Week 1 (6)
Week 1 (6)
"─Huh?"
I snapped out of my train of thought right after Ray, who was leading the way, suddenly stopped.
She seemed a bit wobbly for a moment, then spoke in an irritated voice.
"What the hell is this? Poison?"
As I approached the halted Ray, I finally saw it.
A sticky liquid trickling down her pale cheek.
It wasn't just her face—her body was covered in the stuff too.
Probably because of her gauntlets, she couldn't wipe it off, so she grumbled.
"There were antidotes in the supplies, right?"
"There are, but... it doesn't look like poison."
No poison icon was showing on her interface in my view, so it probably wasn't poison.
That left only one possibility: a trap.
More importantly, 'Desire'?
It was supposed to say 'Stress' originally.
Come to think of it, when Valerie got hit during the skirmish with the Hounds earlier, a similar message had popped up.
I hadn't had time to check closely then and just brushed it off like 'Stress must've built up,' but was it 'Desire' back then too?
I carefully read the interface that was now faintly fading away.
Was this another thing Sexton tinkered with?
"Ugh, it smells weird..."
She wrinkled her nose, then thrust her cheek toward me.
"Don't just stand there gawking—wipe it off for me."
"Huh? Oh... sure."
Her face was suddenly so close it threw me off, but she couldn't rub her face with those metal gauntlets on.
I swallowed hard without thinking and cautiously brought my hand to her face.
Up close like this, she looked pretty damn messy...
"Mmm...♡"
Wha—huh? I hadn't even done anything yet. The moment my fingertips touched her cheek, a lewd sound slipped from between her lips.
She looked shocked herself—her garnet-like eyes went wide.
"Uh, I mean. I didn't really do anythi—"
"Ah, wait, you can just use a handkerchief."
"Y-yeah, right, haha."
While I was blurting out an excuse she hadn't even asked for, Ray jerked her head away and averted her gaze.
She clearly looked embarrassed, like it wasn't intentional on her part, so yeah—must be the mod's fault.
I hurriedly rummaged in my pocket for a handkerchief when a low mutter came from behind me.
"...What bullshit."
"Quit yapping and help out."
She sounded exasperated, but Ray ignored it and beckoned her over.
It almost looked like she was trying to hide her embarrassment somehow.
"Whoa, it's even on your chest. Hey, Master-nim, why don't you wipe this off too?"
"Huh?"
"Shut up with the nonsense and do it yourself."
"Who wears just underwear on a long trip? You ditched your usual armor and look what happened."
"It's not underwear? And that was because of the curse—"
"P-please, both of you, stop..."
They looked ready to bicker right here if I let them, so I stepped in to calm them down for now.
Setting aside Ray's, uh, awkward situation for the moment—traps usually came not just with stress damage but status effects, or direct Life Token drain as extra damage.
But right now, aside from Stress showing as 'Desire,' there didn't seem to be anything else.
"You're one to talk, showing up without even underwear."
"Wh-what? Hey, that's still better than just underwear!"
Even after I intervened once, they kept sniping at each other, so I left them to it and quietly bent down to find the trigger for the trap Ray had activated.
In the game, you either found it or stepped on it—no need for details or methods. But this was reality.
Studying trap mechanisms and placements could cut down on non-combat losses.
Like in this case—ah, there it is.
A wilted, shriveled stick-like thing that looked like it'd served its purpose.
It looked gross, so probably the source of that mystery liquid.
The trigger? Likely this floor plate here.
It looked like normal ground at a glance, but up close, it was a bit unnatural.
There were Ray's footprints on it, and since the trap had already gone off, the exposed mechanism was pretty obvious.
"Look here, Ray-ssi. This is probably the trap's trig—"
"U-ugh...♡"
"Hey, what the—suddenly—"
I turned around to see Ray, mid-argument, suddenly collapse to her knees.
Valerie, looking pretty flustered herself right beside her, hurriedly supported her.
But the instant Valerie touched her, Ray let out a pained moan.
"Wh-what's wrong? We need to give you the antidote quick!"
Valerie, who had no choice but to let her sit, urgently reached out to me.
Th-this is weird. No poison icon on the interface...?
Just in case, I figured I'd follow Valerie's advice and grab the antidote—
"I-I'm fi...♡ Hnng."
I was about to open my pack when Ray, still on the ground, spoke up.
Her face was beet red, and she was pressing her thighs together tightly... honestly, no matter how you sliced it, she looked lewd as hell.
But if she said she was okay, maybe it wasn't a total lie—after a moment, she staggered a bit but managed to stand on her own.
"You really okay? Just in case, want some antidote?"
"N-no. I'm really fine now. It didn't hurt or anything, it was just... a sensation I'm not used to."
"What a waste of worry."
Valerie grumbled, but it wasn't sincere.
Her concern was plain on her face, and after a brief hesitation, Ray mumbled.
"Uh, how do I put it. It felt like my lower parts were squeezing tight..."
R-right. Felt like I'd overheard something I really shouldn't have.
Valerie whistled sharply and suddenly closed in.
"So, still itchy down there, huh?"
"Hey, wait—hiiing♡"
Ray's lewd cry tickled my ears as I whipped around forward.
Felt like if I kept watching, I might screw up and react wrong in a way I couldn't take back.
Scary, the Labyrinth's darkness...!
*
The Labyrinth is its own little world.
But Tombstone calls the bizarre phenomena arising from that scale difference 'Biomes.'
The Labyrinth is underground if you just look at coordinates, topologically a massive hollow.
Yet each floor maintains a completely different environment—Tombstone baked that in as a gamey allowance for variety.
Considering what the 'Labyrinth' symbolizes in Tombstone and what's lurking at its end, it's a damn fitting setup.
"Damn, this just keeps getting weirder. We really underground?"
Valerie said in disbelief.
Just like she said, a grassland stretching out in a place untouched by sunlight made it impossible to believe this was the gloomy underground Labyrinth.
Of course, the only light was from my Embers, so it had a somewhat eerie vibe, but thinking of it as a 'night forest' made it bearable.
This was the Biome effect.
It looked like some earthly environment crammed into one floor, but since it was still in the Labyrinth, the danger was nothing like the surface.
I followed behind Ray, keeping a proper level of tension.
"The Labyrinth is a freak show in itself. Nothing's off-limits here."
Ray's shoulders twitched at my words—I'd unintentionally become the proof of that.
She'd just been putting on a show from Valerie's teasing, but now she was walking silently with her ears bright red, so she seemed fine now.
I wanted to yell 'The Labyrinth ain't a joke!' but honestly, I'd been marching forward chanting the national anthem in my head with all my might, so I had no room to talk.
Valerie fiddled with her dagger hilt and said.
"We've walked plenty, but nothing's showing up."
"No worries—we're approaching slow and steady."
Peaceful was good, actually.
Barring the mandatory Floor Boss fight, every battle was a loss the moment it started.
Sure, offing a rare monster might net you a 'gift' or some reward, but right now, safely wrapping up the expedition was priority one.
Especially without a healer in a spot like this—piling up small injuries could turn fatal fast.
The Biome was behaving as I remembered, gradually darkening, so we were probably on the right track.
"So, if you spot anything that looks like a trap trigger like before, check it out carefully. Spot it early, and we dodge the damage—"
"Shh."
Mid-sentence, I shut my mouth.
Valerie had gone sharp-eyed in an instant, pressing a finger to her lips, and my instincts screamed danger—spot on.
"Battle stations."
Ray raised her longsword to head height, then pointed it at the enemy.
If it'd been a surprise like the first fight, she'd have charged already—so this meant they definitely knew we were here.
Well, duh—we'd been chitchatting the whole way.