#44 Never Land (2)
#44 Never Land (2)
A place of metal—a vast maze and labyrinth at once.
It was also the starting point of Neverland. Through a wavering rift in space, beyond the dungeon's boundary, something began to emerge. It was the Wolf, cloaked in shadow. The moment the Wolf entered, an endless horde of monsters glared with blazing eyes.
'Damn it...'
Blue bones swung swords and spears. This was Neverland's Sector 1. I dove beneath the shadows and flattened one of them instantly, but the commotion was already drawing a tide of presences.
[Steeleton]
[Height 1.81m] [Weight 199.7kg]
[STR 324] [AGI 288] [VIT 476]
I didn't know how much of a human body's weight came from bone, but this was blatantly abnormal. Then again, it wasn't a skeleton—it was a steeleton.
'High-density metal.'
A monster built like an alloy. Its VIT of 476 flaunted its monstrous durability.
'The problem is.'
A single one on its own didn't matter. Tough and freakishly hard, sure, but as long as I had Snatch Devour, I could bring it down no matter what. The real problem was their sheer, unending numbers.
'Sector 1's Death Fair.'
Sector 1 had originally been called the Global Fair. After the dungeonification, its name became the Fair Death.
'Because.'
Of these endlessly deployed Steeletons. I bit through an incoming sword with Snatch Devour and ignited Ghost Flame (C), but as I'd expected, they didn't catch fire easily. I had no choice but to shove it away and focus for a moment.
'...Nothing.'
I expanded my detection and found no trace of the assault team I'd been expecting. They had already broken through Sector 1.
'Which means they've made it to at least the 2nd Sector... Did Neverland open earlier than I thought?'
Or maybe the assault team was just that good. As the Steeletons surged in endlessly, Perry used Blink. The moment we slipped free of their encirclement, I formed a foothold in the air.
I glanced back at the dungeon boundary, but no hunters appeared to be following. I'd thought they might.
'Well. Neverland isn't that easy.'
This wasn't a dungeon you entered lightly. That was the whole reason they formed a large-scale assault team in the first place. Even an A-class hunter couldn't guarantee surviving here. No—nine times out of ten, they wouldn't even make it through Sector 1.
'They'd die right here, obviously.'
I strung foothold after foothold and pushed forward.
'No matter how much EXP they'd give me, fighting them is a losing proposition.'
No, it'd be insanity. A single one of them wasn't to be underestimated, and fighting this many was impossible. Besides, my immediate priority was finding the assault team. That was when the Steeletons bent their knees.
"......!"
They launched skyward in an instant. The dungeon was a composite of labyrinth and maze stretching several meters high. Even with my footholds, I wasn't all that high up. I kept stepping—dodging the ones surfing through the air—step, step, step, and as I stepped, arrows flew. I bit through one, but it didn't break.
'Damn it...'
The metal composing them was the same material as the arrows. Snatch Devour, however, could chew through it. Dozens of arrows rained down toward me, struck the ceiling, and fell. They dropped straight onto the heads of the Steeletons below—but being made of identical metal meant they took no meaningful damage.
VIT encompassed Toughness, and Toughness represented raw physical hardiness.
"......!"
The Steeletons began throwing each other as if their metal bodies made perfect projectiles—each hurled with strength exceeding 300.
Even when they smashed into the labyrinth walls, they kept reaching for me. I could step across footholds and predict their trajectories all I wanted, but I couldn't dodge every last piece of the nightmarish hail of arrows and bodies that painted the whole labyrinth blue.
If I didn't get past them, I'd get caught. So I stepped on them and leaped. I couldn't avoid everything, and eventually a hand clamped around my ankle. The Steeleton's grip—324 brute force—squeezed like a hydraulic press.
"......!"
Even after I ignited Ghost Flame (C), the metal soldiers didn't budge. Given enough time I could melt them, but I didn't have time. In the end, I had to sever it with shadow. Not the Steeleton—my own ankle, where it held me.
