Chapter 207: A Familiar Mess
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 207: A Familiar Mess
“I think we’ve gone far enough by now, don’t you?”
“There’s no sign of anything following us.”
“Ugh... I can't even flap my wings anymore. Porter, carry me.”
“Just go back into the bracelet and rest.”
“Fine, fine...”
After sending Freya back into the Bracelet of Growth, Helena and I took a moment to catch our breath.
We had run for quite a while before finally managing to escape the monsters of the ancient ruins. Those things rarely leave their designated territory, so we should be safe from them at this point.
The dungeon crawlers who usually roam the 6th floor were likely all killed by the snakes, so they weren't a concern. Now, all that remained was to find an exit and get out.
“These look like traces of the others, don't they?”
“It seems so. They look relatively recent.”
I saw burnt-out torches and various other signs of passage discarded on the ground. The party must have left them behind. It was common practice to simply toss spent torches aside in the Labyrinth.
“They haven't completely cooled down yet. There’s still a lingering warmth.”
“Perhaps we’ll run into them if we follow this path.”
“I hope so. Lady Leah would have led the group toward the transfer stone, so let’s follow the trail for now. The stone should be at the end of it.”
In any case, my Map Creation skill couldn't find a proper path on the 6th floor. Following the traces left by the party was our best bet for reaching the transfer stone. Since Lady Leah had her guiding ability, following her trail would eventually lead us to our destination.
‘I told them that if we got separated, the absolute priority was to get out.’
I placed the shrunken Helena on my shoulder and followed the trail. As I moved along, checking the discarded torch handles at every turn, I began to encounter triggered or broken traps. I saw dead monsters as well.
However, as we continued, a sense of unease began to settle in.
“The way the path is blocked... and these traps... don't they seem a bit crude?”
“They don’t look like traps naturally formed by the Labyrinth,” Helena agreed, having noticed the same thing. “Something has been tampering with them. And for some reason, I feel like we’re being lured.”
It was exactly how I felt. We were in the middle of discussing these oddities when I suddenly sensed a presence behind us.
“Shit!”
I threw myself forward, narrowly dodging a projectile that came flying at me.
What the—thorn vines?
“Ulysses?”
At the end of the corridor, something was writhing in the darkness. It looked like a human silhouette.
“No way...”
I tossed a Hypercube toward the end of the hallway to illuminate the gloom. As the darkness receded, the figure that had shot the vines at me became clearer.
“Ulysses, what are you doing there...?”
I saw the body of an Alraune. There shouldn't be any other Alraune on the 6th floor besides Ulysses. But something was wrong. Why was there something like a jellyfish attached to his head?
“This is insane.”
“There is something attached to his head.”
“What on earth is that?”
A lump of flesh was dangling from Ulysses's head. Like a facehugger, the crimson mass of meat was wrapped tightly around his face.
“It looks like some kind of parasite...”
“But no such monster exists on the 6th floor.”
That meant it was a new type. And if a new monster had appeared, its origin was likely the newly formed area.
“It must have come from the Flesh Zone.”
The new area. I recalled the description of a place made entirely of crimson walls of meat. This monster was likely a derivative of that place.
‘If Ulysses was caught, then the rest of the party...’
Would there be any survivors? The worst-case scenario was that their bodies had been destroyed.
‘Lady Leah.’
I could find new bodies for the others, but Lady Leah was different. I hadn't placed a Spirit Chain on her. If she was dead and her body was lost, I would have to find her soul wandering the Other World of the Labyrinth. The absolute worst-case scenario would be the Malice of the Labyrinth getting its hands on her soul first.
“Fuck...”
I didn't have time to waste. I sprinted toward the parasitized Ulysses. His curse magic wouldn't work on me. The only danger was the thorn vines.
“Aaargh!!!”
Thorn vines burst through the walls and wrapped around my neck. It was difficult to dodge such erratic attacks in advance.
Slash!
If I let them be, the vines would eventually envelop my entire body. I quickly cut myself free and fired a rapid succession of arrows at Ulysses. Since we were close enough, I managed to land every arrow I had pre-loaded in my inventory. Ulysses, looking like a pincushion, staggered and collapsed.
“Siooon...”
As I approached, I heard Ulysses muttering. Was he still conscious?
“The master... of the hive... is in the Flesh Zone... You have to... kill it...”
“Are you awake?”
“My mind... has been clear... the whole time... It feels like... my soul is being raped... Please... just kill me...”
“Crazy.”
I pulled out my axe and severed Ulysses's head. Green, sap-like blood sprayed out, and the Alraune body began to wither slowly.
“You must put it in the subspace pocket before it rots. It is not easy to obtain another Alraune body,” Helena advised.
