Chapter 6: Malice of the Labyrinth
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 6: Malice of the Labyrinth
“Young Lady. Wake up.”
“Mmm... Huh? Slurp. Ah.”
Wiping away her drool, the Young Lady looked around blankly.
How could she sleep so soundly in a situation like this?
“We’re still in the Labyrinth.”
“Yes. We’re still in the Labyrinth.”
“Dammit.”
I suppose she was hoping to be outside when she opened her eyes. Unfortunately, there were no designated drivers here to whisk her away. She had to get out on her own two feet.
“Young Lady, I’m going to get some sleep too. You see this hourglass?”
“Yeah. How long is it for?”
“It’ll run out in about four hours. Wake me up then.”
“Got it. Um, excuse me...”
“Yes?”
“Can I... stay like this?”
It seemed she wanted to stay in my arms. It would be cold if we pulled apart, after all.
“Sure, do whatever you like.”
I didn't mind since holding her was warm and comfortable for me too. Now, time to close my eyes for a bit.
“Are you asleep?”
“...”
“You are.”
She felt the heavy weight of a man against her back. Sion seemed to have fallen fast asleep.
I can’t believe he can sleep in a place like this.
Despite having slept so soundly herself that she’d drooled, Leah heartlessly criticized the sleeping Sion.
Anyway, what happened to the others?
Now that her drowsiness had vanished and her mind was clear, the question finally surfaced. What had become of the female knight Rika, the witch Rien, and the priestess Erika? Where had the three of them disappeared to?
Perhaps they had been warped to the deep layers of the Labyrinth. If that were the case...
They’re probably...
Already dead.
The probability of survival was slim for someone dragged into the deep layers without proper Mana Adaptation. They would suffer from dizziness, vomiting, tremors, and anemia, followed by increasing difficulty in breathing. In severe cases, it would lead to death by respiratory failure.
Asphyxiation in a waterless Labyrinth. It was the most common cause of death for rookies who fell below the 5th floor without undergoing proper Mana Adaptation.
No, that can’t be it. They aren't the type to die so easily.
Though she lacked knowledge about monsters, the knight Rika’s skills were formidable. The witch Rien’s resourcefulness and the priestess Erika’s mental fortitude were also reliable. As long as they hadn't fallen below the 5th floor, they would be alive. That was what Leah told herself.
Yet, a part of her remained uneasy.
But they don’t have a porter.
If they had a porter, their chances of survival would have skyrocketed. Even now, a porter was practically dragging Leah—who was nearly useless in combat—out of this mess by the scruff of her neck.
A porter who possessed knowledge of the Labyrinth and carried a vast array of supplies was a literal cheat code that multiplied one's survival rate. Could the rest of the party escape the Labyrinth safely without one?
Her worries deepened, and her negative thoughts began to spiral. This wasn't good. Leah shook her head to clear the intrusive thoughts. She could only pray for their safety.
Please, let everyone be okay.
Leah worried for her companions. To her, they were like childhood friends.
“Cough, cough!”
The witch Rien opened her eyes. Caught in the Labyrinth Eruption, she had been warped alone to the Underground Graveyard.
The porter had grabbed Leah, and the knight Rika had grabbed the priestess Erika, but Rien had failed to grab anyone and was sent flying solo. If there was one silver lining, it was that she was on the 1st floor.
“Where... where did everyone go...?”
No matter how much she looked around, she couldn't sense anyone else. The Labyrinth was eerily silent, and the only things surrounding her were the mindless Departed.
“Uuugh...”
“Eek...! Gross...! It stinks...!!”
A zombie, half-rotten and reeking of decay, shuffled toward Rien. Zombies were the most basic monsters of the Underground Graveyard. They were easy to handle, but as undead, they felt no pain or fear and would continue to attack until their heads were crushed.
If one grew careless, they could easily be cornered, and being cornered by a mob of them usually meant death. They had to be dealt with quickly.
“Ugh!”
Rien immediately fired a Fireball at the approaching zombie. Her most confident spell flew straight toward the zombie’s head.
Whoosh!
“Gwaaaah!!”
With its head engulfed in flames, the zombie flailed its arms in the air before collapsing. Once its weakness—the head—was burned, it died helplessly.
“What? That was easier than I thought.”