—The moment my spiritual field had spread wide enough, I slipped away into the ceiling. I soaked into the darkness pooled in the ceiling and ran as fast as I could through the shadows.
'This won't last long.'
Hiding inside shadows wasn't invincible. An attack that distorted the terrain, or one backed by mana, would deal damage. But the labyrinth walls were made of the same metal as the monsters. The floor might be one thing; smashing through the ceiling was another matter entirely.
And exactly one creature in this labyrinth could do it.
'The labyrinth boss.'
Not the true boss, but that was what everyone called it. I'd been racing through the labyrinth for a while when it revealed itself.
An unnaturally massive Steeleton. The Steel Giant that blocked the center of this labyrinth. A titanic metal colossus that made the wide maze feel cramped. The instant it swung its enormous club, I burst out of the shadows.
'STR 634...!'
Its agility and vitality weren't exceptional, but the real threat was its monstrous strength—beyond comparison with the other Steeletons. Even though the ceiling was the same metal, a club swung with that much force would cave it in without question.
"......!"
No choice. I leaped from the shadows and charged straight at it. My ankle still hadn't fully regenerated, but it was steadily mending.
'There's no time...!'
I didn't know how the assault team was faring, but the System had said they'd be annihilated. I had no luxury to stand here fighting this thing. I had to find them as fast as humanly possible.
—A gust of wind wouldn't shove the Steel Giant, let alone a single Steeleton. But when I compressed that gust and released it in an instant, the calculus changed. I used the explosive thrust of the decompressing wind to rocket forward. Like a launched missile. Past dozens of arrows and the giant's sweeping blow—forward. Still further forward.
As the detonating wind carried me ahead, I reshaped my tentacles into a temporary ankle. The moment I landed on a foothold and kicked off again, a thunderous roar sounded and the ceiling collapsed in a crashing heap. My instinct had been right.
"———!"
That didn't mean the giant had given up.
A chilling presence. Having smashed through the ceiling, the metal colossus was charging, trampling and kicking Steeletons out of its path. The crushed Steeletons responded by shoving it forward, as if they didn't care. Their unified, single-minded pursuit was horrifying.
The thing clung to me relentlessly. I'd formed a makeshift ankle from tentacles, but it wasn't my real foot. I couldn't run at full speed. Normally I could've shaken it off, but with my ankle still regenerating, that was out of reach.
On top of that, I also had to dodge the Steeletons being hurled at me and the ceaseless arrow volleys.
Inevitably, the distance shrank. Deciding it was close enough, the giant launched itself into a dive, and its enormous hand closed in—just before it could snatch me up.
"Perry!"
"Kyuuuuuut!"
We barely escaped with Perry's Blink. The giant, which had thrown itself forward, crashed onto the labyrinth floor, and at last the colossal gate marking the labyrinth's end came into view.
"———!"
The fallen metal giant. The Steeletons crushed beneath it cracked and shattered. Still, the Steel Giant refused to quit. Without a flicker of hesitation, it seized a Steeleton and hurled it with everything it had—!
'...I was waiting for that!'
I had been waiting for it to throw.
The throw was incredibly fast, but compared to the Thunder Hawk that had broken the sound barrier in the Inverted Skyscraper, it was yawn-inducingly slow. Intuition and Perception. I read the trajectory of the hurled Steeleton and slipped out of its path ahead of time. Amid the dozens of arrows chasing me—I generated another gust and detonated it from my toes outward.
"Kyuuuuut...!"
I grabbed Perry, who was nearly swept away by the wind pressure, just as the Steel Giant's thrown Steeleton slammed into the labyrinth's great gate with a deafening boom.
'Got it!'
634. The impact—brute force against the infinitely hard Steeleton—blasted the gate wide open. The labyrinth gate normally couldn't be opened without strength equivalent to A-class or without defeating the Steel Giant. Either way, neither option was possible for me. That was exactly why I'd been hoping it would throw.
'Success.'
While I was sprinting on the thrust of the gust, my ankle finally finished regenerating. I discarded the cumbersome tentacle, formed a foothold in the air, and launched myself at full speed. Dozens of bowstrings loosed simultaneously, and amid the terrifying arrow volley, I squeezed through the gap of the closing gate and barely slipped free.
