The Labyrinth (2)
"Undead Summon…."
Having dealt with the adventurers, I clutched my pounding head and activated the skill. At once, a magic circle began to unfurl across the stone floor where the corpses lay scattered, radiating a bleak and oppressive aura.
Ashen powder of unknown origin drifted in from nowhere and settled over that formula of pure shadow. What began as mere black and white gradually found its own color and shape with every passing second.
And a moment later, instead of ash, a man and a woman stood neatly upon the magic circle. I reached toward them in a daze.
"Ah…."
…My summons. The only beings in this world of betrayal that I could still trust. The zombie maid Tina and the vampire butler Alfred stood upon the black light of the summoning circle.
"Tina, Alfred…."
Tears spilled from my eyes as I looked at my undead. I had thought my heart was steeled, yet the moment I saw their faces, all the sorrow that had piled up alongside my rage came bursting out.
If, back when the Hero had taken hostages, I had heeded Tina's warning and changed my mind—what then?
If I had decided from the start that my undead were the only ones truly on my side, if I had doubted everyone and acted with caution—what then?
Would everything have been different?
Would I have been somewhere on a warm beach under the sun right now, instead of this freezing cave?
…Pessimistic regrets wormed their way into the corner of my heart that grief had left soft and vulnerable.
"Master!"
"My lady."
The instant the summoning finished, my undead rushed toward me with worried eyes. Tina threw her arms around me as if reuniting with a long-lost lover.
"Master, we're here. You don't have to worry anymore."
"Ahh…."
Because she was an undead who had lost the spark of life, her pale blue skin was endlessly cold—yet the embrace that held me was warmer and more comforting than anyone else's.
"Please don't cry, Master. We're with you now."
"…."
Did they know, even as undead, of the hellish ages I had endured? Tina held my weeping form tightly and patted my back.
"…When the gate between this world and the underworld closed, only your turbulent emotions reached us. We were so terribly worried. I am truly glad you are still alive."
Alfred removed his coat and wrapped it around my naked body. The rough texture of the formal outer garment brushed against my bare skin and stirred my senses.
He spoke to me in a gentle voice.
"My lady, from this day forward we shall always remain at your side. Please do not worry."
"…Yeah."
I nodded at the vow-like firmness of his resolve. Tina carefully took my hand and gently helped me up from where I had collapsed.
"…Everything you see and feel—even from the underworld—we can feel it all as well."
"…."
"Those humans… I will never, ever forgive them."
Tina's crimson eyes blazed with fury. An ominous aura rolled off Alfred behind me as well.
"To dare deceive and violate my lady with such a cheap farce… I cannot forgive it. Upon my very heart, I swear I shall repay that humiliation."
"…Yeah."
I nodded at my undead's words.
Varius and Lilianel had toyed with my—Elzerva's—emotions. They had given me an unforgettable betrayal and shame, and they had even taken the life of my dearest friend.
"There's no way I'm letting this slide."
I stoked the flames of vengeance once more.
"I'll pay them back a thousandfold."
The oath I had sworn to the night sky just before the seal closed.
The oath I had repeated to myself—that I would find every last one of them and make them pay.
At last, the time had come to fulfill that long-deferred promise.
"…I think I need to rest a little first, though."
…And for that, I needed several days of proper rest at the very least.
My condition was nowhere near normal.
I wanted nothing more than to stay still and recover until this skull-splitting headache disappeared.
"Yes! We'll do everything we can to take care of you in the meantime!"
"Please devote yourself entirely to recovering your strength, my lady."
Tina smiled brightly at my words. I smiled back at her. It was not a smile of simple joy, but one mixed with the relief of reunion and anticipation for everything that lay ahead.
"…Cough."
"…!!"
Just then, a cough echoed from a corner of the chamber. At the sound that was not ours, Tina and Alfred immediately raised their weapons and assumed combat stances.
"Cough, cough…."
…The source of the sound was, of course, a human. One male adventurer who had luckily survived my earlier attack with only a leg severed instead of his neck was leaning against the wall, watching us with a haggard face.
"A human…."
The moment she confirmed him, Tina's red eyes flared as she strode toward the adventurer with her greatsword. From the way she gripped the blade, it looked as though she meant to cleave him in two with a single stroke.
"Tina, stop."
I urgently halted the greatsword-wielding maid. She looked back at me with restless eyes.
"Huh? But…."
"It's fine. Leave him."
…He had already lost far too much blood without timely treatment. Even without Tina finishing him, he was a dead man walking. Rather than kill him immediately, I wanted to extract as much information as possible first.
"…."
I covered my exposed body with the coat Alfred had draped over me and approached the adventurer who was barely clinging to consciousness.
"H-h-vampire…."
The adventurer, who had been clumsily trying to stanch the stump of his severed leg, went deathly pale the moment he saw me coming. I stood before him and spoke.
"…From now on, you answer every question I ask. I'm in a very bad mood right now. Try any tricks or refuse, and you won't die cleanly."
"Hic…?!"
Under my cold downward stare, the adventurer hastily turned his head away. I didn't hear a verbal answer, but I took the silence as assent and delivered my first question.
"Talk. Where is this place?"
I asked while surveying the surroundings.
My last clear memory was of being sealed in the royal plaza of the Abilia Kingdom. Yet this place looked far more like a dungeon from the Tower of Avalon than any plaza.
I needed to know where I was. If I had somehow ended up at the northernmost tip of the continent or in some deep-sea ruin, things would get very inconvenient.
"Th-this is…."
Hearing my question, the adventurer trembled with fear yet forced himself to answer.
"The western reaches of the Abilia Kingdom… the deepest floor of the Dungeon of Immortality…."
"The Dungeon of Immortality…?"
