died at once.
With the progenitor gone, the servants bound by blood vanished as well.
And just before they disappeared, every one of them spoke the name of a single man.
That name was...
"Luke Richter...?"
Luke Richter.
The moment an ordinary civil servant's name spread across the entire Empire.