Rien smirked at the fallen zombie. The enemy had died far too easily.
“Maybe this... will be a piece of cake?”
Rien, a socially awkward extrovert, immediately felt a surge of confidence. They looked terrifying, but she realized they were just things that died to a single Fireball.
“I mean... the Labyrinth isn't all that much...!”
She had been incredibly tense after being separated from her team, but seeing the zombie sprawled on the floor made her confidence soar. It was baseless confidence, an optimism born of pure inexperience. Perhaps it was a desperate struggle to forget her fear—a way to suppress the terror rising within her.
Regardless, the Labyrinth was not a place where a novice should feel happy about killing a single zombie. The moment one overestimates their skill and thinks the Labyrinth is "no big deal"—that is when the real crisis begins.
“Oh no...! My mana...!!”
Mana is not infinite. This is common sense, and something anyone who wields magic must always keep in mind. However, people sometimes forget the obvious. Whether out of tension or arrogance.
Rien was clearly tense. She had overused her spells on the zombies, and once her torch went out, she had continuously used magic to create a light source, draining her mana. As a result, her magical power was completely depleted, and all she had left in her hands was her staff.
A zombie approached Rien. It didn't wait for her to react. It simply did its best to bite and kill the living.
“Ugh...!”
The zombie reached out. If she didn't deal with it quickly, she would soon be surrounded by other zombies drawn by the noise, and being surrounded meant certain death.
“D-Die!”
Her only remaining means of attack was the staff in her hand. In her desperation, she swung the precious cypress staff she had received from her teacher and smashed the zombie’s head.
Crunch.
It was a sensation she had never felt before. The feeling of bone and flesh being crushed vibrating up her arm was sickening and gave her goosebumps. Having only killed zombies by burning them with magic until now, killing one by hand felt alien and repulsive. Furthermore, the fact that her cherished staff was now covered in filthy zombie blood chipped away at her mental state.
“Ugh, it’s so dirty now...!!!”
Rien found herself hating the Labyrinth all over again. She was suffering in a place she never would have entered if it weren't for Leah, and it felt like hell. She wanted to leave immediately, but for some reason, she couldn't find a Transfer Stone.
“Ugh. I need to find a Transfer Stone quickly...”
Desperate to escape this hellish place as soon as possible, Rien wandered in search of a stone. After wandering for a long time, what greeted her was a staggering... skeleton.
“Huh?”
Skeletons weren't supposed to appear on the 1st floor of the Underground Graveyard. As the shallowest floor, it should have only spawned zombies weak enough for a mage to beat to death with a staff. Yet, for some reason, a skeleton—which should only appear from the 2nd floor onward—stood before Rien.
She had no vanguard to protect her. She had no mana. And she couldn't kill a skeleton with a staff that was already battered from smashing zombie heads. She had nothing left...
“Ah.”
...Death was approaching.
The skeleton swung its rusted sword. Rien scrambled to dodge, but there was no way a clumsy mage could evade it perfectly.
Slash!
The rusted blade tore through her clothes and left a gash on her arm. If she didn't receive a Holy Incantation of purification and healing soon, she would surely contract tetanus.
“It hurts...!! It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, aaaaah!!!”
Worse than the wound itself was the fact that this was her first time being injured like this. Her mind wasn't stable enough to handle the searing pain of flesh being sliced.
Rien had been wandering the dark Labyrinth filled with the Departed for seven hours, breathing in the stench of rot. Her torch had gone out, and she had exhausted her mana creating light in the pitch-black darkness. Between hunger, sleep deprivation, and sheer exhaustion, she felt like she might collapse at any moment.
In her compromised state, she fell into a full-blown panic. The malice radiating from the undead crushed her spirit, leaving her drowning in a sea of terror. It felt like a swamp. The swamp of death gripped her ankles tight, pulling her deeper into the abyss.
A cruel death sentence was about to be carried out on the young witch who had never truly experienced the Labyrinth. The Labyrinth showed no mercy as it leveled its blade.
“Ah... urgh.”
Nausea surged within her. Since she hadn't eaten, nothing came up. Rien simply dry-heaved, flailing helplessly.
W-What should I do? What do I do? What am I supposed to do?
No matter how much she asked herself, there was no answer. Her mind went blank. There was no one to show her the way. She had to break through alone. Failure meant death.