As expected, this was a labyrinth. I kept my expression calm. Sealing a monster the Hero had defeated in the deepest floor of a dungeon was a classic cliché, after all.
Apparently Varius had chosen to transfer my seal into a labyrinth so that people could not easily approach it.
I turned my next question on the adventurer, who was growing more and more haggard by the second.
"Then who are you people? Why did you come here? And why did you break my seal?"
"W-we are the labyrinth subjugation party 'Red Moon.' We came to claim the ancient relics said to rest on the deepest floor."
"Red Moon…?"
"O-one of our companions must have made a mistake with the seal! I-I'm truly sorry…."
"…."
The adventurer pressed his forehead to the ground in apology.
They had undone that damned seal for me; there was no real need for him to apologize, but I held my tongue.
"The Dungeon of Immortality and ancient relics…."
Still—if the relics buried here with me were already being called "ancient," just how much time had passed?
People usually only used the word "ancient" for something that belonged to a far more distant past than mere "old."
"Hey."
"Y-yes? Yes? P-please speak."
"…What year is it?"
"Th-this year…."
At my question the adventurer folded his fingers a few times as if counting. The number that finally left his mouth far exceeded anything I had imagined.
"A-Abilia Calendar year 1267…."
"1267…?"
A four-digit number. If my memory was correct, the year I had transmigrated into Elzerva had been Kingdom Year 267….
"A th-thousand years…?"
…I had been sealed for a full, exact thousand years. My face hardened at the unfathomable span of time.
"Ha, haha…."
A thousand years wasn't a century—it was a millennium. The entire length of Korea's Three Kingdoms period from the founding of Silla to its fall. Enough time for the mountains and rivers to change a hundred times over.
"That's impossible…."
I had assumed a hundred years at most. Instead, ten times that—enough time for the world itself to have ended without anyone finding it strange—had flowed past.
My thoughts froze.
"Varius, Lilianel…!"
Moreover, a thousand years was long enough that I had to question not only Varius's survival, but even that of the elf Lilianel.
"What happened to the Hero? His companions—is Lilianel still alive?"
"Gyaaaaah! M-my leg!!"
I seized the adventurer by the collar and hauled him up. With his leg already severed he screamed in agony, but I had neither the leisure, the heart, nor the reason to care.
I slammed him harder against the wall.
"Answer me! Are the Hero and Lilianel still alive?!"
"Guh…! Th-the Hero? Lilianel…?"
"Yes! Are they alive?"
Greed ruled every inch of those people. They might well have coveted eternal life and found some way to cling to existence even now.
…The adventurer answered through a face twisted in pain.
"If… if you mean the kingdom's Prime Minister, the elf Lady Lilianel Greenfield… sh-she is still alive…!"
"Lilianel…!"
The first answer was satisfactory. As expected of an immortal elf. To stubbornly survive a thousand years and claw her way all the way to the position of Prime Minister—Lilianel's endless ambition made my skin crawl.
The adventurer continued.
"Th-the Hero as well… if you mean Lord Belia Grandius, of course he is alive…."
"…What?"
At the strangely different name of the Hero, I narrowed my eyes.
"The Hero's name is what? Belia 'Grandius'? Not 'Varius'?"
"Y-yes, Lord Grandius…! J-just last month he stopped an invasion by the demonkin—a hero among heroes…."
Even with the vampire who had slaughtered all his companions standing right in front of him, the adventurer's eyes filled with hope and pride at the mere mention of the Hero.
"Guardian of the people, Wings of Hope, the kingdom's Twenty-First Hero—Belia Grandius…."
"The Twenty-First Hero…."
Ah.
So that was it.
No matter how much of a Hero he had been, even Varius could not defy the flow of time and had departed for the underworld. He had sealed me away, enjoyed his natural lifespan, and returned to the earth according to the laws of nature.
And now his descendant—twenty-one generations later—had inherited the title of Hero and was carrying out that duty.
…Perhaps it was only natural.
"…."
I had roughly expected it, yet hearing of Varius's death firsthand left a hollow emptiness in one corner of my heart. And the adventurer who had just delivered these facts began to sneer at me in earnest.
"S-so you would do well to be careful. Once word spreads that your seal has been broken, Lord Grandius will surely come."
"…."
"He is strong. Beyond the kingdom—he is the strongest man in this world. So s-someone like you, a mere vampire…."
"Shut up."
"…Guhk!"
I snapped the neck of the adventurer who had run his mouth without knowing his place.
Crack.
The sound of bone shattering rang softly, and the adventurer's hands and feet went limp.
"Extra commentary was out of line. Zero points."
I tossed his corpse to the floor and muttered. I had extracted every piece of information I needed; he was useless now. He ought to have been grateful I killed him in one go despite that insolent attitude.
"'Wings of Hope,' my ass…."
I snorted as I looked down at the wide-eyed corpse.
Grandius or whatever. His ancestor Varius hadn't even managed to touch a single strand of my hair—what could a descendant possibly do?
If he interfered with my plans from now on, I would simply kill him. Before I found a way to drag the dead Varius out of the underworld, it might not be so bad to start by holding his descendant accountable under collective punishment.
"…First things first."
…But for now, it seemed better to deal with the certainty right in front of me. Had I not just learned the whereabouts of the very person who, together with Varius, had gifted me a thousand years of hell?
"Lilianel…."
…The elf who had murdered Sophie and stabbed me in the back over a pathetic love triangle—Lilianel Greenfield. Imagining her living in luxury as the kingdom's Prime Minister a thousand years later, I smiled.
"Ehehehe…."
I laughed like a madwoman.
"Pffft…."
I laughed without end.
────Just wait for me. I'll come for you first and tear you clean in half.
"…."
Because keeping a promise,
because achieving a goal,
had always been a joy.