Following her words, I hurriedly stored the dead Alraune's body in my inventory. I needed to take it to the Church to have Ulysses resurrected. I wasn't sure if the Church would resurrect a monster's body, but letting an Alraune body go to waste was out of the question.
“We should resurrect Ulysses and hear the full story.”
“I have a golem with me.”
“Let us put him in that for now.”
We lacked too much information. Rather than wandering around blindly, it was better to put Ulysses into the golem's body and hear what he had to say.
“Ulysses. Are you with us?”
“Ugh... my head is spinning. Those damn Goblins... those motherfuckers.”
“Goblins? You mean the Golden Goblins?”
“Yeah. Those bastards are the source of all this.”
“Tell us exactly what happened,” Helena urged.
Possessing the golem's body, Ulysses began to explain the sequence of events.
“So, the Golden Goblin King was waiting in front of the transfer stone, and you were attacked and had your bodies stolen. Is that it?”
“Yes. Chloe was the first to go, and I was next.”
“What about the others?”
“I clearly saw Joshua and Leah escaping while Maximus held off the flesh monsters.”
“Then Maximus must have been caught too.”
“Most likely.”
Joshua was a golem, so he wouldn't be infected by the parasites even if the flesh monsters attacked him, and Lady Leah seemed to have survived by escaping quickly.
“And one more thing. For a brief moment, my mind was linked to that massive mass of flesh.”
“Did you find out anything else?”
“The ones who pushed their evolution this far... were the Golden Goblins.”
According to Ulysses, the entity known as 'Mother' in the Flesh Zone originally had an intelligence level no higher than a dungeon crawler. But then, the Golden Goblins approached her and offered up their own heads. After equipped with the superior brains of the Golden Goblins, Mother began to run wild.
To put it simply, the flesh walls were the hardware, and the Golden Goblins were the software.
“It seems they didn't even have the parasitic ability originally. Everything up to this point was a lifeform created using the Golden Goblins' brains. Their evolution has accelerated dozens of times over.”
“Good grief...”
“Furthermore, the Goblins are trying to bring the entire 6th floor under their control. They are intentionally turning parts of the area into flesh walls to use as passages, tainting the entire floor.”
“You mean they're building their own highway system?”
“Exactly. Moreover, since the Golden Goblins themselves are undergoing mutations within the Flesh Zone... it’s reached a point where Golden Goblin Kings are being mass-produced.”
“....”
“We have to escape through the transfer stone. This isn't something we can handle on our own. We need to form a subjugation team.”
“Another subjugation team...”
“Just like when we cleared the 5th floor, we need to bring down more experts and purify the 6th floor. If we leave it like this, even the monsters of the ancient ruins will be swallowed by the flesh, and the difficulty will skyrocket. The enemy is evolving in real-time.”
I felt like I was losing my mind. This was beyond being screwed over; it was a complete collapse of game balance. Why did an evolving monster and a highly intelligent monster have to merge into a super-evolved entity? A monster that grows and evolves in real-time... it was the worst possible scenario.
What I hated most was that I was starting to get used to this kind of mess.
“Still, it’s probably better than a Demon King.”
“Freya, you’re awake.”
Freya, who had been sleeping inside the bracelet, popped out.
“Yeah, yeah. Hearing the story, it sounds like the Church needs to step in again.”
“It seems so...”
“If we bring down all the Saintess candidates, don't you think we'd have a fighting chance?”
Freya suggested bringing Rosier and the other two candidates.
“If we bring them all and just blast our way through to the Necropolis, I think we'll find a solution. If the enemy evolves in real-time, we just have to make ourselves a Saintess in real-time too.”
“Would having three Saintesses make it manageable?”
“We’d wipe the floor with them. If I weren't in this state, I would've cracked the skulls of those Golden Goblins or whatever they are myself.”
“That’s true...”
If Freya were in her Saintess form instead of a bird, she would have been incredibly reassuring. She was someone who, along with Raphael, could stop a Giant in its tracks. She could probably pop a Golden Goblin King's head in a single blow.
“For now, let’s make finding Lady Leah and the rest of the party our top priority so we can escape.”
“Agreed.”
Although they were bound by Spirit Chains, Chloe and Maximus weren't technically dead yet, so I couldn't just summon them back. Therefore, we had to find them. We needed to find them, escape quickly, and then come back down.
‘The original goal of this trip was to scout the state of the 6th floor anyway.’
Finding the location of the Necropolis had been the primary objective, not clearing the 6th floor. While we failed that specific goal, we discovered the state of the floor, which was more than enough of an achievement.
“Let’s get moving.”
“Right. I think we’ll find something if we head in that direction.”
We moved in the direction Ulysses pointed. Somehow, the mission to rescue Lady Leah had begun.