Ah. Ahhh.
Just as the skeleton’s second strike was about to claim her throat, Rien remembered something the porter had said.
—Did you know? Whether a body can be resurrected depends on its condition.
Even if a corpse is found, resurrection is impossible if the damage is too severe. And here, in the Underground Graveyard, the rate of corpse mutilation by the Departed was exceptionally high. If she died, it was truly the end. She wouldn't be brought back.
Was she going to die like this? Was she going to throw her life away, paralyzed by fear over a single wound on her arm?
[You can give up. Just die and become nourishment for the Labyrinth. You pathetic brat.]
It felt as if a voice whispered in her ear. In an instant, a surge of defiance snapped her out of her panic, and she managed to stumble away from the skeleton.
The skeleton pursued the fleeing Rien. The Departed chase the living until the very end. Amidst the chase, the noise they made began to draw zombies like flies to a flame.
Death was still right beside her. Far from receding, it was drawing closer. Once things started going wrong, they spiraled out of control.
A moment of carelessness. A minor mistake. As if to make her pay the price for failing to manage her mana, the Reaper’s scythe was hooked around Rien’s neck.
“Kyaaa!!!”
She tripped over the leg of a dead adventurer and fell. The skeleton’s rusted sword slammed into the ground right next to her head.
She was going to die. It was over. The desperate struggle of the rookie adventurer was about to end in failure—
“Over there!”
A shout pierced Rien’s ears. Immediately following it, an arrow flew through the air and shattered the skeleton’s head.
Thwack!
The bone soldier lost its strength and collapsed. Rien sat there with trembling legs, looking up at the figures approaching her. She had been saved at the brink of death.
“Hey, miss. Are you alright?”
An adventurer with a greatsword on his back. Hanging from his neck was a gold badge. It wasn't made of bronze or iron, but precious metal—a high-ranking badge. It meant he was a veteran adventurer capable of traversing the 5th-floor Underground City or even deeper.
“She has wounds on her arm and back.”
“First aid first. Hey, miss. Did you see anyone else? Are you alone?”
“Ah, that is...”
Seven hours had passed since the Labyrinth Eruption. Having assessed the situation, the city had summoned a large number of high-ranking adventurers to conduct rescue operations. Veterans capable of descending to at least the 5th-floor Underground City had entered the Labyrinth en masse. While they might not be able to save those who fell to deeper floors, they could cover everything up to the 5th.
“Ah... Lady Leah is...”
“What? Lady Leah?”
“Wait, Captain. Could she be...?”
“Listen, you need to be clear. Are you talking about Lady Leah Lionel?”
“Y-Yes...! That’s right...!”
“Where is she now?”
“I... I don’t really know...”
Rien knew nothing, so she had no answer to give. Disappointed by the lack of information, the search party captain gave an order to his team.
“Take her outside for now. We’re heading deeper.”
Rien was soon carried out of the Labyrinth on the back of the search party’s swordsman. Outside, the moon was high in the sky. It was still a long time until dawn.
“Huff. Huff...”
The outside air she hadn't breathed in so long. As the cold midnight air pierced her lungs, Rien finally felt certain that she had survived. At the same time, she winced at a stinging pain. It wasn't from her wounds. Mana Adaptation was occurring within her body.
“Ugh... it hurts...”
Mana Adaptation was reshaping her body. Her stamina and magical power increased slightly, and her five senses sharpened. But the change didn't stop there.
“Ah...!!”
A powerful shock struck her brain. New information was forcibly engraved into her mind. It was an Ability.
“Clue Tracking...”
The ability to determine a target's location using an object belonging to them. As if telling her to go back into the Labyrinth and find her companions, the Ability was granted at an almost too-perfect timing. Rien grit her teeth.
Was it a coincidence that she was given Clue Tracking, or was it the malice of the Labyrinth? The entrance to the Underground Graveyard she had just escaped flickered ominously, like the maw of a beast. It seemed to ask if she would really just sit still after gaining such a power.
“Dammit.”
There was no reason not to look if she could find them. Her role, after all, was to be Leah Lionel’s guard.
Rien snapped Leah’s headband, which she had been carrying, in half. The Ability activated.
West.
She felt Leah’s presence to the west of the Labyrinth City. It was the entrance to the Breeding Grounds.