"......."
The moment I gasped for breath, the arrows hammered against the gate a beat too late. I steadied my breathing with a deep exhale. I'd managed to escape, somehow, but I felt completely wrung out. The Steel Giant had opened the door for me. You could call it luck that I got this far—but escaping the labyrinth wasn't luck at all.
'...The truth is.'
It was true that the gate wouldn't open without A-class-level strength or defeating the Steel Giant. But Perry's Blink should have been able to bypass it regardless. I'd been preparing for every contingency. I'd lost count of how many times I'd simulated Neverland in my head. I'd done everything I possibly could.
—Now I just had to prove it in this dungeon.
Shaking off the thoughts, I stomped on the motionless thing at my feet.
[Steeleton consumed. Experience Points and Satiety increase.]
It was the Steeleton that had shattered from the impact with the gate moments ago. Those things had been strewn everywhere back there, and even a single one yielded close to 30,000 EXP. I glanced back. The regret lingered.
'...If only I could've eaten more.'
I had neither the time nor the leeway. I forced the disappointment aside and faced forward.
"Kyuuuuu...?!"
Perry clung to me anxiously. A narrow, twisting maze blanketed in thick gray fog. The labyrinth ended right here. That didn't mean this was the 2nd Sector.
'It was only part of Sector 1.'
Labyrinth, maze, and plaza—those three areas together formed Sector 1. The labyrinth I'd just escaped was just a piece of it. There was a reason this dungeon had remained uncleared for over fifteen years.
'...Normally this is the worst part.'
Whenever Neverland closed and reopened, the maze's entire layout changed. Starting with these very walls.
"......."
My tentacles seized a creeping tendril that was stealthily reaching out. The startled parasitic tentacle tried to retreat—I severed it with shadow, and the severed piece writhed on the floor. I crushed it hard.
[Parasitic Tentacle consumed. Experience Points and Satiety increase.]
It wasn't a high-stat monster. In fact, it was so weak it felt out of place in Neverland.
'But it's a nuisance.'
It possessed Stealth by default. And something I hadn't known before—using Insight revealed it also had a Mimicry skill, along with annoying abilities like Lure and Deadly Poison. Even knowing it existed in advance, spotting a parasitic tentacle in this maze—shrouded in a foul fog that scrambled your senses—would have been incredibly difficult.
—None of that applied to me anymore, though.
'Because I have Detection.'
A measly E-rank Stealth couldn't evade my detection. I could feel the creatures clinging to the walls and hiding, as if I could reach out and grab them.
'...That's a relief.'
Thanks to that, breaking through this maze didn't seem too difficult.
It was the future, but the novel's protagonist had successfully cleared Neverland. That meant I knew as much as I needed for this raid too. I'd simulated it in my head over and over. How to conquer this dungeon. How to clear it. But no matter how hard I racked my brain, if my abilities couldn't back it up, I wouldn't break through. Neverland wasn't that kind of dungeon.
'...The maze is a headache.'
But the escape method was simple. It was a trick that only worked under these circumstances: whatever route I took, I just had to reach the 2nd Sector.
'Because I just have to follow the path they already took.'
I had a sense of smell. As long as I tracked their scent and followed the route the assault team had passed through, I wouldn't get lost.
"Kyuuuuut!"
I wrapped Perry—who couldn't keep up with the pace—in shadow and tentacles. Truth be told, this time... I hadn't been able to decide lightly whether to bring Perry to Neverland.
'But Blink is absolutely necessary.'
Perry's help in this dungeon was indispensable. In fact, without Perry, I might've been taken down before I ever escaped the labyrinth. Bringing her along had been the best possible choice.
"Kyuuuuu...?"
I stroked the puzzled creature and hurried onward. I'd only just cleared the first area. There was still a long way to go.
—Having broken through the labyrinth, Sector 1's first area, the Wolf and the Young Dragon began pushing through the maze, the second area.